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zesty-goblin-trash · 10 days ago

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tw: mental health

I just need to word vomit right now.

I've been trying to get assigned a proper psychotherapist since, I don't know. At least September of last year? When the doctor I was seeing was moved from the department I was put in to the other hospital. He was apparently doing psychotherapy with me, despite him not technically supposed to be doing that according to the new doctor I was reassigned to. This doesn't explain everything properly but it's no secret that Ontario/Canada/The fucking world isn't properly able to handle mental health situations and it shouldnt be a surprise that it took more than 2 years to actually get into this specific mental health program after the referral from my family doctor. I've recently found out that it's also not even supposed to be a long term solution, and I'm going to be bounced to another doctor at another hospital for further treatment. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll be assigned back to the first doctor who was moved to there, because he genuinely was an incredible help. I think I'm going to be speaking with someone today about that, I'm not entirely sure to be completely honest.

I recently completed an official assesment that involved going over basically everything I could remember in my life, and even if during pregnancy my mom had any complications. Fun fact, apparently studies have been done that show smoking tobacco during pregnancy is linked to higher chances of the child developing ADHD. At the end of the assesment the Doctor writes up a report, we went over it in case of any corrections being needed, and it's submitted to my electronic file. It was already know that I have ADHD (combined type to be more specific.), Persistent Depressive Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The new addition to this roster was Complex PTSD (in the DSM-5 it falls under "Other Specified Trauma and Stressor Related Disorder"). In hindsight, yea, that checks out.

I've always said I just want to know what's wrong with me so I can get the right kind of treatment, because it's been years of feeling like I'm just slapping bandaids on a wound without properly treating it. I'm very aware things like therapy and coping strategies aren't a one size fits all thing, but when nothing seems to be helping it makes me think there has to be something else wrong with me. Turns out, I was right. Also turns out, it's a lot harder to accept than I'd expected. I expected relief to finally be able to say "this is what's wrong with me!", and maybe to a certain extend I do feel that, but I'm also feeling incredibly angry. Worse is that I also feel tremendous guilt for that anger because I know it's not going to change anything.

I wouldn't have said my childhood was traumatizing. It was rough at times while my Dad was just starting to be treated for his Bi-polar Disorder and I've never denied that being yelled at by him has absolutely impacted me in how I react to people raising their voices and aggression in general. But it's the fact that in trying to raise me to be independent, and also keeping their tobacco and cannabis use "away from me" by leaving me on my own for the vast majority of my childhood ended up doing more harm than good. I do have to mention that I still think the fact that my Dad rigged up a normal video camera to a TV in the basement to act as a video baby monitor back in the early 90s was pretty clever. I was alone but not unattended essentially.

Even as I got older I was still always alone. We didn't have a dinner table for family meals, I always ate in my room and them in the basement. I was happy to be able to take my food back to my computer and eat while I played The Sims. I had my own tv, my own space, and it really did feel like independence. Everyone always thought it was weird when I explained it to them, but I insisted that it was fine and felt like by the time I was in high school I had a great relationship with my parents. Even now thinking back to it, I don't know if I would have wanted to change that. Maybe at the very least having dinners together would have been nice, maybe watching a movie while we ate or something. I don't know.

What starts to make me angry though is when I think of how much cannabis they must have been smoking all throughout my life. They quit tobacco when I was younger, I want to say like 8 or 9 maybe? But my Mom never stopped smoking pot. My Dad said to me once that it was something they'd tried to quit many times but couldn't, and that's what addiction is. My Dad did actually did just straight up stop smoking it between getting a stint installed after his heart attack and going back to the hospital before he passed away. He essentially had one smoke, ended up not being able to breathe and went "nope, guess I'm done with this." It makes me think my Dad could have stopped any time if he really wanted to, but my Mom was the one really addicted. It's clear she is, because living in her basement I've been exposed to it so damn much in these last couple of years we've been here.

