Hi, this is my first post here. I am 34, married, and mom to two beautiful toddlers. I am highly educated with a Master’s degree but I’ve never really had a “real” job. I don’t seem to be able to keep the jobs I have had and I never seem to have the motivation or confidence to look for jobs that are in line with my education and experience.
I have major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, OCD, post-traumatic stress disorder, and bipolar type II. I was just diagnosed with the manic-depressive (bipolar) illness this past month. I also had a sleep study recently which revealed a severe case of PLMD (Periodic Limb Movement Disorder). It is not curable and treatment is very complicated. The drug they put me on is NOT working. My sleep study results showed I had zero minutes of REM sleep. I believe the sleep deprivation is partially responsible for the severity of my depression and partially to blame for my becoming suicidal and dissociated.
I just got out of psychiatric hospital for major depression and suicidal ideation along with dissociation. Lately I have been reading a lot about mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and other psychiatric conditions. I realize it is not wise to self-diagnose based on what you read but lately I am wondering if I have Borderline Personality Disorder instead of Bipolar II. This really scares me.
I don’t know why i am saying all this…just an intro to who I am I guess. there is so much I could say but don’t even know where to start.
I feel like I am a bad person. There, I said it. I do things that I know are wrong. Then I feel horrible. But I still do things that I know are wrong.
I lie. I make things up, exaggerate or embellish to make people think better of me than what I am. I don’t always do this, but I have done it a lot. I steal small things sometimes. Usually i end up taking them back but sometimes I don’t. WHy do I do this when I know it is wrong?
I am so lonely as a stay-home Mom. I want a social life and friends but I have neither. Anytime I start to get close to someone I get scared and anxious and push them away. I have done this over and over for many many years.
I am lazy. It is all I can handle just to sweep the floor. It is soooo much effort to play with my kids. I just want ti be left alone so I can sleep, or watch tv, or do some other mundane thing. I love my kids more than anything in this world and they are the sweetest, most beautiful things. Why don’t I feel excited and happy to be with them? Why is it such a chore? Why have I spent months laying in bed until noon while they watch tv and take care of themselves? What kind of mother does that? A BAD one. I have changed things since coming home from hospital. Now they are never left unattended and are very well loved and taken care of, both by me and my husband.
I am on a bunch of new meds and they don’t seem to be helping much yet, but I know I have to give it time. Basically I feel defective. Something about me must be off because I do not understand why I do the things I do or have done the things I have done.
I witnessed the murder of my Dad when I was 17. My ex-boyfriend, who had been stalking me for months, broke into my house and tried to kill me but my Dad intervened and was shot. I know this trauma (which turned my whole world/life/identity/self-image upside-down) is partly responsible for my issues. But I just feel like there’s got to be something else. I am just flawed and I don’t want to be. I want to be happy, a good person, good wife, good mother, have a career, have friends, and make the world a better place. Right now I am just an energy sucker.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading this long post.
5 comments
Omg you ex-boyfriend tried to kill you but instead killed your dad holy shit thats horrible im so sorry to hear that and i know its hard to deal with mental illness and it would be even harder for you cause you have kids to look after i also have depression and bad anxiety and i have had ocd in the past so i can kinda relate im female and 23 years old. So where you from?
Wow-I’d say it is what it is, and not label you with anything. Doctors could never diagnose me. I often feel like a bad person….I don’t like the feeling but if your intent is good, don’t believe the feeling and fall prey to something that isn’t true…..you can have a feeling or a thought but you don’t have to believe it. Judgment from yourself or anyone will kill you over time…..no one is perfect.
You need to talk to a really good psychologist…..sounds like everything went off track at 17….witnessing you’re father going…all that hurt and trauma is buried in you…I would bury it, it’s too much for anyone’s nervous system to deal with….now the body is bleeding the signs through all these symptoms you’re having. When something is too much for us we go into denial…a natural response, a natural survival mechanism. You need to go back to that time and work out what happened. At 17, who could deal with that….at any age it would be devastating….take care
As I read, impressions are talking to me along the lines and I get to understand the person behind them before finishing the text. I can give you an explanation as to why you do the things you say you do. You dont do them in an uncontrolled way, you dont do them because there is someone else talking to you or any personality disorder of the sort at all. In fact you are perfectly fine in your mind and you have none of that borderline, cod and all that neorubbish nicks they tag everybody with.
It is the shocking suffering of the absolute maddening catastrophe that occurred at your home when you were 17. If you think that was just something from the past and you got over it you are kidding yourself. Such a shock would have been more than enough to make a person lose her mind for the rest of her life. I mean fall into deep insanity. But you are intelligent and you are sort of working it all out but you are actually punishing yourself with things micropunishments that you inflict on yourself as a retaliation for the things that you see around in your life that also make you sad or depressed. You were not like that before, but those microwounds hurting you little by little day by day after that maddening event are doing their job.
You are not a bad person at all, and you also know it. If you were pushed to protect your kids, you would also take a bullet for them. Depression makes you hurt yourself, become extremely sensitive to emotions and be extremely tired psychologically to get the energy for doing physical things.
I am traumatized now at the story of your father. I could even cry for such a father and give him a hug because that was an act of love above the highest value of a human being.
Dont even doubt it It all comes from that. I dont know how you handled it when it happened but crying for the next two years would have not been unusual. And probably very necessary. If you didnt. Now it is passing you the bill.
I am a pharmacologist among other things, and I perfectly know what a doctor would do if you start telling a story, would take out a white slip of paper and would prescribe the usual stuff, but I dont have the feeling that you dont have any mental illness at all. At all.
regards
O
Allah ya3ramo may your father rest in peace.
U said u cudnt find any motivation for ur job well do it for ur children, also u hav 2 beautiful toddlers y would u want to prevent them from seeing the person that raised them! My point here is, life is short savor every last moment! I kno may only be 12 but I my friends mom had the same problem!! ;-))