by Band Back Together | Jun 27, 2016 | Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Anxiety Disorders, Cancer and Neoplasia, Child Sexual Abuse, Coping With Depression, Depression, Dysthymia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Incest, Major Depressive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Therapy, Violence |
I don’t know where to start. I have had dysthymia for as long as I can remember. My new therapist says it is like a living a half-life. I guess it is. This year, it slipped into something worse. This year has been one of the worst years of my life and I have had some pretty bad years. I had a relationship end, I started a bout of major depression that left me 70 pounds heavier, I had two surgeries, I am in a job that I hate, and on November 21st, I lost a dear friend to cancer. I can’t stop thinking that I wished it had been me. I feel trapped by bad choices. I have nothing left to give anyone anymore. I feel dead inside, but I hide it well. No one really knows how many times I came close to killing myself this year. I grew up with an alcoholic, I grew up in a violent household where I never felt safe. I was molested several times by several men and one female relative.
I feel trapped in this fatsuit. I feel like the best years of my life are behind me. I feel damaged and broken. I am trying to get help. The mental health resources where I live are spread pretty thin. I get to see a therapist once a month, if I am lucky, and I see a doctor for meds for ten mins a month. He switched me some of my medications because of the weight gain. I have tried about ten different anti-depressants and all of them had some kind of unpleasant side effect. I keep hoping I will find one that actually works. I also take an anxiety medication. I take it to control the panic attacks I get when I am out in public. I take it to quiet the loop of negative thoughts I have going through my head everyday.
This is my first post. I come here and I know that I am not alone. I thank the brave people who share their stories here.
I am trying to get better. I am with The Band.
by Band Back Together | Jun 24, 2016 | Abandonment, Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Coping With Depression, Major Depressive Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder |
Whenever something good happens to me, I always assume that there’s a Catch. Most of the time I am absolutely correct – there’s always something.
Always.
Thanks to the wonders of artwork sites and mutual interests, what started as some back and forth communication and chit-chat about all things relating to art and nerd shit, with a fellow nerd with similar views/interests, soon developed into a friendship that has lasted a little over a year now. We grew as close as you can get to someone you have never – and will never – meet in person, though her tendency to be so open, and to share really personal, and HEAVY, stuff led me to perpetually think I was being trolled. Nevertheless, she was still my friend. We talked about so much shit via email and instant messaging, and we were “there” for one another.
Over time, she started displaying some behaviours that were a bit erratic. Like fear of abandonment, extreme depression, shit like that. I always had a far-off feeling that something wasn’t quite “right.” There was something keeping me from trusting her a full 100%, but I thought that perhaps it was my imagination. I have a tendency to be paranoid because of my own issues (I have some epic social anxiety, and I’m Bipolar II as fuck), but I shook it off because she proved time and again that she wasn’t Catfishing or trolling. Even when she was being really weird, I continued to be there for her because that’s what friends do. She’s my friend, and it would suck if I just bounced whenever she was having a shitty day. I know I would feel horrible if someone did that to me.
After a series of erratic events that spanned the winter, she decided to hospitalize herself because it was clear that there was something very wrong.
So, remember that Catch I mentioned? Yeah, it’s Borderline Personality Disorder. We shared short emails here and there while she was hospitalized, and she finished her three-month stint just last week.
I started to feel like something was up. Something wasn’t right, and I couldn’t place it. I’m extremely perceptive, so I asked point-blank via email if there was anything wrong.
Here’s where The Catch comes back into play because, well …it’s a goddamn catch.
You know how people with BPD will idealize people, and shit like that? Well, she admitted that she had become obsessed with me. Like, to a creepy extent. To the extent where she and her wife decided that one of the best options is for her to limit contact with me as she continues to get sorted out. She told me all of this because she wanted to be 100% honest with me. I knew something was up, and I would have kept asking until she told me because …Spidey-Sense.
Her treatment has helped her a LOT; this is something that I can feel, and she is a million percent sincere in her apology. She has stated that she no longer thinks of me as “some ÜBER-human” (her words), and will understand if I decide to cut off all contact with her, since, apparently, friendships with BPD-folks are basically impossible to maintain.
In light of all of it all, I have blocked her access to my Twitter stream and I switched her Facebook access to “Restricted.” The less she knows about what I’m up to, the better, right? But I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to block her out. I don’t want to lose her. I absolutely adore her, and I want her in my life, but again, every piece of literature that I have read, as well as what her doctors say is that this friendship is doomed. Plus, you know, that whole idealization thing in the first place (which has left me with a lot of questions that I fully intend to ask her). I know that’s part of the disorder, but I’m still trying to process it.
