Therapy - and dealing with the past

I’m just nervous entering into this subject, it’s so very close to the pain I am dealing with. I have suffered my entire life with anxiety and depression, I tried therapy many times but it never seemed to help me enough, of course meds were always provided to keep me grounded but they had their own set of problems the way meds often work, they take away symptoms but often cause other ones. The past three years were awful like most people, I was so scared with covid and what it could do to our world but I got lung cancer in 2020 and really started to have a meltdown. I don’t know what happened to me, I had problems in my home with my brother, I have two siblings, an older brother and a younger sister. My brother hated me from the time I was a little girl and he tried to hurt me whenever he could get away with it. When I was seven and he was twelve we went to a afternoon movie and he was to look after me…he made me sit two seats away from him.. I noticed someone sitting next to me and suddenly this stranger was grabbing at me inappropriately and I told my brother…instead of helping me he said to leave him alone and he got something to eat…I managed to scare him away by getting loud and it worked. I have now told a story from my childhood that I only just remembered recently and I am truly devastated, I understand now why I have suffered all my life with fear and trust issues and just coping. I truly wish that I hadn’t remembered this nightmare because I’m unable to process it and family support isn’t there. I should mention I am a senior woman now and I don’t have a bad life with a good guy I’ve lived with for thirty years and four grandchildren. This recent problem has only caused me more stress and not sure what to do about it.

I highly recommend therapy. Personally I have to try quite a few therapists before I find someone that works for me. Try not to give up. ♥️

@ricm58 It is good to hear you are benefiting from therapy. There are many different kinds to choose from, and the key is finding the "right fit". Not only the style, but the provider. Sometimes it takes several tries, as most of us will attest to. Sometimes what works at one point in our lives, may not be successful another time, and we need to explore other types.

My own personal opinion, is that it takes courage and strength to take on therapy and address past issues. It also takes work, and the desire to have things get better. Understanding why we are the way we are, why we respond/ react the way we do, can be very freeing as we navigate through life. Sometimes it is a small thing that literally made a big change in who we are. Thank you for your story, and I wish for you continued progress.
Ginger

@ricm58, hello. Hope you don't mind if I share my story.

As a child I always felt sad and lonely even though I had parents, a brother, neighbors, friends. As a teen I attempted suicide but in the early 60s where I lived it was considered shameful and freakish to see a psychiatrist. I just suffered through that until I again felt suicidal in the late 70s and sought help.

At that time the diagnosis was "depression and anxiety" and I was prescribed no medication. My psychiatrist abused me emotionally and more (and that's all I'll say about that,) which triggered even worse depression and anxiety.

In the 80s my living situation was awful and I still felt suicidal but because I also had crossed the line between heavy drinking and alcoholism I was very high functioning and was misdiagnosed as bipolar (they called it manic-depressive back then) and was put on lithium.

Without health insurance and due to financial reverses I had to stop the lithium, which really hadn't helped anyway, and I've often wondered if that, along with kidney stones as well as stress-induced diabetes and metformin, contributed to my chronic kidney disease diagnosed in 2018.

I got sober in 1994 and have been clean and sober ever since. My recovery sponsor and friends helped enormously, and were emotionally supportive after the deaths of my husband and one of our daughters. I lost our farm and our home when I learned my spouse's previously undiagnosed brain cancer had done more damage than anyone could have realized, causing him to fail to finish making his will or follow up on obtaining mortgage insurance. A back injury at work then cost me my job and I became homeless for a time but did qualify for some help and was diagnosed with major clinical depression (related to brain chemical imbalances) as well as situational depression and anxiety but I had no way to pay for any medication or therapy so continued to suffer until 1997 when I started receiving disability and could afford minimal medical care. My PCP prescribed Paxil at first then we tried other drugs and finally found that Zoloft helped tremendously, along with therapy with a MSW as well as the emotional support from recovery friends and the twelve-step program which can help not just with addiction but with healthier daily living.

I took Zoloft for depression for years until about three or four years ago but finally had to stop when I started having tremors and twitches.

My PCP retired and his partner passed away so it wasn't until 2018 I was able to find a new family care physician who knows a great deal about medications, including psychotropics, and the various effects different medications can have on various chronic illnesses. I currently am taking Serzone for the depression and carbidopa-levodopa for the tremors and arm jerks and they do help, along with counseling again with a MSW.

I also saw nephrologists about renal damage and learned one kidney actually had stopped functioning altogether and basically dried up and I had a little more than 30% function in the remaining kidney. Scans and MRIs also revealed I had an abdominal aortic aneurysm about 3 cm in size. Added to all that was congestive heart failure, COPD, arthritis, and fibromyalgia.

Two years ago I was diagnosed with gastroparesis (slowed GI function) possibly related to diabetes and nervous system damage. It was the worst I have ever felt physically, even when I still needed dialysis wasn't as horrific. (I was able to recover enough renal function to suspend dialysis due to good medical management and my own nursing background leading me to a very strict vegetarian renal diet.)

Ever since that first hospitalization for GP, I have been depressed and anxious - what else is new, right? Part of it is still due to brain chemical imbalances and part of it is situational due to realistic health concerns. Renal disease is incurable, for instance. So is aging-related heart failure, so is Type 2 diabetes.

