dont know how to fix me

[AnotherLoad]

I looked on this section to read some post to see if any one had similar behaviour. came across one that described exactly how i was feeling.

myself & posters say it sounds like depression, not sure if it sparked from DD birth (22mth)

other then making sure the kids are fed, cleaned and house is tidy and safe i have no interest in any thing. i have no self esteem no confidence, dont feel like i need to go out, no sex drive, no go. i can feel ok one day and see people i know in the street and have a chat but i can get home and fall back into this 'nothing' feeling? cant quite figure how im feeling. isolated and lonely dont feel right words when i have 3dc's!

i did have dp but told him to go on tues because i feel messed up! he has a cery active social life and i felt i was trapping him so ended it, altho i miss him loads :( think its just a break i need???

any way i was all prepared to go docs to talk about it all. i text a friend who i only speak to around 4 times a yr by phone (lives far from me) to ask how she felt when she went on AD's, just a bit of support really. she asked why i feel i need AD's so text & explained....

she said im just going thro a bad patch and beating myself up making myself suffer other then taking positives and putting into action? also that im stuck in a rut routine that i need to go out more to not fear going out, that if i had more sex my libido will come back etc.

now im even more confused! maybe im not depressed and all whats wrong is my own doing? maybe its all in my head? thing is i aint got no where to go, no bond with parents, no relatives, ONE elderly friend who i try not to bother, i go toddler group once a wk but that took me until Dd was 18mths before i plucked courage.

find it hard to make friends, i did make 2 friends but after short while cut me off. dont know what i done, maybe my dull personality bored them into bolting!!!!

really dont know whats wrong with me, im so down and feeling like im just existing, dont like my life at all :( and if i never woke up again i wouldnt be a bad thing!

You say you have a 'nothing' feeling and no interest in anything. Your partner left on Tuesday you say? What did you feel like when he was with you? Did you feel like you were just existing before he left? Did you ever go out with him? You said he had a full social life. Are the children his? Did he help with the kids and house etc? Did he have a job?

Sorry for the spanish inquisition, you don't have to answer, but it might help us to help you if we know a bit more about you.

Lots of lovexxxxxx

I told him to go because i was moaning about him not being in with me and kids, think i resented him keeping a normal life while i felt like i was just existing looking after a man and 3 dc's. didnt want to strip him of who he was or give his lifestyle up just to make me happy so told him to go away :( i loved his cuddles, there was hardly a sex life (my fault) i made a big mess of it all.

didnt go out together as we dont have doting grandparents or siblings to help with child care. dont have family.

yes he has lots of hobbies, friends and parties. dont go to parties with him cos i get nervous with all the strangers, he knows them so probably doesnt understand how i feel.

we have a dd together, i have 2 other dc's. he didnt really help with kids and home but thats my fault cos i always say i'll do it, as i know it will get done better.

its not his fault i feel like i do, he picked me up from a black whole when we met but some thing has gone wrong and i feel im back there again? i miss him i do, but he shouldnt have to put up with me.

im a head screw, dont now what i need right now :(

You are being really hard on yourself you know. It sounds effectively like you were in a relationship, but you were a single mum in it with 3 kids, if that makes sense.

Did your partner just go when you asked him to or did he want to stay?

I really think that your partner hasn't been all that great I'm sorry to say. How many dad's can keep up the kind of social life your partner has, parties, hobbies etc. they not only take up lots of time (I presume he's out working all day as well), but it also takes lots of money.

I might be missing something, and please correct me, but you have blamed yourself for everything and your partner is responsible for none of it?

Being a family is hard work and requires commitment. Ok, 2 of your DC's aren't his, but the one that is - how much of a part does he play in his or her life? Giving up some of one's lifestyle is all part of having a family. If my DH did now, what he did pre-kids he'd be in the pub everynight til closing time, and we'd be divorced

yes he wanted to stay, he left distraught :( he didnt want to go and we have been texting to try and see what needs to be done for it all to work.