And now I sit, at a proverbial crossroads because there’s always a goddamn catch.
by Band Back Together | Jun 6, 2016 | A Letter I Can't Send, Childhood Bullying, Pet Loss, Talking to Children About Death |
So I’m 10, and recently my cat died. He was a beautiful cat. We got him when I was just 4. He was really fluffy and white. He had different black and brown shapes on his back, forming a circle. My parents thought it looked like the Zodiac, so his name became Zodiac.
Zodiac went through many problems, but none of them caused his death. He had an odd craving for foam and plastic. Whenever he got any into his mouth we were able to save him, but he became more cranky. Despite my sometimes being annoying to him, he treated me like he was my mother. I loved him. He loved me.
As you might know from a different story I put up, I’m not in the best of times at school. When I got home, he’d sometimes be in my bed. I’d cuddle up to him and talk to him, and cry into his fur. Late at night he would purr, and it just helped me feel safe.
One morning, my parents were sidetracked because they were going to travel to Canada. They were going to pick up my sister from college, for the start of her summer break. It was the 20th of April. Zodiac didn’t come for kibble in the morning, and my parents told me he just went to greet our neighbors. That’s NOT what happened. I went to school, worried.
I had Girl Scouts that day, so I didn’t come home until 5:00. I arrived, stepped out of my grandparents’ car, and my sister came outside.She thanked my grandmother. then, she grabbed me tight, and said, “There is something I need to tell you about Zodiac …he’s dead.” I burst into tears, and so did she.
Later, my sister told me what happened. “I decided to go looking in the woods for Zodiac, and I found him …on the ground, dead.” She explained there was blood around his neck. We concluded that Zodiac must have hunted a rabbit or something like that, and a coyote wanted the rabbit. All we know is that it came fast. His eyes were open.
He’s a cat to remember. My mom is working on getting us a dog. All we have left now is this other cat who is freaking scared of me. It doesn’t feel right. It’s not fair. He left way too soon. I want him back. I want to talk to him. I think he understood me. It’s a letter I can’t send. Is it stupid that I’m doing this?
Dear Zodiac,
I love you. I know you love me. I will remember you, and never will forget how your fur felt. Sleeping at night won’t be the same. Coming home won’t be the same. Weekend mornings won’t be the same. Our other cat wakes me up now. Why did you have to go? Why did you leave me? Why did the world do this to us?
A part of your family
By-WeWillBand
by Band Back Together | May 17, 2016 | Anxiety, Depression, Suicide, Unemployment |
I am unemployed. I have been unemployed since I was fired on February 10th. I worked at a pretty famous law firm, but it was in areas of law that I wasn’t familiar with. I also made dumb mistakes. Also, I felt that the other secretary (besides me) sabotaged my efforts to fit in at law firm. I was only hired in early November. I want to emphasize getting fired was my fault. I made too many mistakes; I’m not blaming anyone but myself.
I am taking being unemployed very hard. I feel like something has been ripped out of me. Part of my identity is my career, and it’s been taken from me, until I find a decent job. While I was growing up, my father owned a successful farm, and my siblings (I have six other siblings), parents, and whole family worked together on the farm. My parents farmed well and made a lot of money. They treated the farm like a 2nd religion. It was thought about, talked about, dealt with every single day! We had dairy cows and those dairy cows HAD TO BE milked every day (unless they were within a couple of months giving birth), twice a day. If they weren’t, they would suffer a disease called mastitis (which women can also suffer from). I didn’t like farming. I didn’t like working every single day from Sunday to Sunday. I hated getting up during the 5 o’clock hour, and still do to this day. I was the fourth son out of five, and the first son not to farm.
What I’m trying to say is that working has always been very, very important to me and growing up it was treated very, very seriously. So, when I see how my Dad and my siblings have flourished and I have been fired several times, it just hurts so bad. I’m just not as good as they are. I love working, and making money in my chosen legal profession means so much to me. Succeeding means a lot, possibly, too much.
The place I worked is somewhat famous. It was covered by major local newspapers, Crains, Reuters, and even once on Comedy Central this summer. I felt this was a golden opportunity. If I could succeed there, then it would be like a gold star on my resume. When I worked there, I had a sense of accomplishment. If I could even work there for a year or more, it would have helped immeasurably. But I didn’t. I came up short, my opportunity GONE.
