Hello

[24yearoldgirl]

Some of you may remember me from last year I posted on the forum.

Long story short, I've been a carer for my mum who had a brain injury in 2010. I'm now 25 years old, and don't have any friends or career.

I've been isolated, developed depression, anxiety and had many breakdowns.

Well this year, I've been diagnosed with a psychosis, and Schizophreniform disorder. Although I'm not sure I 100% agree.

I was admitted to a hospital ward recently, and forced onto medication, which had horrible side effects for me, to the point where I needed a wheelchair from loss of energy.

Luckily, I'm now back home and not currently on any medications.

I was feeling well for some time, exercising, cleaning the house etc. But more recently I feel loss of motivation to get up and repeat the same activities. Having feelings of depression, and self-sabotage.

Our lease ends in 2 months, My social worker is encouraging me to leave my mum, and go and study next year.

I feel that this constant procrastination over whether I should stay or leave, is not good for my mental health.

Why do I feel so guilty for leaving my mum, why do I feel compassionate towards her, when there were times she hurt me.

Any thoughts? Hope everyone is doing well.

[Sophie_M]

Hi 24yearoldgirl, 

Welcome back to the forums, you are always welcome in this community and we are so glad to have you back and posting again. We are really sorry to hear you are hacing such a tough time right now, we can hear that there is a lot going on in your life. New diagnoses can be difficult to deal with, but it sounds like you are doing lots of good things to support your wellbeing. 

We think that itmight be time to give our phoneline 1300 22 4636 a call so you can talk through some of these feelings with our wonderful and caring team of counsellors. They can help you work on strategies for the moments you feel distressed as well help make a plan for finding community support. 

Caring for your mum sounds like it has had a big impact on your life, especially having to take on that responsibility so young. We recommend checking on the Carers Australia page and seeing what support they can offer. They have a dedicated phoneline and are experts in understanding what you are going through. 

We want you to know how brave we think you are being in sharing your story with us here, it is an incredible step on the journey to feeling better. If you want to, we would be really happy to see an update on how you are feeling when you are ready. 

Kind regards, 
Sophie M

[24yearoldgirl]

Thank you Sophie

I have a support worker every Monday, it’s just the days in between where I struggle to find motivation

I’ll call the beyond blue number if I feel like chatting over the phone sometime

kind regards, Jade

[Gabs_]

Hello 24yearoldgirl,

Firstly, wow - big hugs - you have had to deal with so much at such a young age. I can't even begin to imagine the strength it takes to be a carer for your parent.

There's a lot going on for you and there's a lot to say in response to you post, so I'm going to bullet point it rather than have paragraph upon paragraph:

• So glad to hear you're off the heavy meds - around your age, I was hospitalised and diagnosed with the wrong thing and it was awful. The psychiatrist medicated me up horrendously and I was like a shadow of my former self.
• I think your mental health is telling you that you need to make a decision. My psychiatrist once said to me that "maybe it's the healthy part of your brain telling you that you can't cope anymore". Maybe you are feeling this way, because there is a healthy part of your brain saying "enough - you need to care of you".
• I think no matter what you choose, there will be an element of guilt or regret. Life is unfortunately like that. But you know how deeply you care for your mother (and I'm sure she knows that too) - and I'm sure she would want you to choose the life where you take care of yourself and think about your future. You are still so young, you don't want to miss out enjoying your youth. Just because you go and study, doesn't mean you love your mother any less or that you won't visit her. It just means your life looks a little different to what it has the past few years.
• Maybe you could look at some of the BB stuff on grief and loss? I was in a group session earlier this year and there were some really interesting conversations about wanting the situation to end, but feeling guilt about wanting it to end.
• I think you should also maybe take a look at some self compassion resources for yourself. I really recommend these fact sheets and workbooks (https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Self-Compassion).

You mentioned that there were times that your mother hurt you- do you want to talk about this more? Was/is it lashing out or physical? It can be so hard when the ones we love hurt us - it's understandable that you'd be conflicted...she's your mum, right? And sometimes we can't help but love someone, even when they maybe haven't shown us the same in return.

Let me know if you want to chat more. I'll check over the weekend for you, otherwise, I hope you have a good chat with your support worker on Monday. Please take care of yourself.

G x

[24yearoldgirl]

Hi Gabs_,

thank you so much for your reply, I really appreciate it 🙂

I will reply in further detail tomorrow, and I'll definitely check out the link

hope you have a nice weekend

J x

[Guest9337]

Evning 24yearoldgirl,

It's 0111 am here in the Hills. I haven't read any of your other stuff posted, just this thread.

Psychosis is one of my weird ones actually, can be fixated on threat, or can be wonderous feeling, or hyperstimulated, or rare hallucinations audiotory, visual, tactile, odour too!

re Schizoaffective Disorder, is that what u meant? I got that one diagnosed too.

dng.

[24yearoldgirl]

Happy Sunday everyone,

To Gabs - I'm sorry to hear you had the same experience with medication. My time in hospital was horrible and the meds also made me feel worse than I already was.

I'm definitely thinking about leaving soon when the lease ends, because I know it's the only way for me to move on/forward in life..

My mum can be a little toxic, we had an argument last year, she did lash out at me physically, and also can be manipulative.. It's getting to the point where if I have another breakdown than I would be the one back in a mental health ward or worse, so I think that's a good reason for me to leave.

I do feel better for writing online..

To dng - I was diagnosed with Schizophreniform which is the first stage of Schizophrenia..

I get hallucinations and visions, I saw a ghost a few times, but I can't really tell if it was real or just in my head.

Hope you're all well 🙂

[Gabs_]

Hi 24yearoldgirl,

Yeah, I definitely think there are good hospital experiences and then there are reallllllllly terrible ones. But I think it helps to provide a bit more insight into the mental health system and knowing what is helpful for you and what is not. There are good GPs, Psychologists and Psychiatrists out there, so keep looking. They will be the ones who don't want to medicate you up to the eyeballs and actually listen and collaborate with what you need.

I'm sorry to hear about your mum's behaviour. It's so hard when our parents are damaging to us, rather than being the ones protecting and caring for us. But at least you know that her behaviour is contributing to your mental health deterioration - the next step is setting up some healthy boundaries around that relationship so you can take care of you. That's the most important thing.

I recently read a book by Lindsay Gibson called "Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents - Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries and Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy". It was actually really helpful to me about what I can control and what I can't within my parental relationships and setting limits.

I think you know what you need to do - it's just taking that step. Which can seem like a huge leap, but it will make such a profound difference to your life. You can actually start living life and putting yourself first. And it's not selfish - you have to take care of yourself first before you can take care of anyone else.

Have you thought about what you'd like to study?

[24yearoldgirl]

I didn't like how I was treated in hospital, they were going to give me the medication involuntarily, if I didn't swallow the medication. It was quite distressing, since I'd never taken a drug in my life.

At least I've got some support workers now, so something good came out of it.

I'm not much of a reader, but the book sounds good.

I've always wanted to study music and composition, since I play piano.. The thing is that I'm going to have a huge debt from uni/tafe fees.

Yes it would be a huge change for me, It's just a matter of whether I will actually leave when the time comes.

Bye for now.