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I have suffered with severe depression for many years due to having a toxic family and my mother was the worst offender as she verbally abused me most of my life. Surrendering a child has made it was although I suffered in silence for a long time. The past couple of months have been really bad possibly triggered with my mother dying last year. All I had ever wanted was for her to apologise to me for the hurt she caused but I knew it would never happen.
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I am so sorry you're struggling with depression. I've been prone to depression for most of my life, and when I surrendered my son when I was 17 years old, it became almost unbearable.
I, too, just lost my mother...and I'm dealing with really conflicting emotions because of the relinquishment aspect. I don't want to remember my mom with anger, but that's the emotion that keeps surfacing lately.
The damage my mom did when I was growing up was enormous. I was often tempted to send her the bills for all the therapy I've undergone since childhood. She never apologized per se for not helping me at all when I absolutely needed her assistance, love, and emotional support. But she did tell me shortly before she died that losing her firstborn grandchild to adoption was her biggest regret in life...
Have you tried antidepressants? When Prozac and the other SSRI's came out on the market, antidepressants literally saved my life. Some people feel they are a crutch...but when your leg is broken, you need some help to walk. The same goes for severe clinical depression, IMHO.
Thank you both.
RavenSong, I am taking Citalopram 40mg which was helping for a while but hasn't over the past 6 weeks. I know I need to talk to my doctor about this. I am also waiting to start CBT soon and just waiting for a date. The only counselling I've had has been adoption related a few years ago. The woman annoyed me as she was so clueless about adoption so I stopped it. It is helping me now to finally wanting to talk about depression.
(((lostmother))). I have had bouts of depression starting in my teens. I grew up in a family where both of my parents were alcoholics and my dad was also a drug addict. There was verbal and physical abuse from both my parents. Even sober, my mom is a hateful, narcissistic little witch. When I got pregnant in high school my mom wanted me to have an abortion and my dad said, "you got yourself into this mess, you've got to get yourself out of it." Even though I did the right thing for my son by getting him out of the hell I was living, the guilt and depression of losing him has been very hard. I medicated myself with drugs and alcohol for the 1st 5 years or so. I tried Z0L0ft when it first came out. That was good for about 2 years but then it made me numb. I wasn't depressed anymore because I couldn't feel anything anymore. I quit taking that and started reading self help books and studying psychology to try and fix myself. I have never had CBT myself but I just finished nursing school and we did Psych Nursing the last semester. We researched CBT and from what I understand, patients have great results from it. I hope it helps you too. Another resource that I learned about in school was an organization called NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). It is a network of folks who either suffer from depression and/or other mental illness and their families. They have group meetings for the patients and families once or twice a month. We had to go to a meeting for class and do a paper on it. I really liked the meeting and may go to some more meetings someday. You can find them at [url=http://www.nami.org]NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness - Mental Health Support, Education and Advocacy[/url]. I wish you the best of luck in finding something that helps you deal with this.
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