Feeling anxious about home

[Curious77]

Hello all,

I thought I would give these forums a try because I feel anxious every time I go home because I have come to the conclusion that my father is psychologically abusing me, continually harassing me and lying to me and not allowing me peace in general by trying to get me upset all the time. I am on a low income and I do not think too well because I stress out easily and feel overwhelmed by it all. I do not know how to get myself out of this and I do not have any close friends or family because of my father's behaviour and my own low self esteem and feelings of worthlessness. I can not remember the last time I was happy to be alive and connected to the world around me and I would like that to change.

[Aaronsis]

Hi A

Hope that you are well and that you are now being able to enjoy some of the easing of restrictions here in Melbourne, it sure does make a big difference.

I have been able to visit the beach and also some of my friends which is just so good, the small things have really turned out to be the big things this year.

My kids are back at school and so that is a huge relief for both them, as they can be with their friends and get their education back on track, and also for me and I don't have to be the bad teacher who knows nothing and gets frustrated..lol

Also starting to think about Christmas and what that will look like, I am hoping that we continue on the right track and that we can keep the borders open and be able to have family together at this time. My dad is coming from NSW on the very day that they open the borders so I am super excited to see him.

How are things going with you A? I hope you are well and that you have been able to do some things that make you feel good too. How is your mum going?

Looking forward to chatting soon

Hugs as always

Sarah

[Curious77]

Hello Sarah,

What a year we have had and only another couple of weeks till Xmas. I think this year people will just be greatful that they got through and nothing like other years where people are just tired from their schedule and just forget things for a week or two.
To be honest with you I just change the subject now whenever my mum tries to bring up anything to do with my state of mind and just move the topic onto just everyday stuff because her attitudes towards mental health just leave me devistated and drained and it is just too much for me. To her it is like there are no problems and issues to process and everything that has happened to me is nothing it just makes me feel like I am invisible and that nothing that I feel is real. I actually feel extremely lonely if I talk about it with her and that I am weird so best just not go there. Her attitudes sort of remind me of psychiatric theories in some circles that nothing of what your feeling is real and it is only chemicals only in a religious way in her case. You can see the confusion on her face about why I am in this state actually. She obviously is not capable of seeing things from my perspective and thinks that I should be happy as she sees the situation.
I hope that the hypnotherapy and other strategies are working for you to process the thoughts and feelings that you are having about your mother. I hope that you got together with your dad as you enjoy his company so that has to help with your general mood. Not being in lockdown certainly helps too. What a couple of years you have had so I am sure you are shocked about how different your world has become which is very hard to deal with.
Thanks for listening to me and I hope you are in a good place Sarah,

Hugs to you
A.

[Aaronsis]

Hey A

It is great to chat with you some more. It has been awhile since we have chatted and I have been taking some time to do me, to work on my things and to fill my cup up so to speak. It would be really silly to try to give you tips and tricks to mental wellbeing if I was not doing them myself, so yeah, the hypnotherapy was sooo incredibly wonderful and I feel like a whole other person. I really went into the first session not thinking it was really going to work for me but I was so surprised and so happily shocked to be not only able to engage in the sessions but to benefit from them so greatly. She was so awesome and really helped with things I didn't even know I needed to deal with.

It really has been a roller coaster of a year and with so many different things thrown at each of us and then COVID on top of it all, as well as the bush fires ...what a year..I am sure next year is going to be awesome, it has to be the recovery year when we can look at the things we took for granted and appreciate them more.

I really think you have come so far with learning about your mother, how she responds to you and to mental ill health and how well you are putting things in place to protect yourself from her beliefs and her inability to support you. This does not make her a bad person or a nasty person, this just makes her not one of your support people in this space and that is ok. She has many other roles in your life that are good and she can keep thriving in that space with you, as long as you have other people to support you in your metal health journey....I am so proud of you A. Although it must hurt when she does look at you as though you are weird, I hope you know though, you are certainly not weird. Feeling lonely or feeling sad, having ill mental heath and having trauma does not make you weird, it makes you human really...there are so many of us with our own battles we endure, so many....but we are not weirdos A!

I too am kinda of freaked out at how quickly Christmas is coming, it comes at the same time every year but I find myself always running out of time..lol...a quiet Christmas for me this year which will be nice, just with family and then we head off to camping.

So wonderful to chat to you again A and I hope you are doing really well.

