Can't stop crying. No idea why.

[TheCakeDiet]

Hello

I'm. It sure relationships is the right place for this, but I didn't know where else to post.

This is probably going to be really long and it will sound mad. And It is more than a bit mad but I am truly losing my mind over it, so have come here for help/advice. I am so ashamed.

I am linking to a thread I posted a week ago. It gives you some context of where my head was just seven days ago - only 21 posts to read, so hopefully not too long to get through. You will see that I was a bit upset/worried about DDs BF, for reasons that are clear within the linked thread.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3361138-Worried-about-DDs-BF

Update since my last post....

Since then I have found myself falling into a very strange place - I kind of alluded to it in my last post in the previous thread, but I am not quite sure what has happened to me. I am posting here in the hope someone will recognise my thinking/behaviour and can help me crawl out of this black hole.

In a nutshell, I have become obsessive and bereft over this ridiculous non-relationship between two kids. For the first time in my life, I can't sleep at night, have cried at least five times a day, every day, I am treating my DD appallingly because she won't even see him to give him some closure or 'try again' and am being selfish, ridiculous and quite mad. I have no idea what this is really about. It surely can't really be this straight forward? I feel like I am losing my mind because the rational part of me recognises that i can't be this upset about a teenage breakup (I have honestly never been over-involved in anything like this before) so I am wondering if it has triggered something in me but I don't know what, and I can't make this stop. I literally can't eat and I haven't been able to concentrate on anything for a week. I feel on the brink of tears the whole time and completely preoccupied with a need to 'fix' everything so DD can enjoy the feeling of someone loving her so much and being giddy with love herself.

I have no history of depression or mental illness, and this is despite spending the last ten years in a toxic relationship with a functioning but volatile alcoholic. (Last five sexless). Despite losing my beloved dad three years ago and my mum last year following two years of being sole career through dementia, thus making my DH now the only adult in my life (I am an only child, no other family). I have lost a job, struggled with money issues, spent nearly every night listening to the drunken, spiteful ranting of my husband, struggled with weight gain and love loss, yet have still managed to get real joy out of my DC and life in general, but this 'non-event' has floored me.

All I keep thinking about is how much this boy loves DD and how much happiness he could bring her - just for a while until it naturally fizzled out - and she him - and she is throwing it away without a backward glance. I know she is too young and I don't even recognise these thoughts as anything like my own. If you'd asked me four weeks ago, I would have said that I wasn't interested in teenage drama and DD is far too young to have a BF.

I have never checked her messages or anything like that before, but because I was worried about him being bullied but also slightly struggling with DDs sudden and rather cold change of heart, I had a quick scan to make sure this wasn't about something else - him pressuring her into something she wasn't ready for and her not wanting to tell me or similar. Now I wish I hadn't seen them because it's only made me feel worse. He is lovely, kind, a bit cheeky but respectful and completely head over heels, she had reciprocated in the same way and had told him she loves him. Messages are sweet and loving and then suddenly, she becomes distant and ends it. He is bereft. She won't give him any explanation. I stepped away at that point (hating myself for being waaaaaaay too involved) but now I feel even more heartbroken for him and even less sympathetic to my own DD who I love with all my heart, but feel inexplicably angry with.

DD doesn't know I've read her messages and I will never tell her. She has played down what they were about, saying she never liked him that much (I know this is a lie) and it's not her fault she has moved on. This is 100% true but it crushes me every time she says it.

I don't need anyone to tell me I am being over-invested, ridiculous, unkind to DD, a bad Mother or anything else like that. I KNOW. I feel quite deranged by it all and cannot believe how I feel and how I am behaving. I spent all of today in my room alternating between crying and staring into space. I cooked the family meal and went through the motions of that, sat with DS whilst he his homework but honestly felt 'removed' as though I wasn't really there. I know that there must be something else at play here, but I don't know what. Or how to let it go.

It's not as simple as 'get a grip'. If I could, I would have. I am the most sensible, level headed, relaxed parent usually, but right now, if I could make DD go back to him, I would. Which is MAD. And I am thoroughly ashamed to feel this way.

So what's going on? Why have I fallen apart? Why am I so upset? How do I make these thoughts stop? Am I finally revealed as a hideous over-involved nightmare parent or is this a trigger for something else? My poor DD.

I'm really glad that the BF's family are supportive and that they are looking out for him. Can you see what a kind and caring person you are? To be so concerned - if I was that lad's mum I'd be so happy you did speak to me.

It could be that he does remind you of something or someone from a long time ago - but don't let his age fool you. Just because he is in his teens doesn't necessarily mean that what he is setting off is also related to you as a teen (though it might be in part.). You have been through an awful lot for a long time now.