That's one of my main points of anger too. No matter how many times I try to explain to her the physical effect the cannabis is having on me, it doesn't seem to register as serious to her. I don't know if she is genuinely not understanding, or just trying to ignore it and convince her self it's not as big of a deal as it is. This makes me think how much of my childhood was also spent with her being high? I was home most with my Dad because he worked night shifts. My Mom was working a typical 9-5. I don't want to put blame squarely on my Mom for the cannabis use but it's extremely hard for me to not do so. The times I can recall smelling smoke from the basement despite knowing they quit cigarettes were all when they were both home. I don't know if my Dad smoked when he was home with just me. I honestly don't think he did. Despite how rough things were when he was struggling with his own mental health, he was an incredible Dad. And this isn't what I wanted to vent about, but now I'm crying and fuck, I miss him.

I don't know if I only started to notice my Mom's major shortcomings because I'm an adult now too, or if maybe they were always there and my Dad just balanced them out? Or maybe it's because she no longer has to parent, and only has herself and her happiness to focus on. But it's so incredibly frustrating to deal with because if she was any other person in my life, I truthfully would have distanced myself from her. I truly believe she's also got ADHD and is struggling with that, because there are signs that I know from my own ADHD. She doesn't want to get tested, and says she can't afford the medication anyways and absolutely fair on that part, it's not cheap without a drug benefits plan. But knowing this, I've tried to give her advice on how to mitigate some of the most frustrating aspects that she's vocalized being and issue and also become an issue for others like myself and my partner. But it seems she just brushed them off and continues to struggle with the same problems and then gets upset that they're still problems.

The simplest example is just setting a timer or alarm. She gets frustrated that she ends up running late every day, it was part of the reason she'd be fired from her last job as well. She's told me she loses track of time and then has to mad dash around to leave. I know this because every single time it's incredibly loud above me, upsets Oy (this is a whole other thing I don't want to get into.) tremendously, and worries me that she's going to get in trouble for being late at this job too. I also have this problem and I know I do, so I actively have to set multiple timers to make sure I know when I need to stop whatever I'm doing, get ready to leave, and then get out the door on time. Sometimes it takes only 1 alarm, sometimes I make sure to set 2. But I know this is a problem I have and that is an annoying but effective solution to it. I've shown her how to quickly set up timers on her phone, and even shown her how to ask her Google Home devices to send reminders or alarms. It's literally as simple as saying "Hey Google, set a timer for 45 minutes/set an alarm for 2:45."

I've stressed this to her especially when she does laundry, because for that she needs to come down into our space to do it. Which is fine, obviously, but when 2 loads of laundry should at most take 2-3 hours but takes the entire day because she forgets about them it becomes frustrating. We have to block off the door so Oy doesn't get upset that suddenly someone is in our area, so we tend to just avoid going out to the "kitchen" (The mini fridge with milk in it, coffee maker, microwave, and toaster oven located in the same area as the laundry machines.) until she is done. This also means remembering to NOT lock the door so she doesn't have to fight with it as she comes and goes, making sure if we need to let Oy outside she's not in there or outside, and just generally trying to be as out of the way of her for that time period as possible. Problem is when she forgets about it, we spent hours in waiting mode expecting her to finish it only to be sent a text asking to start the load again because she forgot. I've told her to just set a timer for 45 minutes and not to dismiss it until she is actually in the laundry room. If your timer goes off and you can't immediately stop what you're doing to go get the laundry, add 10 minutes. Then when that one goes off again, go down or add 10 minutes. It's annoying, but it works. I've dismissed my timer for the wash only to immediately forget I needed to get up and swap it over so many times it's not even funny, so I get it. But you can't just keep getting frustrated that you forget stuff and make no efforts at all to help yourself not forget. Especially when it's also inconveniencing others around you. It's even more frustrating when those you are inconveniencing go above and beyond to not inconvenience you.

