Spacegoat

I dunno what triggered it but I had a rough day today

"It's an awful mess" - cops

Coming from a dysfunctional family is a life sentence

happybeingme

Sorry to hear that. Want to talk about it?

Spacegoat

I'm just suffering happybeingme

happybeingme

Well. That is a rather vague comment. You still isolating? Haven't seen you here in a while. Could you maybe try visiting and posting a little more frequently?

Spacegoat

Ok I'l try. As for isolating well, it's nothing new.

I have been posting a bit on the other side recently.

I had some good days but everything comes back to this.

happybeingme

Be kind to yourself. I have no contact with my mom going on a year now and I still have good days and bad days. I find it hard at times to fully accept its her and not me. I have spent nearly a lifetime not liking myself much and still struggle at times to not think it is my fault. I just keep reminding myself I was little girl. A little girl. I should have never been elevated to friend and confidante.

You too Stratman. You should have been loved and protected.

Spacegoat

I thought you were longer than that. Be kind to yourself, well that's one I have heard a lot over the years. I have mixed felling myself, sigh.

I've never felt comfortable in my own skin either. Save for where alcohol was, involved which has always lead me into some sort of trouble.

My mother used to buy me girly teen mags from the time I could read. I think she wanted a girl. She got me hooked on cigarettes from age 12.


That's how long she has been trying to kill me now. But of course, I'm the scapegoat. A bad son and all that, and people actually believe this ****

And she will turn on my other sibling too if they ever try to become self empowered and are no longer any use to her, that's what happened to me.

I'm totally frustrated with it all this ****. I'm half tempted to get my freak on and give some people a piece of my mind! https://youtu.be/_Ass0vbwujo

happybeingme

I will be four years sober June 12. I started working on my family of origin stuff about two years ago. I think it was last July I went no contact with my mom. I will also be 43 in August and have two adult children. So, yeah sometimes I get really mad at myself for wasting so much time not addressing this stuff sooner. For suffering from depression, for a whole bunch of stuff. So, I remind myself over and over if I were my friend I would be kind, gentle and sympathetic to myself. It's a pain but for me the alternative is death. At the end of my drinking I had become very suicidal. I will NEVER go there again. I do deserve better.

Spacegoat

Wow 4 years is great, well done. I can see why the NC is still raw then. Yeah I hear that, went through some major depression myself and ended up totally suicidal.

Actually it had been creeping in from a young age, the depression that is. I actually tried to hang myself a few times when I was about 10, nobody knows about that.

Offa my bunkbed with a belt, I had a letter wrote out. I started to get high on some asthma inhalers that were lying around then shortly after. You do deserve better.

happybeingme

So do you. Just remember it took a lifetime to get where you are it will take time to heal. Trust me. Despite still having bumps at times my life is so much better than I ever hoped it could be. You will get there as well.

Spacegoat

I used to believe that happy but now I dunno. Thats what I'm saying, it has been a life sentence already with no end in sight.

I used to seek some solace in believing I would start my own family someday. But that didn't work out and has passed me by.

Thats when I went from suffering in silence to being no longer able to hide it. I just have nothing left now or to look forward to.

Soberpotamus

Stratman, try and keep an open mind if you can. Nothing has truly passed you by yet. You can still have a family.

Have you gotten back into therapy and looked into medication for your depression?

Spacegoat

Well according to the last girl I dated I can't. "Who is going to want me now with 2 kids and no prospects in life hahaha" in her own words.

I am open minded obviously and always have been. I was so open minded one time that my brain almost fell out. I'm also a realist by times.

We were all talking about therapy in another thread but the replies fizzled out. I'm not as depressed as I was, suffering is the correct word.

Soberpotamus

Gotcha. Well, I've thought you were open-minded in general, Strat. I mean, sometimes our vision can be clouded when we look at our own lives, you know?

Spacegoat

I don't really actually. I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Could you please enlighten me.

Soberpotamus

I mean that one can be open minded in many ways and in different areas. Close-minded in others. Kind of like with intelligence - some have gifts in math, some in music, verbally, and so on.

I am saying that it's hard to see clearly if you are depressed It can be hard to see the bigger picture, to be objective... especially if you are feeling down about your life or yourself... you might not see the possibilities that are in store.

Just saying... trust that things are going to work out if you stay sober and take care of yourself.

Spacegoat

I'm still not entirely sure what you are getting at. I wasn't sure if you were trying to minimize my sufferings.

Because, I have had a lot of that too. Admittedly most of it based on assumptions, because I never verbalized.

Again though I'm not depressed. Unless that depression is the same thing as suffering, or only a minor part of it.

Soberpotamus

Strat, I am not at all attempting to minimize your sufferings.

I won't keep trying to encourage you anymore. I am actually regretful.

I do wish you well though.

Spacegoat

I didn't say that you were, I said I wasn't sure. Because that has been an all too common occurrence for me.

I'm just not sure what it is you are trying to encourage me with. Yes, I do know a fair deal about depression.

Personally I think there is an element of feeling sorry for oneself to it which is something I try hard to resist.

makomago

In a recent episode of 'disconnect' with the world - I use that word because I too didn't feel depressed, I don't have a better word but I felt an absence of peace and serenity - I started journalling.

Nothing fancy. I had a small'ish note pad which I could carry. At the front of the book I wrote a series of positive affirmations e.g. I am safe, I will recover, I can recover, I am good enough, I can love and accept myself. That sort of thing, but all positive stuff.

In the back of the book I wrote what I was feeling, what was happening, what specifically was bothering me and sometimes what was bothering me was that I didn't know what was bothering me. So it became a bit 'free format' and I wrote about anything. Sometimes an insight came and sometimes it didn't. Sometimes it just gave rise to a new thing I felt not good about, so I journalled a positive affirmation on that.

I got so bad at one point I even followed some unsolicited advice :-) And just prayed for strength, I may have been better praying for wisdom but at the time I thought I was too smart for that (oh the irony).

Anyway, that's what I did and I found it helped. If it didn't help, it certainly didn't harm.

I wish you well and take it easy mon ami