I'm losing something...

[Victoria Montgomery]

Hi.

I'm new here and I think I may need your help. I feel like I'm not myself anymore, like I've lost something important, and the biggest problem is - I don't know what it is.

My real name is Natalia, I'm a seventeen-year-old girl and I live in a small town in Poland. My dad had left my mother about two years ago, because he found himself a girlfriend. He seems to be finally happy now, and so I am really happy for him, because I know my mother and I know what he'd been through with her. So, my parents are separated now and my mother wants to get divorced in a couple of months (but I don't think it bothers me, my family has always been only imaginary). She's been also really depressed lately, and she keeps saying she doesn't want to live anymore, she screwed up everything in her life, and she doesn't have anyone here for her. And when I ask her what about me, she says that in a year I'm gonna leave her and go to another city to college, so she makes me feel really guilty that way and I'm not sure if I shouldn't stay where I live with her and find another profession to study (I wanna study medicine, and where I live there's no med school). Really often I feel I really hate her as a mother and also as a person, because she's convinced everyone is trying to make her worse, so she treats people like trash, which also affects me. No matter what I do - it's always done in a wrong way, so she gets a chance to be crazily mad at me for the rest of the day. And lately I've just realized that she hates me for not being my cousin - because he always was (and is) greater, more responsible and more organized than me. I've always been the worse one.

Four years ago I found out I'm a insulin-dependent diabetic, and I think I got over it too fast. I mean, I didn't even seriously cry over it, and when the doctors told me told I said it was all fine, only now I see that maybe it's not.

I have a problem somewhere inside of me that makes me upset everyday. I've been to a psychologist lately, but generally speaking - she was awful. I felt like she didn't care about what I was telling her, and she obviously didn't bother to help me. To every issue I tried to explain to her she reacted like 'everyone deals with problems like that'. And, yeah, maybe she was right, but still I came to her to ask for some help, cause obviously the problems I had didn't seem to be so easy to solve for me. At last she decided there's nothing wrong with me, I am strong, and it's all a normal teenager's confusion about life. But I still feel a problem exists, and unlike her, I don't think it's a simple teenager issue. I exactly know what I want of my life, and I'd like to say everything seems to be going just fine, except that I can't live my life anymore.

There are some issues I'm trying to deal with:

1. The most important of all - I feel my life isn't anything good to me. I know what I wanna be, who I wanna be and how I wanna work this out, but still most of the time I'm either very happy or very sad and I don't know why. When I wake up in the morning I don't feel like living through the day if it's too normal. When there's nothing extraordinary happening I just don't wanna live. But on the other hand - when something new is coming I don't like it either because I'm scared to death of it.

2. I watch two TV shows and lately I feel like the life in there is much more interesting than my own, even if the characters have to face much scarier problems. I prefer watching than living my own life. It's not addiction, because I know when to stop watching, and I can live without it with no problems, it's just that when I'm watching I'm running away form my problems, so most of the time dealing with a hard situation for me looks like 'I'm gonna survive this, and then I'll finally go watch something (like it was a rescue)'. All I want is to make it through the day to eventually sit, watch the show and forget about what I have to do, and I know that this way I don't care enough about what's real, so there's a big chance I'll mess up too - like my mother did.

3. When I go to sleep I will end up doing anything but sleeping. So I watch the series TV I mentioned, I listen to a lot of music - only not to fall asleep. I don't have any sleeping problems, but I'm just afraid of sleeping, because I know that tomorrow's gonna come too soon this way, and I don't want it. So generally, I'm afraid of falling asleep, because I'm afraid of tomorrow, whatever it's gonna be.

4. I'm afraid of people - or rather of talking to them. I don't have a lot of friends, because I'm too introvert and people just don't like me. On the other hand - each adult person that gets to know me tells me I'm very grown up, or even too grown up as for someone my age. But I'm afraid of people. Every time I'm supposed to get into a store and say hello or when I see a neighbor passing by, I freak out. It's not something I can't handle, because eventually I will get into the store or say hello to the neighbor, but still I'd do everything to avoid meeting these people.

So, maybe that's it. I also wanna tell that sometimes I wish I was more messed up, so that other people would notice I need some help, or something. I feel like I could die and no one would notice I'm gone. I'm thinking about death a lot, but hell no, I don't wanna die. My life is too important for me, even if it's so so hard. I don't wanna lose it, because I have big plans, and I believe in my abilities. Sometimes I even think I believe too much. I'm not studying much, because I don't feel like doing it, I don't care too much about my grades, cause I can bet that only the final exam is the most important and I wouldn't ever let myself screw that up. Or maybe I would, I can't be sure about anything right now. It's too messy and too hard for me to bear sometimes. I have moments when I'm really happy and suddenly something inside me happens and even though I don't know what it is, it changes all my feelings and my mood, and I'm getting sad for no reason. I'm scared of my life, and of my own mother, even though she doesn't do anything bad to me, she doesn't abuse me or something... Sometimes I'm just scared of talking to her or meeting her, and there were few situations when I just kept standing in front of my room door not able to force myself to get out like for about fifteen minutes. Telling my mother all of that doesn't work, because it only makes her worse, which makes her anger grow. It seems there's a lot of my mother in it, and I know that probably she's the main cause of my problems, but what hurts the most is I can't do anything about it. I can't change the situation, I can only change my thinking, but it's really damn hard for me, especially because I'm really sensitive and sometimes I overreact. I can't stop crying sometimes, what causes my mother to think I'm doing it for a reason, while I'm not. And other times I just wanna cry so so badly, but nothing helps and I just can't. I feel I'm really lost, so I'm asking for some help here, cause I just can't stand it anymore.

