[MotownJohnny]

Sorry, I know, this is an old issue for me - something I really struggled with last year and early this year - the feeling that I should just end myself because of a diagnosis and a history.

Intellectually, of course, I know that it isn't true. If it were true, honestly, I don't know if I would want to live in such a world anyway, because it would mean that millions of us "didn't deserve to live" because of mental health issues - that world existed in Germany 1935-1945, and it was truly a Hell on Earth, abhorrent to any thinking, feeling person. The most vivid example of actual evil in human history, IMHO. Not the sole one by any means, alas.

OK, truth is, I'm having a hard time at work right now, and work was pretty much one of my life preservers during all of this. I'm just not having an easy time getting things done, nor having a lot of motivation, and it is showing. I am getting behind, and things are piling up. My boss is beyond belief, he is such a nice guy, I doubt he would raise his voice to me no matter how badly I effed up, he would just say "fix it". So, he deserves better.

My father always called me worthless, and told me I shouldn't even be alive. I was, he said, after all, the bastard-child of another man (completely untrue, I even look a lot like him), and too stupid, too effeminate, too whatever (also completely untrue) to deserve to exist. And, there were a couple of incidents when I was a teenager when he told me those things at gunpoint. Not some of my happier childhood memories.

These two strands of thought intersected in my mind earlier today. It suddenly dawned on me that my father always told me I was so worthless, I didn't deserve to live, and my inability to be "perfect" made me vulnerable to these thoughts. I can see now how this his programming took hold very deeply as a core belief, yet was simultaneously something I fought against my entire life. I am like that on SO many things - it's like the cliche of the angel on one shoulder, telling me what I know to be true, and the devil on the other, repeating the childhood programming that is false, but which still feels "true" much of the time. Obviously, perfection isn't even possible, but right now, I am falling far from even "good", and that is bad.

So, the dark thoughts creep back in at time. Images of an end game. You know ... the very kind of thing that I admitted to two years ago, which got me into big trouble. I no longer fear them, though, I recognize them for what they are - just a symptom, a twinge of pain - and I no longer consider them dangerous, because I have no desire to act on them. Like a headache or fever, they just need to go away, and they will.

But here is the deal - I am still "hung up" on the whole diagnosis/hospital thing. I make these intellectually based statements that "no one should be ashamed" and "the system has failed us by allow stigma to persist" - and those ARE true. I know that intellectually. The problem is, I'm not that brave, and I don't walk the walk. I don't feel it emotionally. I still feel very insecure about my place in the world, and I also feel like I'm on some foreign planet or in a parallel universe where "nothing is the same" - every hour of every day is flavored with memories of "what happened in 2012". I still feel like I am hiding an enormous, guilty secret. Even though intellectually I know it's no one's business, especially after 2 years.

I guess the bottom line is, I feel so devalued by my experience - it took away my sense of being "as good as everyone else", my sense of being an equal member of society. I want that back. And yet, I know I never lost it, really.

No, you never lost it. Thinking you did is an error in thinking that I know you work actively to counter. Try not to get too bogged down in that thinking today. We all have days when our thinking tries to spiral downward on us, but we can work to counter that thinking (and I really think you are doing a much better job of this these days than you used to do). Don't get too down on yourself for having these bad moments. Remember, they do pass as they've done for you before.

[MotownJohnny]

Some days, I feel like it would be so much easier to just give in and let the currents of this thing take me wherever they like. It 'a just so hard to fight a multi-front war with an enemy at the ready 24/7. Look, I practically live here on PC - and I am just as clingy and needy and insecure in real life. I shouldn't need 24/7 backup - I should be able to stand on my own. But no, one little thing changes and it upsets the whole apple cart.

The problem with this problem is as I alluded to in another thread - no way out. Bad relationship, break up. Failing business or crushing debt, go through bankruptcy. I can't physically run away - if I ran to Sydney or Singapore or Seattle, the memories would still be there, and I would still be afraid of being outed.

It really is like eternal punishment.

