Being better at accepting depression

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This topic has 541 replies, 16 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 3 months ago by anita.

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April 8, 2021 at 3:12 pm #377383

noname
Participant

Anita,

I’m always shocked at how much work you put into your posts. I am shocked that anyone would take that much time out of their day to focus on me in such detail. I truly appreciate it. To be honest I don’t post here as often anymore because i feel like you work harder than i do on my own problems and that makes me feel guilty that i have made such little progress with myself in the years i have posted here. However i am very grateful you give me and others who post here that level of attention.

It’s hard for me to read through these post’s sometimes knowing i come back here with the same problems time after time and seem to go nowhere with it. My lack of progress is making me feel hopeless.

I understand my mom did a poor job of loving me. Believe me when i say im not waiting up for it either. I don’t know if it’s really doing me any good giving my attention to that relationship anymore. Not saying she and my father didn’t have a profoundly negative impact on my self worth, i just don’t know what to do with the information that my parents loved me conditionally anymore.

I really would just like to get my needs met at this point and it feels hopeless after putting so much effort year after year. i mean maybe im not trying my best i dont know.

April 8, 2021 at 3:37 pm #377385

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

You are welcome and thank you for your appreciation. I did the hours long work today on your threads because you are worth it!

I wouldn’t come back to your mother if I didn’t think that you can get un-stuck if you understand something about her that you did not understand before. What I am suspecting today, that I did not suspect before, is that your mother did not only neglect you emotionally, but that she is actively dishonest with you, meaning, she puts on a show: that time when she appeared validating and empathetic to you (July 2017), and at many other times, I am guessing.

This will explain why an intelligent, educated, persevering, amazing person like yourself is indeed stuck. Again, it’s not her failure to be attentive and affectionate to you, that keeps you stuck, but her (then and ever since), ongoing pretenses and her lies, is what I am thinking at this point.

anita

April 11, 2021 at 9:34 am #377489
Anonymous
Guest
Dear noname:

In your previous thread, “How to FEEL love?”, on July 29, 2017, you shared that you told your mother that you didn’t feel loved as a child, and she admitted that indeed it was true: she didn’t show you affection, left you alone a whole lot and so on.

“After this conversation”, you wrote back in July 29, 2017, “I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of me.. I finally have the permission to stop blaming myself, and to really begin to love myself through empathy.. It finally feels like it’s not all my fault”.

Later on, in March 2020, you shared that conversations with her were “always criticism of what I’m doing to hurt her and never about the abundance of things I’ve done right… she is always complaining about us and how we treat her. I’m sick of it and don’t feel like defending myself anymore against her opinions of me”.

Those conversations did not start in March 2020, but way closer to March 2017. The relief you felt following the March 2017 conversation did not last long because she did not change her behavior, she kept blaming you and guilt- tripping you after allegedly taking responsibility for hurting you throughout your childhood. Her alleged admission of Feb 2017 served only to confuse you and delay your healing.

Her words and that bit of crying in Feb 2017 was not significant enough in her mind and heart, to motivate her to change her misbehavior toward you. To me, this means that she was not sincere back then or since. Your ongoing contact with her keeps hurting you because you are dealing again and again, and yet again, with an insincere woman who doesn’t really care for you or about you, not enough to stop hurting you. Every time you communicate with this woman, you are hurting yourself more.

True, ending contact with her is far from being a magical solution, but it has to be a beginning. Also, you can’t see yourself as you truly are before you see her as she truly is. The truth shall set you free from sickness based on.. false thinking and false beliefs.

Backing away from the topic of your mother, regarding hope and depression: you keep comparing yourself unfavorably to other people. When I was most depressed and comparing myself unfavorably to everyone else, at one point, I let go of hoping to have a better life/ to catch up to others. Once I gave up the hope, my life didn’t improve as a result, but I felt much better. It was a great relief.

Connected to this, a certain story made an impression on me at the time: someone asked, how do you free yourself from a jail cell? The answer was something like, stop wanting/ hoping to get out. For a person in a jail cell, the desire and hope to get out of the cell is a source of suffering. Once a person accepts an unfavorable circumstance, the torture lessens a whole lot.

I hope you are okay, noname. And this hope is not causing me suffering. It makes me smile as I imagine you smiling, carefree, if only for a moment.

anita
- This reply was modified 4 years ago by .
April 13, 2021 at 8:03 am #377599
noname
Participant
Thank you Anita,

Believe me I’ve given up hope, the suffering is the frustration i feel at attempting to get my needs met and failing over and over. Maybe that is me hoping for a life where i dont cry myself to sleep, and wake up screaming at myself to get out of bed. I canceled my day today and just feel overwhelmed with work, and the fact that it feels hopeless for me to have any outlet for my grief.
- This reply was modified 4 years ago by noname.
- This reply was modified 4 years ago by noname.
April 13, 2021 at 8:43 am #377605

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

You are welcome. If you gave up hope, you wouldn’t be crying every night and waking up screaming at yourself. You would be calmer at night and calmer in the morning.

What are you screaming at yourself about in the mornings???

anita

April 13, 2021 at 10:39 am #377611
noname
Participant
Im stressed and dont feel like i cant handle all the responsibilities in my life by myself. Im screaming because i know i need to get up and show up for people but my whole body is telling me i need to rest and regroup and i feel an intense sadness of having no one to support me in my loneliness. Its hard to put into words but the feeling tells me i need love and to be told im doing a good job. I guess i feel like im unlovable, unworthy, and just failing to wake up everyday and do the 9-5 thing right
- This reply was modified 4 years ago by noname.
- This reply was modified 4 years ago by noname.
April 13, 2021 at 11:30 am #377618

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

You are doing a good job, best you can. You are lovable. You are worthy of appreciation and love. I mean it!

anita

April 13, 2021 at 1:33 pm #377628

Tee
Participant

Dear noname,

I believe there are two ways you could feel loved: 1) one is by giving love to your inner child (being the compassionate parent to your wounded inner child), and 2) if No1 isn’t working because you’re unable to give any love to yourself whatsoever and cannot be a loving parent to your inner child, you could ask God to fill you with love.