Oh, and sorry I've written so much

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Victoria, I think the very first priority for you is to find a new psychologist. Your experiences with your current psychologist are certainly not the norm and you really shouldn't need to tolerate that kind of behavior in a therapist.

 

[Drew]

Czesc, Natalia, twoje Angielski jest swietne, doskonale! Muszisz uczycz sie i pracowac w skole bardzo trudne...fajne! Przepraszam bardzo na moje zle jezyk polski.
Ok Natalia, I'll put you out of your misery and will stop murdering your language, now

It sounds like you're suffering horribly, and are in a great deal of pain. On the other hand, one thing that sounds encouraging to me is when you say that in spite of your pain and suffering, you don't want to die and you realize how important your life is to yourself. That's very encouraging, and speaks a great deal of your resilience and potential.

I completely agree with David. One thing that concerns me is that you live in a small village/town - do you have any opportunity to obtain services from another mental health practitioner in the area?

 

[CarlaMarie]

My heart felt your pain. I hate it when young people suffer. I am so sorry your Mom is sick. That is what they call what she has. My Mom had it all my life and I too felt responsible for her. She is a grown up and although you feel responsible you have to take care of you. That is the best way of helping your Mom by getting you a professional that is effective. I like what Dr. Baxter said and Drew suggested. Keep searching until. You deserve to reach your full potential. You can't do it alone. You go girl!

 

[forgetmenot]

Hi one thing i see is that you know who you are you know what you want in life your goal to study medicine that sounds so interesting. You are just becoming a young adult and i think if you can you should go to college of your choice and look after you okay. I agree with everyone here that a new psychologist is in order. ONe that listens and truly sees your needs and cares for you. Please keep reaching out as well here okay let us know how you are doing HUgs

 

[Victoria Montgomery]

Oh, thank you all so much for your replies! That really helps when you know there are some people who understand you and get your point =) For now it's not me actually who's going to see a psychologist, but my mother is... I don't know if it's gonna work, I really hope though. The worst thing is that I'm becoming more and more who she is, even though I don't want this. I figured out lately that the person I've been trying so hard not to be, well I am becoming it. And the scariest part of it is that no matter how hard I fight it, I can't stop it.

 

[forgetmenot]

With help you can stop it okay You need help too to heal i hope you reach out to get a therapist just for you hugs

 

[Victoria Montgomery]

Hi, it's me again. Well, I have a possibility to get a therapist, but I'm really confused about it now. I'm not sure if I'm not doing this for the wrong reasons. I mean, I think I might want to see a psychologist just because I want to have someone to talk to.

I wonder if maybe I created all of these problems because I was expecting someone to finally listen to me and - I don't know - maybe to care about me? Sometimes it's better and sometimes it's worse and it's probably supposed to be going this way. I talked to a psychologist once before I decided to really start looking for one for me. It was during vacation two years ago, on a camp.

There was a really nice psychologist in there and soon I started talking to her without any doubts. I told her everything I remembered and it took me one hour. Only one hour and I still see it as probably the best hour in my life. When somebody could just listen to me and not judge... When I felt kind of safe. I think my biggest problem is the way I cling to other people. Some just talk to me and I suddenly expect them to do more - I mean to make friends with me or something. Like I am someone special... Through the rest of my vacation I felt like she was avoiding me and I didn't know why. And then we had to come back home. When we were saying goodbye to each other she told me that I could always write an e-mail to her. So when I came home it was the first thing I did. I was waiting for a really long time for her to reply, but actually she never did.

Now I know how stupid it was and I can understand why she didn't write to me back. I was expecting too much and it was becoming unhealthy. But even though something inside kept telling me that, I couldn't really stop thinking about her. At first it was something like 'she left me when I needed her', later I just kept on believing that someday I'd be able to talk to her again. Now I don't feel it anymore, but that experience was exactly why I started to look for a therapist for me in my town.

I found one and you know how it ended; I think that I was even kind of mad at her that she didn't talk to me like the one from the camp did. Now I'm looking for another therapist and maybe it's wrong. I had a very similar issue with my biology teacher three years ago. I would've done everything just to talk to her that time. I heard there is something like addiction to therapy and I'm afraid I might become an addict too when I go to see a therapist.

I think I really want to go, but maybe that's the reason why I shouldn't be doing this???

I don't want to get worse instead of getting better, but I also don't want my life to be going the way it is now... I don't know what to do.

 

[forgetmenot]

I think if you print off what you have written here and show it to your therapist perhaps you can work on that aspect of you the one that finds it hard to let go when it is time too. or the one that needs to be felt heard to feel significant. You and therapist both can move you forward to a better place then where you are now. A good therapist will be able to keep the boundaries to a therapeutic one hugs to you

 

[Retired]

she told me that I could always write an e-mail to her. So when I came home it was the first thing I did. I was waiting for a really long time for her to reply, but actually she never did.

Victoria,

Is it possible the reason you didn't receive a reply was that she was away and offline, or that you may have mis-typed the email address and it never got to her.

Do you have a telephone number to call her?

 

[Victoria Montgomery]

I'm sure the message got to her. I think she just knew as a psychologist that I might be getting too close... Thank you, Spirit, I think you're right. I will try =)