Ok, well, it sounds like you have moved away from you family then?

What you are describing in your parents is unfortunately not all that uncommon. Your father is a person who has not had any education in "understanding what it means to struggle with depression or any kind of mental illness". Your mother has no idea how to "listen and comfort" you and "validate your challenges" either. It sounds like you never really "bonded" with either one of them and you never developed a sense of "worthiness and self esteem that was healthy" because your parents didn't really know how to provide that for you. Often the problem stems from how so many parents themselves went without and just don't have the "knowledge" they should have to be a good parent and nurturer. It doesn't mean they don't love a child, what it does mean is they "don't know how" and even "fear loving" because they themselves might have been hurt.

I have described how I grew up and how hard it was too. However, one day I spent time with my father, just him and me on his boat, he had a couple of beers and was relaxed enough to talk. He told me that when he got married and had children, he really didn't know "how" to be a father. He said he felt he had to provide and that his children needed to learn manners, good English, but as he looked back on what he didn't do, he had "regrets" and that was because there had been more discussion about "how to get more involved with children" and "that this was important".

A lot of parents tend to think their child is born "who they are" and that they have to "put up with" whatever that child happens to be and do their best to "discipline" this "being that can become more challenging as it grows up". Parents really do not understand the huge role they themselves play in "who that child becomes" either. And most parents try to get their children to "behave in public" so that the family looks good, but they do not provide a "loving safe home" for their child. It is not unusual for parents to be so busy with themselves and sustaining that they often push their children away sending the child constant messages that "the parents don't have time for them and stop bugging them and that the child is just a burden on the parent".

This poor parenting can be recognized every time I read someone who "is" in therapy and constantly worries about "pleasing a therapist or being careful not to get emotional in front of their therapist thinking it must be "wrong" to do so. Inside they feel, "I don't want my therapist to think there is something wrong with me, otherwise the therapist will not want to spend time with me". A person begins to think, "I better be careful not to show when I feel hurt or struggle because I will be rejected". This is also a part of your title to this thread too. You said a lot when you said, "My mother needs me to pretend I am ok". That is "not" a "good mother", that is just a person that carries the title of mother, but never knew how to actually "be" a mommy. Actually if your mother needs you to pretend you are ok, then "she probably never had a real "mommy" either. This never meant you were never worthy either, it doesn't mean you should not "need" or that you can't carry a fear of trauma that "almost happened" either.

Can you talk about the trauma that "almost" happened? You can talk about it here you know.

((Hugs))
OE