Can’t tell whether my family would be better off without me

[Debroglie]

How can you tell?
I’m so depressed I must be an awful person to be around. I do all the practical things for my dc but I hate almost every aspect of my life so there’s no joy in any of it.
I can’t get help because there’s nothing in the nhs and when I tried to see a counsellor privately I kept having panic attacks just thinking about it. Only ever leave the house to go to work or to taxi the dc.
It’s a living hell. I’m too frightened to live but too frightened to die too.

Your children and family would not be better off without you, please believe that.
Make an appointment with your GP as soon as you can. Please don't feel like you're alone or a burden, help is out there I promise

You're quite poorly, and this is what's making you feel this way. See your gp, think about medication. One that's kicked in, it'll be easier to deal with thinking about therapy. It can get better.

Thank you. I don’t know if I believe you though.
I have seen the gp but they couldn’t help.

Please do not think your family would be better off without you, as above please contact your gp for some help and tell them how you feel.

I have tried every kind of medication that the gp would offer but nothing has helped.
I know I am ill but I don’t know if I can ever get better

Your DC rely on you, and would be left bereft and motherless if you weren't there. You can't do that to them. They're the people you love most in the world. Honestly, how would you have felt if your own dm committed suicide? Think about it..... Get some help, practical, emotional, whatever. Professional, family, doctors, friends... there's lots of help out there. You owe it to your DC and yourself to go and find it.

My own dm abused me horrifically so I may have been better off had she died.
I have been to the gp but they cannot help. There is no one else to ask.

OP I can honestly say that your family will not be better off without you. You need to think about the impact on them. I sadly speak from personal experience.

Have you spoken to the Samaritans -
www.samaritans.org/

I haven’t spoken to the Samaritans but I did try shout and I felt even worse.
Is it really better for the dc to have a mother who sits as bad cries all weekend then has a panic attack than no mother at all? I just don’t know.

Has your gp referred you on to the mental health team? I realise that the waiting lists are horrific, but it would be worth investigation. I had EMDR therapy for trauma, and it was only then I started healing. You're important, your kids need you, you're worth investing in and you deserve help and to get better.

I felt like this in the summer OP, to the extent that I had made a detailed plan to end things and had definitely decided to enact it. I happened to read an article by Joey Essex in the Times about the ongoing impact of his mum's suicide on him. That made me realise my children would not be better off without me. It was a huge wake up call.
If you GP cannot help try a different one. There are also lots of MH charities such as MIND. If you find a counsellor does not help you, shift to a different one until you find one that does. You really need to find someone you click with.

It will fuck your kids up for life if you kill yourself. (Sorry, I know it would be easier to hear that it'll be fine, but it wouldn't be.)

So yes, you are better just as you are right now than the alternatives. But you'll probably be even better once you engage with medication and therapy.

These days you can have virtual doctors appointments, get Boots to deliver medication, and have virtual therapy sessions too.

Speak on here if it helps. What did your gp say when you went last time?

Argh, I cut off my last paragraph there - in terms of next steps - you say you've tried medications, but which ones and for how long did you try them? There are so many types.

What did you ask your GP for before and did they seem to have a clue? Could you ask if there's a mental health specialist in their clinic you could talk to?

Hi OP. I'm very sorry you are feeling so bad that you're questioning if your family would be better without you. That's an awful place to be. Just to echo what others have said they will not be better off. What kind of support have you got? Strongly encourage to get back in touch with gp and also speak to samaritans. I spoke to a lovely lady a couple of years ago when I was having a tough time.

Debroglie,

You may not be prefect but your children love you, faults and all.
They may wish you didn't cry all the time, but that doesn't mean they don't love you and need you.
They will never be better without you. Your absence would leave a gapping hole in their heart.
Hang on I n there. Maybe tomorrow won't be as bad. Maybe next week will be better.

X

Has your GP given you the number of the local crisis team? They might help?

