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

Hello.

I'm a 20 something First Nations (Native American) mom who is struggling with my mental health. I'm struggling with depression, bi-polarity, emotional eating, past trauma, anger issues, past violence, sex addiction, the desire to return to unhealthy habits and situations, self esteem issues and invasive thoughts. I struggle with the dissolve of my faith and religion and how it affects the rest of my family (mom, siblings, grandparents). I find it hard to make new friends in real life as I am very critical of people and have an aggressive nature (I do not physically assault people, but I do verbally assault people at times if I feel the are in the wrong...debates get me in a lot of trouble but I am working on it), despite wanting to be more open. I feel very isolated most of the time.

I was a big time raver and festival goer for a long time and have used various drugs before having kids. Now that my life has settled down and I'm in a stable, loving marriage with a house, dog, employment, traveling to India....now that I've gotten to where I've wanted to be my whole life my mental state has fallen apart. I feel my potential is not being met artistically and it kills me every single day.

I've started taking medication and will hopefully start therapy soon. I don't want my kids to grow up with an angry mother (my manic states present as anger, not happiness. I'm either neutral, non-functionally sad or angry, experiencing anger the most). I have extremely unrealistic expectations of the people in my life and have a hard time letting it go, which makes me hard to live with and befriend. I'm working feverishly to find a balance to give my kids the best possible and loving childhood I can. It's daunting and I worry I'm fucking them up emotionally and that they'd be better off without me a lot (I never spank but I do yell).

Anyway, I look forward to gaining insights and resources, giving and receiving hope and commiserating with you fine people.
Currently reading The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon and finding it very informative.

-Winter

Hello winterloom, welcome to our little forum! I see you are already making yourself at home in the topics and threads here, that is awesome to see!

winterloom wrote:I'm working feverishly to find a balance to give my kids the best possible and loving childhood I can.

Please don't forget to be self-loving too, you deserve it.

All the best, take care, cheers, we here are cheering for you and for your greatest today and tomorrow!

Thanks Manuel!

You're right. Self love is very important and something I do try to be conscious of. It can be hard with the demands of three children under six and a pack of rescue animals vying for attention.
I have been consistently working on self acceptance the last 4.5 years and it has helped me. It's not the same as self love as I can accept things about myself and still not love myself but it's a start.

<3