I did feel a little like a single mum because he has so much going on. he wasnt out every night dont want to paint him as bad. we are just to very different people. he dont like staying in - i dont like going out. i feel we both just dont get each other?! yes he's at work all day so we didnt get to see him much. DD is very much clingy to me so i do every thing for her just because i know her better? i know its selfish, maybe im over protective.

i do blame dp for some of it cos he made me feel i wasnt important, i didnt feel needed. but then some can say being needy and clingy is not what he should put up with.... which is why i told him to go!

he has cut down loads of his out door time, really has tried. but i still find some thing to moan about. so it must be me that needs sorting? doesnt spend great deal of time with DD. which does upset me tho.

ive had such crap life, just dont seem i will ever feel happy. ive been down so so many years. even before dc's. i know its not all dp's fault.

no idid feel needed but i felt needed for the house work, cooking and occasional sex (my fault no sex drive) to look after kids. i guess i felt like i needed to be loved for who i am. then i analys my own thoughts and think is there anyy thing to love and who am i exactly????

think im a mess?

I think you are clearly depressed. To use the word "nothing" to describe feelings in depression is cassic.So is guilt and low self esteem, and lack of interest in anything. All classic depression.

Re your dp. People often attract people who counter balance themselves. You are clearly an introvert, and your dp is clearly an extrovert. Don't beat yourself up over it , both are perfectly fine.

You sound like such a lovely person, and feel so sorry that you think you've had a crap life.

Why would you think there is nothing to love in you, when there obv is.

Please go and pay a visit to your doctor and tell him what you have told us, I'm sure he'll be able to help you or refer you to someone who can help you

xxxx

oranges, oh no clearly depressed :( :( i feel so bad, just seeing that has made me cry :(

its so stupid because i think i know its there but its easier to deny it :(

yes we have had such a hard time trying to figure out how to make introvert/extrovert work??!!! will it ever work?

gym i cant be lovely cos no body likes me, i dont have friends, cant make friends, my dc's dont have friends, my own family dont want to know me or my dc's. there is nothing to love because i cant see what there is to love im nothing interesting.

ok will see gp, but can see her wanting to put me in padded cell! :(

thanks for listening means alot xx

Oh AL I feel so so sorry for what you are going through and I think the "friend" you texted gave you very bad advice and made you feel worse I'm sure. Like others I think your DP going was a very bad move.

IF you have depression (and it takes one to know one) there are ADs that are very effective in most cases. You may well have untreated PND and have just been struggling every since your baby was born. I think you are doing unbelievably well to keep a home going with 3 DCs.

You absolutely must go to the GP ASAP and tell him/her exactly how you are feeling - if you don't feel you can say it, write it down in a list. Depression is a truly horrid illness and makes us believe things about ourselves that aren't true. You will probably be prescribed medication, and the GP will probably advise that they don't kick in for 2/3 weeks and sometimes you have to try more than one. DON't look up side effects on DR Google because there are side effects to all drugs and drug companies have to cover themselves now by listing every possible thing.

Incidentally only 1 in 10 patients who see a GP are referred to a Psychiatrist and not all of those are hospitalised. I have had 2 severe bouts of depression and been on a psych ward for 3 months each time - still trying to recover. I can absolutely assure you there are no padded cells and psychiatrists are very keen not to admit people but to get them help at home by the crisis team visiting, usually CPNs (Community Psychiatric Nurses) or social workers.

I think however you need a rest - you must be exhausted. Talk to your DP again and see what can be worked out between you. You must accept that you need his help and sending him away because you think you are spoiling his life is just not on. He should return and take up his responsibilities and you deserve all the help you can get.

SO tomorrow morning - please phone your GP for a 10 minute appt.