Hugs

Sarah xx

[Curious77]

Hello Sarah,

I hope you had a wonderful Xmas and New year. Hopefully the camping was good too and no dramas as camping trips can sometimes turn into an unexpected TV show like situation!
It is good that people are more aware of mental health and when people are struggling but I suppose we have a long way to go with the weirdo stuff. For example it is good that people are depressed but it is not good when they don't listen to the person and make them feel marginalised or when they just tell them to forget about and make them feel weird. You don't want the person to forget about it because they might fall back into a similar situation for a start.
I was listening to this woman who was being told to forget about what her husband did to her financially but how can you forget when you are still cleaning up the mess and it will take years to do so? So she felt alone and with a huge task in front of her with no support and only people blaming her or not supporting her. Maybe all our Christmas resolutions should be to practice putting ourselves in other people's shoes, better listening and less judging to help people mentally.
I am really pleased with your hypnotherapy and how good it has been for you. You can tell from your last post that it has really lightened your mind and let the light into your spirit. You sound much healthier so we'll done to you!
Hugs to you Sarah
A.

[Aaronsis]

Hey A

Great to hear from you again and yes, I did have a really lovely Christmas, thank you. My dad was able to come to Melb from NSW and he had lunch with us which we didn't think was going to be able to happen so that was so great. It was originally going to be a small lunch with just myself and my grandmother and my kids and then it blew up into a larger family gathering, so I was super happy about that as it does not happen often.

I hope that you also had a lovely Christmas and were able to spend it with people who make you happy too.

I did head off camping and we had to do the mad dash home as the borders were going to close, we left NY's day so we avoided the long lines, also due to being in such a remote area we only had to get tested and isolate until we got a negative result, so I was thrilled not to have to isolate for 14 days!

Being told to "forget about it" I find not to be that useful of information to tell a person with trauma to do. If it was that simple well everyone would just "forget about it"....I also don't think the trauma is ever really forgotten, we just learn, with help and guidance to manage the feelings and to make some sort of peace with the events that took place. To be able to understand that it was not your fault and to be kind to yourself too.

I love the idea of putting yourself in others shoes, I think it is called compassion or maybe empathy!! The only thing we have to watch is that we don't "take on" the pain and the issues of others and add it to our basket so then we are then left with a full basket of pain that we can't manage. Does that make sense?

Thank you so much for your support and your words around my hypnotherapy, it really has made a HUGE difference to me and to how I am thinking and processing and even just getting through small obstacles in my life, it really is like I have new eyes...I will be forever grateful to her for her time with me.

How are you going and what have you been up to?

Do you have some goals for this year?

Looking forward to chatting again soon A

Huge hugs to you

Sarah

[Curious77]

Hello Sarah,

I hope you had a lovely summer break before the start of another school year. I was hoping that covid would be a thing of the past by now but it seems to still be around. Hopefully there won't be more lock downs and torturous home schooling experiences!
I have spent the past month reading books about how trying to interact with selfish people always leads to your emotional reserves running out and you end up burning out and needing to heal or you just end up walking away because you can't cope anymore. As you pointed out in your last post, it can also happen if you take on too much pain from other people because you want to help them but you end up burning out so you both end up burned out.
As it turns out in the books that I was reading it is people like my father who keep draining people of energy all the time and not giving emotionally to others that leads to a life time of broken friendships and relationships because it is all just take and take and take. In one book that I was reading it gave some great advice that I should have received a lot earlier in my life. And that is you should always monitor whether the people in your life leave you feeling worse emotionally or better. If both people find each other uplifting, then you have a life long friend and let go of people who make you feel worse because it will always lead to broken hearts and feelings.
I think thinking like this is a good way to stay away from people like my father and not waste time with people who don't care about you and only care about themselves.
Thanks for listening as always.
Big hugs for you Sarah.
A.

[Aaronsis]

Hi A

So wonderful to hear from you again, and just as you were saying that we are hopeful of a school year without more lockdowns and home schooling, here we are just coming out of another stint. Well I can say that I am grateful it was only two days of home schooling so that was not too stressful for any of us, however if it had of been longer it may have been a very different story!

That is so great that you are doing so much reading up on different things and seeing how they relate to your life and people around you, and yes your father too! You are so very right, the people that are the takers are the ones that usually have the biggest struggles too...in that they are not aware or don't know how to give or to support others or maybe have no desire to, or maybe are so stuck in their own mud that all they can do is reach out to others, which in turn is taking and taking. It is hard to be a giver all the time too and that is why we do have to watch our selves and make sure that as givers we take some time at least to make sure we are ok, that we have our cups full and that we are doing the best we can too.

It is a great lesson to learn about others and very true too that some people that we have around us are not good for our energy or our mental well being. It is ok to eliminate people from our lives that do tax us and even sometimes if these people are family too, that does in no way mean they are excused from being eliminated either. If we would not accept the behaviors from our friends then why would we accept them just because they are family?

You really are making such great progress A in your awareness and your knowledge in behaviors and in people and this can only lead to good choices for you for the people that you have in your life moving forward. I think you have had enough pain in your past to now take what is good for you, you deserve that for your self.

