YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Hi, want to hear about my problems?

I'm a 23 year old bisexual white woman, diagnosed with anxiety and depression at age 11. I have some other issues that have been mentioned a lot by various therapists, but might not be suited for a diagnosis: social anxiety, a tendency to isolate, low self-esteem...all stuff that can probably be related back to the big two initial diagnoses. I've been on antidepressants forever, with a few months off them here and there. I'm currently adjusting to being back on Wellbutrin after quitting Prozac back around November and coming crawling back crying to the med bottle. But I'm doing okay!

Family life has historically not been too good to me - narcissistic, non-contributing, religiously/emotionally/verbally/once-or-twice-physically abusive dad plus codependent mom equals terrible marriage that lasted 10 years longer than it needed to and ended in an ugly divorce with lingering tensions. Stay together for the kids, divorce when they're old enough to be confided to!

As stated earlier, I was diagnosed at a young age and spent all of my teenage and college years in one long emotional dead zone. Best years of your life, right? Of course I had happy times too, but that's not what I came here to kvetch about. I had some friends in school, but since they were all friends from earliest childhood I never learned how to make friends in new environments (and frankly wasn't too interested in learning, because I devalue human relationships until I need a shoulder to cry on and there isn't one there). As a result, I had no friends in college and have no friends now. I work full time and live at home with my mother, my sister who is currently home for the summer from college, Brother 1, and Brother 2 who is only here half the time because of custody arrangements.

I have two big frustrations right now. One is that I have had casual sexual partners but never a romantic relationship. I just had my birthday recently, and as I get older I get closer and closer to being Drew Barrymore a la Never Been Kissed, which was not a very good movie and is not who I want to be. I fear that because I didn't get my romantic/sexual start in high school like a Normal Person(tm), it's too late for me and I'll never learn how to build/maintain a romantic relationship with another person and will always be unloveable and therefore worthless. I have used casual sex several times as a balm for loneliness, but get this - it didn't work! It only made me feel used, bored, and disappointed that I'm not more demanding of my sexual partners to fulfill my needs! At this point I start to wonder whether I'm using the casual sex as a form of self-harm, but I don't do it that often so I don't think about it.

My other frustration is that I've actually made a lot of progress considering where I started with my mental illness, I've got a relatively well-paying job and a supportive mother, I'm in therapy, but this still isn't the life I want and I feel stuck. Just today I finally got a call back from the final graduate school I applied to - no dice this year. I'll pick myself up and try again, but the thought of waking up every morning and living the same days I live now over and over again for another year, of being this crushingly lonely and bored, of wasting away my precious youth locking myself up in my mom's house when I could be living a fun sexy single girl in the city lifestyle that I always thought I would at this age...you would be depressed too.

Anyway, since starting listening just a few days ago I already love the show, love that there are people out there exactly as fucked up as I am, and love that there's a community here to talk about it! I look forward to speaking with everyone in the forums.

Hi LittleRainCloud! Thanks for giving us a snippet of your story. I feel your pain... it's fucking confusing as shit to come out of a fucked up family into the "real world." I have a tremendous amount of faith that by the time you're my age (33) you'll be on much more solid ground. I wish I was as aware of my situation when I was 23 as you are of yours!! From my vantage point my advice to you would be this:

You can, and you will heal. Prioritize healing. Lot's of therapy and support groups and books and research (find what works for you). You'll probably need space from your family when you feel ready. That's great that you have a good job and all but what I've learned is that surface stuff is almost like a mirage... looks and sounds great but in actuality it's not the important stuff. When you heal all of the rest will fall into place. Follow your feelings and emotions... I'd bet they lead back to childhood/adolescence/parent/child relationships dynamics. -These things can be processed and you can get to a place in your life where you don't feel stuck and your life feels more fulfilling. Be good to yourself, not just by deciding that you're going to be good to yourself, but by working at it, by going to lots of therapy, by making changes in your life. I feel like I'm babbling on now and getting too mushy so I'll just wish you good luck with your journey.

BTW I recommend the podcast episode on 1/15/2016 about emotional neglect (guest Dr. Jonice Webb).

Good luck, be good to yourself, sending you love and hugs.

Welcome!

I think we are all a little messed up here - and thats ok

I know now after 3 years of therapy that I am a product of my upbringing

But I didn't know any of that until I was 36 years old - and I thought I was a fairly smart person - I just didn't have any idea that there was a reason - like legitimate reasons that I was doing all the crazy things I was doing -

and I have JUST started to unpack my attick of crazy (AKA my brain)

i now it looks silly but it work for me. this my advice

go to some poor place. just watch them for 1-2 hours looks how lucky you are my friends. trust me. we just need new fresh location