Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This all sounds good, Ilene. I know when I have a giant mess, which is most of the time, or something that seems so huge that I have to do, the only way I can do it is to break it down into little pieces and do one little piece at a time. Example: I have an old carpet that was here when I bought my condo two years ago. I can't afford new carpet--I'm thinking maybe that's something I can do in five years. I have cats and the carpet has gotten dirty from when they throw up, etc., plus I've spilled stuff myself. My oldest sister gave me a carpet steam vac that she no longer needs, and it's been sitting there for six months. Finally yesterday I did a search on Google to see if I could figure out how to use it, and I found the answer on Yahoo Answers of all places. So I tried it, and I managed to clean a patch of my carpet! A very small patch, mind you, maybe 6' X 8'. It was exhausting. BUT I DID IT. And tomorrow I'll move the table back to the side I cleaned and do the other side! And then I'll move on to another area.
My younger sister does our genealogy, and I have all these ancestors who worked as live-in maids in other people's houses. I have no idea how I come from such stock, since it takes every bit of energy I have to clean my own place.
I do go to the library just to be around other people.
Thanks for the response, and sorry it took me so long to reply back. I know what you're saying about the carpet, I have a cat that throws up ALL THE TIME and I've had an ongoing battle with "red mud" so now my carpet is ruined. Not to mention the cat and dog hair and spills. I have a small carpet cleaner and you're right, it's exhausting to use it and it's no match for the red clay mud around here. So, I've got a large carpet on top of it and more throw rugs on top of that one.....it's a hodge-podge of rugs and carpets right now but some day down the road I want to rip it all out and get laminate flooring. Good for you for cleaning a small area, I have to do things that way too because I become so overwhelmed so easily.
I'm beginning to see daylight with the house, packing, cleaning from top to bottom, throwing out stuff and giving stuff away. I've been working at it steady since last Thursday and it looks like another couple of weeks worth of work to be done but it's making me feel so much better already. It's amazing what you can accumulate just over a few years isn't it? I've been so busy with all this that I haven't had time to dwell on how depressed I am or the loneliness so YAY!! to that, I'm looking forward to getting this done and moving on to volunteering and checking into having an auction....yes, between me and my Mother we have enough stuff for an auction!! It's the only way I can unload all of it without having to drag it around forever to flea markets or have yard sales or dealing with weirdos from craigslist or the newspaper. I just want to get rid of it and be done with it once and for all. The reason I have so much "stuff" is because when I was married the last time we did quite well, had a large house and I filled it with nic-nacs, pictures, dishes, gifts, and I already had lots of china from my first marriage, etc. AND I also used to own a retail business and have a ton of things left over from that. I've already had one auction and I still have enough for another. I couldn't let go of things last time, but I'm letting go this time. Fresh start and no more junk and reminders.
So anyway, I'm just rattling on and I've got work to do. Been up since 3:30, couldn't go back to sleep so I've been working away this morning and need to quit goofing off now. Hope you're getting things accomplished a little at a time and here's to getting out of this "funk" and getting a life!!
note: trying to get into the county program but am very worried they'll insist on meds. Medically I don't dare and don't want to be manic like I was on them (people who know me comment that its nice to see me calm) and felt like a zombie half the time. I take motrin sparingly.
I am so sorry that you're feeling this way..and I also have BP..not sure if it's 1 or 2, but I was told, by a Psychiatrist, that I have the type that there is NO MEDication that can treat it. I could take mood stabalizers but I choose not to take anything..nothing. I became discouraged after trying over a dozen anti-depressants and nothing helped me. Anyway, imagine if you were adopted and your adoptive Mother opened up to you about how hard it was to raise a bi-polar kid, and what if she told you how jipped and robbed that she felt for getting you...That's what my mom told me, and she was not angry at the time, she was serious.. No wonder I'm such a nutcase.. I get manic quite often and do crazy things--luckily havent hit too many lows lately..But Im sorry for your suffering and depression and I pray that you feel better..