Let us know how you get on.

its hard to keep the house and DC's on track, but i dont feel im doing well cos i find it so hard to play and smile as much as i want to. i sing ryhmes with dd but it takes so much effort sometimes.

im scared of taking medicine, wot if it doesnt agree with me? there's no one to look after my DC's. my friend said it made her feel zoned out! i dont want ot feel like that i want to feel normal. have to for the dc's.

no social workers, never. cant have them near me! or my DC's. ever.

nana that sounds so scary spending that time in a ward :( im so sorry or you. makes me feel like i should shut up and have no right to be on here with my petty problems. really hope you feel better soon.

have been texting dp today, have told him i will be going gp. will be seeing him monday to talk things over. he said he wants to make me happy.

gp closed until monday too. think i need to get some courage over weekend to go. really dont want to say it :(

am really scared. appreciate you all talking to me thankyou. x

Hi AL it wasn't scarey being on a psych ward - it was my second admission - first one 15 years ago after death of close friend. To be honest it's more boring than anything else and like any institutuion there is a set routine and you get used to it . The worst thing is that the nurses don't talk to you about how you are feeling, or if they do, it's just a quick "all right NN" and when you say NO they just say "oh you migh t have abetter day tomorrow"

Look you may not want to talk to me again because I have to confess that I was a social worker and team manager in childrens services for a LA for 30 years. I retired 8 years ago. You obviously have had a ver bad experience and there are bad social workers just like other people who are in the wrong job.

I have been saddened on these threads that so many people think that social workers will want to remove their children because of their mental health problems and this is just not the case. I was about to say they will offer support, but I know they are now so under resourced support has more or less gone out of the window.

Hope you won't hold this against me.

How about striking a deal with your P that he comes back while yu try out the meds - you really need to for the sake of yourself and the children. Thousands of people take these meds every day, and yes there are sometimes side effects but nothing too awful as far as I know. Your friend said she felt "zoned out" ok but don't yu feel a bit like that with your depression.

Please please see your GP asap. Your friend really really gave you bad advice and clearly doesn't understand depressive illness

Hope you are ok today not heard from you.

Let us know how you get on at the GP's, and have a good heart to heart with your DP - hope you can work something out and he takes up some of his responsibilities with you and the children.

xxxx

hi nana, gymbob

abit better today, had a good cry last night. sad that i need to take medicine to feel better.

oh it must of been lonely in the ward? are the nurses not allowed to ask you whats wrong if you say no?
nana it would worry me if you was still a social worker, but i wont hold any thing against you. maybe you could make me understand?

they took me away. and my brother & sis. wisked us off into foster care. was only for 3mths but it has never gone away :( if home life wasnt bad enough they put us back, it was un easy & awkward. my mum has never let me forget. no body will ever know how i feel.

my friend suffered a break down and was self harming, thats why i thought id asked her advice on AD's. I can feel ok at times, can laugh and joke, but then in a flash i can be over come by an 'empty' feeling. mostly when im alone or something so minor can set me off?

have been in contact with dp, we are talking bout things. when he comes i we will need a good chat.

Hi AnotherLoad,

Sorry you're going through this

Just wanted to say that I totally relate to that 'empty feeling' and of not wanting to wake up and that it does sound very like my own experience of depression. When I did eventually see my dr after months of putting it off, he was great, didn't judge me at all and I was given ADs (citalopram) which did work with no side effects and probably saved my life, so please don't be scared to ask for help or feel that you will be judged xxx

hi, tramadol

ive know gp for a while, when i was going to her for constant headaches, stomach cramps and other stuff. ( i have low blood pressure and iron) i used to tell her i dont feel right, i used to say i feel wrong :( because i felt ill.
id suffer dizzyness, nausea, tiredness. my eyes have gone blury (optitions say i am short sighted) ...

she sent me off for lots of test and it everything came back ok, she said it must all be in my head cos they cant see any thing :( but i do i feel so ill all the time.

she may think im nuts, going back and saying im now depressed :( she will think im one of those attention seeking self pitty types wasting her time. but im not, i really dont know what i need?

