a post

[zeradin]

My sister from an early age showed genetic inheritence of schizophrenia. triggered from the introduction of our stepfather, the destruction of our family from violence abuse and secrets, and then the reintroduction of our stepfather, the destruction of our family etc. etc..

It occurred to me a few days ago that when my sister was being observed for diagnosis, i was prescribed amytriptiline. something i now know that they didnt usually prescribe to 8 year olds. and this is grating to me... as i dont remember ocd holding me at all back then. just blinding headaches. 

what then happened is my sister begged to be put in foster care and i refused to go. i couldn't live with leaving. that prospect i lived through was the best it was at any point because mainly i didnt know that life wasnt supposed to be full of abuse and witnessing helplessly as someone wwho you love and idolise is allowing herself to be beaten. 

thats when the ocd appeared. the problems came from memories of abusive punishments to trivial things  i was told to do being not to satisfaction. a flash to having my head shoverd in a washing up bowl halfway through dishes comes to mind.

 

anyways these days me and my sister are really close. she needs help alot and wont go to anyone else. she explains to me what its like in her head.

its like the thoughts and ideas are not recognised in her voice. she cant trust the voices because no one else can hear them but at the same time seem to act as if reacting the way the voices excpected. the coincidences draw up false conclusions that they cant be real but they also cant be this correct so often about the expected behaviors of  others that dont hear them so they must be there to warn her that everyone wants to trap her in their hidden intentions.

i relate. I hear thoughts and ideas and know they were my own. but i also can see the behaviors of others acting how i imagine they would. the counterproduct draws up false conclusion that they must also hear their thoughts and ideas and yet choose to behave how i see they should to my interaction. thhis so concludes that they cant be real people and this isnt the real world because they are all acting how i imagined they should which makes you feel your own thoughts were not your own. compounded by repetition of acknowledgement do i need to behave that i cant trust what i know because i have known other things that weren't  supposed to be real in my childhood.?

 

either way we both cant help but feel lonely from the selves we live with.

 

sorry there isnt a real question or need for advice here. my current turmoil (from a few posts back) prevent me from being able to fight the paradox at the moment. i really thought that saying this here wasnt so you could relate as its not a situation that should actually happen in real life in my view to anyone, but so i could get something off my chest without an expected response because then the world would feel for me just briefly not unreal, not simulated. not happy. but actually still a feeling that i need to feel because i am so hollow right now that i am begging for the end of everything. i have never considered suicide and never will take my life. but its wrong that i really want a murderer to against all odds decide to target my home as his next target. or for a plane to crash against all odds on a pathway through my house.

i have never needed reassurance..... i have needed to know they dont need to question my inability

[snowbear]

Hi zeradin,

I'm sorry things are tough for you at the moment. Seems to be partly from where you're at in your own head and partly from listening to what your sister is going through. I imagine it does feel confusing. Let's see if I'm on the right wavelength here. I'm going to share a few ideas with you to see if you relate to them. 

The experiences a person goes through are what gives them their own unique view of the world. It's what makes me 'Me' and you 'You'. No two people's experiences are ever the same so in order to find some common ground we imagine there's such a thing as 'normal'. The imaginary 'normal childhood' becomes idealised and is something you maybe aspire to remember for yourself, even though you know it isn't real.

I'm guessing you have memories from your childhood which are so different to most people's experiences you begin to doubt they can have happened - which can lead to thoughts that maybe it wasn't real, or maybe this isn't real... almost like wishful thinking where you want to have some reality to hold onto, but you can't choose between what you remember and the childhood you think you ought to have had.

So you 'disown' the past by questioning if it was real. And then because deep down you do know what's real you keep going over and over it in your head, remembering, disowning, remembering - over and over...wishing the past you remember was 'normal' and continually trying to accept that it wasn't. 

Any of that make sense to you? If not, don't worry. Like I said, just sharing ideas about how 'coming to terms with things', particularly very difficult things, sometimes happens.

Trouble starts if this attempt to 'come to terms with the past' becomes a compulsive rumination.

Seems to me you're trying to disown what you remember and replace it with what you think was supposed to happen to children. And when it doesn't quite fit with what you know, you repeat the thoughts over and over looking for which bits 'aren't real'.

