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

Shit!!!! I am so scared. Sadness has flooded back into my body. I was doing so well for a while there. Fealing healthy. Enjoying my life for the first time in my life. I haven't even thought about killing myself in months. I was making art and enjoying exploring who I am and who I want to be.

For the first time in my life, someone saw me. For the first time in my life, I let someone really get to know me and shared all of my crazy thoughts and terrible feelings. My therapy sessions were my safe place to unload and be told that I am ok just as I am. What the hell am I going to do without that in my life? How the hell does a person build that type of relationship outside of a therapists' office?

My therapist and I set a termination date and I am not doing well anymore. At the time, I agreed it was the right thimg to do. I get that I can't stay in therapy forever. I just don't feel ready. I am terrified. I am grieving as if someone so special to me has died. I can't stand the tought of never seeing my therapist again. I am panicking. I know I will be going into the black hole again. I don't want to go there. I feel like I am alone in the world. Before I was physically alone but I didn't feel lonely. Now I feel as if I am the only person on earth.

I am so fucking tired of being scared and sad. When will it ever end? What does it take to feel good for more than a few weeks? What the fuck did I start therapy for in the first place? The sadness is crushing me.

Hello Lilac, I wish I knew what to say. I just wanted to reply to say I read your post and I honor your pain. Maybe you are ready for a 2nd phase of therapy with another therapist, building on what you accomplished with the 1st therapist, answering the questions that you posed above with the new therapist. Please take care, all the best, we here are cheering for you and for your greatest today and tomorrow.

Thanks MMG. Good to know that I am not alone on this planet. I have abandonded all of my skills that I have learned in therapy tonght. I have bought a bottle of tequillla and am enjoying feeling nothing. I called the 'emergency' helpline but found it less than helpful.

My therapist says that nothing changes when nothing changes so I am going to make the changes. I am somehow going to cut ties with my 'family'. They have never given me the nutruring that I need and I can't see that they ever will. I do not fit into their mold. I respect that they like what they like but I will never try to shoehorn myself into that mold again. It feels good to finally admit that. I am not trying to hurt anyone. I am tryng not to hurt anymore. I feel so much better when I do not have contact with them. Is that avoiidance?

I HATE sports, and they think they are the end all be all in life. I hate talking about silly thing like the weather. Who cares that we lost power for a few minutes! There are people starving in the world for Gods sake. Their world is so small. How could I have come from the same place as my older male sibling ( he surely has not earned the right to be called my brother). He cares about sports alone. He is rigid. He hates all who are not like him. The worst part is that he is teaching his 5 children to think like him. I hope, hope ,hope that his kids are smart enought to see that their father is wrong about people. I hope to hell that they see that people are just people. No matter who they love or what they look like.

How can I make the world a better place? How can I use my pain to help others? How can I live with no biological family? How can I build a relationship with another human that is as close and honest as the one I thought I had made with my therapist? Was she just telling me what she thought I needed to hear? Was she bullshitting me? Was I being a melodramatic baby? Crap I don't know the answers to any of these questions!

I have so many thoughts swirling through my head. I think I'll just get stoned. It beats feeling this pain. It is like an electric shock. I hope no one else is feeling this bad tonight.
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I think your 1st therapist sucks. "Nothing changes when nothing changes" is all fine and good, and maybe cutting ties with an emotionally unsupportive family might free up some psychic energy that is best used elsewhere, but no therapist should leave a patient high and dry. I would look for a 2nd therapist to take you to the next level of mental healthiness. I have "fired" 4 therapists myself, and only my current therapist showed actual commitment to raising my level of mental health - the other therapists could only help so much.

Please take care, Lilac. You have been let down and you don't deserve this pain and suffering.

I came on here the say I was sorry for my drunken rant last night but I am not going to do that. I am not sorry for the things that I wrote. It is the truth and I am not sorry for finally getting the truth out.

I do not 'fit' in my family and I don't care that I don't fit. I don't want to be anything like them. I have tried to be like them and believe in the same things and have the same interests for way too long. No more! My world is big and getting bigger as I grow my self confidence. I refuse to care about potholes in my parents' road or the sports that they talk about. I will not compete all of the time when what I really value is cooperation above all else. I will enjoy thunder storms and not worry about loosing power the way my parents do. I will rejoice in my home and the way it looks. I love the way it looks. Like a real human being lives here. Like an imperfect person resides in this abode and she is not too concerned that some dishes are not cleaned and put away. I will continue to change my house as I see fit. I will cover the walls in art. Mine and others'. I will have unidentifiable sculpture in my yard. Who cares if it doesn't 'look like anything'. It is beautiful in its form and color and that is not only enough but plenty. I will eat cake in the morning and pancakes at night if I feel like it. I will skip dinner and just have the ice cream. I will not eat meat unless it is raised and killed humanely. I will love another person because of who they are not what. I don't care what they identify themselves as so long as they are kind and true. I will go to bed when I am tired and wake when I am rested. I will watch intelligent shows when I watch tv. I will live in the books that I read and delight in the characters and their adventures.

