What can I do now?

[dumbledoor]

I've been struggling with depression for 6 years (since I was 12). I made a vow 6 years ago, that I would not live to see my 18th birthday, and that day is just 1 year away.

I feel sad and tired all the time, I have no energy as getting out of the bed for school can take me over an hour on bad days. I don't eat properly, I skip lunch and breakfast nearly every day. I am also socially awkward, which is why I've always resorted to online forums as I mentally cannot speak to people about "these" things. I don't trust my parents, I keep everything from them.

From a young age, I've always wanted to be a doctor, however the last few years have proved to me that I am incapable. I cannot focus on my work, and I have spoken about ADHD to my parents but was brushed off. My mum calls me autistic, and tells my younger sister to never end up the way I am. That said, I am a Mensan if that even means anything, so I know I'm not retarded.

I have severe anxiety, which can act up at any time. This includes social anxiety, performance anxiety, situational anxiety and haphephobia. When I get panic attacks I feel suicidal. I feel like I could just impale myself on a fence.

Sometimes I see, hear and feel things. One night I was in bed, my curtain was the translucent kind. It came suddenly, I felt something watching me yet I couldn't move to turn around, I was paralysed. I felt like I was going to die, and this thing was about to burst through my window at any moment. I doubt it was sleep paralysis, because I am certain I was awake. There was a time in primary school when someone told me the stories about Bloody Mary. For months afterwards, I was seeing her bloody face everywhere, especially at night when I felt like she was creeping up on me. I was afraid to go into a room alone in case she suddenly burst out of somewhere.

Sometimes I can go into a trance, where I feel like a robot being controlled by another being. Feeling like I'm watching in third person.

I haven't told anyone about these problems, apart from some online friends who I have no real contact with and are too far to reach me. I can't talk to people, physically and mentally can't. I know it's a problem. I don't talk to people because I know they'll try to help me, which makes me feel "weak" (my mum is the cause of this problem, but I can't change it now. Its ingrained into me).

There is more I would like to write, but it won't fit.

What can I do? I don't plan to live to work. Life is a curse.

[Aaronsis]

Hi dumbledoor

I am so very sorry to read the things that your parents are saying to you. I can see how this is breaking you and how painful these words are. I am sorry that you cannot share with them your feelings, and really, why would you I guess when you are made to feel the way you do. Name calling and comments about your worth in life and what you will or will not become are just so beyond hurtful and are words that when come from people we are supposed to look up to and who are supposed to love and support us with no conditions, well are just so damaging.

I can sit here and tell you that they are just words, that in time when you come to step out of their home and begin one of your own that you can then start feeling the worth that you are and see the things you can do and be in the wonderful world. I can sit here and tell you that they are not what you are and not who you are but the enormity of what these words are doing to you I can not minimalize with by words.

I have learnt some things in my 46 years and one of them is this, and if you know this already then you are well ahead of the game, see mostly when people fire off words and feelings of disappointment and pain, it is mostly about them and not really anything to do with you. I wonder if your mother has experienced the life she dreamed of for herself? Does she want so badly for something different for you that her desperation gets delivered as disappointment and anger? Does your father get so frustrated and the life he lives that he physically took it out on you? Was that what was done to him as a child? There are things we don't know about our parents and what they are going through either, does it make it right that they say these things to you? Absolutely not, but I have learnt that expecting things from people who are just not able to deliver is a recipe for pain. We do have this guide as to what our parents should or should not be, what if due to their own life experiences they simply can not be the mother or father we need them to be? I have had to learn that by almost taking my father as a friend and not needing him as a father my pain lessened when he let me down.

I am not sure if anything I have said here gels with you and it is certainly not excuses, just maybe some insight into what another is going through.

I am so proud you are chatting here and I look forward to hearing how you are today and how you have been.

