A bad couple days

[ghost]

all good advice..


mandy,
given the thumbnail you've already talked about with your mom & family i am not surprised.. there's a huge denial thing going on and the only way for your mom to escape any feelings of responsibility is to minimize any effects she can, especially in you, the 'good one' .. there are specific roles alchoholic family members take on.. and there's always a quiet one.. one that is left out in the cold except to be there in the capacity for others as an emotional caretaker..

believe me you are fighting for your own life by getting the help, and i hope you find it in you to keep pushing forward even if your mom tries to erase your reality..

i also could never reach my mom..
now all these years later as she gets old.. she literally has forgotten me.. she barely remembers who i am.. and every time we write it is so painful.. she never could see reality and recognize me and the truth.. she still tries to tell me what a 'perfect' father i had.. (haha) it's positively delusional..

i had to move on in life with my own little family and accept their shortcomings.. i wish it could be better for you and that your mom could come around and deal with things, but it's so common for them not to.. as others have said..

when my hubby & i first got our own apt. his relatives all referred to me as 'that live-in gal' and had nothing good to say about me, no matter what a hard working good person i was, a national merit commended student, to them i must just be young white trash.. 25 years later these people and their judgments just fall by the wayside and fade away.. it is their problem.. we came from nothing and have been very successful.. but i know how much it hurts to be so unsupported..

i hear you.. we here will not erase you..
hope you take some comfort from that..


taking mom into a session.. it's good because you'll find out for sure, with the aid of your therapist, where she really stands..

ghost

[ghost]

thumper,
it was so painful i just couldn't stand it.
at a certain point i had to just try to understand how insecure and messed up certain people must have been at the time to need to put others down and shame them so..
i swear to you i even prayed for them..
(i was a better christian back then.. hehe.. )
like they say pray for your enemies..

and although some of these folks just died off and never changed, one of them (the worst one) became a christian after many years and really really changed.. i could not believe it! this evil person had regret and realized how rotten she had been and has treated us so nicely since then.. weird!
i felt vindicated and like at least i'd been the bigger person, you know?

but it was so painful to be young and feel so unable to defend myself and my integrity against the whole world judging me..
hubby & i broke off contact with them when our son was born to try to shield him from it all.. and it worked. later when they were civil we began to allow them back into our lives..

rejection feels so annihilating.. even from strangers..
it's so hard to not let it pierce right through your heart.
especially for those of us already convinced we are unloveable..

ghost

[ghost]

that's a really good question, pete..

the relative who used to put me down was also an aunt.. hubby's
she was also known for being nosy & controlling..
we called her 'the queen of toxic shame' ala bradshaw..

mandy,
what our moms think or say about our size, weight, etc.. is super important and affects us.. even as adults..
as a kid it was my mom who gave me such a complex that i was 'mesomorphic' or big or something and it led to an almost deadly eating disorder.. it was her issue because at the time at least one other mom used to call me 'runty' and try to get me to drink milk at her house all the time! i look back at pix of me then and i was small!
then at my lowest weight it was my mother again there saying how ghastly & awful i looked.. i could never be right for her..
i hope your mom comes back to therapy with you and gets her eyes pried open.. gets educated..

ghost

[ghost]

that is so sad..
i'm sorry she's being such a disappointment!
(as a mom it makes me mad! )

when i feel like that i turn on the tcm channel..
old movies make me feel comforted/escape to another time for a bit..
with a blankey..

*sending you virtual lowfat chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream*

ghost

[ghost]

oh man..
abandonment is the big bad guy for all of us with insecure attachment! and the fact that he is not acknowledging you by either telling you in person he's leaving is wrong.. it is just more erasing of you like your mom is doing..

you deserve to be treated better than that. either keep better in touch or tell you why, you know?

i have had a very isolated life myself..
isolation is a killer.. but it is soooo hard and takes so long to make more meaningful attachments to new people.. ug!


with your mom,
what i have seen most with dysfunctional families like ours is the idea that 'scarcity' rules all.. when parents cannot meet the needs of their kids because they never got their needs met either it creates a neediness in the family and everyone keeps trying to get life sustaining attention and emotional nurturing out of it, rather than all putting In to it, you know what i mean? so it just keeps feeling like theirs less and less of what everyone needs.. parents withhold from their kids, which goes against nature when you think of it.. the logic is that giving takes away something.. really giving gives back.. well, that's what john bradshaw's books all say..

i've had to work on this whole 'scarcity' monster all my life..
in my family there was so little to go around, one psychologist i used to see said my siblings and i were 'fighting over crumbs'! it is wrong and it is not our fault.. that may be little consolation when we are hurting though..


i shared my virtual ice cream with you because i think ice cream is one of those things we do simply to be nice to ourselves.. and when you are in pain that's when taking care of yourself is most important.. (our messed up parents obviously didn't teach us this.. but trust me it is true..)
due to my ed, i went for more than a decade without tasting chocolate.. only very recently did i decide to add it back in.. in the form of that dreyer's double churned stuff!~! oh man..
now i'm into trying new ways of being nice to myself..
rather than starving and killing myself to prove i was worthy..

take care,
xmas is the hardest..
man we are holiday orphans here at my house it gets so lonely!

