Posted by Wendy B. on June 4, 2001, at 0:11:34
In reply to Depressed parents » dougb, posted by Jane D on May 30, 2001, at 13:47:39
Hi Jane & Doug & others,
I find this thread to be so interesting. Going from Cam W talking about meds & therapy & cures, the responsibility to work on getting well, to how we handle (or mismanage) friendships... To what it's like to be a depressed parent. Wow, I feel compelled to write and ponder similar issues, the things I've kicked myself over (lost friendships, 3 yrs of not talking to my mother, etc.). The writing is good (therapeutic?) because it's an effort to get beyond the kicking myself and the self-blame.I think the depression fallout we have experienced, and probably bipolar fallout too, esp. in my case (and I think Scott's too?, I may be forgetting), is that friends and family sometimes have to fall by the wayside while we struggle with our demons. I think if we put it this way to them, they may understand better, and not take the things we do so personally.
But how can they not take it personally, I wonder? I have recently been on the other side of the equation, where I have been just one of many people left in the wake, the path of destruction, as it were, of a friend who is rapid-cycling bipolar. His slash-and-burn technique has been excrutiatingly painful to several of us, including a boyhood friend of his. Yet he goes on, very blind to all this, precisely because he has been in a florid hypomanic state for many months.
The ironic part is, I took him to my therapist when he was in a practically catatonic state of depression last fall. I literally had to drag him. Then he got the line from my therapist: do things for yourself only, don't plan your life around other people's agendas, cut yourself some slack, etc., just the same things we've said here. But my anguish is that as he was getting this advice from my therapist, he pulled away from a love relationship with me (ok, this is getting more personal than I planned...), because he took that very advice.
So while I thought I was helping him, and thought it would also help our relationship if he became clearer on why it was that he felt so awful (his mother dying when he was a young child), and what he could do about it (meds), it just hastened the demise of our relationship. He does admit now that I probably saved his life, since he is now totally into therapy and is med-compliant.
Other fallout is that I felt so betrayed by my therapist, who I felt was telling him that his impulsivity (parachuting out of our relationship, starting an affair with a chick 15 yrs younger than he, leaving me a total depressed mess), was ok because that's what he needed to do to figure out what he really wanted... Needless to say, I then bailed on my therapist and found another, natch, since my boyfriend had triangulated all of our relationships, and she was, I think, blindsided by the strength and insidiousness of his bipolar behavior. Adding to my hurt was the jealousy: she was getting intimacy with him, closeness that had been so suddenly snatched away from me.
Do you get why I'm confused about the cut-yourself-some-slack advice? I usually cut myself plenty, I admit. But I don't renegge on the responsibility I have to the other person. In essence now I try to keep my florid moments to myself, not impose them on other people (which, yes, implies a measure of control that a lot of bipolars are not capable of), and not make life-altering decisions that involve the deepest emotions of the other person, whilst in the middle of a hypomanic state, or in the depths of depression.
For example, speaking of parenting, what would happen if I just bailed on my daughter because I had to get my head together? Or perhaps I became very ill because of my depression, and ended up in the hospital. But in my wildest dreams, would I ever stop wanting to be near her or to care for her as much as possible? Can one even compare the parental relationship with the ex-lover relationship?
Perhaps I don't know how ill any of us actually get. Perhaps I don't understand the depths of non-functionality my boyfriend had descended to, and he did understand at least that much, and he was right to end it? I don't know anymore, and keep going over and over it, many months later...And I hate being ill, I see the depression as this "thing," some kind of monster of sorts, which just hangs there over me, or inside me, whatever. While it may sometimes be comfortable to retreat, and we may have to give ourselves a break and remember we're sick, we still have to do damage-repair with the people we love from time to time, as we struggle to our feet. I know I try to in my better days.
Right now I feel I have gone through a door, and am much better now, months after the breakup. But even though the meds and the therapy can relieve a lot, they don't do it all, and I can still go pretty low. However, I still come around to placing a sort of moral imperative on myself to try hard not to harm others... Is this what Cam meant in the early posts on this thread about responsibility? I don't know, it's late, I'm rambling, and I will probably post more on Depressed Parenting in the next day or two.Thanks, guys,
Wendy
> Doug
>
> > The world has somehow managed to go on without my assistance for the last several years. I now have a really cool oportunity to re-enter the mainstream at the speed and spot i choose.
>
> Interesting idea. I'm going to need to think about this.
>
> > Somehow, father of 5, employer, homeowner had taken over the things that i always wanted to do and be.
> >
>
> I would think 'father of 5' could take over most things. Wow! No wonder you need a break. But seriously, how have your children handled your illness? Do they understand what happened to you or have you hidden it from them?
>
> You seem to have accomplished a lot despite being sick for a long time. So have the other parents who have posted here. It always amazes me. I wonder if they are parents because they are stronger than I or if they are stronger because they are parents and have to be. Do you think having that responsibility helped motivate you to keep your life together for a longer time? Or were they an additional stressor? Or both?
>
> Feel free to ignore the personal questions, especially if you suspect your children are following your trail on the internet. Another hazard of todays literate children I imagine.
>
> I hope your appointment with the specialist went well.
>
> Jane
poster:Wendy B.
thread:6181
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010526/msgs/6285.html