You can change that thinking though MJ. That's where therapy was a huge help for me. There really is a place beyond being stuck in those kinds of thoughts. It takes time and work to get there, but it is possible. Hang in there.

[MotownJohnny]

Thank you. I really do think I'm not doing the "right kind" of therapy, with the right kind of therapist. She doesn't specialize in trauma, or anything to my knowledge. She is very nice, and I owe her a lot, but I started looking for someone more specialized. I dunno if this area is especially f'ed up, but there are a ton of therapists, literally thousands, in the metro area, and quite a few under "trauma". So, I have a lot to pick from. I sent emails to a couple today. Maybe that will help.

I guess you wouldn't go to a GP to cut out a malignant brain tumor or place an arterial stent- so I guess it's logical to look for a trauma specialist.

[unaluna]

I think your mental health situation only invalidates your right to be a Democratic party presidential / vp candidate. or the spouse of a winning one. Anything else i dont think anybody really cares. Or it could work to your advantage..

[Open Eyes]

Oh presidents have had their mental health challenges and so have their wives, they just keep it quiet and some talk about it "after" the terms/term is over.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

Oh presidents have had their mental health challenges and so have their wives, they just keep it quiet and some talk about it "after" the terms/term is over.

Im thinking about dukakis' wife, and was it mcgovern who was treated for depression? My point being, its not going to be on cnn for most of us regular people.

[Parley]

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

Oh presidents have had their mental health challenges and so have their wives, they just keep it quiet and some talk about it "after" the terms/term is over.

Originally Posted by hankster

Im thinking about dukakis' wife, and was it mcgovern who was treated for depression? My point being, its not going to be on cnn for most of us regular people.

I believe it was Harding that spent time in a psych ward when he was young. Ok~ I don't think they called it a psych ward but yall have me wondering if he would have been elected if he had to deal with CNN.

[MotownJohnny]

Well, I'm not Billy Joe Armstrong (Green Day), either, so I don't know if people would still love me like they do when it's a celebrity.

[JaneC]

I think it's great you are looking at other T options. I think I'd be getting nowhere too if my T didn't have experience with trauma and also the other modalties that we use. A bit of this and a bit of that, CBT, ACT, somatic experiencing etc.....it is all tailored to what I need in the moment. I really appreciate his skills......maybe I ought to tell him one day?

And MJ, those that really love you, all of you, will continue to do so no matter whether you are president, famous or you. Mowtown Johnny. Those that walk away?.... I think Dr Suess has lots of good things to say about being you and those "mind don't matter". Google quotes from him...... some quite brilliant.

[Open Eyes]

(((Mowtown))),

You got some good advice here. PTSD does have a tendency of leading the person struggling with it to experience this sense of fear and powerlessness, I experience this myself, it is hard for me because of the ongoing situation I have been in that keeps that present in my life.

I think that just having a regular therapist and not a therapist who is a trauma specialist that really understands how PTSD can present these feelings is not helping you. I can see by the way you responded to the material I presented that you do relate to symptoms, they make sense to you and now you need a therapist who knows this as well and is equipped to help you understand it better "and" learn ways to overcome these symptoms.

You are struggling with what your rational mind is seeing verses your emotional confusion but also "how" you have been injured that needs "healing".

Our mental health issues DO NOT invalidate our right to exist!

They do present us with some interesting challenges though.

I often feel I owe the whole world an apology simply for existing.

But on the good days I know how far I've come ...

And that as a child of this Universe I have a right to be here!

[Teacake]

Johnny, we are DNA seeking to replicate. We are more than that. But we are that. We have a will to live. That is our nature. Live your nature.

We are also evolving. It hurts.

Maybe you got a dose of religion. God created man and there is a perfect template and you don't measure up. Bad cookie gets crunched into the tough dough pile. Get real. We are monkeys with abnormally complex brains. We we are evolving at an unprecedented rate. We can't imagine what we may be if we survive three generations.

We all have a right to be. We aren't working toward any grand purpose. We are here. No one knows why. We can take out cultural stuff real serious but its already gone. We are monkeys. We don't have to justify our existence. We just don't.