But currently these are being "managed" and the disease processes have been slowed.

I still feel like crying every afternoon but the feeling only lasts a few minutes then passes, especially if I can do something to distract me. I believe it has to do with the half-life of my Sertaline meds. And still get very anxious several times a day, though not to the point of a full-blown anxiety attack, but my health care team (including an excellent psychiatrist and a skilled MSW therapist) tell me much of the anxiety is realistic because it derives from situational realities.

I forgot to mention I am physically handicapped, cannot walk and "live" in a power wheelchair in government housing by myself with social security my only income. Situational, indeed!

Yet somehow I'm still here and in between episodes of sadness and anxiety, life is still pretty good.

Mayo's support groups have been tremendously helpful to me and I hope they will be for you, too.

Thank you for letting me vent.

One thing that I have found helpful in therapy is when a professional who hears a lot of problems confirms that what I went through was genuinely tough. In other words, it wasn't me being over-sensitive or whatever.

But I have had to face the fact that there were mean people in my past. Initially this caused anger (and still does) and a sense of "how can they live with themselves? Is there no justice?"

Although I do not adhere to a religion, my contact with Christianity has helped. It taught me that to forgive is NOT to say the other person is acceptable. Forgiveness
1. Helps me understand this is a fallen world with bad things in it, and forgiving someone/something is my way of cutting my ties with those bad things that happened to me - of saying "that was a person being bad... They needed a victim and I just happened to be there."
2. It's a way of saying that I do think they deserve punishment, but since (unlike them) I'm not mean, I will not wish mean things on them.
3. I must forgive myself. The very fact I suffer proves I am a person who should love themselves and say "I wish I was tough, but I'm not. I have trouble understanding this complicated world. I may feel hate for what happened to me, but I am a decent person who doesn't do mean things. Even when I carry JUSTIFIED anger, my actions are decent".

It also helped me when I realized a lot of people go through bad things. We see them in the street, or wherever, and it doesn't show, but they are carrying their past.

My first therapist (of two) once said something wise to me: some things we can't understand, we just stand them. Finding strength and just getting through stuff is what millions of people are doing daily.

@ricm58 I really got a good wake-up call from reading your message…it’s a start for me to put this sad event away but in a healthier way instead of pushing it into a dark corner of my over loaded mind. I kept thinking and wishing to understand myself better and now I know what it means be careful what you wish for…I can only think that it needed to come out…what I omitted to say is I foolishly tried to talk to my brother and the outcome was a disaster…how foolish I am to think he would have a nice heart to heart talk.. well needless to say I blundered but I’m going to try and move forward with this and perhaps I might get some luck and find suitable therapy for myself, amen

... gosh no wonder we/people have depression and anxiety and mental health problems when having a past history of such pain and suffering even from childhood..we are only human and cruel and painful things we went through and managed to get through with or without help is , I have been told, testament to our strength - but what choice did we have? Many years ago a very nice psychiatrist saw me after major drug reaction and first real bout of depression and he said - well cant recall exactly the words - but that having depression/anxiety because of an event was post traumatic stress (before this term became more often referred to) and not the same as his patients that had depression without having gone through very bad experiences (sorry if I am not using words he used to explain the difference )... and even gong back some generations imagine the hell some people went through with no counselling or help or medication regardless of side effects... it can be a tough life for many of us through no fault of our own, and sometimes yes poor choices or decisions... its only now being pointed out to me by a compassionate therapist how some seemingly, to me, unimportant treatment as a child could very well have been the beginning of all my problems in adult life. Keep going til you find a therapist who recognizes your accomplishments even through tough times that some other humans would not have gotten through! Hugs J.

I believe the suffering I carry is (among other things) a sign of strength. Why? Because I'm not going around being mean to other people as a way of "getting revenge" for how I was treated. Instead, I turn it inwards (and that hurts).

People in my past who hurt me perhaps did it as their way of venting pain or disappointment. Or maybe it was true meanness. But they were willing to take that out on others, which is not something I'd like to do.

I do try to find other, healthier, ways to release the pain without turning it inwards (hence therapy). But I do think I deserve a little credit for not wishing to do to others what was done to me.

You should get credit for what you have gone through and how you chose getting help for yourself…I always found it curious why some people have so much trouble in their lives and others don’t know what a bad time is…I believe we get strength in numbers and this is what we are doing here, getting through tough times and asking for help with it, I never went on social media or anything else until now.. I had too much stuff to carry around and I too tend to be self destructive but now I’m older and dealing with health problems so I don’t have any strength to do this anymore and I don’t want to hurt me anymore, someone once said to me “stop being so hard on yourself, there’s plenty of people who will be happy to do it for you, I think there was point in there.

I don't know any other site like this one. I've never before written about my experiences, and the replies here are very helpful and sincere.

Thank you! 🥰

My psychiatrist recently said something helpful. He started a sentence with "what you do to yourself..." and then he stopped and apologized, and said "No, I should have said 'what your neurosis does to you'...".

That is so important. It's not me hurting me, I'm not a sadist. It's a psychic problem/ illness that causes me grief. It feeds on things I think and feel, and it produces thoughts and feelings in me. So it feels like it is me. But it's a thing I carry, it isn't me.

That really helped me.