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mortalcityI was going to lock this - mostly out of habit - but screw that. I switched journals so I could feel safe posting publicly again, and if my parents can find this to read it... I'm screwed already, and I'll probably know about it very soon.
My dad emailed me today. And as there was no weird passive aggressiveness this time, and as that really is my preferred method of communication with him, I probably should respond.
At the same time... there's a reason I'm avoiding my parents at the moment. It's because no matter what I say or do, they won't accept that I'm not okay. And then they make it worse. In their world, I quit school rather than being forced to be hospitalized and take a medical leave I didn't want with requirements for my return I couldn't possibly meet, and I haven't finished and sold any books yet because I am lazy and unmotivated, and I can't possibly be really sick or depressed, I am just an overdramatic hypochondriac who apparently enjoys wasting my life.
He asks how I am and I just don't know how to answer. Telling him the truth has never worked out well for me in the past, and I can't begin to understand why. I've been trying, especially this past few weeks, and I can't understand how a parent - both of them, actually - could look at me in this hole I can't climb out of, and not offer me a hand.
I have vague memories of my dad finding me on the couch or on my bed, curled up and sobbing, and when he asked why I literally could not tell him why. I was crying because I was sad, and there was no reason for it, but that didn't change the fact that I was. This must have been happening since I was around fifteen - not a lot, not often, but more than once. Nothing ever happened.
My dad found out I was cutting myself when I was sixteen, just before summer, when we were moving. He grounded me from the internet, and I spent the almost all summer isolated from my friends, and stuck in close quarters with my conservative, very Christian family, all of whom had found out I was gay that spring. Strangely, this did not help my depression, but hey, I'd stopped cutting, so everything must be fine now, right?
At one point that summer, I told my mother I wanted to die, with the hope that she would do something about it. She told me that everyone feels that way sometimes, and proceeded to inform me that I like to wallow in being miserable, and that's my problem.
That fall, my dad finally sent me to a therapist. Too late. The damage was done, and I had already figured it out. No matter how I show someone I'm not okay, they won't fix it, or help me find a way to fix myself - they won't bandage the wounds, just find a way to make me be quiet and stop hemorrhaging all over them.
Twice a week, the therapist and I stared at each other for an hour, I gave her monosyllabic responses when she asked a question, and eventually she gave up or my dad did, I'm not sure. Either way, therapy stopped. I was still crying on the couch, and I was so lonely, and I didn't have a single friend there and even my siblings were barely talking to me when they didn't have to, and I spent most of the time I wasn't at school holed up in my room, but I kept all that teenage angst - his words - to myself, so I guess that was alright.
I don't know what made me think it would be a good idea to tell my academic counselor at NYU that I'd stopped going to classes for a month because I was too depressed to get out of bed. I really don't know what made me tell the person she sent me to in the health department that I had been thinking about suicide - not at that moment, I was actually feeling slightly better and coming out of it by the time I went to talk to them, but I had been. I guess I thought they'd have experience with this kind of thing, and they'd help me find some real help.
Instead, they insisted on taking me to the ER - and informed me that if I didn't go willingly, they would call the police and an ambulance, and make me. I sat in a tiny room in the psychiatric ER for twelve hours, while my family and friends had no idea where I was and the doctors wouldn't tell me anything - and eventually forgot I was there, until I stalked out to ask them what the hell they were planning to do with me, at which point they shoved me off to the psych ward upstairs.
It was awful, and I went in starting to feel slightly better and came out more suicidal than I had been before, and even then I hoped maybe something good would come of it. Like, I don't know, actual treatment. I got a sixty-day supply of Lexapro shoved at me (which didn't so much help anything as it crippled all emotions period), and a doctor at the NYU health center who wouldn't schedule any appointments with me after I took medical leave.
And my parents just... didn't speak about it after I got out of the hospital. If nothing else, I really thought that the hospitalization would work as a flashing neon sign that I was not okay and could not fix myself, and they would help me somehow.
I don't remember a lot of the conversations we had back then, and don't want to. I remember being called lazy and being treated like I was an idiot because I couldn't find myself a new doctor. I remember being called arrogant because I dared to hope they'd help me with rent or something when my insane roommate was kicking me out. I remember not being asked if I wanted to come home - maybe I was supposed to tell them or something, I don't know, but at the time it felt more like they had figured out how not okay I was, and didn't want me anymore. I remember every conversation with them ending with me in tears while they demanded to know why I was crying and got made if I so much as raised my voice to be heard over their ultimatums.
I haven't tried to talk to them about my mental health since. I don't like to talk to anyone about it anymore, out of this fear they're going to do something horrible to me and then pretend nothing was ever wrong, and I can't believe I am making this post at all, to be honest. I will probably regret it before very long.
But I still don't know how to respond to that email. I don't trust enough to tell the truth, and I'm too angry for a lie. Am I okay? No. Not even a little bit, and maybe it's not his fault, but he could have offered me a hand years ago and never did.
My dad emailed me today. And as there was no weird passive aggressiveness this time, and as that really is my preferred method of communication with him, I probably should respond.
At the same time... there's a reason I'm avoiding my parents at the moment. It's because no matter what I say or do, they won't accept that I'm not okay. And then they make it worse. In their world, I quit school rather than being forced to be hospitalized and take a medical leave I didn't want with requirements for my return I couldn't possibly meet, and I haven't finished and sold any books yet because I am lazy and unmotivated, and I can't possibly be really sick or depressed, I am just an overdramatic hypochondriac who apparently enjoys wasting my life.
He asks how I am and I just don't know how to answer. Telling him the truth has never worked out well for me in the past, and I can't begin to understand why. I've been trying, especially this past few weeks, and I can't understand how a parent - both of them, actually - could look at me in this hole I can't climb out of, and not offer me a hand.
