Parenting and depression

Hello yoghurtraisin! (yoghurtraisin? can I call you yog for short?)

Welcome to the forum! It's good and comfortable here, with a nice mix of "professionals" and interested people!

Your story rang bells with me, because in our family we were very much given the messages "we are one big happy family who all love each other" and "we are different from (for which read 'better than') other people" and anything which contradicted this was outlawed. The message was very effectively given, and with the best of intentions. So effective was it that I continued to believe in it well into my 30s (so you are ahead of the game at 27!), and it was only when depression struck that I at all questioned this myth, and it took me quite a long time to let go of it and gain a more realistic view and allow myself to see the feet of clay which had been there all the time.

As you come through a period of "iconoclasm" like this, it helps to direct the anger you feel towards the loss and deprivation you have experienced, rather than "at" the people who may have unwittingly contributed to it. Anger is a pretty normal feeling in the process of grief, and it is grief that we have to go through as we realise what we have lost and come to terms with it. Anger is not a comfortable feeling, and it is tempting to look for someone to blame - and there may even be someone to blame - but blaming does not help us in the long term. What helps is coming to terms with the reality that lay hidden behind our illusions, and realising that the other people involved also acted out of their illusions, which they believed to be real. The same applies to blaming yourself, of course!

It's strange that "disillusioned" is a negative word in our culture - because we all could benefit from being freed from more of our "illusions" which hide reality from us and cheat us of what we could be.

The best thing about being grown up, I think, is that you can take over the task of parenting yourself. You can revisit that lonely isolated younger you who longed for support and understanding from her parents which they were unable to provide, and YOU can provide it to her now - because she is still alive and feeling it inside you (as you know). And who is the only person who can reach her? You are! So reach out to her and give her what she needs. Speak directly to her in your imagination.

This exercise is extremely powerful and can be quite emotional - but usually it brings tears of joy as that waiting part of you at last receives what it needs and is enabled to complete its proper maturation process. You can then imagine her going through her life from that point on, WITH the resources that you have now given her, noticing how differently she experiences all the events that took place in your life when she has these resources.

You can do this exercise on your own, or with the help of a good therapist.

Life can be better!

All the best

Kathleen

Hi Kathleen,

Nice to meet you. Yes, please do call me yog. It's funny how people choose small objects you can eat (peanut) frequently as user names.

Anyway, thanks so much for that. You are absolutely right. It is interesting to hear that you had a similar experience. I liked the bit about being better than others...my family was like the 'peter perfect' family, with a lot of shame hidden behind the smiles and polite words.

I'm trying to do these things that you suggest and have been doing with a therapist. I think one of the things about doing it is when you are depressed, you can feel very childlike. I have certainly found myself regressing (especially because I was anorexic as well), and I have found this difficult to combine. I have found it difficult to maintain a job because I feel too much like a child.

Talking about it like this though does help enormously, but it feels like an adult responsibility to look after your mental health, rather than just thinking adult responsibilities are dealing with lots of financial statements or presenting something to a board of suited men....
(sorry if I have offended suited men....)
Thanks again
Bye

Hello Yog!

I'm glad you found my comments helpful! It's understandable that you find it hard to keep working when you don't feel 'old enough'. That's why it is important to help that child 'grow up' and reach her proper age.

I would make a distinction between what people call "the inner child" and these stuck, child parts. Your "inner child" is the eternal child in you, that possibility of openness, and freshness, and enthusiasm for the great wonderful world. That's the "inner child" that the self-help books tell you to befriend and to make part of your life now (a jolly good idea!)

The stuck part is different. I see it as a childish aspect which has got frozen in time because of not getting what it needed (and needs). When you give this part what it needs, you "unfreeze" it, and it can then continue on its natural growing path.

You might find it easier to cope with the working world if you say to that part before you engage with your working day that you are going to turn your attention to work (or whatever) now, but that you promise to return and give attention to her again - and setting a specific time for this and sticking to it can also help. The psychology is just the same as in caring for an actual small child. The child needs to know that she is not being abandoned, and that the carer is going to come back. If she knows this, she does not need to cling and cry and demand attention, because she knows she is going to get attention. And that allows you to be in your adult self while you need to engage with the outside world.

And I wouldn't worry about giving offence to men in suits!

All the best

Kathleen

I know that direct criticism is abusive, but it seems to me that mixed messages like these are just as dangerous, yet perhaps more difficult to deal with because there is nothing to direct the anger towards.

Hi yog

Just noticed this part of your first post, and I couldn't agree more.

In my opinion, implied criticism, and creating guilt in children can be much worse than the overt stuff. At least if it's 'out in the open', kids can ask other adults about it, discuss it with friends, and the adults are more open to criticism by other adults. When it is implied, the child may not even be aware why they are feeling bad.

Kids tend to 'internalise' anyway, and anything implied is much harder to externalise - to say "That's you being grumpy, not me being bad", sort of thing.

This is a pattern I see often with people who suffer from excessive guilt - guilt has been used on them on an ongoing basis as a way of controlling their behaviour as kids.

Roger