Please don't post on Facebook.
Hi IM's
I am not a mum myself. I am 25. I come from big family. I will struggle to explain myself but I need your help. This is not the whole story, but a very basic outline...
I am clinically depressed, struggle with mental sharpness, and either pushed away people in my life for fear of them finding out my own struggles/ insecurities, or just generally have not made/ kept friendships because I struggle to know how.
The last few years I have been so full of anxiety my body struggled to cope, I was hospitalized with a chronic disease 6 months ago, for two weeks,. I was told my situation was so severe I would have died from blood loss if I had not made it to the hospital. I had many doctor appointments for the previous two years and doctors struggled to figure out my condition, they knew I had inflammation but kept telling me it was nothing too serious. So it felt like a last plea to finally get to a hospital having lost so much blood during one night of agonizing pain.. It's ridiculous that I was so alone on that journey, I don't really understand today, how it was overlooked so. I am now seeing an IBD psychologist that the doctors have put me onto, who is trying to help me with my anxiety, but I am struggling to open up to him, and to know what to say and how to say it to him. I fear he won't believe me, or mark me as stupid or dumb because I feel so dumb, and because my life sounds so unbelievable, it sounds ridiculous. I am so hurt and broken. I just need help. Please hear me out.
The way I was raised was strict, but not much discipline, we were told a lot of things, it was confusing. I was home schooled until yr 9. in which i had a very anti social upbringing and no friends. and a very patchy education. I had two amazing cousins, who I completely loved and were my absolute soul mates, but our parents did not get along and tore us apart at age 10. It was very hard as they were literally my only friends. They moved away, and honestly have not seen them since.
My relationship with my Dad is a huge factor here. We didn't have one. I barely had one with my Mum. It's quite hard to explain, my parents are generous, good hearted people. But they are anti social, and have seemed to struggle with offering emotional needs to me and my siblings all through our life. I was raised religious, and when i was put into school in yr.9 I was told never to make friends for fear that i might be influenced by these friends and therefore lose the faith I was given. This did not make sense to me, seeing that, how can we be a beacon of light ourselves if we hide and don't face the world, get to know it, and understand it and others in it?. This sentence was literally spoken to me, more than once. I was not to make friends. It was not possible for me to do this, it was an absurd thing to ask of a 15 year old. I struggled. I managed to get through school, stumbling on subjects, building social anxiety and making no friends.. By yr 12, I had made friends, good friends, but I had always kept them so distant. I was not so close with them, and I only just scraped through my subjects, i got very low scores.This broke me as I knew it was deeply ingrained in me because I was still trying to be loyal to Mum and Dad. These friendships now, have basically faded. I have not been the friend to them that I could have been, or should have and I do not have the friends now that i need.
I was never directed where to go after school, there was just no help, support, guidance i struggled completely to decide a career or even where to go and what to do, since as well, being so anti social we just had no connections that I could even stay with, rent with, that could help me get on my feet, etc. I had to make my own. and I actually did but my attempts failed soo many times, I built my life, got a career, worked hard, had a house, actually made a few friends, but not really, 3 different times I built my life a new, but something always came along and seemingly took away from me, and this is the 3rd time it has happened, since being unwell. I have no energy to get up and go again. I don't know what to do.
We were often verbally abused growing up and punished for things we didn't do, at least yelled at and ordered to do things and be obedient. this is sounding horrible, I am trying highlight the parts that have damaged me, there was a bright and warm side to my family and my childhood life, which i do love, i love my family but it was like, we would run and hide whenever we saw Dad come home. we were afraid. I grew up with fear.
I struggle with my life now, because I have emotional damage from my whole life that I just don't know how to address. I struggle with relationships of all types, and I completely struggle to trust men. I struggle to have faith in people, to not be suspicious. I struggle not to worry about things, I struggle not to wear the weight of the world on my shoulders. I struggle with my personality being so timid, shy, and introverted. I struggle because I just want to be loved and cared for, to be special to somebody and I have no idea how or where to start. I need help.
1 Replies
Oh Hun, my heart broke for you reading this. You sound so incredibly lonely, sending big hugs to you Xx.
I can relate to what you're saying quite alot too, growing up I was predominantly raised by my mum. She had a lot of undiagnosed mental illnesses (recently diagnosed).
She just didn't have the capacity to give us what we needed emotionally, she was quite often verbally abusive towards us in a way to take out her anger and just a lack of coping mechanisms, she was also very anti social so we missed out on a lot of typical childhood experiences because these sort of things meant she'd have to interact with other people(we went to mainstream school but things like playdates, birthday parties, sporting activities and the like we usually missed out on), this left me always feeling like a bit of an outsider which was hard for a kid who's very shy anyway. She was also very paranoid and cynical about people and taught us to be as well.
It has taken me a long time to get away from all of that, to learn how to interact with people and to trust them and open myself up to new friendship posibilties. It's hard but it isn't impossible sweetheart.
Please continue with you counselling and just let the words spew out, doesn't matter if the don't make sense or if they're relevant, these people are there to help - they don't want you to say what you think they want to hear, they want you to talk about anything that is bothering you. They definitely won't judge you!
I would also have a look on facebook for an IBD support page, just so you can see you're not alone. A dear friend of mine has IBD, she goes through hell sometimes (even with support from family and friends) so I can't imagine how you must be feeling. You may also find it easier to open up online because there's no face to face interaction.
Is reaching out to your siblings and/or cousins a possibility? Your siblings probably need you as much as you need them, especially if they're still living at home.
I wish you all the best darling, take care of yourself. Things will start looking up 💜