Some of you may remember I went through a terrible tribulation last year. I didn't go into much detail, but it has resulted in me being on my own for the first time in my life, and having to sell my house in Texas and move back to Michigan. My tribulation has come to a close but it will NEVER be over. I fell apart and am still not recovered. I am having a "down' day today, not a good feeling at all. I hate feeling like this. What I don't like even more is all of you on this thread feeling so bad. I hate others to feel bad, I don't wish it on anyone. I am a Christian, but I came thisclose to ending it. My beloved dog needed me, and still does (he is 13 and deaf). I look forward to the day I leave this earth as I know it. I DO look back over my life as a married woman, and sadly, have no GOOD memories with my mentally ill husband. I can get angry, but I force a mind change so I don't. I just look ahead and hope and pray that I can do something good with my life, but being depressed kinda negates that. I don't want to live past 80, so I look at it that I have 23 years left. I hope and pray that I get some feelings back, like excitement, so I am not soooooo unhappy the rest of my life. As a Christian I realize this is only temporary, but it sure is miserable experiencing it.
I am so sorry that you're feeling this way..and I also have BP..not sure if it's 1 or 2, but I was told, by a Psychiatrist, that I have the type that there is NO MEDication that can treat it. I could take mood stabalizers but I choose not to take anything..nothing. I became discouraged after trying over a dozen anti-depressants and nothing helped me. Anyway, imagine if you were adopted and your adoptive Mother opened up to you about how hard it was to raise a bi-polar kid, and what if she told you how jipped and robbed that she felt for getting you...That's what my mom told me, and she was not angry at the time, she was serious.. No wonder I'm such a nutcase.. I get manic quite often and do crazy things--luckily havent hit too many lows lately..But Im sorry for your suffering and depression and I pray that you feel better..
My great grandmother had a habit of packing up the kids and suitcases and getting everyone on the train and going back to Iowa just on a whim. My great grandfather worked for the railroad so it was free and they had two houses. He'd find a note saying they were on their way to Iowa. The kids were all born there even if they lived most of the time in California. When they got rid of the Iowa house and bought one as a 'vacation' house in No Cal, she shuttled between them. I think I know where the bp comes from.
Mom was moody and often depressed, and I suspect might have been, on the down side like me but nobody wanted to be 'mentally ill' then, given what happened to you. She once said I was the moodiest kid she ever saw. But I was also expraordinarily close to Mom, and I think she did understand me. When she died since she wouldn't quit smoking I was plunged into this empty space where I felt nothing, and it was at the aniversary of her death that I cried again after the funeral. But I was SO angry for her taking herself away from us sooooo unnecessarily. She died of an anurism, but its cause was the emphasema she had which she would not see a doctor about. I'm only two years away from when she died and couldn't imagine doing that. I have friends, not a lot but just letting yourself die isn't part of my gameplan for life.
I have an ileostomy, which over three revisions has taken a chunk of small intestine and I just don't absorb meds of any kind right. It has to be an uncoated pill. Mostly they hit me like a brick wall and are quickly used up. This isn't how psycy meds are supposed to work so I don't think they ever did properly. And while the triggers are less here, there are some, and on doc just said there is nothing they can do about that. I suppose some counsiling and therapy would have helped but then they'd have had to have one. My ileostomy has had one too many 'fixes' and may have to have a complete redo, full open surgery, and as I've already been tabbed as higher risk for that I just make due so thats this little grey layer I just live with.
I'm thinking if I ever were to take meds, it would be through a medical doctor not a pdoc. I explained this to the pdocs I saw and they nodded and gave me hard coated pills. Cutting the dose back severely they sometimes worked, but it was still the immediate wham and fade. I've found tailoring the lifestyle works best. A bad day spend reading a book is just a bad day. It cycles out. No dealing with the side effects for a week. I no longer trust that any pdocs care about what you say anyway. I am going to try to get my old medical records, and be able to document it, in case anyone says I 'have to'.
There's two kinds of cycling, the ones which are chemically triggered in the brain and tend to be a regular. I rapid cycle, one day up, next day down, which is also very hard to treat. The others are triggers. The only REAL help for them is therapy, but some people just can't deal with it and sometimes no matter what it doesn't help. What they do is give you higher doses of meds to 'cover'. Thus you can just end up on one long manic high and so zoned out you aren't you.
I realize I'd learned ways to deal with the moods a long time ago, and sort of dxed myself in high school. If taking meds doesn't make it much better, just replaces a disfunction with a disfunction, why take the risks when learning behaviors to moderate it can help too? It still doesn't make you a fully functional person able to handle everything out there, but at least your not destroying your liver.