Hugs to you

Sarah

[dumbledoor]

Don't do it, just fail. You can live off centrelink

Most people can't be helped

The sooner you fail the sooner I can kick you out

I'm sending you away

I'm sending you to a foster home

You are mental, we should use all the money we spend on school to take you to a mental hospital

(Talking to dad or my sister) She definately is mentally retarded, just look at her

(Talking to my sister) Promise me you won't ever end up like her

Dad: let her live downstairs Mum: no let her live in the basement, she doesn't deserve that Dad: there is no basement. She can have this bit of back yard as well Mum: why are you being so nice to her, she doesn't deserve anything

I used to think you could be something great

Just give up already

We don't care about you, not anymore

You should go live on the streets, maybe that will teach you

Remember that I no longer love you, but will support you until you are 18

Crying is for the weak

My positive aura is being damaged by your negative aura

Strong people can recover on their own

You say you have ADHD, but you can concentrate on gaming

I trust myself more than the doctors, this is why I am so successful

Don't let anyone tell you what to do, a strong minded person knows what is right

If you really try you can do it, I believe in you

Keep doing good work and get that 99.95 atar, don't let me down

You are smart, we just need to get rid of your lazy side

Look at all these famous entrepreneurs, most of them did terrible at school. You still have hope, grab onto it

You can go to tafe, get a diploma and then get a bachelors. Time is money

I knew you were worthless, did you really think you can do it

You wasted all your chances, all you're good for is working in fast food

I used to think working as a cleaner (or similar paying jobs) was a terrible career choice, but now I realise it's all some people are capable of. I'm happy for you, everyone has different goals, mine are just higher than yours

My mum isn't living the life she dreamed of because she spent a whole year trying to "save" me. I don't know what she was trying to save me from because she was obviously the cause, but after that year her hair started becoming grey, I think this "saving" damaged her health. She blames it on me, that she shouldn't have wasted all that energy trying to save me (we could be richer right now).

[tranzcrybe]

No dd, your mum has her own problems and you just happen to be the scape goat - nothing you do will appease her. Perhaps she projects disillusionment with her own life onto you. What was her childhood like, do you know? Did she also have overbearing parents that she regretted for not making her own choices?

Please remember that these things are usually said in frustration and through inability to communicate in a sensitive and supportive manner - she can only appreciate her own values (and sister may be falling into step). Of course parents want the best futures for their children (even if it is only to massage their egos). I wonder if you can rise above this and talk to her honestly about your own life expectations and why you feel disempowered by her negativity.

What do you want in life? How shall you go about achieving security and independence? It's your choice as to how and when you want to embrace life, but it can only start with you.

[Aaronsis]

hello dumbledoor

I am wondering how you are feeling after being able to purge all those hurtful statements that have been said to you? I am so beyond sorry that you have had to hear these words and have no idea how painful it would be to have them come from your parents and family members.

I am so glad though that you have been able to express these things here and to share with us how you are feeling. Feeling as though you are a burden and to blame for family finances is just simply not fair and is in my opinion simply not true.

The last year has been full of so many variable with COVID and with how we work and live and I would suggest that this has had way more to do with perhaps how your parents are coping both financially and emotionally, would you think so too? I am not sure if they have been able to work and continue to support the family the way the usually would, but I would really find it hard to see that a person who is struggling with studies and with their mental wellbeing impacts a family's ability to earn money.

I am just so sorry that these things have been said to you and that you have been made to feel so very bad about yourself. It is hard to read some of those comments, let alone having to hear them from people who are "supposed" to love and care about you. I am so very sorry.

I understand that you struggle to speak to people about how you are feeling but I am wondering if you have been able to reach out to the web based support at Kids Helpline? I will put this link here again for you just for ease:

https://kidshelpline.com.au/get-help/webchat-counselling

They are such wonderful people and can really give you some great advice as to how to manage this situation and what steps you can take to make some changes here.

Life is not a competition and I am sorry that you have been made to feel like you do have to compete with siblings to be "better" or "smarter" or to even receive love. I would also like to echo what Tranzcrybe has said and that is that what your mother is saying to you says more about her and her life that it does about you. As we said before, you just don't know what she has got going on or what things she had to endure as a child, does this excuse this behaviour, absolutely not but it does give it some perspective.

