Depression and taking medicine for years
I found this board several months ago but I joined just yesterday. I always felt I have nothing valuable to say. Anyway, now I feel the need to join. Events that have happened recently moved me to reach out either for support and to try to be helpful to other people.
I suffer from depression and taking medicine for years. I have experienced ups and downs, sometimes better sometimes worse times. You know it. In October I had to be hospitalized in psychiatric hospital. It was my third time to be there. The reason was that I tried to commit suicide. Weeks before that I felt totally desperate. My condition got worse and worse. I experienced big disappointments with some people who are close to me and I think that was the trigger for depression attack. I could barely sleep abut I always felt tired. I couldn't even cry, And I saw I getting on my wife's nerves. I just came to conclusion that it would be better if I stop all that. Luckily, in the hospital they saved my life (I was 2 days in coma). After ER, I was sent to psychiatric hospital. I stayed there for 5 weeks. I know I almost died then and now, even I still have problems with my mood and lack of energy, I want to reach for help and for support.
My depression is coming from my childhood. As a child, I was abused by my father and bullied in school. Maybe later I can tell more about it, I don't want to write it now. All those things marked me for life. I was 19, when I was able to leave home and I thought all bad is left behind, but it is not that easy. True, I know how to communicate now, I can find friends already but I still carry it with me wherever I go. The fears I have are reflected everywhere, when I talk to others, even when I doing as simple things as shopping. Many times memories come back to me, even as the nightmares, many times I have woke up with screaming.
There are many I would like to say, maybe by time I will be able.
Another reason I joined this forum is that I would like to be in some way helpful to others. We all have problems and I would like to be supportive to others because I know what does it mean to suffer. I hope i can contribute.
Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Depression & Anxiety Support Group.
@dear parus and cdcc: when reading your posts it sounds like my life. i do care much for you and the others like us who have been so abused. both my mother AND my father beat me. with the belt (buckle part), breaking dishes on my head, etc., etc., etc. they told me i was stupid, a whore (6 years old), no good for nothing, many curse words and whatever else . i would be picked up by my hair and thrown against a wall. not allowed food. when there came a look in my mother's eyes i knew to run. but it did not help she got me. my father all of a sudden just went insane and lashed out at me and also beat me. they bore 4 daughters. i was number two in line. they allowed my three sisters to do the same to me and i was not allowed to defend myself. i had to wash the families clothes and bedding in the bath tub. i was the one to clean the house and etc. when i opened the refrigerator door guess what? there was a half a glass of water and a squeezed lemon. but they went out to eat. one time i remember we were at a chinese restaurant, they were seated but not me. i had to stand and i was not allowed to eat. i asked "why" as usual "what did i do?". i was told "when we get home i will be beaten" . when this was done in public i was embaresed. when i was nine years old my father hit me so hard i went backwards about ten feet and my sisters and both parents all laughed at me. i went into a corner of the yard to hide my face and cry. it was there i saw a tiny little blue morning glory flower hiding in the corner that slowly stopped my crying and a good feeling overcame me. to this day i will never forget this. so much more was done.
i do remember when both my mother and father got "THIS LOOK" in their eyes i now know in my mind that THEY WERE MENTALLY IMPAIRED. yes remember, THEY ARE THEY MENTALLY ILL .
it took me most of my life to somehow slowly and only partially overcome this HORROR. there is so much more to tell but i would have to write a book. my parents are both dead. my sisters still continue their horror onto me. i am alone BUT, I BELIEVE IN MYSELF NOW. oh yes i still have the anxieties, nightmares, etc. i think they will be with me forever but they are less than before. i have learned to love myself.
please remember, the only way we are different is because we understand more than the average person about mental illness and what it does to ourselves and to others. there is nothing less about us, only more of caring and giving. BELIEVE in yourself. with love, peach barbara
It become a frustrating conundrum. People who love, love you act in the way they believe to be helpful. Although done with the most loving intention, it sometimes feels damning. One was a gift from a very good friend - a small coin purse that read, “Just Be Happy”.
It was her soulful hope for me. It felt to be such under estimation of my present state. If I could “Just be “Happy”, I certainly hope she understands that I would be. Unfortunately it is true grit, spiritual thinking, acceptance, good psychiatrists, loving family, skillful psychologists, time and much more.
Signs on a coin purse feel petty - but I do my very best to look back to intention in giving - and when I see it, I say, “Carol adores me - and as she tracks alongside thru the journey, she will show it differently”.
Hi all .... oh my, so many of us have very similar stories .... I'll never know how a parent (mother in my case too) could treat their own child as they did. Many of us should have been taken away from them, but back when I was young, even though the neighbors "knew" and could "hear" through the walls of the old row home we lived in, the creed always seem to be "stay out of other people's business." Not so today, fortunately. Also, I have to agree, wholeheartedly, definitely go to a Psychiatrist for your medications. They are on top of the combinations, side effects, new and older types of meds. and they just may hit on a combo that would help you. I only see my therapist now every other week, and I also follow that up with a visit to my Psychiatrist, for a tune up. Take care and stick with us, and do let us know how you're doing.
abby
@peach414144 I have tears in my eyes now as I read your post. Those are terrible things you are went through. I feel very sorry for that. I can understand it, because my childhood was very similar, but I was not singled out for abuse. I was often beaten and ridiculed. As I was growing, I was more and more in fear. My whole life is affected with that abuse.
Some two years ago, I tried to let things out. I wrote a book and it was published. The topic was child abuse, it was written from the perspective of the child. However, I was soon hushed. Some people I thought of them as my friends started to judge it, telling me it was wrong thing to do, I should not write about such things and so on. I was very dissapointed and I had another depression episode. With my book I wanted to raise awareness about problem of child abuse. Currently, I write second book, but those people will not know about it. I will not violate their comfort anymore.
Again, I'm very sorry you had to suffer so much. I'm happy that you learn to love youself, too. You are not less than other people, no matter that your family wanted you to feel that.
@cdcc “you damn better remember all the pain you caused us". Abusers like to make their victims feel guilty, like they are the ones causing problems and deserve to be punished.
@amberpep Thank you. I will do my best and endeavor to keep my opinions of shrinks to myself. I do see a therapist from time to time.
@theotherone Glad to hear you will be writing another book. I have learned it is best to allow others to live in their own comfort zones.
Abusers are indeed clever with their abuse.
dear theotherone, until those people who have told you not to write about your abuse have walked in your shoes they should wake up and face the realities of life. who are they to tell you these things. perhaps they are jealous of your being published and for whatever else is in their minds. or, perhaps they cannot and will not face true life. why can they not accept their friends sadness and horrors and stand by their friend? you are the friend to continue to accept them. there are people in this world who do understand and accept you. continue to love yourself. we do care.
dear cdcc. yes i do understand you. both my parents were especially cruel, hateful, etc. i did not cry when my father died and did not go to his funeral. when my mother died i was there and cried profusely. why? especially me the target. perhaps because my sisters were beating her black and blue. she was 90 years old, dying of ovarian cancer and could not life her head off the pillow. in other words completely helpless and in big pain. it was then i realized my mother had been mentally ill all her life. compassion took over me and i rectified this. brought my mother to a hospice near where i live. i visited her every day until she died. before she died she apologized to me. i forgave her and i told her this. it is easier (at least for me) to forgive and live with a calmer (but not completely calm) past. still suffer anxieties, nightmares, etc. but somewhat less. COMPASSION RULED SINCE THEN. with love, peach
please let me know what the name of your book is. i would like to read it. thank you peach