:( this has took me straight back to my childhood, curled up in a ball crying outside my mums bedroom door. i remember telling her i didnt feel right, that my head felt wrong? i remember shaking when i was in bed, my whole body shook. i never knew why it did? i get it today sometimes - if im get into an argument or if i feel un easy my body starts shaking a bit.

im sure she had to hide the knives? its really vivid. i used to pass out alot, once split my head open on the dish washer by passing out. maybe ive knocked my head few too many times?

Honestly, she won't think that at all!

I remember thinking that and planning a whole speech to say to my dr, I was so worried he would think I was making it up/ a failure/ a bad mum, I think thats part of the illness, that it makes you think like that but it's the same as if you have a broken arm or chest infection, it's nothing to be ashamed of, you just need a little bit of help to feel better.

Also, it sounds like you've had a tough time of it so not surprising you feel run down. If you're worried about talking to the dr, maybe write a few things down beforehand or you can always print off this thread so you don't have to worry about explaining things? xx

yes it has been said to write things down, i couldnt remember any of this infront of her, i get all flustered when talking to people. so no doubt forget most of what needs to be said.

saying that if she read this whole thread she would lock me up and throw away the key!!!

when ive read this back i sound crazy :(

dont think i can do this, even if she put me on AD's & sent me for counselling i dont know whats wrong. i know i had hard childhood but surely i should be ok now?

You are being too hard on yourself, you're already doing an amazing job of looking after your dcs/ keeping on top of housework and all that goes with that in spite of so everything so yes, you can do this.

Am here & listening if you want to talk xx

Also, you really don't sound crazy. Just honest, brave and in a difficult place atm x

have said too much, i sound abit mad! plus i dont feel worthy of this thread. ive read other post where people really need help and suppport.

i was feeling fine week or so before dp went, we were talking about having a baby in the near future. and now ive gone from that to what ever i am now :(
dont know whats going on in my head right now.

Hi again AL - you ask if the nurses on a psych ward aren't allowed to ask you anything else if you say you are not OK - and that is not the case at all. In fact it should trigger them to have a talk with you, to find out if there is anything they can do to help. To be honest most of them just can't be bothered, and of course they see it all the time, so people crying or acting abnormally is just what work is to them, and I can in a way understand that, but it isn't helpful at all.

OK re the social worker thing. Obviously I can't comment on your particular case, but it sounds like you were not given any explanation as to why you were going to stay with foster carers (as you used the word "whisked" away) Do you know how old you were when this happened and were you kept with your brother and sister or separated. As there were 3 of you, you may well have been separated as not a lot of foster carers will take 3 children together.I have talked to a lot of adults who have had similar experiences and I think all too often there is a tendency to just "move" children without explaining things to them.

I'm not quite sure about you saying "If home life wasn't bad enough they put us back" - do you mean that homelife was bad and the social workers shouldn't have put you back with your parents (not sure if you had mother and father) and the thing about your mother never forgiving you - never forgiving you for what? You say no one will ever understand how you felt and I'm sure that is quite true. You were obviously very traumatised by the whole business of being "taken away" and then put back - I've no idea how old you were, but it is so so sad that you suffered in this way. Do you know if your brother and sister suffered in a similar way. Do you know why you were taken away. Were the foster carers kind to you.

The thought of you crying outside your mom's bedroom door curled up into a ball sounds so sad. You have clearly suffered a great deal in your childhood.
The way we are treated as children has a significant effect on the adults we become, and event though we can't always remember traumatic incidents, they lodge somewhere inside of us, and come out when we are adults. Hope that makes some sort of sense. You say you know you had a hard childhod but should be all right now ..........no that's not the case. In fact it is probably the root cause of the way you are feeling. It may be that you will need therapy to unravel the pain of the past and come to some sort of better understanding of how our pasts influence our present lives.