OP, keep on going back to the GP. Keep on trying until you find the thing that works for you. You matter. Just as your children matter. I was pants on prozac, but better on sertraline. Other friends have found that drugs do sweet FA, but acupuncture, yoga, and St John's Wort worked for them.

My friend and her sister and her brother - her mother walked into the sea. Her body was never recovered. The impact on those friends of mine was sometimes all that kept me from copying her.

Your mother was abusive. You are not. But you are dealing with the impact of your mother abusing you, while struggling with depression, and parenting, and wondering if you're doing it right, because your Mother did not.

Echoing other people on this thread. Keep going.
There have been four separate suicides in my small town in the last couple of years. I knew three of them slightly. The ripple effects are huge and don't just affect the person's immediate family, but even quite "remote" people.
Devote yourself to getting better and enlist help.

Please speak to ypurbgpnor samaritans. Please don't have your children's own history be marred by something as awful as a mothers despair and suicide. I can assure you that they are better off having you than losing you. Imagine theoss they would feel, the questions they would never have answered, they constantly wondering if they weren't enough for you to stay for them.

As someone once said to me: you have to outlive your enemies.

These feelings are not truth. Your depression is making you think this way and is not based on any reality your family will be able to make sense of. It won't always be this way but this is big. You need to reach out and allow others to help you get through this bit.

Its one day or even one hour at a time, ok? Just get through these moments until you can speak to samaritans. Or even 999. Someone who can remind you that you being around, living, speaking is important. And it is. Please speak to someone.

Hello OP, we are really sorry to hear you are feeling this way.

We hope you don't mind, but when these threads are flagged up to us we usually add a link to our Mental Health resources. You can also go to the Samaritans website or email them on [email protected]. Support from other Mumsnetters is great and we really hope you will be able to take some comfort from your fellow posters, but as other MNers will tell you, it's really a good idea to seek RL help and support as well.

We also like to remind everyone that, although we're awed daily by the astonishing support our members give each other through life's trickier twists and turns, we'd always caution anyone never to give more of themselves to another poster, emotionally or financially, than they can afford to spare.

We are going to move this thread to the Mental Health section shortly.

I’m fairly sure my dc will be fucked up anyway. When people talk of how awful it is to lose a parent to suicide I always wonder how it compares to people who live with someone with severe depression. That’s my question I suppose.
I have tried fluoxetine sertraline, mirtazipine, amytriptyline, lamotrogine, CBT, propranolol.
GP referred me to mental health team but they said they couldn’t help and sent me a list of charities like mind to try. I made an appointment with a private counsellor but couldn’t get myself to it because I panicked.
I have no support. No friends or family who would help and my dh has completely distanced himself from me because I’m so horrible.

I have been trying to get help on and off for over 20 years and since January have called the gp iapt, community mental health team many times but there is nothing they can offer me.
I know there are loads of websites and numbers to call but none of them can help if I’m in too much of a state to speak.

Could your DH accompany you to private counselling OP? If he hasn't distanced himself too much for that? Or could you organise counselling by email and tell the counsellor that you are suffering very badly with anxiety and would like to write some things down for them to read rather than have to speak straight off? I understand the anxiety and always find writing things down easier.

It sounds like you have been through some dreadfully traumatic things as a child and I don't doubt that that is tied up with how you feel now. If antidepressants haven't worked for you so far then that should not be the end of things because there are several possible options. Some people who don't respond to antidepressants have actually been misdiagnosed - may have bipolar rather than depression for example or you may have ptsd and depression due to the abuse you suffered. People who have suffered with depression for a long time are more likely to have treatment resistant depression - this can still be treated but you might need to combine anti d's or take an anti d in combination with something else ie lithium. It's really important to keep trying though and keep talking to your doctor, you might think you've tried everything because you've tried so many things but ask your doctor what you can try next as the anti d's you've tried so far haven't worked.

Please don't give up, your kids need you but you deserve not to feel like this. Keep trying different medicines - you might just need something more than just an anti depressant on it's own.

PS consider doing some research on treatment resistant depression x