During one of the times the hubs was asked to pick my Mom up from work, she was complaining about how no one has common courtesy anymore and only thinks about themselves. Typically she will complain about something or other that happened during her day on the drive home and he'll politely nod and listen, but the irony of her genuinely complaining about that was too damn much to just tune out. I can't remember what he'd said in return, but it apparently just went right over her head and she continued on. I don't think my Mom is a bad person, which might be hard to believe from all this rambling. I think a lot of it has to do with her generational mindset (born '62). While she's not as bad as some, it's still frustrating to try and explain how some of the things she does are causing serious mental distress to me in particular, but also probably my partner. And absolutely my dog, but again, that's a story for another time.

To loop this back around, I've been finding my self increasingly angry at a lot of things she has been doing, or not doing lately. I wonder if she was like this when I was a kid and I didn't notice. Did it contribute to the trauma? I know now that I have such a strong sense of injustice when people do things "against the rules" and aren't punished for it because I was terrified to do things wrong as a kid. So when my own Mother does things "against the rules" it makes me literally furious. I want to scream "You taught me this was wrong! How dare you disregard that for yourself!"

I know that pointing this anger at her and screaming this is all your fault isn't fair. Not only because I was raised by both my Mom and Dad, so it was a joint effort, but because it would accomplish nothing. I don't even know if I want to tell her I've been diagnosed with Complex PTSD because of childhood neglect. I don't think that will help anything. It's not going to change the past and I honestly don't think it would change anything going forward. She knows they screwed that up. At least, I assume so. I don't remember if it was her or my Dad who'd told me, but I do specifically remember being told that they wanted to teach me to be independent and be able to do things on my own, not relying on others for comfort and support but admitting that backfired and was the wrong choice. So is it really going to benefit anyone to bring that up and remind her she failed as a parent during a critical part of my development? I really don't think it will.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I need to confront her about it for my own healing. I know I always put the feelings of others before my own, and would rather make myself uncomfortable or unhappy then upset someone else. I'm sure it's half the reason so much of the things my Mom does bother me so much. Because I'd rather just say "Sure, that's okay" when something is wrong than be 'rude' and say "Actually no, that's not okay." What makes me even more mad about that though is that my partner is the same way. If my Mom asks him to do something, no matter how much more of an unconvinced it might be for him than it would be for her or her partner to do, he will always say yes. Both of us feel obligated to do so as well, because she's given up her basement for us when we would have otherwise been homeless. For him even more so, because she was the reason we were able to get him his dream car. I know he feels like he owes her every favor she asks, no matter how odd or annoying it is, despite the fact that all she did in relation to the car was sign the papers.

I genuinely hate how much anger I've been feeling towards my Mom in these last few months specifically. Even before I was officially diagnosed with cPTSD and that made me start questioning other things. I don't want to think of my Mom like this. I don't want to be here.

I hope that this person who I'm going to be having a phone call with today, or I guess also possibly tomorrow because she said Thursday or Friday in the email, is who's going to be transitioning me to the other hospital for the recommended therapies based on my diagnosis. I'm tried of all the bandaid solutions and just want to do proper psychotherapy. It shouldn't be this hard to be just put on the damn waiting list for long term care. I've said it before and I'll say it, it genuinely seems like unless I do something to put myself at risk, nothing I say is taken seriously. It feels like I need to do something to put myself into the hospital for my mental health struggles to be valid. I'm not going to, and if for some reason you've read this far please don't do that either. The best we can do is keep jumping through the hoops. Even if it means dragging ourselves though them because we're too exhausted to even step though the hoops. Eventually someone's going to help. At least that's the bit of hope I've chosen to cling to.

I'm tired. I don't know why I typed this. I don't know why I still feel like I should post it. I'm probably going to because fuck it? I need to go to the dollar store and get some bags for the soap I made that my Grandma ordered. I don't know what the weather's like though, and it's probably way too hot for me to walk up anyways.

I want to check in on my friend too, I know she has therapy today and this week was going to be rough for her. I just didn't want to bother her if she needed time to process and all that. But maybe we can get a warm beverage and make each other feel better.

I'm done for now, much love 💖

#tw: mental health #tw: mental illness #tw: depression #tw: ptsd #tw: anxiety #tw: childhood trauma

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