I will cry when I am sad and I will laugh when happy. I will have my emotions and enjoy that I can feel now. I can feel the pain I am in and even though it hurts so much, this must be better than being numb. I will have good days and not so good ones. Hopefully more of the former than the latter.

I will try new things and go new places and take risks. I will be fucking scared when I do them and I will do them anyway. I will find and create a family who cheers me on even when I fail. And I will cheer them on and love them, too.

These are promises to myself. They are here in writing so that I can remind myself that I am so much more than enough as long as I believe in me. I will not simply soldier on. That is not good enough for me. Not anymore. I will thrive.

Lilac:
I agree with MM. The idea of your therapist saying that you need to finish up therapy prior to working on big issues with your immediate family sounds completely irrational and unprofessional. Maybe this therapist doesn't think she/he is helping you. Your therapist or a friend may have a few ideas about therapists who could help you and you should transition to someone who can help you on the next phase of your journey.

I wish you the best of luck as you transition to a new phase.

What the F%^$. I am 46 years old and I spent the bulk of the day crying over the fact that my parents don't love me (or at least I can't tell if they do). When will I stop caring?! They have never been nurturing or loving. I told them that I had been molested when I was a kid about a six weeks ago and haven't heard a single word from them.Nothing!!! Not one word. I am not a parent but I like to think that I would be pretty concerned for my kid no matter what age they were. Intellectually I get that they don't have the skills to be good parents. I get that they may not have had good parents. I am still soooooo pissed off! I have been told that they most likely did the best that they could. Well dear Mommy and Daddy, YOU SUCKED AND STILL SUCK! All I wanted was a simple 'I am so sorry that I didn't protect you.'. Is that so much to ask? It would have made me feel so much better. For them to admit that they fucked up. They were so emotionally absent, it could have been a form of neglect. I don't know why I keep going back to the well, looking for nurturing and love. It is not there. Never was and never will be. How can I stop this agony? Can I cut them off? They are aging rapidly and will be needing more and more help. I feel resentful. Why should I help them when they never helped me in any way other than clothing and feeding me? Quite frankly, I think that is a parents' duty. An obligation one takes on when one decides to procreate.

Fuck! I feel so alone tonight. I feel like a child when I think of how much I want my mom and dad to be different. To be kind and caring. To think I am the moon and the stars the way they think my brother is. I know they don't understand me. I have tried and tried to talk to them about my life and the way I see the world but I feel as if it is falling on a barren patch of sand. I feel as if I do all of the work and they sit back on their throwns, waiting for me to tell them what it is they need to do to 'fix' me. Well, I am NOT broken!!! I am a good person. I am loving and loyal and so caring. I yern to make the world a kinder and more loving place. I want to save the world! I am not sure how on a grand scale but I do know that doing random acts of kindness has helped. I must do more! I must consider kindness as my superpower!

How do we know if someone loves us? I love you is such and easy phrase to say but not to mean. It is a lot like I'm sorry. People throw those two phrases around like they are nothing. I love pizza. I love eating in bed. I love the smell of grass being cut. The word love has been so overused that it seems to have lost it's meaning.

People can say that they love us but how do we know that they really mean it if they never SHOW us? My parents say that they love me but have never shown it. It is such a mind fuck. They spend an entire visit telling me all of the things that they think are wrong with me. My clothes are boring. My hands are dirty ( I am a gardener and my hands will not be 'clean' again until December.). My hair is wrong. I am too fat. I am too thin. My knees are dirty. (Again, the gardening thing.) I am not eating what they think I should. It goes on and on. Then, at the end of the visit, they say they love me. What the fuck IS that?! I am so shocked that I have no idea what to say. I have been counting the minutes until I can leave and have no desire to prolong the visit with a conversation about the logic involved. All I can think of to say is 'Are you fucking kidding me?' but that seems pretty unproductive.

I don't know what love really feels like. I have never been in love. I have had secret crushes on people, both male and female, but they have never loved me back that I know of. I have never had a nurturing relationship other than in therapy. I have read books and books on love but I still don't know what it FEELS like. It can't be the way it is in movies, can it? Does it feel the same way as we feel about our pets? I love my dog and am staying alive solely to take care of her. I love her to the moon and back a million times. I would never do anything to hurt her. I want her to have the best life possible. Is that thee way it is supposed to feel with humans when we love them?

What is love anyway?

Lilac wrote:I love my dog and am staying alive solely to take care of her.

If your dog keeps you alive, then I love your dog too!

Please take care, please keep striving, I know it is tiring, we here are cheering for you!

Thanks MM. I really needed to see that today. I am so very tired.