My Mom, my brother, sister and I all have/had depression (Mom died). It’s part of my heredity, and mine has been made worse because I am now unemployed. I won’t commit suicide, because I owe it to my girlfriend and kids not to kill myself. I know how that would hurt them.
But, I wish I were dead. If if someone were to shoot me and kill me, and if I were allowed to speak just before I died, I would say, “Thank you!!” to my murderer. I wake up feeling bad. My depression is somewhat better because of my girlfriend. No one could ever ask for a better life partner. She’s so altruistic. I had a great mother, but even she was not as altruistic as my girlfriend.
I go to a psychiatrist. I take an anti-depressant. I have anxiety disorder and take medication for that as well. I go to a counselor. I go to Church every week, and that helps a lot. I know I should be happy that God loves me, Jesus died for my sins, and I am grateful for being saved, but I am suffering right here, right now.
I want/crave a legal job or something of comparable pay. I want it so bad. The very thing I want, is the very thing I’m being deprived of. It’s cut me down. I’m diminished as a result.
by Band Back Together | May 6, 2016 | Abandonment, Abuse, Adult Children of Mentally Ill Parents, Anger, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Grief, Loneliness, Mental Health, Parent Loss, Parenting, Sadness |
Mental Illnesses are prevalent in our world. They greatly affect not only the individual involved, but the people around them. In the month of April, we focus our spotlight on Mental Health, in order to heal together and break down stigmas.
We want your stories. How has your own, or someone else’s mental illness affected your life? How are you rising above stigmas?
Please share your stories with us during the month of April.
Mum,
I am supposed to be heartbroken.
…and I am, but not for the reasons other people think.
When you go – I will mourn the life that could have been – the life you could have had, the life WE could have had; not the car crash it was – leaving nothing but broken people and devastation in its wake.
I will be sad for the “what if” and the “what could have been,” not the actuality. I’m not sad for the reality.
The reality is that your passing will set me free – to a certain extent – from my ‘you’ prison. I’ll still have to continue contending with the prison I built for myself, I know that, but, the direct pain of you will be no more.
People try to share with me, which is sweet and kind but, it makes me squirm and knocks my very thin rope of sanity a little. They tell me about their own experiences of losing a parent or grandparent and how sad they were and how they are there for me. They share things with me which they think will make me feel better – and it would – in an alternate universe, where you weren’t so horrible, and I wasn’t so messed up.
I kind of lie, and say ’“Thank you,” and pretend that I’m cut up about it, like they are about their own relatives passing, and I lie, and I lie, and I lie. Once again, I’m the weird outsider watching the world be normal while I’m in my own little weirdness bubble. What else can I say to them?
“Thanks so much for your kind words and your thoughts and wishes but, please – don’t waste them. She never loved me, and in turn, I’ve built a wall 7 feet tall. I spent my whole life trying to make her love me and it never worked, no matter what I did. This is not a normal ‘daughter losing her mother’ thing, so please – don’t hurt yourself remembering something painful to you in order to help me. Please, please don’t. ”
Sometimes I think I should cry, to look normal.
I nearly did cry the other day. I couldn’t bear to touch your skin with mine so I held your hand through the blanket, and you squeezed it. You squeezed my hand.
It was like throwing a starving person one sugar-free mint. Something wonderful and warm and meaningful but, at the same time empty – and too little – and far too late.
You hang on. Wasting away. I can almost identify every bone in your body. You rarely speak. You rarely wake now. Your body is breaking down, and even the nurses are praying you pass before the really ugly stuff starts happening.
But, you hang on …and on …and on…
I’m sorry you never got the life you wanted mum. I’m sorry it was so hard. I’m sorry you struggled with your own mind from childhood, and I’m sorry you made such awful, terrible, harmful choices. I’m sorry you experienced horrific things, and I’m sorry no one was ever there to protect you.
But, I’m angry you left me. You abandoned me whilst still being in front of me. I’m angry, sad, lost and hurt that you ignored me and chose others so much more favorably over me. The things you did to me, and said to me, and put me through were unforgivable. Some of the things still make me gasp a bit when I remember them because they were so cold and hard and callous; designed to hurt me and humiliate me and separate me. How could a mother treat their child like that?
I guess I don’t want other people’s sympathy because it’s not right. I’m not grieving over the prospective loss of you because, I’ve already been grieving your loss.
…since forever.
Safe journey, Mum.
