I'm a 37 year old social worker from Germany. I have been listening to the podcast since about 2016 and it has been a tremendous influence. It is definitely a waiting room that doesn't suck!
I have struggled with low-grade depression all my life, which has flared up and gotten worse again und again. In the last five years it was so bad, that I had to change something or I would commit suicide. I have been in therapy and gotten into writing a journal. I have not given meds a try, since I'm really afraid of the side-effects and because my psychologist advised against it. Through the podcast I have gotten into a couple of books, that have given me a voice to get closer to the core of my "problems".
In my opinion, I suffer from C-PTSD. My parents split up when I was under 1 year old. My birth dad is foreign to me, since he was not in my life consistently while I was growing up. My mom got together with my step dad when I was about one and a half. He proceeded to abuse me emotionally and sometimes physically during my childhood and most of my teenage years. My mom was absent most of the time, if not physically than emotionally. All my parents have their own demons to manage and in my opinion are to stuck in there own head to give children what is nowadays believed to be crucial: emotional nourishment. I have seven younger half-siblings, two on my mothers side (from my step dad, I grew up with them) and 5 on my fathers side (4 different mothers, the two youngest are 10 and 8). Both my parents families have a history of depression/mental illness and addiction. My stepdad was definitely abused in his family. My father was sexually abused as a child over several years. So now I'm stuck with this legacy, which manifests itself in my life as a couple of very "fun" things:
depression,anxiety, binge eating, love/sex-addiction, video-games addiction.
This is all for now. Maybe I will write more later. Thanks for reading.