8 hours ago, zeradin said:

 repetition of acknowledgement ...that i cant trust what i know because i have known things that weren't  supposed to be real in my childhood

But no amount of repeating thoughts, or wishing it was different, or imagining some part of what you remember wasn't real... none of those mental games are going to change your past. 

What you need to acknowledge is those 'supposed to happen' things are imaginary (wished for) stuff. 

So your past was different to most other people's. That's ok, because it's yours. It's what gives you a sense of self, your unique reality.  That it wasn't 'normal' doesn't mean you can't have 'normal' in the future. You can make the future as normal as you like. Or better than just normal. Make it fabulous! 

Are you getting some help at managing your thoughts? (CBT or any kind of therapy?) 

[zeradin]

im trying to keep hold of feeling anything . i had an assessment for new cbt goals and it turns out that the current predicament im in would not allow it to work. once resolved they believe my normal cbt conditioning will kick back in from past sets.

i havent seen my daughter in 7 months. due to an injustice of a grandmother who is delusioned into thinking she is saving her from me (she believes that im an emotionless junkie who is out just for myself) 

she doesnt have the right. i had to fight 2 years of this just to get access in the first place from the mother (who actually is a selfish borderline personality) to be declared fit. and a good father. 

she is making impossible injustices that are more diabolical than anything i was abused by in the past.

when im with my daughter my ocd is not foremost... its bliss.

and now there is nothing... there is no feelings... there is no fight left.... i cant  fight anymore... there is no winning... everyone involved has already lost no matter how it ends

 

[snowbear]

18 minutes ago, zeradin said:

she is making impossible injustices that are more diabolical than anything i was abused by in the past.

I hear your anger - fully understandable. 

19 minutes ago, zeradin said:

when im with my daughter my ocd is not foremost... its bliss.

That's wonderful. It's the time out you need, the lucky break that can turn all this around.  

My own OCD is very much tied up with anger and injustices done to me in the past. When love dominates my day I have almost no OCD at all, when I'm angry it returns.

I wonder if maybe your OCD is similarly 'fueled' by the sense of injustice and the understandable anger you feel.

Two things I've learned which may be of use to you:

1. Anger is like two sides of the same coin. It can be a great motivator and provide strength and courage when you need to fight your corner, but it can also be very destructive. Usually self-destructive with collateral damage to those close to you. It rarely damages the people you'd actually not mind hurting. 

2. If your OCD recedes into the background when you're feeling love then harness that effect to help you overcome your mental health issues. Consider having a chat with your therapist about practising Love-Kindness meditation and Positive Emotion Generation (PEG). He/she may know of these through Mindfulness techniques or Positive Psychology, as part of Anger Management, or just as part of their CBT training/knowledge. 

You've probably got a lot of CBT goals already but consider this an on-going technique you can keep ticking over in the background while you work on those specified goals. In the early stages of practising love-kindness and PEG it can have a calming influence that eases the bitterness of injustice. Later it begins to heal the damage done by your unpleasant experiences. And it definitely helps to ease that numbness, that inability to hold onto any feeling at all, gradually replacing nothingness with positive emotions. 

One of those positive emotions is hope. You become energised again, able to carry on the fight, to face the injustice and win. But doing it with kindness in your heart rather than anger.

I've yet to come across anything other than 'love' that actually heals the damage of the past. Everything else, all the psychology, all the therapy, can be like sticky plasters over the wounds. Wounds that erupt again every time you have to have contact with those who did you an injustice, setting off the cycle of mental issues all over again.

Teaching yourself how to generate feelings of love, forgiveness and a sense of kindness towards all humanity (and eventually towards those who hurt you) may sound like the stuff of fairy tales, but it is based in good science - and more importantly it works! But it takes time to work. The wounds can be deep and healing can be slow, so the sooner you can take the idea on board and start working with generating love-kindness (and through it forgiveness) the better. 

As I said it probably won't be your central focus just now, or even one of your defined goals, but putting it on the agenda and making your therapist aware it's there to be brought to the fore when you're ready is probably a good idea. 

Good luck!