here at the forum we are on the island of misfit toys..

ghost

[ghost]

mandy,
it seems like the more you look for validation, the more you feel invalidated? i'm sorry.. i don't think all the helpful 'advice' in the depression/sa thread is always helpful, although i have to admit, i do like the idea that 'personality is not a disorder'.. i have to remind myself of that, as i have lots of 'personality'..

i think people are trying to reassure you that you're not abnormal, but you're hearing it as erasing your concerns?
i find that people easily give advice, i do it too.. we want to be of help, but sometimes all we need is to be heard/validated..

maybe you should start a thread in the 'isolation' area like pete & i & others have.. where you can just journal your concerns, and get support? like your own thread? (i'm not suggesting go into 'isolation'.. it just seems like that's where we end up doing this) actually i kinda keep one in the 'agoraphobia' section too.. since this is just an ongoing struggle for me.. i keep a log of progress & problems there..

i still think it's a dangerous game others minimizing this food/eating problem.. it seems early enough that the right therapist could help you nip it in the bud before you suffer consequences, you know? but honestly, good therapists are hard to find.. boy do i know this.

i'm not a therapist, but i know that underlying the eating 'disorder' is the real problem, with me, for example, i treat food the way i feel about people.. with mistrust in the extreme, so i'm afraid to 'ingest/take in' anything & i panic over it.. then i lived like a junkie on the fasting 'high'.. the way you act in relation to your food and eating relates to something you feel emotionally. like some purge to get 'rid' of bad feelings they got from eating or comforting themselves with food, it's punishment for having needs.. the more you look at what the eating/exercising is covering up, the more insight you will have, with or without the therapist.. what is the disordered eating giving you?

one book that my therapist had me read was 'good enough' (i forget the author's name right now, but she is a recovering bulimic).. also there's steven levenkron's 'the best little girl in the world'.. maybe you'd feel more like someone understood how you are feeling trying one of these?

well,
i don't know if any of this helped?
but it is also ok to take a break from all the self-analysis at times & not worry about it if you can (you say not care, but i think the caring will come back once you feel recharged or heard?)


ghost

[ghost]

have a good session..


i have been the lazy hamster type w/ my ed.. so i don't exercise much.. i'm too depressed honestly.. so i guess i don't have much advice on that subject..

but yeah, there's alot of the ocd aspect w/ ed's..
i have it, my son has it, my sisters.. it runs in my family..
my schizophrenic older sister has it the worst..
to the point of washing hands till they bleed and doing endless senseless body 'tics' & counting at times.. it's for real.. she's so out of it with her paranoid schizophrenia, believe me she could never control this stuff..

i get a little tired of the 'snap out of it' attitude that pops up on the sa/depression thread.. you know, cute pix are supposed to cheer us up.. ha ha ha..

take care,
ghost


p.s.
yes, while levenkron was the first to write about si/eds and it was great info, he has a monumental ego! i didn't read that other book, but i can just imagine..

[sleepflower]

mandy said:

I did read a book by Steven Levenkron that I got from the library (Anatomy Of Anorexia). While it was informative, I felt... he uh... kind of came off like a bit of an ass?

You took the words right out of my mouth, Mandy. I read his book about SI a while ago, and took the same away. Your comment made me smile.

Sorry I have no good advice, but I just wanted you to know that I care and that I hope the therapy goes well for you. Good luck.

[ghost]

me, too.. pete, i see that commercial all the time!!
haha!

the 'pros'.. they get their letters after their names (lmft, phd, md)
and we get ours, huh? (ed, si, ad, add, ptsd)


yeah, levenkron was a pioneer with really good info..
then all of that just went to his head and he turned people off so much.. too bad, too, because so much of what he intuits about si folk, for example, is spot on.

ghost

[ghost]

pete,
mandy posted this somewhere before and i quoted her:

"Dysthymia is a long-term, mild depression that lasts for a minimum of two years. There must be persistent depressed mood continuously for at least two years. By definition the symptoms are not as severe as with Major Depression, although those with Dysthymia are vulnerable to co-occurring episodes of Major Depression. This disorder often begins in adolescence and crosses the lifespan. People who are diagnosed with major depressive episodes and dysthymic disorder are diagnosed with double depression. Dysthymic disorder develops first and then one or more major depressive episodes happen later."

i also qualify for this diagnosis since i have both chronic depression and major depressive episodes..

my last diagnosis, for example,
when spelled out looked like this:

major depression
agoraphobia
anorexia
alcohol abuse
ptsd

(the ptsd was secondary)

man, aren'i i fun?


the thing is, it helps to know what you are dealing with, but not to focus on all those letters, you know? because everything basically has a code in the DSMR.. and none of it is absolute, you will only get bogged down if you accept these labels.. which often change from therapist to therapist, according to their whim.. i have also been diagnosed OCD right on the spot by a psychologist who could not have known.. and many people who si are thrown right into the Borderline Personality Disorder category incorrectly.. it is a huge issue/controversy..
like someone said 'personality is not a disorder..' but they'll classify you, sure as hell.. 'cause if they can, they can sell you pills for it..


take it all with a grain of salt..
ghost