It is so great to chat to you some more and I hope that you have some great things planned now that we are out of our mini lockdown and can get back to doing a few more things in society.

Huge hugs to you A

Sarah xxx

[Curious77]

Hello Sarah,

This years easter has turned out to be more normal then anybody was expecting and a school holidays that is actually a holiday instead of everybody feeling like they are in jail so enjoy. Good to see lots of kids out and about this week enjoying themselves!
I have been trying to get back into the rhythm of things but I am finding the pressures of the whole social security system a bit frustrating because I don't think they are hearing what I am saying, or anyone else, and I feel like I am being asked to do things that I am not ready for. For example, they want me to join in weekly groups and talk about my issues but I am not ready to say things in front of strangers as it is still raw. I think they are under the impression that you have to force yourself to get better otherwise life is going to pass you by or something and you will never be job ready. I felt sorry for this poor woman in the group who was obviously worried about somebody saying something that could trigger her because anybody could say anything and it just is not right how the disability support system works. Why are they asking people to come up with a 5 year plan when it just makes them feel worse that they are scared about the future? They are making a lot of people feel worse by putting them into these stressful situations. I think being ignored by a person who is supposedly there to help you but instead invalidating you cannot be good.
Hope you have a great school holidays with the kids Sarah.
A.

[Aaronsis]

Hello A, it is so wonderful to hear from you.

You are so very right in that Easter and the school holidays has a much better feel about it that this time last year, wow, we sure have come such a long way from the world of COVID and what it had in store for us, can you even believe that happened?

I am so sorry to hear that the social security system is proving to be challenging for you, that you feel frustrated and pressure and that you dont feel heard. I am concerned though that you are feeling like you are being made to do things that you are not yet ready for, this is very concerning. I am wondering if the weekly group session is a suggestion and not a requirement? I hope so as you are very right, not everyone is in the right space to be able to discuss things that are going on for them, let alone publicly and let alone with a group of people that they are not familiar with. I am hoping that this is something that they are suggesting and offering but I am also very much hoping it is not a criteria.

Forcing anything never works, and especially with mental health issues, time is what is required, patience and care, love and support and most definitely not pressure or expectations. I feel so very sad for the lady in the group who was just waiting to be triggered, what an awful awful feeling and I hope that she can make a choice for her that she is not ready for such a group yet. The five year plan also sounds like a lot of pressure, time pressure and as we just said, healing and the wellness journey takes time, for some a long long time, for some no time at all but there can not be a limit put on this. I understand if they are suggesting some goals or starting some thinking for things you may like to achieve or a destination that you might like to arrive at but it does feel an awful lot like "you have 5 years to get yourself sorted"....ekkkkk

I am just so glad you are back here and chatting about this and reaching out, my apologies for my tardy reply as yes, kids and school holidays are in full swing. I had some time off to do some things with them but just really day trip type things and going to the movies and things like that.

How are you feeling today? Have you been able to do anything to make you smile or even feel some small sense of joy? I really hope so.

Today I saw the most hilarious cat video so that gave me a huge belly laugh...just what I needed.

So wonderful to hear from you again my friend and chat really soon.

So very proud of you

Sarah xx

[Curious77]

Hello Sarah,

My experiences with the disability employment service are getting more and more worrying about the situation that people face when they enter this system.

I decided to phone up the human services to find out more about how this system is supposed to work and what they basically said was that it depends on who your consultant is and what they want you to do and how they treat you and you have to put up with it otherwise your considered not serious about looking for work and are in breach of the conditions of receiving social security.

Apparently, if you breach enough times, you can lose you payments for months and it is at the discretion of the consultant if this happens. It concerns me that this is not a system that is centred on the person who needs help but on the company with the government contract because there does not seem to many avenues for the client to be heard before making a decision on whether someone is breached. Is it right for a person to lose pay or have their payment stopped while they are waiting for a decision on whether they should have been breached by there consultant. This is a stressful situation to be in and there are no consequences for the consultant if they did the wrong thing themselves, not even a warning or conditions imposed.

They said that if you are lucky you may get a consultant who is qualified in an area of mental health and wants to work with you but this certainly is not gaurenteed because there is no criteria for who they can employ so it could be a person with any background at all! The person may not even know anything about the disability that a person is living with which is worrying.

I feel like I am being ignored by my consultant who does not really engage with me and I am hoping that other people are having a more positive experience!

Funny you should mention cat videos because ever since I became friends with a woman in the USA, I have been getting a constant stream of cat memes.

Thank you for listening to me as always Sarah. I hope things are looking up in your world but I am sure you are managing well with all the tools you have even if they aren't!

Take care

A.