I am so proud of you for purging all those horrible statements and I hope that it did give you some peace to get them out and rid of them here.

Hope to chat some more

Sarah xx

[dumbledoor]

I don't feel. I don't show my true emotions to anyone apart from myself and my "imaginary" friend. I keep my friend with me only so I can vent about my day to them, they don't speak and the image I conjure up is usually the face of someone who I would really like to open up my feelings to, but can't because of said barriers.

I've given up on feeling. This apathy, it's caused by the fact that I've given up on life, I'm just a mindless soul taking resources from the world.

[tranzcrybe]

...but you have true emotions - therefore your feelings exist and are real, despite your attempts to deny them.

Would you be prepared to compromise? Could you find a way to communicate your feelings anonymously to your imaginary friend's alter ego (ie, the person behind the image you visualise)? It's a case of one small step without obligation, in a sense.

You are a sensitive soul - not mindless. Emotions are for sharing in order for them to grow.

[dumbledoor]

But do emotions even exist? Does anything even exist?

I don't count feeling nothing as a feeling, rather as an absence of feeling. In this case, I might just have the emotional maturity level of a 10-year-old, I'm pretty sure I've done no growing since.

[tranzcrybe]

Of all the pointless things I would question in life, emotions are not one of them. It is our Qi and reason for being. Void is also an emotion - to Zen Buddhists it represents the highest state of enlightenment.
Emotional maturity is like a plant - keep it in the shade, and very little changes; place it in the sun and it reaches upward and outward. The decision to grow is not left to the plant, but the conditions in which it resides.

[dumbledoor]

I often question whether or not I'm actually feeling an emotion, and when I do the emotion usually disappears for a while. It makes me wonder if I'm the one making myself feel all these things. When this happens, I usually feel nothing, it's as if I've just put a pause on myself and now nothing's coming through.

I always look back on what I've written and said, a lot of the time I cringe at the things I wrote and question whether or not it really happened to the extent I remember, or if I just made the whole thing up.. until the same thing happens again. I'm not sure if I'm just making excuses for myself, there would be times when I would have raging emotions and others where I would feel nothing. I would question whether I'm even alive and if anything even exists. It's like I'm looking at the world in third person, everything feels fake and way too bright. Things look strange, and brightness would hurt my eyes. Many of the things I feel during these periods of "nothingness" can't be described in words, and people would only really understand if they somehow felt it too (which is impossible).

Even now, I can hardly believe I even came onto the forums and created this post. I can't believe I actually wrote about how I feel, which is something I never share with anyone. If I were to be transported back in time, this thread wouldn't even exist.

I'm not even sure I exist. I'm not even thinking clearly right now. The worst thing is I can't be helped. I can't even describe how I feel, I don't even know how to exist as a human being.

[tranzcrybe]

Thank you for sharing your feelings and I am grateful for your appraisal of how emotions flow through our lives. You would be correct in that we 'make' ourselves feel in reaction to external influences - the obvious ones pertaining to pain and fear, but also the more subliminal responses to our perception of events around us and and how we are perceived by others.
I feel that emotions are a bit like peripheral vision - we see (or sense) many things but they evaporate once focus is directed to their analysis. Sometimes acknowledging the emotion and allowing it to dissipate is enough - a bird may happily sing outside my window until I give it an audience!

Would you describe your 'nothingness' as:-
1] denying your emotions (a conscious effort to shut out feelings), or
2] negating the influence emotions have on your mood (where none predominate and your feelings in equilibrium)?

What a pity it would be if your thread never existed! Expressing yourself can be self illuminating and sometimes it's handy to have a sounding board to bounce your thoughts off (particularly with non-imaginary participants 😜).
"I can't be helped... don't even know how to exist..." ? - the answers might just reside in what you stumble upon along the way...