[richeye]

Hey Everybody!

I haven't posted here in over a year. I'm doing okay. But then the past comes up with all of it's emotions and turmoils and crap I had buried. I don't know if I should send this letter to my sister, who I've shared things with over the years, but I know: restraint of tongue and pen.

My life for the past 20 years has been one major unconscious conflict. Am I lazy? Am I a hobo? Am I schizophrenic? Am I a woman trapped in a man's body? Am I borderline? Am I avoidant? Am I schizoaffective? Or am I a human being with feelings?

Today I was at my friends house after we had gone to an AA meeting. I am thirty-eight, white male, college educated, single, nice-looking, 6', good build, but haven't worked in 14 years. I thought by going on SSDI I'd find myself because maybe I am schizoaffective, borderline, avoidant, bipolar, gay, bisexual, transgendered, OCD, a hobo, and every other thing that I really am not. But anyway, I described my life like my sister's dog when he goes into her backyard: it has an electric fence that shocks the dog one he goes beyond a certain point. He probably doesn't know exactly what it is that is keeping him for going anywhere, but he meets resistance if he leaves the yard. That's been my life since becoming an adult. 'Fear of success', 'fear of failure', 'fear of transitions'. When I was working at the ages of 22-24, I was hoping that psychotherapy would take care of this 'unconscious conflict'. But my therapists seemed to only want me to see them less and less. They had no idea how badly I was hurting inside. I wasn't lethargic, but had thought about suicide all of the time. I appeared okay, and energetic, and only a little bit depressed, but they didn't hear me. They didn't know. They only cared about satisfying my company health care quota rather than 'hearing what I'm not saying'.

And I always appeared happy, joyful, energetic, excited, and non-depressed. But 12 years ago things changed for the worse. Hear what I'm not saying: I was taught the parable of the person who falls in a hole while walking down the street, doesn't know how to get out, finally does, so forth and so on until he decided to walk down a different street. Okay, I started walking down a different street, and fell into a hole that seemed to be an abyss. Just when I thought I was out, I got pulled back in. Which made me feel like the following:

I've felt like God's red-headed step child since I was 18. I called to God and Jesus the way Harry Potter was called in the first Harry Potter movie, what with receiving letters and memos everyway possible only to see nothing happened. People told me that I was scared and depressed because of 'sin', that Adam and Eve sinned and God was going to condemn all of creation at the end times except for a few Southern Baptists, Messianic Jews, and evangelicals. And I believed it. In college, I studied Christian apologetics, philosophy, scripture, comparative religion, theology, etc... But at the end of my college career, when I had exhausted the faith thing and was scared and depressed out of mind (my pdoc still didn't believe me when I said I was suicidal), I was on my own and felt completely betrayed by God. He didn't want me, and I could prove it. Look at Romans 8:28-29, I wasn't predestined. And look at the parable of the wedding feast: many are called, few are chosen. I was on my own.

Even though I was able to get a job after graduating from college as an IT major, I was still very depressed. Nobody believed me how dark I felt inside. All I wanted was peace of mind. And I wasn't finding it in psychotherapy or medication, so I added booze and womanizing to the mix. It gave me a purpose, and I was posting on the Wings of Madness website while working those 2 years.

I know it's my dad that's the problem. Even though I'm a man, I felt like his b*t*h, slave, and peon while growing up. My older brother and sister didn't like him, as they would fight with him a lot. I was his good buddy because he needed an ally and a friend. I was smothered. I knew this 14 years ago while working, yet the therapists didn't believe me. To become independent was a threat to him, looking back over all of these years. I fought with him all throughout college once I realized how much of an *** he was, and had dreams of physical confrontation all the time during this period. I hated him. Yet moving out was the hardest thing I ever did, because of that 'electric fence' that unconscious conflict, that gave me panic attacks when I tried going off to college or moving into my own place. And even though I did move out at 22 and supporting myself, I was extremely depressed, angry, anxious, resentful.

Fast forward to Dec 2003. I had been on company disability for a year, and felt ready to 'move on', once I thought yoga was helping me open up my chakras and relieving me of this unconscious conflict. Nope: I went down a different hole, one that I had never seen coming. All of the tools I learned in psychotherapy up until then became obsolete. I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me at the time, except for maybe I was becoming homosexual. There's nothing wrong with being LGBT, unless you really aren't and some obsession in my mind said I was. I was never latently homosexual, bisexual, or transgendered. I knew without a doubt for years that I preferred women, yet I didn't know what HOCD was/is. And so, I married the bottle.

