Mental Health Support

Last edited Thu May 16, 2013, 12:03 PM - Edit history (1)

Don't know you or your parents but I am willing to bet your family doesn't see you as a burden , and sees the value of what you bring to them in your own way. You are reaching out to help me, and I see your value as well. .

I understand too how you feel about having to lean on your parents though. I feel that way with my sister too. I even talked with her and said "that I feel like I am a burden to you, and if you want to walk away from me I will do my best to understand."

She said you are not "a burden", you are my sister, and I love you, and you help me in your own way, and you helped take care of Mom when she was sick, and that is what families are supposed to do,help each other." She said "don't misunderstand I get frustrated as hell with you sometimes because I don't worry about trouble before it comes, I just live one day at a time, and deal with the bad things when and if they happen, and I don't get why you can't do the same thing, but your mind just functions different, and I have to accept that and deal with it. "

She confided that even before I had the breakdown and the subsequent diagnosis that my Dad noticed that the struggle to cope with daily life seemed harder for me than 'most people' and he asked her to always be there for me right befoe he died.

She said she promised him but told him that he didn't really even have to ask her, because she always planned on it anyway. They both said to each other that I was one of the most "booksmart" people that they'd ever known, but that I spent so much time living in that "book world," that I had never learned to really cope with the the real world. I actually became booksmart because that was my escape route when the world got too much for me to handle which started for me at about age five.

Therefore I can aslo relate with you on the working on college degrees as well. I did get a Bachelor's Degree in History, an Associate in Social Science, and an Associate in Applied Science Paralegal but I can't use any of them to hold down a job anymore. For ahwile after I got sick kept going back to college and taking courses because school made me feel normal and was a safe enviroment for me. As long as only me depended on me and I didn't have to worry about "failing anyone else, or having them "scream at me or beat me for failing", I was okay.

It's really kind of ironic because Catholic grade school is where that fear orignated from to begin with. That is how they would deal with my percieved failures and sins, with daily verbal abuse, hitting, and one major beating when I was five thrown in. So to me I've always thought it was strange that after that the public highschool and the the two colleges I attended were some of my "safe zones."


In college, I was always on the Dean's List and at the top of my class. I was even able to hold down a job for ten years at a Museum. At first it seemed tailor made, I got to share my love of books and reasearch and live in that world, until the real world interfered in the form of my fantastic boss leaving, and the subsequent mismanagement by subsequent directors.The institution seemed to be collapsing around me. My coworkers who had been my best friends had either found work else where or were laid off. Some of the new people who came in had their own "mental" issues which set of mine off even more.

To make a long story short, the place ended up surving, I literally almost didn't. I had a few retail jobs and temp jobs after, but I just kept breaking down again and again, and finally my therapist at the time just made the call and said I am going to recommend to the psychiatrist that we help you apply for SSD, because this can't keep happening. It's not healthy for you or your family anymore."

Now I am still not able to work and I have come close to hitting rock bottom several times since then. I will say, however, because of the therapy I have had and the medications I am taking I am still miles ahead of when the first break down hit. I hope that you and your doctors and therapists can hit on the right combination for you as well.

DBT therapy was a real turning point for me, even though I had to take it three times before it sunk in. The one lesson from there that that really stuck was "radical acceptance." The therapist conducting the group explained it this way, "you can't allow yourself to get caught in the life's not fair trap." She said The sad fact is that life isn't always fair, it will never ever always be fair, and instead of getting sad or angry about it, you just have to accept there are times you can't make it be fair, and move on."

The "it's okay to make mistakes and the don't judge yourself" parts, I still can't quite get a handle on. See all my edits, its the "can't be any mistakes because people will think your stupid" issue acting up.


I have been able to at least survive and live a somewhat independent life, and I nowI am able to see the warning signs of a major depressive episode approaching and can send out SOS calls to head it off. It mainly happens when I see too many actual and/or "percieved crisises" heading my way at once, and or if I don't get enough sleep. That is what has been happening in the last two weeks. The reminders here to take it one issue, one day at a time has helped.


You helped. Knowing there is someone who gets you, means the world. Thank you for being here, and If I can be here for you let me know. A complete cure for us, may never be in the cards, although we need to keep hoping for it and working towars that goal. In the meantime we just have to stay strong for each other, and know it "can at least get to be managably better." My current psychiatrist helped me to accept the latter part of that last sentence.