Hi Everyone,
Thanks for having me. I thought I would start by sharing my story.
I have always struggled with depression and anxiety. The last 3.5 years or so have been an epic journey of self discovery, prior to this I hadn't even realised I had anxiety, to me that was "normal". It started with the birth of my 3rd child when I started having panic attacks trying to leave the house with 3 kids because I was convinced I would lose one. I signed up for a post natal depression group therapy and found it a source of great comfort, to finally be able to share my insecurities. I continued to do other classes because I couldn't understand why parenting was so hard for me, why my kids were so difficult. Eventually I did a class that focused on our own childhood experiences. I don't think I really understood I had had a bad childhood until that point. I knew I felt lonely, but we had food and a roof over our heads. My parents were on the P&C. I finally realised that there was something missing. Support, validation, praise. Basically my childhood was devoid of attention and emotion. So I keep plodding along. I was studying teaching and realised I had inattentive ADHD. So I took myself off for a diagnosis. Since I started medication just over a year ago, I have felt much better. My brain had settled down, I started to develop self esteem. I started to realise that I had feelings, and when they came up. I started noticing I would fall apart whenever I felt unsupported, unheard, invalidated. Once one my kids said something like "mum is stupid" and I felt wild inside. A number of times a memory would pop up of my mother on her death bed and all I wanted to ask was "why didn't you love me?" and I kept feeling deeply ashamed. I experience extreme anxiety around school staff, well school grounds in general.
I started to notice how deeply hurt I was from interactions with my father. I finally voiced how hurt I was by his behaviour and all I got was an email listing how much of a terrible person I am and all the horrible things I had done to him in the last 5 years since I last stood up for myself. I have not had contact with him for almost 9 months.
Then I started to notice all the things in my marriage that weren't right. I hadn't even realised they were happening. I left my husband a month ago and our counsellor mentioned when he dealt with people with complex PTSD he finds "slower is faster" in reference to me feeling smothered by my husbands attempt to make amends. When I got home I looked into it and find I relate to a lot of it, and that my ex- husband would, too. In all this I think we were both deeply wounded souls who found comfort in each other, but have never been unable to give each other what we needed.
I started schema based therapy after ending contact with my father, but with the marriage breakdown we haven't progressed very far, I now understand that I was emotionally deprived and abused as a child. I think this is the first time I have actually been able to "say" that. I have tried so desperately hard to be a better parent than what I had but I have to keep pushing myself through this to have the best chance of breaking this awful cycle. I really hope I have.