I'm working on letting out the person inside who isn't satisfied with this, who needs something I haven't figured out yet, but realized with the debaucle over the form to social security that I'm not going to 'settle' for this. Its all baby steps but thats how life is sometimes.
Some of you may remember I went through a terrible tribulation last year. I didn't go into much detail, but it has resulted in me being on my own for the first time in my life, and having to sell my house in Texas and move back to Michigan. My tribulation has come to a close but it will NEVER be over. I fell apart and am still not recovered. I am having a "down' day today, not a good feeling at all. I hate feeling like this. What I don't like even more is all of you on this thread feeling so bad. I hate others to feel bad, I don't wish it on anyone. I am a Christian, but I came thisclose to ending it. My beloved dog needed me, and still does (he is 13 and deaf). I look forward to the day I leave this earth as I know it. I DO look back over my life as a married woman, and sadly, have no GOOD memories with my mentally ill husband. I can get angry, but I force a mind change so I don't. I just look ahead and hope and pray that I can do something good with my life, but being depressed kinda negates that. I don't want to live past 80, so I look at it that I have 23 years left. I hope and pray that I get some feelings back, like excitement, so I am not soooooo unhappy the rest of my life. As a Christian I realize this is only temporary, but it sure is miserable experiencing it.
Sorry you're feeling so bad today and that you've been through so much in the last year. It does get somewhat better with time but in my case I still struggle with the failure of my last marriage and loss of my business, and that was 8 and 6 years ago. I hate to see others feeling so bad too, maybe because I know exactly what it feels like. I know the bipolar thing keeps me depressed and feeling suicidal most days, I actually wish for a manic episode just so I can feel better. It may sound strange or morbid to most people to say you look forward to death, but I've said it here before too and I mean it so I understand why you would say that.
It is miserable experiencing life and being forced to bear it when it's so unbelievably unbearable, there's just no way to escape it except suicide and that is just too selfish of an option. I have to take one day at a time and with all the other problems that have come up recently I've had to keep going whether I feel like it or not. The key I guess is to stay busy, but that's hard to do when you're on disability, depressed, have no friends and no money. I'm still struggling like you so I don't really have any good advice but at least I can sympathize and hope that things do get better for you in time.
I am so sorry that you're feeling this way..and I also have BP..not sure if it's 1 or 2, but I was told, by a Psychiatrist, that I have the type that there is NO MEDication that can treat it. I could take mood stabalizers but I choose not to take anything..nothing. I became discouraged after trying over a dozen anti-depressants and nothing helped me. Anyway, imagine if you were adopted and your adoptive Mother opened up to you about how hard it was to raise a bi-polar kid, and what if she told you how jipped and robbed that she felt for getting you...That's what my mom told me, and she was not angry at the time, she was serious.. No wonder I'm such a nutcase.. I get manic quite often and do crazy things--luckily havent hit too many lows lately..But Im sorry for your suffering and depression and I pray that you feel better..
I understand. When I was a kid, my mother used to flip out sometimes and beat me. While she was doing this, she would tell me that I was (I can't remember the words) a disappointment and tell me that she wished that I'd never been born. She also used to mock my childhood stuttering. She's now elderly and doesn't remember any of this. How convenient.
Thanks for the response, and sorry it took me so long to reply back. I know what you're saying about the carpet, I have a cat that throws up ALL THE TIME and I've had an ongoing battle with "red mud" so now my carpet is ruined. Not to mention the cat and dog hair and spills. I have a small carpet cleaner and you're right, it's exhausting to use it and it's no match for the red clay mud around here. So, I've got a large carpet on top of it and more throw rugs on top of that one.....it's a hodge-podge of rugs and carpets right now but some day down the road I want to rip it all out and get laminate flooring. Good for you for cleaning a small area, I have to do things that way too because I become so overwhelmed so easily.