Sounds like a lot of realisations are happening for you at the moment and that can be frightening and very painful. Try to just keep being gentle with yourself, and yes keep posting if it's helping. The sorts of feelings you are experiencing can feel overwhelming but it can also be such a positive thing in the long run to actually feel them, rather than squash them down and try to look after everyone else. You sound like the kind of person who thinks nothing of going above and beyond for others. Can you try to spend a little bit of that caring and compassion on yourself?

Is there any way to email the GP's surgery for an appointment? Or even a friend perhaps to call on your behalf?

Your husband is an alcoholic and you are an enabling codependent. I am a codependent too, and we are the sweetest people with the best of intentions but we are dysfunctional.

Your DC are growing up in a dysfunctional environment and by involving yourself in your DD's love life in this way you are not allowing her to have her boundaries. You're codependency has made you a caretaker and fixer, you can't fix your DDs relationship and you are in deep pain.

You may be on your way to a lightbulb moment - you need therapy ideally but you also need to read right away about your own codependency and the roles people play in alcoholic families.

Op, whatever has caused this, we don't know. We cannot guess, But you are not well. You will need to accept that. And you need to force yourself to see a doctor, for your sake and your children's sake. You need to pick up that phone. Just as you would if it was your leg that was broken.💐

Bluntness. Every time someone tells me 'I'm not well' - as a fair few kind hearted people on this thread have done, it frightens me. I don't have any support or facility for being 'not well'. My H will just roll his yes and tell me to get a grip, and apart from him, I only have the DC. I am in debt and really REALLY don't have the luxury of being unwell and whatever that may entail.

But I will call the GP. I will.

Sorry. My last post sounded like a pity-party. It’s not that at all, but practically speaking, I have to be on-point or things fall apart. That’s all.

I hear you op.

Just understand that when a person is caught in codependency, as you are - often it results in the subconscious mind one day just deciding "right, I've had enough. Time for a massive crisis. This needs to stop".

You may not be able to avoid seeking out support and treatment.

I urge you to minimize the impact to your children by accessing professional help asap.

If counselling is out of the question, can I suggest you phone the Samaritans. You may just need to talk about this out loud with someone who will listen and reference any connections with your past that come to mind. Sometimes it helps to call a few times as different people may have different skills. Once you realise why you're feeling this way, it might disappear.

Don't mention it to your DD again.

@DonkeyPlease

You seem very knowledgeable and I’m truly grateful for your insights.

I would not be able to pay for anything private so would have to access support via the NHS which it seems can take several weeks. I know there are people in real crisis so would not expect to be a priority, so how do I cope with this on the short term?

Posting on MN is proving a strange experience: on one hand I am getting so much support, advice and empathy, and on the other hand, everything everyone is saying conflicts with my current belief that everything would be just fine if DD got back with her BF. As I’ve said numerous our times, I understand with my rational brain, that I am over-reacting x 10000 but in my current framing of the situation, I can’t stop obsessing and crying. I accept this isn’t normal - and also realise I can’t continue like this for the next few weeks. Do you have any suggestions for short term ‘getting a grip’?

I am currently sat here dreading the DC coming home as I just don’t feel like I have my usual ability to smile and function. This is horrible. My poor DC must be sick of my miserable face

OP you need to face up to the fact that you are in real crisis - I remember my Mum going through a breakdown and some of what you are saying and how you say it reminds me of that. Particularly fixating on things and making it so that if that one thing happened everything would be ok

Call the GP now

Hi OP

Dint want to read and run so for now will just say

• you aren’t ill - what’s happening is within the realms of healthy

- something about this episode has triggered a childhood trauma which has energised your experience of this situation beyond all proportion

• if you can recall the parallel between this upsetting episode and the traumatic experience you may be able to divide the one from the other and calm the energising effect.

So think over the traumatic experiences and think about abandonment, or unrequited love or other experiences that have shaped you? It’s in there you’ll find the source of this episode I suspect.
But it’s all going to be ok - honest!

PS - it may sound daft - but even something like having a loved pet sent away/abandoned when you were very young - and you unable to deal with the grief and sense of harsh cruelty of a thing you felt love for and loved you - for example. These things can make us inconsolable over something similar as adults because the child was unable to comfort themselves at the time and it becomes a buried trauma, triggered when the same feelings are aroused by something years later.

@TheCakeDiet

I'm not really knowledgeable, I'm just experienced, unfortunately.

I only ever got through my times of crisis by accessing professional help. The longer I avoided it, the more devastating the impact on me and my family.

It may seem impossible to access help but it does have to happen at some point. You can either choose it now, or have it forced upon you eventually. Sorry.