You could always ask to see your social work file (you have a perfect right to do so under the Access to Records legislation) but I don't know if that would make things worse for you. Only you can know that. I was talking to a young woman when I was still at work who wanted to see her file and she just couldn't understand why her sisters went to one foster home and she (the youngest) was separated from them. They are went home too and all through the years she had believed that she was too "naughty" to go with her sisters. I was able to give the simple explanation that most foster carers only take 2 children at a time and so a decision has to be made on how to separate the children. She said she had never thought of that, and now at 18 she can still remember the day they were taken from their home (she can remember what she was wearing - she was 5 at the time, and the game they had been playing in the garden just before the social worker arrived, and she remember the sw buying them McDonalds on the way to the foster home and she had no idea where she was going or why. She went to live with her grandma at about aged 8 and she has never really been given a full explanation from either social workers or her grandma but it was revealed in the file that her mom was a prostitute. Needless to say this traumatised her all over again. Social workers need to make time to sit with someone who wants to see their file, so as to explain anything that is unclear or to just be there for someone learning things they never knew before.

To return to the original topic, I see you are thinking the GP will think you are crazy or something like that. Please please try to stop feeling like this because there is no such condition as "crazy" anyway. The problem is that there is so much stigma still attached to mental health difficulties, even though 1 in 4 people will suffer from them at some time in their lives. Do you know that one third of people seeing their GP is for mental health problems.

SO please start to get the help and support you deserve.

hi nana. was just thinking of how it must of been for you. thats why i asked, your here helping/talking to me so its just polite to listen back. hope you didnt think i was delving or being nosey? doesnt sound very helpful really, surely your there for them to help you get better? hope you had someone around who did care. family/friend? xx

yes i do know why,cant remember exact age but was primary school. I went into school crying because my step dad had a go at me for stacking plastic tea, sugar, coffee pot with milk ontop. he knocked me on the head with the sugar pot. not hard, didnt really hurt. but he was so scary and i felt sad, i cried and got a head ache. cant remember how i ended up in headmasters office. they asked why i was crying. so told them. i remember them (school teachers) asking me questions about home life. next thing half way through a lesson i was pulled out of class and told we had to go somewhere. my brother & sis too. into care. but no- we wasnt told why at he time.

can remember having to go into some black light type room, some people where checking for bruises. had us all undressed :( then a double mirror room for interviewing, think my mum was there or it might of been a worker. sorry some bits a vague.cant remember if this was before or after being placed in care. did seem a long day tho?

we were kept together, maybe as it was temp? no fosters were horrid, made us stay in seperate rooms from each other, we had to play out after school til dinner was ready, this was nov time! then after dinner back in room. after about 6wks my sis went home, they asked me if i wanted to go home. i told them i was too scared because of what has happened. so me and my bro stayed. spent xmas there, we had to stay in our rooms & open presents alone. we was taken back home in feb.

my bro/sis never spoke how they feel. its not the best subject to bring up really. life there before was un loving, mum never hugged, kissed, said i love you. i just remember feeling alone?? they put us back and i was terrified of what my mum thought of me now!

she said i'd told school they burnt us with fags and beat us! but i didnt :( i KNOW i didnt, she didnt smoke but sd smoked roll ups. i wouldnt if said it, i remember saying sd picks us up by arm if we dont get up quick enough or miss behave. i never said those things :( she brings it up to this day, any bf i met or friend she know she tells them how i put us in care and that the only reason we went back is because DAD didnt want us either!

I dont know what was wrong with me? why i felt i shook? i used to curl up and wait for it to stop. mum never helped.

social work file? is that notes on what happened? maybe it could answer few questions but it might bring back raw memories. dont know how id feel.

gp wont understand. dont think AD's will get rid of my childhood :(
sorry its long but drip feeding wouldnt of explained well. stupid aint it? but it never leaves my mind :(