Taking steps

[Beany Boo]

Hi rivergirl

Your post doesn’t read as disjointed at all.

It definitely feels momentous. Hopeful that your professional help is responding appropriately, finally it sounds like. Devastating that your family is struggling to respond like a family, yet again.

As a man, it feels like your brother is thinking something along the lines of “since I can’t fix my sisters’ problems outright, I feel useless as a person and I can’t bear a situation where I feel that way”. If he limited his responsibility to say, making you cups of tea when he sees you, and premised any conversation by letting you both be comfortable that you don’t know how to work this out, that would probably be enough.

I feel like it would be extremely cruel to expect you in this moment to ‘find meaning’ in your life when simple comfort and relief would be more timely. Under the pressure (or however you’re experiencing it) I suspect anything I could say would be woefully inadequate. But I’ll take woefully inadequate over nothing at all.

I am listening. You’re doing it. Just be yourself. Care for your life.

[snoringdog]

Hello Rivergirl,

Suicidal ideation is never good even though it seems reasonable at times (Been there...).

Try to remember that it's your mood that is coloring your perceptions of everything but that it's not absolute reality. Depression makes us curl up into ourselves.

You say "Once my mom is gone I'll be truly alone" but that's only true in the sense of biological family. There are people in this world who will appreciate and love you for who you are. You will find them.

I'm glad you can post here for the small comfort it brings. We are listening, and we care.

SD

[rivergirl]

Thank you, Beany and snoringdog.

Beany, your comment about not expecting to find meaning now feels like it gives me a little breathing space. I can barely imagine getting through the weekend, so meaning is too much to ask for.

Thank you for caring, sd. I think that's all I really want from my brother and his wife, just to be able to feel that sometimes. It doesn't take much, even a small gesture.

[Beany Boo]

Absolutely

Your resilience is off the scale.

You are welcome rivergirl.

[oak]

Rivergirl! I'm glad you've been posted.

I am enormously relieved to hear that you are trying a new psychiatrist. This is an excellent step forward. I anticipate it will bring you substantial benefits in the next few months. Perhaps not this weekend or next, but I can see you well on your way in a very few months.

Adjusting your medicine, moving into your own place, and finding a new counselor: I think that could add up to a very fun and relieving summer of 2021 for you. Just hang in there.

[rivergirl]

Thank you, Oak. I'm often afraid this is the last place I'm going to live and I'm discouraged about moving although I keep looking.

Last night I drove around for a while in the dark and sat in a dark parking lot. I was half hoping something bad would happen to me so that I wouldn't have to wake up this morning.

I spoke to my sister-in-law this morning and she agreed with everything my brother said yesterday. They say they don't understand depression because they are "problem-solvers" and they have a positive outlook on life. My brother said he rarely texts or calls me because I'm not at the top of his to-do list. I never expected to be, of course. There's just such a huge contrast from when my nephew was growing up and they wanted to see me frequently to almost no contact for weeks at a time now even during the pandemic and knowing that I'm isolated and struggling. They still live only about a mile away and my brother has been working part-time from home during the pandemic. He visits my mom or talks to her at least once a day while I'm at work, and often more. I've asked if I did something wrong or why they don't contact me or include me, but I don't get an answer other than them saying that sometimes I don't seem to enjoy myself as much any more. I try to always put on my best face around them but during the past few months of the pandemic as my depression came back I haven't been able to do that sometimes. I feel tormented by some of the things they said, even though I know I should probably discount some of it and that my depression is making it seem more catastrophic.

I'm sorry once again for the long and repetitive post. I feel like a weak and scared person who doesn't deserve the faith in me that was expressed here

[oak]

Your brother and sister in law are nuts.

And they’re cruel and wrong.

I say the following solemnly and sternly, with the authority of someone who has lost everything, and been fairly low in life:

They had better watch their mouths about categorical statements about others’ suffering. While I don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone, Karma is watching. All those things that make life comfortable and “better” can be lost quicker than they realize.

Siblings punching down: I’ve had enough of it.

Sorry for the rant, RiverGirl. With all the sincerity and authority I can muster, I assure you that you are sane and together. Troubled, sure. Just like all of us. But you are by no means broken or defective or in any way less or not enough.

With the authority of the person with the second-most posts in this forum, I fully authorize and encourage to post as much as you like, as often as you like.

We, I, all of us appreciate and cherish you.

And, in case you forgot, your brother and sister in law are nuts.

[Beany Boo]

Oh wow, gross.

I feel triggered by the things they say.

Who speaks to anyone that way?

Please be careful rivergirl.

[rivergirl]

Thanks for your support, Oak. I know you speak from personal experience, and I'm sorry that you've had to deal with the lack of kindness and respect from some of your own family members.

And I'm sorry that you felt triggered, Beany, but I appreciate your comments, as always.

I don't want to make it seem like my brother and his wife are totally uncaring. They've largely been the ones recently dealing with the affairs of my sister who is now in a nursing home, and they're probably worn down with that situation. I'm just longing for them to be different people than who they are, or to treat me the way that they used to, and I have to somehow let go of that.

I did speak to my sister-in-law again this afternoon and she listened more this time as I tried to explain what I've been going through. She told me that my 20-year old nephew has recently been going through depression and that they're looking for a therapist for him. I'm sad for my nephew, especially given his parents' views on mental illness, but I'm glad that at least they're seeking professional help for him.

Thanks once again for listening.

[Beany Boo]

I hear you.

And you know what? Everyone struggles with communicating feelings in real-time. Some people are locked out of their feelings because they don’t have language for it. You often don’t comprehend that they’ve listened, until you notice changes they’ve made weeks or months later. The information goes into their ears and their immediate response is woefully inadequate and usually hurtful. Then they take longer than you imagine to form a response that is helpful. But it may eventually come, just slowly.