Very hard. I'm 54 & had a difficult childhood with a bipolar & alcoholic mother (was not able to be helped by treatment & committed suicide when I was 15) & an alcoholic father. We kids were never really told what was going on with my mother as to why she was so irrational & abusive & in & out of mental institutions & getting ECTs, etc. We were just living in chaos & fear.

After she died, my father told me she killed herself because she was getting older & losing her looks!! She was an exceptionally attractive woman & basically, that was why my father married her & the only value she had, as far as he was concerned. He was having affairs. She had internalized or maybe already had the same idea of her worth being in her looks & sex appeal (she also had numerous affairs--to get that affirmation that she was still valuable when her husband was looking else where?).

My God, she had a severe mental illness & he blamed her suicide on her losing her looks. I was so angry at him for being so superficial, but you know what? Here I am at 54, bipolar & gained weight in the last 8 years on my meds & my husband told me he no longer found me sexually attractive because of that & what did I do? I overdosed on my meds & wine & ended up in the ER & still am feeling suicidal frequently & it's been 1 1/2 years. Med changes, frequent therapy--but the stuff implanted in my brain as a child is so strong--my worth is gone, just like my mother's & she taught me what to do...--Suzy