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

I went to a support group yesterday morning, and I felt okay while there, but as the afternoon went on my mood plummeted. I felt depressed and anxious to the point that I had physical pain in my chest.

I stopped by my brother's house and mentioned to him and his wife that I was having a low day. It's really hard for me to admit this and to ask for any kind of help, but I was feeling desperate. They didn't ask me anything or comment. I don't want to burden them, or anyone, but I felt so alone when they just changed the subject.

Later in the evening I was feeling so bad that I called a suicide hotline, and then a local mental health talkline they referred me to.

I have an image of myself as using up people's patience with me and using up resources without getting better.

Today I just wish that there was somewhere I could go where I wouldn't be alone and could feel safe.

Hey!

Thanks for posting. I am really glad to see you posting. You post here as much as you want.

I am sorry you are suffering.

I am very glad to hear you went to a support group, reached out to your family, called the suicide hotline (this was especially good!), and then calling the second crisis line.

You are taking action. You are doing everything you need to. There's nothing that you need to be doing that you're aren't doing.

You are not using up resources or patience: your post is exactly why this forum is here. You reach out any time you feel like it.

Fighting depression is a lonely business. People don't want to hear about it and it's hard to find any useful help. Keep taking care of yourself. I wish things were easier.

Thank you, Oak and Brownblob. It means a lot to me seeing your replies.

When you're ready, and not a moment sooner, please give us an update!

Hello, rivergirl.

I wrote you a PM earlier this evening, but it seems to be parked in my Outbox. (If anyone knows what determines whether/when/which PMs get stuck in one's Outbox, please enlighten me!) I hope it gets to you soon. In the meantime, if you see this, know that I’m thinking of you, and that you have my compassion. Like oak said: When you're able, I too would like to know how you're holding up.

I also share oak's perspective that you are not a drainer of patience. I will go so far as to suggest that your brother and his wife behaved in a way that drained your energy.

Here's a thing I’ve noticed that may be relevant: Sometimes I find myself feeling compelled to apologize to someone, when I can’t see that there's anything I’ve done to apologize for. I don’t like when things don’t add up, so I bristle at these times, especially when I give in and nonsensically cough up the nonspecific, or specific but spurious and unwarranted, apology. Many years of observation and reflection finally showed me what was happening at these times: When I feel compelled to apologize, but can’t find anything I’ve done wrong, it always turns out that I'm feeling wronged myself. I sense that an apology is in order, but none is coming from the person committing the offense. I was taught promptly and thoroughly by my parents that I had no rights, and that they were never wrong and I generally was, so for most of my life I couldn’t tell when I was being treated poorly. One consequence was that when I sensed that an apology was indicated, and the other person wasn't offering it, I foggily assumed the offense I was sensing must have come from me.

Once I began to see through that dynamic, and to allow the absence of apology to exist, rather than toss one out myself to fill the uncomfortable gap, it got easier to recognize that it was a problem of boundaries. (Someday I hope to learn good ways of responding at those times — speaking up and asking for what I want and need, for example, instead of stewing silently about the other person’s behavior. For now I’m just trying to be grateful that I’ve learned not to annex apologies that are not mine to make.)

My point is that your brother and his wife showed an unfortunate lack of compassion and wisdom, and that the negative untrue things you describe feeling about yourself may be spillover from that interaction. Your brother/wife behaved in a way that could reasonably be expected to have left anyone feeling both drained and short of patience. If that's the case, I submit that having the sense of yourself as draining and hard on people's patience may be just ricochets, accurate perceptions of others that got bounced off onto you. When you are sensitive to the failures of oblivious others, who behave as though their behavior is unobjectionable, this leaves you, if you’re the only receptive one in the room, and if you don’t have adequate defenses, to absorb the negative energy. If we don’t know how to recognize this dynamic, we may trick ourselves into absorbing a sense of responsibility and a self-image that more properly belong to others.

I hope all those words make sense and are helpful.

I hope anything at all has been helpful to you these last few days.

You do not drain my patience. Your brother and his wife drain my patience. You are valuable and generous and smart and compassionate and helpful. I’ve seen plenty of evidence.

Ah! I just checked, and my PM to you has moved from Outbox to Sent. Hallelujah. I've invested too much in this post to scrap it, so now you have me coming at you from two directions.

Best wishes to you.

Namu

Hi Namu,
Thank you for this beautiful and thoughtful post. I'm not sure I deserve this much kindness, but it touches me, and along with the other kind posts, makes me feel that I might yet have some value and hope.

Your theory about apologies rings very true for me.

I was somewhat better during this past workweek as I usually am, but overall this has been a low week and I'm a bit frightened about the weekend.

I may post more later if I can.

Thank you again, Namu, Oak, and anyone reading my posts.

rivergirl

Thanks for posting, Rivergirl. I'm glad to hear you're hanging in there.

Take care.

Ditto oak.

Look! I can be brief!!

: -]

Namu