I'm beginning to see daylight with the house, packing, cleaning from top to bottom, throwing out stuff and giving stuff away. I've been working at it steady since last Thursday and it looks like another couple of weeks worth of work to be done but it's making me feel so much better already. It's amazing what you can accumulate just over a few years isn't it? I've been so busy with all this that I haven't had time to dwell on how depressed I am or the loneliness so YAY!! to that, I'm looking forward to getting this done and moving on to volunteering and checking into having an auction....yes, between me and my Mother we have enough stuff for an auction!! It's the only way I can unload all of it without having to drag it around forever to flea markets or have yard sales or dealing with weirdos from craigslist or the newspaper. I just want to get rid of it and be done with it once and for all. The reason I have so much "stuff" is because when I was married the last time we did quite well, had a large house and I filled it with nic-nacs, pictures, dishes, gifts, and I already had lots of china from my first marriage, etc. AND I also used to own a retail business and have a ton of things left over from that. I've already had one auction and I still have enough for another. I couldn't let go of things last time, but I'm letting go this time. Fresh start and no more junk and reminders.
So anyway, I'm just rattling on and I've got work to do. Been up since 3:30, couldn't go back to sleep so I've been working away this morning and need to quit goofing off now. Hope you're getting things accomplished a little at a time and here's to getting out of this "funk" and getting a life!!
Glad to hear you're feeling better from unloading junk. I think there's a correlation between unloading physical stuff and unloading mental crap, too.
LOL, that's exactly what I'm planning to do, buy rugs to throw on top of the crappy carpet. But someday, if I can afford a new carpet, I'm going to tell the salesperson that I need carpet in the color they have closest to cat vomit. Hehehe.
I understand. When I was a kid, my mother used to flip out sometimes and beat me. While she was doing this, she would tell me that I was (I can't remember the words) a disappointment and tell me that she wished that I'd never been born. She also used to mock my childhood stuttering. She's now elderly and doesn't remember any of this. How convenient.
In the book How To Manage Your Mother, which I recommend that EVERYBODY read, there are some really sad stories, as well as some amusing ones. In one of the sadder ones, the family of adult siblings was rallying around a sister in crisis, who I think was suicidal and in an abusive relationship. As they talked with the therapist, it became apparent that a lot of the sister's issues had to do with their horribly abusive mother, who had actually broken some of their bones when they were kids. They brought the mother to the next session, and she sat there and swore she had never laid a hand on her kids or punished them physically in anyway. The sister telling the story said she looked at her mother eyes and realized her mother actually believed this. She had blocked out any memory of beating her children so badly that she had broken their bones. It was bizarre and very sad.
My own mother was emotionally bizarre and demonstrated some very odd behaviors when we were children. Even though she was not physically abusive, she was emotionally very cruel with her words and used to put us down and shame us in front of other adults for her own entertainment, or maybe to bolster her own sense of importance, I don't know. Now she is in her 80s and while she did finally see a therapist in her fifties who helped her, we siblings still remember what a whackadoo she really was. I'm OK, because I had therapy of my own after a marriage to an abusive alcoholic and hashed through a lot of it, but my younger sister still can barely stand to speak with my mother.
It's awkward, because now my mother just appears to be this sweet old lady and I guess in HER head, everything's OK now, but it's not in my sister's head. (My sister is now 51.) So my mom keeps calling me to ask why my sister doesn't return her phone calls. "Is she OK? Is she having a hard time at work? I know she's having trouble financially, I just hope she's not too depressed..." and the answer is "She can't stand you, Mom, and doesn't really want to have a one-on-one relationship with you." But my mother doesn't get it, and I am not going to say that to her.
My oldest sister had it out with my mother decades ago, and now they have a friendly mother-daughter relationship but with a healthy distance between them. The second-oldest of my sisters is an alcoholic and very ill now with liver disease. My oldest brother is dead from his addiction issues, and the two youngest brothers have their own fallout effects from my mother. It's amazing how much influence one person can have.
Meanwhile, my dad was a disabled man with severe PTSD from the war, so he just retreated into his own little world to get away from her. He's now deceased.
And I want to let out this anger that I LOST OUT on life. I'm hoping for therapy/counseling. But any thoughts on this? I know I must not be alone. How do others cope with the idea that its too late now, and what's lost will never be?
note: trying to get into the county program but am very worried they'll insist on meds. Medically I don't dare and don't want to be manic like I was on them (people who know me comment that its nice to see me calm) and felt like a zombie half the time. I take motrin sparingly.