@Dadaist I can't come up with anything. Yes I had my teenage and young adult heart broken more than once, but I do feel like i worked that out at the time, and I can't think of any other childhood trauma. I have always had quite low self-esteem and been a bit of a people pleaser to boot, but I'm not sure how that translates to this... this thinking and behaviour.

The last 10 years have been steadily getting more miserable, but I haven't been feeling kick & scream upset about it - don't really feel much about it at all, other than general sadness. Even my parents deaths didn't overwhelm me. I loved the, very much and we were very very close, but I kind of managed to keep a lid on too much grief.

This is the first time I've felt overwhelmed with feeling about anything, for ages actually. If I had to describe in one phrase what I am feeling it would be "overwhelmed with longing" for what, I'm not sure. At the moment my heart is saying it's for DD to accept the love that's being offered and to see her and bf happy, but my head is now saying "And what else... ". I am starting to believe there really must be more to it.

op could you contact your gp or out of hours for a referal to your local crisis team? This seems a faster way of getting help if you're not in a position to pay privately.

www.rethink.org/diagnosis-treatment/treatment-and-support/crisis-teams

they can help if you are 'going through psychosis, where you are out of touch with your normal reality'. Would you say that applies?

I think some psychological support - a good counsellor or psychiatric help would be well worth it. You really aren’t losing your mind OP - as I said - it’s triggered something more meaningful - much deeper - and your transferring it onto this situation. Just breathe - and see if your GP can get you a referral.

I would try the GP, sometimes counselling comes through immediately as the urgent referrals go a different route. There's also different charities that can provide support and helplines though some aren't available all the time as they are staffed by volunteers.

I think you would benefit from some counselling OP. You are becoming obsessive about this issue. I have been where you are. Last year I discovered who my DBrother's father was. DBro is 72 and his father was a soldier in WW2. I discovered my brothers family in America and I so so wanted them to acknowledge him. I thought for a minute they would but they have dropped the ball and I have to let it lie. I became totally crazed about it though. Obsessed. Loon like. It has taken almost a year to feel sanguine about it but time helps. I haven't talked to anyone about this but it all happened in a background of lots of other terrible things happening to me and I think that's why I had such strong feelings about it. I have very gradually come out of all the anxiety and depression and am finally returning to normal. Well normal for me anyways : ) You need to do whatever it takes to have a happy life OP even if it means leaving your OH.

I wonder if this has hit you so hard because it is a situation which feels intrinsically unfair, on top of so many other things in your life which are unfair - this lovely boy has done nothing wrong but is still being made miserable, and lovely people deserve to be happy... If you could fix that, you made him happy and then the "rules of life" - that good stuff happens to good people - would be reasserted. I can see from your posts how hard you are trying to do the right thing and be there for everyone, but still your life is so, so hard, despite all that. So you are mourning that being good and lovely and trying to do the right thing doesn't always result in good things and happiness, and life is bloody unfair - but if you can "save" him, and get him a "fair" outcome, then maybe there's hope that the rules do work, and things will come right for you in the end? But as you logically know, life doesn't work like that. You can't take responsibility for his happiness on yourself - but you can take responsibility for getting yourself help and counselling - you don't have to put so much on yourself and live the life you have right now forever. Hard as it is, the boy won't feel this way forever, and nor do you have to.

@KingBobra that feels logical. I don't know if it is about trying to see justice for the good people, and I definitely don't count myself as fundamentally "good". With very few exceptions, I don't think anyone is good or bad, but I also recognise that I have cast him as the good-guy in this scenario and I want him to 'win'.

I keep reading and re-reading all the responses and there are so many nuggets of truth within them. Last night I filled in a self-referral form for the local mental-health support thingy. They offer workshops and various other support depending on your needs. I will call the GP today as I am not feeling any less tearful or focussed - still can't sleep or concentrate, but I a glad to have done something. Thank you for urging me in this direction to all e PP.

A new train if thought occurred to yesterday so because this has become my go to place for opening up and exploring this 'thing', I'm going to put it down here. I don't expect people to feel obliged to answer and this seems like such a non-problem compared to so much on here, that I really feel I have all the help it warrants and mor, but it feels cathartic to express the craziness out loud.

DD is quite mature for her age in many ways: physically, mentally and sometimes emotionally. Sometimes when I watch her with her friends, they still look like children and she seems so much older in the way she holds herself. She is attractive and her friends are forever telling me this this and that boy like her - again they are all sweet boys from school and just friends and they seem so young. She does seem to encourage this by being quite chatty/flirty with boys who have shown interest and she does seem to seek out validation by posting pictures where she clearly looks pretty with self-deprecating comments - in order to elicit a string of validation and love hears from girls and boys.

