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Relationships+mental illness+addiction

Old 04-10-2012, 06:56 AM
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Relationships+mental illness+addiction

Sigh...

I occasionally read the Family and Friends forum here. Occasionally only because I find it very painful to read.

I find myself full of anger and frustration when I read it. I can identify with both "sides" of relationships in addiction. I am not pretending that I was a charm to live with, not with my mental illness, nor the couple of years of active substance abuse. But he is who he is as well.

My current boyfriend is an alcoholic, and while I don't think he is mentally ill, he does suffer depression and multiple addictions. Maybe that's the same thing, I really don't know.

I had no clue he was an addict when I met and began dating him, at least not consciouly. When I realized it, I figured I didn't deserve any better, after all, look at what I am. No normal guy should be saddled with me.

My ABF is not a bad man, he is a lonely scared angry lost man. I am a lonely scared angry lost woman. We are attempting to find our way, with varying success and failure as time goes by.

Should I dump him until or unless he gets into a solid recovery program? Honestly, even if he did, I wouldn't be encouraged to think it's going to make much difference. I've been in recovery for three years and I don't seem to have made much progress. I may not drink and drug to excess but I'm still pretty nutty.

I don't know how to have a "normal" relationship. I don't know how to be grown up and self sufficient and "ok". Relationships bring out the best and worst in me. I feel like, with the booze and pills, I need to just NOT go there.

If I can't moderate my use of those substances, how can I believe I can learn to moderate myself in relationships?

On F&F forum I read posts about how selfish, narcissistic, immature, lying, thieving, a-holes we addicts are. And who am I to disagree? My own sense of guilt and shame is not misplaced.

It's impossible to have a relationship with me. I know this from trying to have my own relationship with me. So what happens now?

Has anyone out there with mental illness and addiction been able to maintain a healthy relationship?

My ABF and I have worked out some half assed deal where he is able to pull together a semi sober day once a week or so and we have a nice date and sex, then he isolates with beer for another 6 days. It's not perfect, but it's something.

I do the same thing as far as my extended family and kids go. I live 2000 miles away and only keep occasional contact with them, when I can pull it together and act normal. Then I retreat into my lonely hell and try not to bug anyone until I can behave myself.

Is this the best I can hope for?
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Old 04-12-2012, 08:24 AM
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First of all, alcoholism is a mental illness, classified thus by the American Medical Association. And, a huge percent of alcoholics (both recovering and not) also suffer from other mental illnesses like depression.

But this must be about you. There is nothing you can do or say that will affect his drinking and it's good to know that alcoholism is a progressive disease. Is this what you want for yourself in life? Because it isn't going to get any better than this (unless he gets sober for his own reasons). A really great place to learn how to "moderate" relationships is Al-anon, which can be a life saver. I hope you try it.
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Old 04-15-2012, 07:44 AM
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NYC,

You make good points. Right now, unfortunately, I am feeling really apathetic about pretty much everything, with bizarre spurts of anger, then more apathy.

Post divorce paralyses? Depression...for sure. On meds etc, seeing doc tomorrow.

What I want for myself, I see through a misty haze. I want to curl up and rest. I want a "normal" life, but have no idea how to get it. I want to feel some hope that THIS time, my investment of my whole self into something isn't going to go bust. I've had that happen in many many many areas of my life in the past five years. Nearly everything I'd spent decades building, went bust.

I hope this is a temporary state, part of a normal grieving process, but I worry that it may not be. What if I don't pull out?

Is this what I want for my life? No, not really, but I've learned pretty bluntly that what I want for my life doesn't much matter. I feel like this is the best I can hope for. That at the end of the day, after all I've worked for, hoped for, invested in. this is what I have.

I am grateful for this much right now.

I feel like that must be wrong...but don't know. I mean, I really really really put myself into so many good things. And I was so grateful, lived that gratitude. Mental illness strikes again and poof! all gone.

I don't know where to find the motivation to do this over and over and over again.
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Old 04-15-2012, 12:02 PM
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oh wow.
this theme of trauma and losses despite best efforts and so weary, wary, TIRED of it and starting over again that I just can't seem to find my "give a damn" wound up being the topic of my last therapy session Friday.
and it wasn't on my planned agenda of things to discuss.
Neither guilt nor apathy work out as coping mechanisms.
I put what little energy I do have into my wellness plan.
It is SLOW going. LMAO.
My assignment is to go back and explore when I last had my "give a damn" how I lost it and etc.
I came home with that thought and had the urge to send my therapist an email that says "damn you!" and he is an uber kind gentle sort of guy. hahahahaha
Because: I know the answer vaguely and where I have to go to look....right straight to that very most wounded and unhealed place/event that uprooted me much as a tornado does a tree and just as suddenly and unexpectedly.
And I really would PREFER to treat it like a tornado and just toss or bury the debris.
In the mean time I HAVE brought positives into my life, so now I want to be able to enjoy and invest in them.
Life is difficult and messy. Far moreso when a mental illness is involved. I have bipolar I, non-psychotic but go straight into ever worse mixed episodes when unwell. Um, I think maybe they are a form of psychotic????
I really really cannot afford in any part of me to get that unwell again.
I really feel I could have written much of your last post.
mental illness episodically blowing up my life and non recovery from my last divorce, but I do from all my time spent here and in counseling have very firm boundaries about not letting intoxicated people in my life. It is too damaging and disturbing to me.
I did choose as my new mate a very very good person who also has mental health issues.
letting family go due to their expectations and demands and/or disrespect & abuse has been an ongoing thing in counseling for 25 years. we are pretty clearly in different places in our lives and our paths don't intersect much, if at all. that has been most certainly a process that changes all the time.

wishing you peace and wellness, glad your are seeing your dr.
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Old 04-15-2012, 01:34 PM
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Thanks Live...need to hear that I am not JUST a whiner..though I own that often enough I am one.