Yes. I went through two sets of parents, both of them abusive, one set was physically and emotionally, the second set was emotionally, a little bit physically. The second set is the one I "grew up" with and they did a bang up job on me. Told me my dreams were crap, told me in their own way that I'd never amount to anything, even got told one day that I was hated. Yep. Those words were actually said to me, "I HATE you!" That's a wonderful thing to hear when you're a teen ager and despite what some people think, you don't forget something like that. Especially when you are treated like you are hated.
No support. Two times in my life I asked for help...$400 and $300. That was it. One time a roommate bailed and left me with everything, giving me two days notice, one time after a bad car accident. The way I was treated was as if I was the world's biggest loser. The first time I was denied. I said I would end up homeless and they didn't care. And I ended up homeless. That's something you don't forget. The second time they blamed the accident on where I lived...that I had made a bad choice in where I lived. I lived in one of the safest damn places in Seattle at the time. But it was my fault that the accident happened because I lived, "in a dangerous place".
In other words, nothing I ever did was good enough, I was never good enough, I would never BE good enough and I was told this as often as possible in their own special way.
I decided I was going to show them, that I WAS good enough. But, it's kind of hard to do everything on your own. I spent the time in my younger years when I should have been "going for it", just trying to be able to afford to eat and have shelter.
I didn't have extravagant things, I didn't have all these credit cards, I didn't have a flashy cool car, I didn't have furniture, (except my bed and a desk), I didn't have a thing. I didn't have all the cool new gadgets, I didn't have new clothes, I didn't go out, eat out, go to movies...none of that stuff. I just tried to make it so that I could maybe one day, try to go after my dream.
Fast forward, I'm still trying to do that. But it's kind of late for all that now.
And I'm with you on the anger thing. I have thought about counseling but what is the point? They tell you to go on meds, (I don't need meds, I need a damn family), or they just tell you to "get over it", giving you steps to take to do that. Which, is nice, but doesn't help actually keep that roof over your head, food in your stomach and have the means to go after what you want...still gotta work hard to try to get that.
Most people don't have a clue about my past. Most people have no idea that I feel this way. I cover it up a lot. I joke a lot, try to make people smile, try to make people happy, (in real life), because that does give me a little bit of happiness but at the end of the day, I'm still here, by myself, without support.
The dream I had when I was younger was a way to achieve my ultimate dream which I'm not too old to do, but I have come to realize, I'm never going to earn the money to achieve my ultimate dream. It would make me really happy but, I'm never going to see that kind of cash and time is running out on ways to even come close to achieving it. So I try to find smaller bites of my dream that I can bite off and do.
But yah, there's days it hurts beyond belief. I think I'm completely clueless when it comes to knowing how to have relationships/friendships, etc. I think that while I have fantastic social skills with strangers, (I come off very confident and fun), when it comes to anyone getting too close, I suck at it.
There's times I see others, like kids trying out for some competition or whatever, and I think: "I wonder what it's like to have parents who are supportive" or a family who loves you. Yah, I actually wonder that. But I can't do that too often or it will debilitate me so I push everything down and try to pretend it doesn't exist...even though it does, always, just under the surface.
Releasing the anger, hurt or sadness is necessary....
The first thing I did was cut people out of my life who were not supportive and did not have positive things to day. It's made a huge difference. But, there is still that emptiness.
I guess if they try to push meds on you, you can refuse and/or go find another. I'm no help there because I have the same fears as you. I don't want nor need to be medicated. Just...damn, have my back for once. That's all.
Yup. I'm one of life's losers. I exist so other people can look at me and say "Well, at least I'm not HER."
That's really upsetting. You are not a loser.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm just rattling on and I've got work to do. Been up since 3:30, couldn't go back to sleep so I've been working away this morning and need to quit goofing off now. Hope you're getting things accomplished a little at a time and here's to getting out of this "funk" and getting a life!!
It does get somewhat better with time but in my case I still struggle with the failure of my last marriage and loss of my business, and that was 8 and 6 years ago. I hate to see others feeling so bad too, maybe because I know exactly what it feels like. I know the bipolar thing keeps me depressed and feeling suicidal most days, I actually wish for a manic episode just so I can feel better. It may sound strange or morbid to most people to say you look forward to death, but I've said it here before too and I mean it so I understand why you would say that. 