Are you religious, noname? Pleading God to fill me with his love is what helped me to get that first “dose” of love and nurturance, which filled my heart and allowed me to start loving myself, little by little. Opening myself to the love of divine parents is what helped me cross that bridge to loving myself.

April 13, 2021 at 4:31 pm #377648

noname
Participant

Thank you for your responses. I’m not religious. I gravitate towards the Buddhist philosophy if anything…

I’m pretty sure I’m just reaching a breaking point with my lifestyle. I feel the need for another, not necessarily a partner just another person or people to hold space for my grief. The isolation is my biggest enemy. And I’m tired of being told it’s my fault I feel this way, i just need to change my perspective or do this or that. There is nothing more I can do.

April 13, 2021 at 5:27 pm #377652

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

You are welcome. It hurts me to read how badly terribly lonely life has been for you, for so long.

“I’m tired of being told it’s my fault I feel this way”- who is telling you this?

anita

April 13, 2021 at 7:26 pm #377654

Anonymous
Guest

It is almost 10:30 pm your time. I hope you have a restful night, that you know some peace of mind. Good night, noname. Please post when you can.

anita

April 14, 2021 at 2:33 am #377668

Tee
Participant

Dear noname,

I feel the need for another, not necessarily a partner just another person or people to hold space for my grief. The isolation is my biggest enemy. And I’m tired of being told it’s my fault I feel this way, i just need to change my perspective or do this or that.

When we’ve been so emotionally deprived as children, as you have been, we get stuck and identify completely with our wounded inner child, and it feels really difficult to get out of it. It’s like trying to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. The wounded child needs a compassionate adult to help it process its hurt and get unstuck. This compassionate adult is often a therapist, who can offer mirroring, compassion and understanding to the person, and help the person grieve their losses – everything they haven’t received from their parents and all the pain they had to live through.

With the help of a therapist, you’ll learn how to slowly disidentify from your wounded inner child and see also the adult side in you, the side which is capable of e.g. helping others compassionately, like you are capable of. So strengthening your adult self – which is present but weak – would be very important, and then bringing the adult self into interaction with your wounded inner child, to give it the missing experience of being loved and cared for. That I see as a plausible way to healing.

Do you have a therapist with whom you can do the inner child work?

April 14, 2021 at 7:33 am #377681

noname
Participant

Hey teak,

i hear you I do have a therapist and I am a therapist. I coach people down the exact path you and Anita are both laying out here I.e. cultivating the nurturing adult to care for the wounded child. I have seen it work on my clients and myself…

I’m facing a complicated situation with my problems as I see it. I’ll try to explain as clear as I can.

Being a black therapist in a city where there are less than 5 (male) total means that I am easily identifiable. Why is this a problem for me? I want the same protection of anonymity that people get from their AA or NA groups, but in reality there’s a high likelihood I could see a client which could lead to me being reported for using cannabis or whatever else I do that doesn’t fit the mold of how a therapist “should” act. I’m sure you might be thinking that is an unlikely scenario but my whole life has been unlikely. All that to say I have limited options for support groups if any at all I’m looking for something right now…my emotional health was probably at its peak before I went to grad school and was in a men’s group for about 6 months. The reason being I knew I had support at least once a week I could count on and I didn’t have the pressure of worrying about my livelihood being threatened by by being vulnerable. This is really a huge issue for me, the answers to my problems are really simple: get support+be vulnerable=a stronger inner compassionate adult to care for my woundedness. Execution In reality it’s way more complicated than that for me because of my profession and my race. I’m not trying to be like oh poor me blah blah blah, but seriously I’m not sure people understand how perfect I have had to be to fucking survive in America. (Pardon the language but I’m tired of being told my worries are invalid)

April 14, 2021 at 7:45 am #377684

noname
Participant

Anita

I’m not explicitly told it’s my fault but it is implied. When I attempt to vent to my roommate she frequently cuts me off and offers suggestions which I hear as “your wounds are invalid and is your fault, if you just thought these thoughts or did this self care thing you wouldn’t feel that way” this is the response I get often from friends, and my supervisor. My therapist is probably the only person who actually hears me (validates) then offers suggestions after making sure I feel understood. Most people don’t listen very well they want to fix. I used to get caught in this trap being from a math/science/mechanics kind of mindstate where all problems can be fixed and have concrete solutions. Not saying they’re aren’t concrete solutions to people problems, just that the process is not as simple as replacing a component or adjusting a chemical in my brain, been there done that. People need compassion, especially highly self critical people like myself. It’s so rare for someone to listen without offering up their egotistical self-help style advice. That’s all my heart wants is to be validated again not told it’s my fault for being wounded. I’m also not trying to absolve myself of responsibility if anything I probably place too much of the blame of myself already

April 14, 2021 at 8:11 am #377688

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

“Most people don’t listen very well, they want to fix”- this is me some of the time, probably.. maybe more than I think.

I can’t think of an explanation, a suggestion, a fix-it idea that I did not offer you repeatedly and at length during our years-long communication, including what TeaK offered you in her recent post.

But what if much of my input to you communicated to you that “your wounds are invalid and is your fault, if you just thought these thoughts or did this.. you wouldn’t feel that way”-

Clearly, there is no point in me repeating myself, and you need something else (in the context of your thread), something as simple as: I hear you, noname. I can hear your pain, I see your pain, I can almost touch it.

anita
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