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

I suffer from life long depression and anxiety. I didn't even know I had anxiety until if fully bloomed last October when I developed Atrial Fibrillation due to a very upsetting conflict with a violent neighbor. I had been on Zoloft for years and had gone off it several months before. I went to a new shrink who was highly recommended and she put me on Lexapro and Lamictal. OMG, what a difference. The anxiety was gone. And I felt much, much more stable. She explained that she put me on the Lamictal because my moods went up and down. Nobody before had every prescribed a mood stabilizer for me. I guess I have what's known as "soft bipolar". Many of my friends and clients commented on how happy and calm I seemed to be, even my own internist!

The Now I Get It part of this post was seeing my mother yesterday. The Lamictal really tempered my anxiety and I was able to see something I had never really seen before: how HEAVILY DEFENDED I NEED TO BE AROUND ANY MEMBER OF MY FAMILY. You know when you know something about yourself, but then there comes a time when you really GET IT? That's what happened for me yesterday. I guess because the Lexapro/Lamictal has relaxed me in my regular life, I was able to see for the first time how really geared up for battle I need to be when I'm around my family (which isn't very much at all anymore). It was a great revelation and really showed me why I've been the way I've been all these years: social phobic, reclusive, angry, irritable, defensive, ready to do battle, isolated: all in an attempt to protect myself from attack.

My mom is incredibly self-centered and narcissistic -- she has great difficulty in seeing the world in any way but her own and has great difficulty living with other's disagreements with her own perception (she's gotten a little better, but only a little). Most conversations with her end up being a therapy session for her: she talks about herself as if you are her therapist. This in itself feels inappropriate and an infringement of boundaries. However, she's in her 80's and I've figured out pretty much what I need to do to protect myself. The great moment for me was TRULY REALIZING how defended I need to be, and how NOT defended in my real life I am learning to be -- in essence, learning to be myself with fear and terror in the world.

Anyway, just thought I'd share! Yay!

My mom is incredibly self-centered and narcissistic -- she has great difficulty in seeing the world in any way but her own and has great difficulty living with other's disagreements with her own perception (she's gotten a little better, but only a little). Most conversations with her end up being a therapy session for her: she talks about herself as if you are her therapist. This in itself feels inappropriate and an infringement of boundaries. However, she's in her 80's and I've figured out pretty much what I need to do to protect myself. The great moment for me was TRULY REALIZING how defended I need to be, and how NOT defended in my real life I am learning to be -- in essence, learning to be myself with fear and terror in the world.

I so... so relate.

My mother is 70, old harmless lady right? Still I compare my visits to entering a lion cage. I have to prepare myself, steel myself, before entering, not so much to survive the visit, more to limit the damage I do to myself, to minimize the time I need to recover from the visit.

Yay!

Damn right!

Hah! I meant learning to be myself WITHOUT fear in my life . . .

Yes, I definitely have to plan ahead in order to limit the amount of time I have to recover from a family event. I make sure that I don't spend too much time with them. I leave when I need to (bye folks, gotta go, big day at work tomorrow, etc.). Things had been going pretty well between my mother and me (for about 2 - 3 months) and then Mother's Day happened. The last time I was with my mom was Mother's Day and what a shit show that was. First, all the arguing and yelling and crazy-shit emails about where we would go, and then having to hang out with my brother and his alcoholic wife. I had to take an Atavan just to get through it, and it took me at least a full day of lying in bed to recover. And then I didn't really communicate with my mom for about 4 months. I think she had really enjoyed our being closer earlier in the year and then I kind of disappeared after Mother's Day. It's possible that she --sort of -- got the message that yelling at me is not going to get her what she wants.

I try not to think any more about some of the more psychologically brutal things I was put through by her and my dad while I was growing up: the favoritism (still happening), the physical violence and bullying of my siblings towards me that was allowed, the ignoring of my feelings and needs, her almost complete lack of mothering. I just spend a little time with her and try to enjoy the very small bits that are there. But it was quite a shocking realization to actually feel how physically and psychologically defended I have to be to spend that time with her. Of course, in retrospect, it's kind of a "DUH!" moment, but all of you know what I mean: we've all live with it so it's hard to see how damaged we really are.

This stuff with our parents. I'll say this as I feel like im in the same place as you guys are. I still fea rmy father and hes been dead for ten years..

Is some of this natural, the way its supposed to be? If we felt like they were awesome people that we could never do without, or be without, would it be natural?

Is some of this built in as natures way of giving us a kick in the ass? To go out and form our own lives and families?

I think fear by nature is a great teacher, especially in the absence of security and love. I think we're designed to survive and if our early care providers raised us on conditional love, manipulation and fear, we had to make due with fear. Or as The Beatles said in a fucked up alternative universe: "All we need is fear."

The positive for me is, that realizing my irrational fear had an actual rational cause, means I can begin questioning and understand it. I can easier deal with it, not always in the moment, but it makes the aftermath a little less severe and maybe I can slowly begin to tweak and adjust my fears. I also think, that because I understand that my fear is rooted in survival, it easier to understand why I can't just make my fear go away by snapping my fingers. Finally if fear became my survival, maybe now that my fear threatens my survival, maybe I have to confront my fears to survive and maybe I can, because maybe my survival is stronger than my fear.

Ironically since, I've learned the severity of the damage I sustained, I've somehow found more motivation to heal. Somehow now that I understand, it's going to be hard, it's gotten a little easier.

All I can say is that if you are having that much fear and anxiety about your parents, and you are either not in therapy or on meds or both, then you are depriving yourself of years of your life, and forcing yourself to live in misery. Like I said in my post, I never really got it until I went on Lamictal and Lexapro.

Prior to Lamictal and Lexapro, I was on Zoloft and before that Prozac. I wish Lamictal had been around years ago. No one ever diagnosed me with "soft bipolar" which is a relatively new diagnosis, and not in the DSMR. But at least I had the benefit of SOME kind of meds and, since 2001, good therapy. However, since the Lamictal and Lexapro, life now makes way more sense.

But trying to figure this whole thing out while not on meds or therapy is just a recipe for self-torture. You'll never figure it out. Do yourself a favor, and if you're not in REALLY good therapy, get in now.

I am, I'm doing the work and I do see a change.