#i just need to revert to my middle school coping mechanisms really hard

[soliusss]

Me realizing I can't gaslight myself out of a ptsd disorder

[dredshirtroberts]

*dancing* My new therapist will be covered by my insurance! ^__^

And this new-patient appointment couldn’t come any sooner. After a month+ of a depression episode along the lines of ones I had *prior* to me being medicated, I’m now having a hell of a lot of anxiety which, again, should be taken care of by my medication.

I need...I need help is what I need. I’m struggling accepting the new dynamic between my parents and I and how they’re overcompensating for how i was raised. I also need to come to terms with a couple of my past addictions and where I am with them now as far as coping mechanisms go. And I need someone to show me how to spot a certain type of person I fall in with easily because I need to avoid them in the future. It just ends up with me being shit on and I’m tired of that.

I’ve gone over the parent thing before, but I’ll sum up some of it and bring you to where we are now because there’ve been...updates. 

Essentially I was raised by emotionally immature parents, who were not aware of the effect they had on their two young children. I was then continually bullied by them in lieu of having actual bullies in school due to my being home schooled. 

When we were taken out of the public school system, we were isolated and taught that differing opinions from mom and dad were to be punished with ridicule and infantilization and ablism. We saw that others with different opinions were called stupid, dumb, idiotic, should not be allowed to procreate, and if my sister or I exhibited a potential leaning towards that way of thinking we were picked on, and made to feel ashamed. I did not learn to disagree. I learned to bow my head and accept that what my parents told me was law, whatever it was. I never questioned it either because I had no other information coming in. I had very few friends, and the few I hung out with I didn’t do so often, and the others were online friends I couldn’t be sure were real people until much later (sorry Leah and Kellie, but how was I supposed to know awesome people actually existed???). 

I was convinced because of my parents that I was unworthy of marriage unless I had a certain set of skills because clearly I was not attractive enough to date - and yes, this was something they indicated was my unattractiveness. And some of those skills I just don’t have (cooking *narrows eyes*...the kitchen and I have an understanding and it’s that the oven submits to me, I can use the convoluted can opener, and i know where all the things are stored. Also the dishwasher. Everything else likes to...disagree with me). 

Often throughout my childhood and into my teens I realized i was being raised by an older brother and sister, not by parental figures. They were not prepared to have a child when they had me. {Also there’s a conversation Kaernak and I keep having where potentially my younger sister is actually potentially a half-sister or a cousin raised by my parents because my aunt on my mother’s side wasn’t in a good relationship and/or less prepared than my parents to care for a child. The reason for this being the absolutely uncanny and frankly disturbing similarity between my sister and my aunt in appearance. I have not yet brought this up with my parents. (If you would like a couple examples of this familial scan-troversy - that’s a scandal and a controversy in one - then PM me and I’ll see what I can do for you). )

My parents’ emotional immaturity is coupled with the fact that they are functioning alcoholics and have been my entire life. They’re the socially acceptable version of alcoholic. As they’ve grown older, they’ve become more aware of how they could have been better parents earlier, and have tried to make amends now that my sister and I are no longer living in their house. As the eldest, they realize they fucked me way over, and now that I live an hour away they’re still failing on certain aspects of making it up to me, but they’re trying. At least they’ve been...mostly supportive as of late (which is really fucking weird because literally not six months ago I was having to justify everything to them and they still didn’t take it as legitimate. And now it’s like...oh of course you’re xyz darling, we love you and will support you however you need. And also we’re gonna make sure you’re taken care of financially. Which is why I’m reluctant to bring this kind of shit up to them, because I like that they’ve got the money to spare on me since they claimed never to have any while I was growing up (and yet somehow our collection of computers only grew????).

So there’s that. That was a much longer summation than I intended. But a lot of it was coupled with the “where I am now” thing so that’s ... progress.

