Originally Posted by
Tamsin 
And to add to that 90% of the time I think I am insane. I don't even know what my own truth is and I have zero confidence in my own perceptions.... lol!....it's not a good place to be! Whereas neither my mum or dad or any of my brothers or sisters have ever been diagnosed with a mental health problem or been admitted to hospital or anything. It's so frustrating
Originally Posted by
Tamsin and i have and everyone knows that
I have found in the past that I, too, mistrusted my own perceptions. If anybody (including my kids) ever told me I was wrong and I should see it their way, I always doubted myself.
Ironically, I think what finally helped me was when things got so bad with my (now ex) husband's lying and hiding, when I found proof and bit by bit realized I could trust my own perceptions. ...when I went to a priest and he strongly validated there was something terribly wrong in my marriage, that it wasn't just my misperception.
No, it's not a good place to be.
My advice is to spend your time with friends and co-workers who treat you with respect and as a worthwhile human being. Spend time alone. I find prayer has helped a great deal because eventually, although I didn't trust myself much, I did trust God and figured after that much prayer, if I were really causing problems, He would have clued me in by then!
I've found gratitude lists and focusing on my own life very helpful. There's a site called 43things.com that really helped me a lot.
I also highly recommend EMDR therapy if you can find someone who practices it. It's for post traumatic stress disorder, which frankly, I think many of us have.
I also found it helpful to finally see
why I mistrusted my own perceptions. It's a natural result of years of being told nothing is what I think it is, being told I'm wrong again, being told I messed up and am at fault again, even being told that the reason I said I did something really wasn't the reason--my mother truly acted like she knew my heart and mind better than I did, and as a child, we trust our parents, we
believe they really know everything. So I kept trying to learn from her (ha!) and do better.
It helped to see there was a reason for the way I was, and to start unraveling those threads.
I personally think that if any of us here have been diagnosed with mental issues, it's a result of what was done to us. I know that I am only slowly overcoming a slight degree of paranoia, which is a very natural result of years of my ex-husband's mind games. I know the truth, I don't feel a need to convince anyone else it's his fault, and I just keep moving down the road of healing.