(also alcoholic,) allowed circumstances to keep me under his thumb. Depressed for years.

Once recognized sociopathology (with help of my attorney,) able to stop meds and move on.

being married and expecting to have a normal, happy life, only to be accosted with cruelty and a drunk...

I am just wondering if there was anything in your life that drew you to him?

Of course there are many women and men who have had a great life till...

knew he was alcoholic (who attended a program, and thereafter 'pretended' to comply.) Foolishly I didn't recognize his manipulativeness, my big mistake, but he was intelligent and interesting.

to a man in Alcoholics Anonymous who I would say was a pedophile...and I acted out for him, wearing my hair in pony tails and talking childish....I sat on my phone after I broke up, in order NOT to call him, that was how sick ! was.

..like I would never have to sit on my phone again, just say by by

Hope to see my grandson in a few days; saw my granddaughter and other grandson last weekend; there is life after sociopathy (especially as he died 3 years ago.)

..I want to say because he died, but the kids?

Yes, both good for me.

Lost my brother in 1991.

Lost my job in 2003 and again a few times, over the years, in temp jobs and other bad things. Had to move out of NY after having battled so long to get back there. Lost everything, pretty much. More than once. Terrible money situation until recently.

Now I have a job, thank goodness. The pay is low, but it's something.

Not thrilled about the poor state of my health. Ministrokes several times last year. Had to go to hospital and was able to get help to pay a huge bill.

Still dealing with anxiety and a continuing sense of pointlessness and failure. I am very lonely and I don't know if it'll ever get markedly better.

Losing a job is equal to a death...you have really had a hard time of it...

You seem to be a survivor regardless of all the bad things that went wrong, none of which you had control over...what you do have control over seems you have done very well..

The feelings are up to you...you seem to be a survivor...and I am 24/7 in my house, but am not lonely...there are so many people here that really care...I am one, shenmue,..and there are many others...reach out, you will see

I had a broken shoulder. went to the emergency room...walked out with a sling and a prescription for pain pills and a $3,000 dollar bill! They gave me a cat scan and a chest xray...cause it was slow!

Long story, but we got them to waive most of what the insurance didn't cover. I proved that I had low income, and they adjusted a big chunk. Whew.

Dad had Bipolar I.

My mom is a Narcissist, so was my dad but he was out of my life early. There was a lot of physical/emotional abuse I witnessed and was directed at me from birth on through adulthood. My dad was picking me up from the crib and throwing me across the room to get me to stop crying as a baby.

I was banging my head against the wall to make my nose bleed and get my parents to stop fighting at age 3.

At age 8, I was completely dissociating from myself - creating entire new personalities/histories/etc to escape my reality.

At age 14 or so I started cutting and that lasted about 15 yrs, then I met and married my wonderful husband and swapped one version of self harm to a more acceptable one - overeating myself into morbid obesity.

Since then it has been a roller coaster of depression, CPTSD and borderline personality disorder.

I seriously don't think I stood a chance from birth NOT to have a mental illness.

But in 2007 I hit the holy grail of shit storm - lost a job I loved, then in 2008 lost my grandpa, 2009 lost my grandma and one of our dogs, 2011 lost another job and another dog...my grandparents were my emotional core - they helped keep me sane. Losing them really set me back. I haven't had a full time job since 2007 (the one in 2011 was contract position) and the depression has been really major and the isolation and feelings of worthlessness have only increased.

I truly hope you are in some sort of counseling...What you have been through is truly traumatic, and since it began so early in your life there must be ways to relearn how to live a happy life...only intense counseling can do that...and it can if you want to be happy...of course many people can live being unhappy..and still thrive.

Looking back after I did a family history, I know that the my paternal grandfather was an alcoholic, my father was a heavy drinker off and on, until he dumped us and disappeared for 40 years. My maternal grandmother and mother both surely have had severe depression and my first episode was at 11......I was a disaster waiting to occur.


I need to think about this some more, brilliant thread idea angstlessk.

Maybe your father leaving? Something else..age 11 rules out a breakup of a boyfriend...maybe a best friend moved away? Look back at your 11 year old self...one does not go from a happy 10 year old to a depressed 11 year old...without a reason?

Three of my grandparents were alcoholics. None of my grandparents were fully functional in ordinary society, and some of their siblings were entirely dysfunctional. After she retired, my grandma lost it completely and had to be removed from her home as a danger to herself and others. She was impossible to live with and would get kicked out of nursing homes, and then live with my parents.

There was a lot of mental illness kept in the closet, and I think my parent's generation was the first willing to talk about it. In previous generations even suicides were covered up.

I had a tough time in middle and high school. I was a weird skinny, squeaky, clumsy, highly reactive kid who was always an easy target for bullies. I quit high school for college and it was wonderful. The physical violence against me ended.

I was still a very strange kid. I was "asked" to take time out from college twice. The campus police knew me for my odd behaviors, things like obsessively running at two o'clock in the morning with bare bloody feet. I was always friendly toward the police and mostly harmless, an interesting diversion from their usual sordid graveyard shift duties.

The first time I was asked to take time off from school was for fighting with a teaching assistant. I'd verbally provoked him into throwing things at me, including a textbook. He'd started with his chalk. An overhead projector got knocked to the floor and broken too.

I used to live in the university computer lab when I wasn't running obsessively, or up to other mischief. Sometimes literally lived in the computer lab. There was also a time I was living in a church parking lot in my car, and another time I was squatting in an apartment after the people I was renting a room from disappeared one day, taking my share of the rent with them. I slept on the floor by the window always ready to leap out and run away if the landlord showed up. I finished out the school term that way.

It took me nine years to graduate from college, and I have many stories. During that time I also enjoyed something like a David Lynch version of My Big Fat Greek wedding with a woman who was using me to prove to herself and her family that she wasn't a lesbian. Her girlfriend tried to kill herself in my bathtub. After that things got even worse.



When I met my wife I was doing pretty well.

But it's always a merry-go-round with meds. My darkest depressed state is entirely empty. All that's left is my OCD. I stop eating, I stop paying attention to various other health issues I have, until the OCD reminds me I can't do the stuff I need to do (some of it entirely irrational, like plucking certain hairs off my face) if I'm dead.

Your condition could be hereditary, or just conditioned..YOU EARNED A COLLEGE DIPLOMA...how crazy can you be?

First in you family? If so, you might be the first in you family with ok genes.

Hell I've been married three times...they all might have been gay...after all they divorced me..or I them