Now on to the addictions thing. I was a smoker for a brief period of time but it was enough. Occasionally I’ll have a shit day and all I want is a cigarette or two (or three) to ease everything. It’s not a great coping mechanism but it’s what I had at the time. I also struggle with “how much drinking is too much drinking” because of the previously mentioned functioning alcoholism that runs in my family. And on top of both of those things, I was a heavy pot smoker for a number of years (which is why cigarettes were such a easy addiction to come into). I used it to escape my problems and self-medicate for my two main mental illnesses - which was like the worst thing for them because it made my anxiety skyrocket and my depressions crash harder. Anyway, occasionally I get cravings, and it’s usually in the form of “Hey, unhealthy coping mechanism, come here!” Drinking has been cut back IMMENSELY thanks to Kaernak. He also does not put up with smoking, so I haven’t reverted back to cigarettes since I met him. And I’m no longer associated with anyone who smokes pot, so I can’t be tempted. And these are all good, but on those days where unhealthy coping mechanisms look like good ideas, I need something else to do.

And now for the last part: identifying and avoiding a certain type of person.

I want all of my current mutuals to understand that NONE OF YOU FIT THIS BILL. Okay? Now that I’ve got that covered...

I tend to find myself drawn to a certain type of person when I’m allowed to choose my friends on my own. This person tends to be the victim in everything, blames everyone else for their problems, has a perception of themselves as the main character in the story and never as the supporting character to anyone else. They tend to be very emotionally young, though they may be more “mature” than others their age, which makes it easy to hide this sort of thing for longer.

These people tend to draw me in with the victim thing cause I have a savior complex. I believe I can help people out of their hole and all it takes is showing them the right kind of positivity and love that they say they don’t get anywhere else. It’s something I’ve been working on, but I don’t realize it’s happened until it’s too late so a lot of this is like “shit I should have recognized a, b, and c behavior!” but I didn’t. 

My sister was the greatest offender of these things. She’s exceptionally self-centered and has been her whole life. My parents only fed into this, and now she’s an adult who has her own life and she’s siphoning money out of my parents under the guise of being unable to afford food and necessities using her paycheck alone, but she somehow always has a new item(s) of clothing that she *just* bought and isn’t it so cute and stylish though she has 10 just like it but this one is more new that the last 5 and more stylish than the first 5 because those were from x number of years ago and while they’re still functional, they’re? somehow? not wearable????

She also plays the victim in any disagreement we have. For example, during Xmas, we had a misunderstanding about the seating at the table she and her boyfriend and me and my boyfriend were going to be sitting at. I’d moved chairs I did’t know I wasn’t supposed to (Because no one told me??), and I misunderstood her seating arrangement because her shit was in the middle of the table and I picked a side for her and her boyfriend to sit on. She wouldn’t listen to me, and we got snippy. She was somehow the victim even though there was no victim or victor. It was my fault for everything, and I apologized and attempted to walk away to avoid further escalation and somehow that was wrong too. Staying and explaining was wrong, leaving and apologizing was wrong, and I couldn’t win. This is so standard for our interactions that I don’t always remember what the fuck she was mad about the last time, because it’s fucking stupid every time and it’s that she thinks she understands what I’m saying and when I explain she was wrong, she’s like “that’s exactly what I was saying the whole time you don’t listen” even though she wasn’t saying anything close to that at all. 

I’ve now had two former best friends who fit that bill where they’re the victim, they’re the one who is always right, and if you disagree with them and show them why they’re wrong, they claim they knew that already and that you’re the one wrong. Gaslighting is their argument method, and you can’t win against them. They’re determined to be a heroine without fault, determined that they’re the princess who needs saving but also can somehow handle things on her own. They’re the girls who claim they’re Buffy, claim they’re Bella (or whoever is the lead in any similar books), claim they’re Ana and waiting for their Christian Grey to shower them in money, gifts and food.

And...well it’s hard to deal with that. The last one, she’s young and hopefully she’ll grow out of it, or she’ll learn that people won’t let themselves be treated like that. The one prior to her...well that’s what ended our relationship in the end. I wouldn’t let her be the victim and pull me down with her. My second act of defiance against her and she couldn’t handle it.

My sister...well that’s...that’s something I need to discuss along with my parental issues.

You see, I have a lot of this on lockdown. I’m medicating the worst things, and I’m just...I need more coping mechanisms because the ones I’ve acquired from research and life experience either aren’t cutting it or aren’t healthy for me

Anyway. The boyfriend and I are probably having dinner with my parents tomorrow. Does anyone know what you talk to your parents about when you can’t discuss work because you also work with them? I find myself at a loss.