I am teeter tottering wondering if my current state of mind is acceptance or giving up.

I read on that other thread, someone's response about suicide, suicidal feelings that no survivors of a suicide (I mean the friends and families of) EVER say "boy are we glad that;s over with, we were tired of dealing with their shenanegans"

well, not trying to be a jerk, but I HAVE heard that. My brother in law committed suicide many years ago, and yeah, we were glad he and WE were at peace, he clearly wasn't getting better.

I'm not advocating suicide or making excuses, but mentally ill people have a chronic sometimes fatal disease. And we address it as best as we can for as long as we can, but sometimes people die of it, and sometimes it's a relief to those around them. I'm not talking about dude who suddenly overdoses cause he lost his job, I'm talking about people who have decades of serious episodes of mental illness behind them. and their friends and family are worn out of trying to help or save them.

I don't think suicide is the answer, and yet I woke up this morning plotting one. Why? No clue. Nothing wrong with me, nice day, day off, everything is fine. I'm suicidal. Makes no sense to anyone, I understand, it makes no sense to ME either, but there it is the sort of crap I have to keep mum about and "fight" day in and day out.

I don't want to die, I don't want to kill myself. I want the voices to stop. I want the hallucinations to go away. I want the messed up hopeless paranoia to dissipate. I want to stop slashing words into my flesh. I want to be able to hold a job that maximizes my skills and talents. I want a healthy relationship.

I don't want bad things.

People talk about their jobs, grandkids, hobbies, health all the time, and it's ok. But if you're problem is mental health, better shut the F up about it, because people get real antsy and angry real quick.

I'm not saying I blame them, but when I hear the laundry list of "what to do if you're suicidal" it burns me up. The only people I've ever found it OK to actually talk to is the suicide hotline. Therapists are bound to have me locked up. Anonymity is the name of the game. Real people get angry or scared off.

if there was a point to my post I lost it. I feel real discouraged
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Old 04-15-2012, 03:29 PM
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hey, I am manicy from med change and I am here to talk with you all you want.

I got a new caseworker a few months ago. She was really exasperated and called me out on that my earlier treatment goal had been only this: get my meds right and stay the hell out of the hospital!!! My news for her is that is still numero uno for me.

Trial and error we found out that remeron removes any suicidal thinking for me....I have come to be a true believer in that state of mind is very much chemical and there is little chance of any treatment helping until that is completely addressed properly and that is a humongous thing in and of itself. It takes a clear mind to work on any issues.

Your meds aren't working for you. That is not a character defect or fault for you to carry as one. NORMAL people do not wait until they are in so much pain they are ready to die of it or plagued with it to go to a hospital. You are NOT whining. Since one of my MAIN and BASIC goals is to stay the hell out of the hospital, I have to keep a keen eye out for trouble and RUN not walk to tell on myself. You are doing that tomorrow.

The meds runaround is absolute hell, everyone I know utterly loathes it for very good reasons. We have found a regimen that keeps me safe and has had me healing but I am still wanting to change it up for numerous reasons. One is so that I can qualify to sell plasma!!! I NEED some income that badly.......if I were ABLE to work, I sure would prefer to have that normal option.

FWIW my wealthy sister takes care of the family by paying for my private pdr so that there is not another suicide (or the risk and fear of one) in the family. I am grateful and very dependent upon that help. I am realistic enough finally to full on be pursuing disability. It sucks. But I don't have to like my sister because she does this and in fact....I don't like her. She is all about power and control and has an alcohol centered lifestyle.

I have the best neighbors in the world.an older couple, she sure has been good to me and I am not available to give back in the same way. but they were outside when I was going to my pdr Friday and I stepped up to say hi to them, told them I was headed to my dr and he joked that I needed a head dr. I didn't miss a beat, said as a matter of fact that is just where I WAS going. LOL, I am outside and not in my pajamas...something must be going on
They really like us because the previous folks who lived here had a domestic abuse situation and they were subjected to hearing all that filth and at times could not even let their grandkids out on the porch.
We are real peaceful, all our pains are internal.
And I could get dressed better if my meds had not put a ton of weight on me until I really did not have anything to wear nor funds to purchase a wardrobe.

I guess this is where being a faithful codie comes in handy , I can think up a million realistic reasons to be depressed but give me a glimmer of hope and I will hang onto that hope for potential with all I got.......I am just doing it to me rather than someone else and I am fully compliant with my treatment program so it gets called being in recovery.

I really understand being discouraged......going for help for decades, misdiagnosed, misprecribed and not knowing any better, thinking it was all my fault and HATING Those damned ads that said depression is treatable...see your dr. Made me want to puke and spit at the ad and both at the same time....and now the gross irony that it seems to be true but has just been THAT hard for me to find and get. and at the same time slobberingly grateful for modern neuroscience!

Turns out mine is treatment resistant and having been the lab rat enough to qualify to be able to check off almost everything as a "yup, tried that"....it makes it LESS likely that any of those meds will work for me, if I go off one that is working....I can't later come back and expect it to do the same thing....work for me again.

I have never phoned the hotline, glad to hear from you that they are good listeners.
finding a sense of humor, however warped it may be, keeps me from going over the edge most of the time.

((((hugs)))))))
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Old 04-16-2012, 08:13 AM
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Ok, I've responded to this TWICE and SR ate my posts...so. time to go to the dr. A big thanks for your post and share. Just the sort of thing I need right now.
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