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

I just wrote this letter to my parents to try and voice my feelings right now, and I wondered if I could get any feedback on how i'm feeling off you guys. Instead of writing it out again but directed at the third person I've copied it in below as it was. Any advice on how I could emotionally connect with them or how to get the emotional support I need would be really appreciated. Right now I want to run away, I feel like if I was completely alone then at least I wouldn't have to face reaching out for support and having it rejected on a daily basis. I should point out that i'm in individual therapy, starting group therapy, on meds for depression and anxiety and in an LGBT support group.

Desperately in need of a hug, even if it is just a virtual one.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Dear my fucking so called parents.

I am absolutely fucking livid for the way you’ve emotionally neglected me over the years. If I’m upset, hurt, depressed, anxious and/or suffering I need comforting, words, hugs, a bit of time to be listened to without the TV in the background. I need to know that you care and that you’re there for me and I don’t feel like you do. I feel like you’re too wrapped up in your own lives and problems to connect with me and bother engaging emotionally. Maybe you can’t do it, but I find it hard to believe that you’re so unhuman that you don’t see that I need support, and you don’t understand what real emotional support is. I don’t want food. Food doesn’t make anything better and saying that it does and offering it to me each time there’s something wrong just makes me feel disconnected from you. It feels like you’re trying to fob me off because you haven’t got time to listen and you’d rather watch television. I’m not interested in that anymore. I know this isn’t acceptable. It’s not fair, it’s not normal and I will NEVER treat my children this way. You had children for a reason- to love them and enjoy them. But children grow up and know you need to deal with the consequences. I find it hard to believe that if I had come to you as a seven year old child and said I was worried, angry and sad that you would have just continued watching television and offered me cake instead of comforting words or a hug, but then maybe you did, I can’t remember either of you ever making a genuine attempt to actually comfort me. That’s why I think I’m so fucked up and Joseph won’t live here anymore and barely even visits.

I was so proud of myself for getting a first but I knew neither of you would react. You never do and it’s always depressed and upset me. I feel like you don’t care and you don’t acknowledge me or my achievements. I’ve always worked so hard and I’ve never got an actively positive reaction off either of you. It’s never been acknowledged, but I thought given how ill you both know I’ve been you would realise why this time in particular was a big deal. I managed to do exceptionally well academically despite all the odds being stacked against me. I went straight into the third year of a three year degree programme with no academic or emotional support for the majority of the year. I was struggling with major depression and anxiety, with elements of panic and OCD, which made it difficult to function generally let alone study and produce work in a completely alien environment where I knew no one and no one was looking out for me. I didn’t understand the system and even now I don’t understand how to access my results. You haven’t helped me through any of this, and despite this I keep coming back to you trying to get you to support me and help me out because this should be your job and I don’t know who else to turn to.
I want to be loved but I don’t feel loved. I don’t want to feel alone any more. I don’t understand why you won’t help me and why you can’t see what I need.

Right now all I want to do is run away. Pack a bag and rent a flat by myself with my savings and just cut myself off so I don’t have to deal with this emotional rejection on a daily basis because everytime I think things will be different the same thing happens and I just get hurt all over again. I feel like I keep building myself up just to get knocked back down. I expect things to change but they don’t, and it never stops shocking me. You’re supposed to be here for me, and you’re not. I feel like you’re just there for yourselves and I’m something that floats in the background- a mild inconvenience that you allow to exist by providing food, money and shelter but try to engage with as little as possible. Whenever I try to have a conversation with you I feel like I’m not wanted. You act like I’m in the way, like I’m stopping you from doing what you want or need to be doing. At most you support me for about five minutes, then you make your excuses and leave. There’s always something else that is more important than talking to me- washing, gardening, admin, cooking, pilates, work, phoning someone up, television, radio. I’m never the priority in terms of time, and you seem to think that you can make up for this with more and more food but it does nothing for me other than feed an already negative cycle of comfort eating which you started.

