Do you ever feel like you are the only one ?

[Ocean_Eyes]

Hello,

This is my first time to a forum and really my first time on a site to help with depression. I have been struggling with depression for 10, almost 11 years now, I wasn't "medically diagnosed" until I was 18 (5 almost 6 years ago). And you know it's really funny and sad that no one offered to help me until I tried to kill myself and ended up in hospital. I feel though that doctors just throw medication at me to make me "feel better" I don't actually feel like they try to understand or even want to help.

I have such a long story, but I don't want to waste any ones time. 

I just want to know if anyone else feels like I do.

I recently stopped taking my medication (without medical advice) I've been on daily medication for the past 5 years on and off. But I don't want to take it any more, when I do I can't feel anything. When I don't I become completely unstable. 

I just want someone to talk to who has or is experiencing the same feelings I am.

I don't want advice or opinions. I just want someone to understand.

I don't want to talk to my family or my friends, I don't want them to worry or feel sympathetic. It makes me feel pathetic. I feel like a lousy mum. Are there any other mums like this ? 

Why can't I be normal ?

beyondblue’s clinically-trained moderators often work offline (invisible to you) on issues relating to suicide or self-harm. At the same time, general supportive comments from the community are encouraged. If you have concerns around suicide or self-harm, please phone our support service on 1300 22 4636.

[HA1]

Hi

To the point, I can understand where you are coming from.  

Much older than you, I have most certainly suffered depression, et al, all my life.  Always been seen as a bit 'different' and, I am sure people & family sometimes suspected I had anxiety issues (at least).  But no one ever actually came out and asked me.  "Get over it" is a term I recollect having heard a few times. 

After a long and relatively successful career, I was medically diagnosed only very recently.  Now I am doing lots of self examination & realisation, and doing a lot of 'sharing' with psychiatrists and psychologists.

You are not alone.

K

[AGrace]

Hi Ocean_Eyes,

Welcome to the forums. I'm not a mum, but I certainly understand what it's like to feel alone, like no one gets where you're at, and like there's no easy way out.

I know you didn't want to bore us with details, but I'd be really interested to hear more about your experience and I'm definitely happy to chat, if you think that will benefit you.

A little bit about me. I'm 34. I experienced Post Traumatic Stress after the loss of a loved one to suicide, at age 15. I was hospitalised at age 17, after my first suicide attempt. For 2 years before that I felt like no one understood me, and that I couldn't live up to anyone's expectations. The treatment helped for a while, but I was too young to know that my childhood experiences would impact me for the rest of my life. There had been other trauma's despite the one I've mentioned.

I met my current partner 5 years ago. I think a year after we started dating everything outside of my relationship started to deteriorate. I spent 3 years trying to convince everyone that I couldn't work anymore, but I couldn't explain to anyone why. It was too difficult to describe how pressured and alone I felt. Eventually I snapped. A second attempt on my life last year saw me hospitalised again. Soon after I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression.

It's been a little over a year since my diagnosis. Having an accurate diagnosis was the first step to getting the most help. To get where I am today has taken a lot of hard work, and the one thing I've realised is that I needed to surround myself with people who understood me and what I was going through. I lost a lot of friends, but I have little regret about this, because I couldn't keep up with their lifestyles anyway - I was too unwell.

Now I'm still on the slow but steady rebuilding stage. As I said, I'd like to hear more about you. You're definitely not alone.

AGrace

[Ocean_Eyes]

Hello AOK,

I can relate to that first paragraph very much. I've always been seen as different, weird, possibly even strange. I used to dress differently to others and I have always been quite happy being myself. But I can recall several times in my younger teenage years being told “It's just a phase you're going through, you'll get over it” funny how that “phase” almost caused my mum to lose her eldest daughter. I sometimes really wonder if people think before they speak.

I am very much into my spiritual beliefs. I believe in the power of my healing crystals and stones, I often do angel card/oracle card etc readings on myself and they help to clarify my mind or give me a sense of direction when I feel lost.

Thank you for your reply, it has been greatly appreciated.

Love OE.

Hi Agrace,

Well first of all I am very sorry for what you have been through, no one deserves to experience such things.

I feel like I could write a book on my life, but it would all be the negative things. I can't actually really recall many positive things, it's like my mind deletes them.

One thing you mentioned was experiences of your childhood have impacted your future. I can relate to this so well. I am unsure how far I can go into detail with some things, so I may just leave some out. But I know a lot of my issues stem from my mum and dads divorce when I was 4/5. My dad blamed a lot on me and he honestly has hardly ever been around for me or any of my siblings for that matter. He is a very selfish man. My mum, she has always done her best to give myself and my younger sister what we wanted in life, but she also struggles with her own demons. Endless lines of betrayal and back stabbing, being bullied through my teens. Falling pregnant at 17 and not being able to keep he child, that was something that absolutely ruined me. Fast forwarding a little at 20 I feel pregnant to a guy I'd only been with a couple months, I knew I was keeping this baby despite the fact I was virtually killing myself with my depression and suffering from eating disorders. But my darling little girl was my saviour. I tried staying with her father whom was cheating on me, lying to me and emotionally exhausting me. I finally got the guts to leave him almost a year ago. (let me insert that my best friend (now ex best friend) broke us up so she could be with him). 

I now have been with a guy I liked when I was 13/14, it's been 7 months and he has taken myself and my daughter under his wing. 

Love OE.

[AGrace]

Hi Ocean_Eyes,

I too can relate to a lot of what you have mentioned, as I said there were a few more traumas that I didn't talk about in my previous post.

My parents first separated when I was 6. My dad had been having an affair with my best friend's mum. I found out through my best friend. The arguing between them was really scary at the time, and my mum was always too upset to console my sisters and I. They eventually got back together and we moved house, so I lost my best friend. There were half a dozen more affairs from then until I was 17. By this stage we had moved house half a dozen times. I had to re start friendships and schools over and over, I had lost my boyfriend to suicide and I hated my father for all that he'd done to us. My mum had a breakdown, and the one thing I despised the most was that it felt like the world was revolving around her, and yet my sisters and I were hurting too. After the final affair they got back together again and it felt like us kids had no say in the matter. The whole experience was completely invalidating, it felt like I didn't matter (my elder sisters were all out of home by this stage).

Just before I turned 18 I was raped by my then boyfriend, 2 weeks after he forced me to terminate an unfortunate pregnancy. I couldn't tell anyone, I thought they wouldn't believe me. It had been so hard for me to trust anyone, especially guys, and when I finally did, this was the outcome. At age 21 my dad decided to blame all of his affairs on me. He even told me and my sisters this. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. I lived with this feeling of guilt that if only I had been a better child, if only I hadn't been so different from my sisters then my dad would never have left us in the first place.

I was too young to deal with all the traumas I had endured which is why I think they all came to a head when I was finally in a relationship where I felt loved and supported. (My ex was abusive, and I stayed almost 10 years, because I felt somehow that was all I deserved). My boyfriend has seen the best and the worst of me. In the now 5 years we've been together I too have made several attempts on my life.

What I've realised since getting so much medical help is that you have to work on mental health, it takes a complete lifestyle change, not just a couple of pills. Talking to my Psychiatrist and Psychologist has been a huge help. I was diagnosed with BPD.

Are you seeing a Psych at the moment?

AGrace