I have vague memories of my dad finding me on the couch or on my bed, curled up and sobbing, and when he asked why I literally could not tell him why. I was crying because I was sad, and there was no reason for it, but that didn't change the fact that I was. This must have been happening since I was around fifteen - not a lot, not often, but more than once. Nothing ever happened.
My dad found out I was cutting myself when I was sixteen, just before summer, when we were moving. He grounded me from the internet, and I spent the almost all summer isolated from my friends, and stuck in close quarters with my conservative, very Christian family, all of whom had found out I was gay that spring. Strangely, this did not help my depression, but hey, I'd stopped cutting, so everything must be fine now, right?
At one point that summer, I told my mother I wanted to die, with the hope that she would do something about it. She told me that everyone feels that way sometimes, and proceeded to inform me that I like to wallow in being miserable, and that's my problem.
That fall, my dad finally sent me to a therapist. Too late. The damage was done, and I had already figured it out. No matter how I show someone I'm not okay, they won't fix it, or help me find a way to fix myself - they won't bandage the wounds, just find a way to make me be quiet and stop hemorrhaging all over them.
Twice a week, the therapist and I stared at each other for an hour, I gave her monosyllabic responses when she asked a question, and eventually she gave up or my dad did, I'm not sure. Either way, therapy stopped. I was still crying on the couch, and I was so lonely, and I didn't have a single friend there and even my siblings were barely talking to me when they didn't have to, and I spent most of the time I wasn't at school holed up in my room, but I kept all that teenage angst - his words - to myself, so I guess that was alright.
I don't know what made me think it would be a good idea to tell my academic counselor at NYU that I'd stopped going to classes for a month because I was too depressed to get out of bed. I really don't know what made me tell the person she sent me to in the health department that I had been thinking about suicide - not at that moment, I was actually feeling slightly better and coming out of it by the time I went to talk to them, but I had been. I guess I thought they'd have experience with this kind of thing, and they'd help me find some real help.
Instead, they insisted on taking me to the ER - and informed me that if I didn't go willingly, they would call the police and an ambulance, and make me. I sat in a tiny room in the psychiatric ER for twelve hours, while my family and friends had no idea where I was and the doctors wouldn't tell me anything - and eventually forgot I was there, until I stalked out to ask them what the hell they were planning to do with me, at which point they shoved me off to the psych ward upstairs.
It was awful, and I went in starting to feel slightly better and came out more suicidal than I had been before, and even then I hoped maybe something good would come of it. Like, I don't know, actual treatment. I got a sixty-day supply of Lexapro shoved at me (which didn't so much help anything as it crippled all emotions period), and a doctor at the NYU health center who wouldn't schedule any appointments with me after I took medical leave.
And my parents just... didn't speak about it after I got out of the hospital. If nothing else, I really thought that the hospitalization would work as a flashing neon sign that I was not okay and could not fix myself, and they would help me somehow.
I don't remember a lot of the conversations we had back then, and don't want to. I remember being called lazy and being treated like I was an idiot because I couldn't find myself a new doctor. I remember being called arrogant because I dared to hope they'd help me with rent or something when my insane roommate was kicking me out. I remember not being asked if I wanted to come home - maybe I was supposed to tell them or something, I don't know, but at the time it felt more like they had figured out how not okay I was, and didn't want me anymore. I remember every conversation with them ending with me in tears while they demanded to know why I was crying and got made if I so much as raised my voice to be heard over their ultimatums.
I haven't tried to talk to them about my mental health since. I don't like to talk to anyone about it anymore, out of this fear they're going to do something horrible to me and then pretend nothing was ever wrong, and I can't believe I am making this post at all, to be honest. I will probably regret it before very long.
But I still don't know how to respond to that email. I don't trust enough to tell the truth, and I'm too angry for a lie. Am I okay? No. Not even a little bit, and maybe it's not his fault, but he could have offered me a hand years ago and never did.
no subject
It's the same logic by which people reason "Oh, I find it unnatural to be attracted to someone of my same sex, so it's unnatural for everyone and anyone who says it's not is obviously wrong." People who have never experienced depression can be eager to say "Oh, just get over it." They can think "If I were crying, I would get it out and get over it," and think that means everyone can. People don't understand that people's brains function in different ways. They might have the capacity to understand, but... well, you can't fill a full glass. They'd have to un-learn their preconceptions, and they're Parents. Parents always know better than Children. And offspring are always Children, even when they're grown up and know what they're talking about, thank you very much. :/
It... sucks, and I wish I knew something practical to make things better. But in the mean time, your friends love and respect you, and... hopefully that helps a little. Even if it's no magic wand to make everything all better.
no subject
no subject
To be perfectly honest, I hate your mother. Not a burning, "I can never speak civilly to her!" hatred, but a cold hard lump in the bottom of my stomach that will never go away no matter how much I smile and chatter in a friendly manner. I think I always will, unless she somehow proves to be more than the possessive, manipulative woman she's shown herself to be when you're involved over the past six years.
Your family has failed you, hard, and that sucks more than words can express. I am so sorry for that. I'm sorry they weren't there for you when you needed them, because you are one of the most amazing, deeply emotional people I've ever met, and I love you more than life itself.
I hope that your father has a chance to prove he can grow. He'll never "make up for" the fact that he didn't offer his hand when you desperately needed and wanted him to, but I think he has the potential to realise that he failed to help you when he should've, unlike your mother. Until then, though, you've got us. And while it's not the same, and it won't fill the hole left by being betrayed and abandoned by the people who were supposed to take care of you, it's sometime.
I love you.