You just came upstairs to give me a hug but our relationship is so weak I couldn’t even say how upset I was or why. I wanted to cry so much I couldn’t even talk because I was trying so hard to hold it in, and I couldn’t cry in front of you. I can’t ever remember you seeing me cry or holding me, so I can’t start now. I’m scared you’ll just reject my emotions and I’ll feel even more hurt and abandoned. If I let you in and told you how I really feel and let you see how upset I was and you threw it back in my face and refused to engage just like you’ve done with everything I’ve ever said to you before I’d feel awful, and I don’t want to put myself at risk in that way.

Flo

I am hugging you so hard right now.

I know what it's like to be emotionally neglected (by my asshole dad), but I was lucky enough to be able to get away from him by living with my mom full time. I think getting your own flat might really help, if you can afford it. Moving in with a compassionate friend might be even more helpful, as it would likely make you feel less isolated. I'm living with a good friend right now, and when I'm feeling depressed, I will literally just come into her room and ask for a hug. I've never been denied. Human contact and compassion is so important.

I really hope that you can get through to your parents. The letter is a good start. Letter-writing seemed to work pretty well for "Tom," from the last podcast. And if it doesn't work out...don't be afraid to cut them off. We all love our parents to some degree, whether we want to or not, but sometimes the best thing for our own mental health is let them go. No one needs that kind of negativity in their life. We can't choose the family we're born into, but we can choose the family we end up with. Surround yourself with people you love and trust, and I promise, the world will look so much brighter.

Sending my love your way. Best of luck. <3

Thanks for posting.

I am very glad to see you using your voice.

I hope you continue to write, and to feel.

I send you a hug, and give a big middle finger to their TV. You are more important than any TV, any program on TV.

I mean this sincerely:

Seinfeld, I Love Lucy, Intervention, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Cosby Show, The Twilight Zone, and many others are all good shows. You are more important than all of those put together.

Flo,

Your letter is painful to read, but in that pain, it is so wonderful to see you still have a voice in you. It sounds like you are in an uphill battle with your parents. I am so sorry you are in that situation where the people who should be loving and supporting you the most, are the one's neglecting you the most. I am really inspired by your resiliency. Being able to accomplish what you have, seek out help, and have the voice to recognize the awful reality of the situation couldn't have been easy and most people wouldn't be able to do it.

When you say, "Right now I want to run away, I feel like if I was completely alone then at least I wouldn't have to face reaching out for support and having it rejected on a daily basis," I was just struck with the exhaustion that they must cause you. It is good to hear you have some different forms of therapy you are involved with, because we all need help, and in that situation it must be so nice to be heard some where, when you aren't ever heard at home.

Big hug.

Oh, Flo - the pain and hurt come through so clear in your letter.
It is good that you are in therapy and group, and finding other places for support because it seems very clear that you don't have it from your parents.

A few thoughts:
you mentioned a hug, and a your inability to express to them how you feel
and that you have trouble hiding your emtions
AND you mention that they garden, use food, and especially TV.... could these be signs not of not caring but of avoidance - which may certainly look like not caring...but then you mention the hug, and I wonder....are these people either avoiding facing how they deal with you or your issues because they don't know how, because they have some fear, inner blame or own past issues that were never addressed and that were dealt with by avoiding?
is one parent better than the other?

Ask your therapist if a few family sessions to say to them directly what you feel in the supportive place of therapy might help you?
And accept that maybe they will not be the ones to give you the love and support you deserve and need. by focusing on their failure to do so, you fuel an anger and resentment....and use energy that might be used to fuel a search for those who can be your family of choice. You have a right to support and love, and of course you want theirs but sometimes people just cannot be who or what they should be, who or what we need them to be.

and, though you don't say how old you are, if you feel uncomfortable at home, then it is not a sanctuary, and home should be a safe haven. So yes, but don't flee or run away from, rather run to a place that will meet your needs....framing it as running away will mean getting out of there while focusing on running TO...will get you focusing not just on avoiding rejection or hiding but really thinking clearly - what do I want or need in a home? should it be a place to entertain, sit home and write or paint, where are my friends and how close can I be to them, what matters to me - convenience, beauty, etc. Do you want privacy or would a roommate be helpful?

If you have not given your parents the letter, here is an idea - read out loud to them instead of leaving it for them - but first read it out loud to yourself a few times.
Good luck. You have taken important first steps in identifying some problems and finding support. It will get better than this, though it may take time.