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

My favorite episode so far is the interview with Adam Corolla. This left me with a few things to think about after this podcast.

Adam obviously has active negative energy toward his family that makes for really great comedy. My parents are emotionally/intellectually stunted and I respond with an active hatred, even as I understand that they are just people, flawed like me, I have a perpetual jealousy of other people who have parents they can actually talk to.
A few examples:
My sister was sexually assaulted by a family member. She really wanted to tell my family (not the assaulter) to get it off her chest. I supported her decision to tell my family and was there for emotional support. While she was explaining it to my father, he turned on the movie Rocky, alternately listening blankly to my sister, and pointing out some of his favorite Balboa moments, while my sister explained what happened.

I moved to a new city to be with a boyfriend. We broke up a few days after I moved there, and I had a rather depressing 8-hour drive home. My dad called me on the way home.
"So, how was Philadelphia?"
"Pretty rough, actually, George and I broke up. I moved in and..."
"That's nice. Well, we've just been hanging out by the lake, walking the dogs."
"Oh, great..."
"Well, I'm glad you had a good time! I won't hold you. See you soon." [click]

My mom is even worse! Anyway, I have a hard time knowing how to even approach them without feeling angry, let alone developing a "good" relationship with them. So I connected with Adam's stories a lot.

If you have shitty parents, how do you maintain a healthy connection with them?
If these were friends, I would have ditched them long ago.

Any ideas?

Wow, your family sounds really out of touch with their emotions. I would HIGHLY recommend some type of support group. Was anyone in your family addicted to something or overly controlling? If so, a 12-step program is really really helpful. It helped me accept my family for who they are and stop hating them. The best way to not let people fuck with our heads is to work on ourselves first. I know it sounds backwards, but once we have our shit working, we can see with clarity how sick and damaged they are, and if not love them, at least accept them for who they are. I only see my family about once a year for a day or two. Any more than that and I start shutting down because I can't take any more. And that's okay. I had to work on myself in AA to get to that point. But the real goal is for us to have a clear conscience about what we bring to our relationship with them. It may be nothing. You may find the most loving thing to do is completely detach from them. All of these questions can have answers if you open up on a group level and get to know people who have similar experiences. Hope that helps.

Napping Champion

Thank you for the kind advice. I think that is a good perspective, to consider your own shortcomings before you get started in the death spiral of hatred.

I id'd with Carolla because his parents weren't really bad people, and I'm afraid my examples make mine sound heartless. I guess it's always the bad times that stick out with people you have troubled relationships with.

as Adam and Paul both said, the most important thing you can do it adjust your expectations.

My parents are similar to yours. Years ago I cut them loose from the position of "parent" (or what I saw that role to be, and reassigned them the role of nice people I am related to. I am now civil to them, and wish them happy birthdays as I do my friends. I expect no validation, support or parental love from them. The anger I felt is gone.

Sucks to not have great parents. I feel for you.

Vero

I was pleasantly surprised by this episode. I've honestly never been a fan of Corolla's as I usually found him crass and rude, but hearing him talk about his life like this actually made me understand where that comes from. This is the perfect example of what depth lies beneath the public personae that we see. I'd love to see him back again.

This topic is really interesting to me. For anyone else who's interested in this, you might check out episode #39 with Alison Rosen. They talk about parent-child relationships that while not abusive, are definitely problematic.

I've been a fan of a Carolla's since his LoveLine days. The hypervigilance he describes is something I've always related to. I went to a strict Catholic grade school that fulfilled every stereotype that ever existed about dreary Catholic grade schools, sans, I guess, only pedophiliac priests. We had to adhere to strict dress codes and were subjugated to the tough discipline of old-world nuns. I couldn't stay out of trouble or get decent grades. There were very few days where I didn't get reprimanded for something I was doing wrong. I was literally petrified of going to school every day, and to maker matters worse, my parents rarely took my side in any disputes. I would fake sick and often skip school just to avoid dealing with it, which only put me further into the dog house with my parents and school administrators.

My senses have always been particularly keen, but I imagine I developed a similar kind of coping mechanism to Carolla's. I had a very visceral reaction when he described being young and feeling like you were just going to have to protect yourself. That was a feeling I knew all to well. It was something I confronted every day from ages 9 - 14. Like he did, I found a great deal of comfort in sports and the chance they gave me to just be in the moment.

Hypervigilance is exactly as he describes it. Someone who I haven't seen for 10 years could walk into a crowded bar, and I could be 80 feet away and drunk and still recognize them instantly. I have had to take medication to just chill my brain out because I was often too aware of my surroundings to focus on anything. I've held a license for almost 13 years and never been in a car accident or had a speeding ticket. And I am familiar with the near-clairvoyant feeling that he described and the constant state of agitation that comes with it.

I've been told that hypervigilance is a symptom associated with PTSD, and it can often affect people so badly that they won't leave the house because doing so can be an all-out attack on their senses. Guys who are in the military who see heavy combat often come home with bad hypervigilance because such awareness was required of them in battle. Though, it's something you can manage if you put in the time. I've had some therapy and, as I said, taken medication. I, basically, just had to learn how a regular person interacts with their surroundings and teach myself to imitate it. I've learned to recognize when I am being overly aware or sensitive to something and make a conscious decision to ignore it.

Hypervigilance and PTSD reactions similar to it are things you can overcome with therapy, medication, and changing behavior and thought patterns. You just have to put in the time. I can definitely attest to it.

That's a really positve story. Thanks for sharing it with us. Welcome to the forum, by the way.