Before applying for SSDI I was hospitalized for depression and substance abuse. My worst nightmare came true: I had to go back to my parents for help. He is very authoritarian, belligerent, and an out and out d*ck. But it doesn't seem that way when you meet him. Anyway, when I was sobering up he met with my psychiatrist and told her (I'm not lying!): "If I was in so much pain that I had to drink a case of high potency beer a day, I'd strongly consider ending my life." Not only had I lost everything before going to him for help, I was being rubbed in cow dung, and there wasn't a damn thing to do but to end my life. I was knocked down for the count. I can't say it's God that pulled me through this period, because I was His b*t*h, too. The only way I felt I could get even with Jesus was by cussing out the Holy Spirit, which I thought was an unpardonable sin. I'm going to hell anyway, so I might as well get the last word in, kill myself, and let my blood rain in my dad's unconscious mind while I burned in hell for an eternity. After all, that was my destiny.

I've done well over the past 10 years that I've been sober. I have a section 8 voucher, 10 years sobriety, active in AA, church, have my own car, have SSDI, and a headache like a mother f*****r, twice the price of my thrills. I'm a good boy. I'm spiritual. My parents love me. I do what I'm told. But I have every diagnosis that an incompetent retired anesthesiologist can throw at me. Avoidant, borderline, schizoaffective bipolar type, ocd, shizoid, and even some diagnoses that don't exist in the DSM. But I'm not crazy: I'm human. I have feelings. I'm not a pet. I'm above average intelligence, nice looking, caring, happy-go-lucky, educated. And I've had enough. My dad is my SSDI payee, which means I'm still under his control, even though I don't live with my parents. I'm well behaved, do what I'm told, etc...Now I know how Malcolm X felt when he worked on the train and had to put on a front when working on the food cart on a train. Except I didn't realize I was doing that until today. And I'm not even African-American! Yet I think I know what it's like to get treated like a well behaved dog, despite having ferocious anger inside me.

I don't know where this is all going. Let me know if you think it's okay if I share this post with my sister. AA has taught me restraint of tongue and pen, which I didn't know when I sent a threatening email to my dad and his family on Halloween of 2003. I thought I had settled the score with him then, just like I thought I had settled the score with God when I cussed out the Holy Spirit. But anyway...

richeye - I cannot say if you should share this post with your sister. I have no idea what your relationship with her is like and whatnot. But, there really isn't anything wrong or bad with what you wrote . . . it's actually quite a good rant, with a bit of humor and a good degree of intelligence.

So . . . maybe . . .

. . . maybe it's time to start getting comfortable in your own skin. . . like yourself irrespective of all the labels (or, mislabels). Like yourself despite the negative feelings you have inside of yourself. Like yourself despite your relationship with your father . . . so many of us have had a love/hate relationship with one (or both) of our parents. Like yourself because over the past few decades you've been on one hella ride and you've survived it!

And, maybe . . . maybe if you think this is a really crappy reply, you can just disregard it.

[richeye]

no, it's not a crappy reply. Thanks for acknowledging my humanity. It's bed time, and i'm still not becoming crazy. Thanks Onward

[DesigningWoman]

I can't speak to the faith issues. I do understand your issues with therapy. For almost two decades I presented a happy or at least highly functional facade to mental health professionals. Consequently they didn't help me.
Let me make this very clear: It was my fault, not theirs.
They couldn't help what they didn't know about. I too felt they were not listening to me, but I wasn't telling them, showing them my truth.
Finally I have a good therapeutic relationship with a therapist. She is great, but much of the success and progress I have made is mine. She knows me, my pain, shame, anger, and joys, because I told her. I try to be as completely honest and transparent as i can. I have made great progress since February when I started seeing her.
If you can't talk about how you are feeling, print out this post and give it to him or her to read. I started by writing My therapist, J. Now I mostly talk.
I wish you best health and wellness.

Hello,

I'm really sorry for what you went through your whole life. I can relate to what you wrote about your father; mine was just the same. I think both our fathers would be good buddies if they ever met. I can imagine them sharing their stories by a campfire and having a good old laugh over a few beers, about how they managed to completely ruin their own son's lifes and futures. (Sorry about including my own rant in this reply, by the way...)

As for therapy not helping you, well, no surprises there. I never had therapy myself but know of many stories that really put me off ever starting it one day. It seems like they're more interested in treating it when the case is extreme or when it doesn't matter anymore, just like there isn't much focus on preventing cancer, for example, only treating it and selling related care and medicine. It's all about the profit...

You seem to have come a long way, so keep on fighting. That's all I can say to you.