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

I'm not sure I'm ready to really get into the details of my past and why I am the way I am. It would be a long, tragic, sad story, and really, if we're here, we've had enough sad stories, I think. Besides, I'm saving it for my memoirs, or for whenever I become famous (this is a joke. I make them when I feel awkward. Or I make them and everyone else feels awkward).

The basics are that I come from a childhood of abuse and abandonment, a divorce (mine), sexual assault, and various other situations that have made me the lovely, cynical, sarcastic, conflicted person I am today. And I only turn 30 next month, so yeah, I got all that stuff out of the way early.

I have depression, anxiety, PTSD, abandonment and trust issues, self-esteem lower than the current location of the Titanic, and the curse of overthinking EVERYTHING.

I discovered the podcast somewhat by accident. I was at work, and bored of the music on my iPhone, decided to check out some of these podcast thingies all the kids are fond of. After an episode of This American Life, and a few of Savage Lovecast, I decided to search for "mental health" and see what came up. The Mental Illness Happy Hour was the first result. It sounded so absurd that I just had to investigate further. After a few episodes, I was hooked. It was like I had finally found people who got me.

Many episodes can be quite painful for me to listen to, and often give me a really tight feeling in my chest and occasionally trigger an anxiety attack, which is when I know it's time to turn off the show and listen to some Kelly Clarkson or something. However, every single episode so far has had a "eureka!" moment for me. Something either Paul or one of his guests has said that has me saying to myself, "Oh my god, yes. That's what I'm feeling, too!". It has me wishing I was friends with these people so I could call them up and be like "I know, right?!".

I've heard Paul mention the forum every episode, but never thought I'd post anything on it. I'm fairly open about mental health on Twitter (@KristiColleen) and on my blog, and I don't keep it a secret from my friends, either. In fact, in one of the 2 conversations I've had with my brother (more on him another time) in the past 10 years, he said to me "Our whole family has been dealing with depression for years, but somehow you've managed to deal with it better than the rest of us". That's news to me, but whatever you say, bro.

However, I'm not dealing with it that well anymore. So here I am. I don't want to be the draining friend, and I worry my friends are just sick of hearing about it, so I come here to commiserate with you people. I hear you're quite nice.

What can I offer in return? Well, besides my rapier sharp wit, I'm also fairly good at giving advice (except to myself), being a shoulder to cry on, or just being a good listener. Er...reader. Also, I'm Canadian, so you know I'll always be polite.

Oh, and the basics about me are I'm female, straight (although I think women are really nice to look at, but then, I'm a photographer), divorced, and almost 30. I have a very co-dependant relationship with my 19 year old cat who has been better family to me than the people I'm related to, and in the past 6 months I've moved to a new city in a new province and started a new job, so transition is something I'm familiar with (I've moved across the country twice).

I've run the gamut of experiences, I've had all the dark and not-so-dark thoughts, and made a million mistakes in my life. I'm trying to even things out, whilst still remaining a high functioning, responsible, mature adult. I trust many of you are trying to do the same, and I look forward to sharing that with you. I promise to try to keep the jokes to a minimum, but something tells me if you listen to the podcast, you're okay with a few jokes.

So, uh....hi. I won't ask "how are you?", because don't we all just really hate that question?

Well hello, Kristi. It may be one person's opinion, but I encourage you to fire off whatever jokes you have ready to go; I'm sure we could all use a dose of light-heartedness whenever we can.

As for the conditions you have, I can't say I can totally relate, which makes me feel like a useless jerk. But in spite of that, I'm still willing to hear you (as well as everyone, for that matter) out and offer what I can in terms of perspective, and hopefully you can extract some clarity from it. I remember a couple podcasts ago, Paul's guest Ashly Burch talked about how having depression was kinda like being a superhero: it makes you really good at understanding people and their problems (my friend once called it emotionally brilliant), but there's very few that can help you, and I definitely relate to that.

I also relate to how you feel about being the "draining friend," and being worried that your friends are thinking of you more as a liability than a friend. I too am not afraid to share my feelings about what's weighing me down, but what makes me bite my tongue before sharing those feelings for the "x"th time is the thought that they'll soon be fed up with it and just walk away. I imagine that the lot of people here knows how that feels, and therefore will almost always be willing to hear each other out without worry of overloading someone with their feelings and stuff.

So here's to sharing how we feel without worrying about being abandoned or ignored.

Oh, I haven't listened to Ashly Burch's show yet, because I got halfway through Michael D, and it got a little too rough to take, so I had to pause it. I agree with her analogy, though! I definitely feel like every time my friends tell me a problem, I can think of some way to relate it to something I've been through. I don't express that though, because then I'd be making everything about me, and that's a little too narcissistic. But yeah, unless you're friends with a fellow superhero, they just can't relate, and they'd probably get really sick of hearing about your superhero stories. "Big deal, you can leap tall buildings. The rest of us normal people just prefer to walk around." "Oh, god, here comes Kristi. She's just going to talk about that one super villain again. I am so tired of hearing about that."

I feel like I'm one of those people who are on a special diet, or have lived abroad. They have to include it in every conversation, and people are just so tired of hearing about it. "We get it! You lived in Japan! Shut up about it!"

Yeah, I liked the superhero analogy way more than the analogy I came up with: people like us live in a pit of depression, so when others unexpectedly fall into it, we can easily hoist them out of it, but they're unable to pull us up from it because we're just intrinsically stuck here. I remember when I was younger, I was furious with the people I knew, because I was always able to help them out, but they weren't able to help me out. I realized later on that it was because I was a much tougher case to work with and solve compared to them, and while I acknowledge that fact, I still get mad that I have no one who's like me, and therefore, can really tune in to my frequency.

As for helping others by relating to them, I understand how you can see that as narcissistic, but I think that it's important (and necessary for me) to do. When you can relate to someone's pain and get as personal with them as they are with you, you're genuinely connecting with someone. And I feel that there needs to be a genuine connection between the person you're trying to help if you're ever going to help them. I've dumped out my emotions on unsuspecting people before, and they don't know how to handle it, nor were they able to open themselves up or connect to me either, and that only made me furious. Which is why I keep my eye open for people who show openness with their emotions because then I know that they may be willing to connect in the way that most people aren't.

Of course, when relating to someone's pain, you don't want to overlap their problems and consequently make the conversation about yourself, but I do think that relating to someone's pain- to show them that you've been there (and may still be there), and that you understand what they feel- is cardinal if you're going to make any attempt to heal someone.

Welcome! I am glad you are here

Welcome KristiC!

Your original post was very moving and honest and insightful. You sound like you've been through a lot and I am impressed by your resilience. I look forward to reading more from you.