I think because of the toxic environment at home, she is not as confident as she seems and if she has inherited any of my personality, she is looking for ways to fill the gap of secretly low self esteem, or general lack. She likes the feeling of being 'liked' and seeks it out. I have seen this for myself. From a small age she was looking for a buzz - a way to get a kick: she would jump off he high boards at swimming while her friends quaked on the low ones, she loved and still loves anything fast or 'dangerous' - bungee, high zip wires, jet ski, fast cars, waterskiing. She is obsessed with wanting to be old enough to go to nightclubs - the idea of which she which she finds intoxicating^ and she is basically a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I think her wanting boys to like her,^ and pursue her, falls somewhere within this this quest to feel 'something'.

H and I have always maintained that she is the one we are going to have to 'watch' closely (in terms of drink and drugs later on).

I think - or it occurred to me last night - that one of the reasons I am so keen to have this boy in her life is that compared to her other friends, he seems somehow older and wiser. He's only a kid but as I said before he's a mix of swagger and good looks but with the ability to let himself show and speak if real feelings. I am thinking that as a young teen, I might have found someone like him very appealing and therefore in my muddled head, DD would feel the same. I sense that he might offer a way for DD to experience feelings and emotions without putting herself in any danger. In other words -a 'safe high'. He sort of feels like the only candidate I've seen who is 'fit for purpose'. The only one with enough about him to fill a hole? I am wondering now whether this is what has triggered my obsession with it being 'him' specifically that she should be with? That it might not be just about me - but a feeling that he offers a possible solution to something that I recognise as a potential 'danger' to my DD. Her need to 'feel something' or risk exploring dangerous places to find it. Maybe I recognise that a boy like him would have offered the teenage me enough to fill my gap, and stop me from going to some of e places I did to try and validate myself.

Even to me, this is starting to sound distinctly weird and Freudian. But I've written it down, I've said it out loud and sharing even he strangest darkest thoughts in a safe place like MN, is better than being curled up in a rigid ball feeling like I've got a stomach full of hard cement.

If you're feeling upset about how your H's alcoholism might be affecting your daughter, then it's possible you saw this lad as a sort of balm, a way of making her impervious to what was going on at home, as though he was a protector and keeping her safe from the effects of your husbands behaviour.

Now that he is out of the picture, she has seemingly 'lost' this conferred protection and seems vulnerable.
Unfortunately any protective qualities he may have appeared to have are probably illusory. He can't protect her, because that's her parents job. Maybe you're starting to face up to the fact that you can't stand between H and the kids, and that living with an alcoholic parent IS affecting them badly, and you're feeling a lot of grief at this.

I hope you manage to ring the GP today, because getting some help with put you on the right path to a happier future life.

I think that it's positive you will speak to your gp and have self referred.

I'm sorry but I think you're maybe trying to make sense of your feelings, but the constant heavy crying and detachment, the obsession isn't right, at all. You cannot control your daughters life. You cannot live through her. But even that doesn't come close to what you're currently mentally experiencing.

I hope the doctor provides you with help, and you get through this quicker sooner than later, in the meantime I'd try to detract my thoughts from the obsessive distressing ones you're having. Don't talk to your daughter about this further. This really is about you and not her.

She has done nothing wrong, she cannot settle for some kid because he's 'safe" or because her mothers mental health relies on it. She's 15, wanting to feel attractive, to be liked is totally and utterly normal. She is behaving how most other kids her age behave.

You do need to see your ongoing thoughts about this as a symptom of other things and not an issue in it's own right OP. I too suggest you tackle the knotty problems in your relationship one step at a time. You will look back at this one day with a wry smile only.

I'm embarrassed to have written my last post down now. You are all right, it's probably nonsense and I am trying to make sense of something because it will make me feel better, and less 'mad'.

FWIW I think I am managing to mask my thoughts from my family and DD seems happy enough in herself.

H is sensing a change in me though. He is being extra vile and and aggressive. Lucky for me, I don't feel it any more and he is doing it after DC are in bed.

Glad to see you've taken the first step.

So many of our clients wait until they can't function any more before seeking help (for lots of reasons). Much better to face this now. It's often the ones who feel the burden of family responsibilities who just try to keep going and going until they can't.

This is my thought process, it's better to get it sorted now than later.

Op, there is nothing to be embarrassed about, you're just trying to work out and rationalise why you're behaving As you use are, but I think even you can see it doesn't come close to explaining rhe physical reaction.

It reads like a breakdown, and I have some empathy, i once tripped over on holiday, i was unhurt other than my Ego. But I then cried for the. Next three hours, proper racking sobs, and I couldn't stop it. I suspect it was because I was under a huge amount of work stress and rhe dam simply. broke.

I get this is on a different scale, but just like mine wasn't about falling over, I suspect yours isn't about yyour daughter, you're just fixating on that.