[TRIGGER!] I saw my mother attempt suicide in front of me

[andrei_balon]

Hello,this is my first post.

I have some issues and I don't have the money to go to a professional,hope someone here will help me with an opinion.I will be as brief as I can,please share your thoughts if you want to.My English isn't perfect,but I hope you will understand.Ask my anything and i will clarify it.

part 1) a promising beginning

I was raised only by female members of my family.When I was a kid i was very manly and agresive,but when my mother quit work all hell broke loose.She is a control freak.She screamed at me at every little stupid shit I did while she did the same mistakes.I was made stupid,an idiot,and isolated from my peers.My father was a pussy too,he didn't do nothing,he just ran away to video games(played all day) and let me to take the punishment.My mother made me feel like shit,and i had to navigate the maze.She has low intelligence and used to act only on impulse,even at that age I understood that she makes absolutely no sense...yet i had to "praise" her,her to act like she had some for of intelligence...I pretended my whole life.At the same time,with a lack of a male role model,the bullshit of feminist propaganda (be nice,be a gentleman,blablabla) slowly corrupted me.Strong and fearless,having chicks at the age of 10,being the alpha kid on the block,having a chance to loose my virginity at the age when most guys didn't have the first kiss,i had it all...

part 2) that moment

After a few years of pussification and conditioning,i became a looser,but I still had hope.Friends,girlfriend,and the most important thing: i started to realize there is a problem,I started reading on the internet and understanding stuff.it was a time when everything had the chance to become better.But then it happened.I was playing Warcraft 3(for those that don't know,you have to wait when loading a map) and went to get some water from the kitchen.I saw that 10 minutes earlier my mother went in,she was feeling sick all day.After that,pretending to be a good son,i knocked on the door and asked if she was okay.No answer...I did it again.Than i gently pushed the door just to seem interested in her.Than(because she didn't lock it properly with the pin) the door got loose and i saw her with a belt around her neck.I helped her but she was dying there in my arms.I called the ambulance and after a while she was out of harms way

part 3) fall from grace.

Then,something happened that I didn't expect.She started blaming me and my father for this.She said it to my face that i was a bad person and this happened because of my ignorance and lack of love for her.(i was 12-13 when this happened).After telling me that and hinting it to me for a while,things went back to normal,we never talked about it.She became the same bitch she was before,punishing me for everything and even hitting me.Than something changed,when i started having weird thoughts about being gay,killing her and other people in very explicit ways,pedophilia,self mutilation and more.For a few weeks the thoughts where so horrific that didn't want to close my eyes because of the images(before going to sleep).Depression kicked and I couldn't evade these though.After browsing for a while on the internet,someone finally said to me that I might be suffering from pure O OCD,or bypolar because of the mood swings i had.

part 4)emptiness

and then,it was nothing.I evolved by making two steps back and one forward.I got into a depression wanting to kill myself(i also cut myself a number of times)then something happened to give me hope and I felt like a GOD,like i could do anything,become anyone(because I had/have the information,only lack the will to do it).I started reading,understanding,preparing for the day everything would change.Slowly everyone in my life drifted away and i am now alone with only my " i can change the world" mentality.Hope,is the reason I don't kill myself.Because when i'm down and want it to just end it all i remember something: i'm a smart guy,i've read a lot of books and i know my path.I have ideas for a business,i have inventions,dreams,i'm a thinker and an intelligent person(my IQ is about 135)but that's worth nothing if i can't act.Every time i lie to myself "when this happens,i will start working 10 hours a day on myself and my projects,and i will succeed.But i never do,and slowly the thought of going trough this shit all my life is giving me reason to end it.My hope is slowly being diminished,and one time,when i'm depressed,i know i might do something stupid.

How do i get my balls back?my dignity? my humanity? I know the problem,i know the solutions,yet something in me has to change so i become the person I know i can be.But every time that something changes,I don't...and i keep lying to myself.I'm getting tired of the "this is it!!" feeling,and to be honest it's loosing it's power to keep me going...i already wrote to much,hope someone will answer.have a nice day and thanks for reading!

[malign]

Welcome, andrei. I added a warning to your title, because suicide is a topic that can be triggering for people, though your description was not overly graphic.

I'm sorry that you went through this. Clearly, your mother was suffering from her own problems, and wasn't equipped to raise a child at the same time. I'm not sure that feminism is really the problem, or that "be a gentleman" means not having any balls ... Is it possible that there's a middle ground, that you're missing?

I would recommend that you seek face to face counseling, in part because the internet isn't really a substitute for it. There may services available that you haven't thought of (for instance, most colleges provide counseling free or at reduced cost, for students.) Of course, a lot depends on where you are; different countries have different health care systems. I do hope you find a way to come to terms with what you've experienced.

[andrei_balon]

thank you for your advice.I'm a little bit reluctant to go to a professional,but I will probably go for it after a while.thanks for your advice and welcome!

I think that because when I was young i had no male influence in my family,only misleading,idealistic and feminist advice that it affected my brain chemistry.You can find studies that show male sperm count and testosterone have declined dramatically in the past decades.There are a number of factors:no male role models,estrogen in processed foods and the feminisation and condemnation of being male by the media,schools and family.

I see that you are older ( I'm 20 years old) and probably didn't have this issues while growing up.I live in post communism country where changes like in in the US have only recently started affecting society.I am not a misogynist,I despise every group equally who tries to push it's agenda with the false pretense of common good.Feminism,religion,many political parties are just some examples.

Thank you again for answering,i will now search on the internet about counselling in my country,have a nice day!

[LaLa]

Hi, Andrei,

I’m sorry you’ve received only one reply so far . Please, don’t conclude anything bad about yourself or your text from it. I suppose that people don’t reply because it’s a very complex and difficult problem and it’s too hard to find "the right words", and, moreover, many don’t even read this text because the topic may be too horrifying to them.

I’m writing only now, after quite a long time since reading your text, not because of ignoring you, but because of needing time for thinking how to reply.

The simple and most important conclusion is obvious: You need professional help, because you’ve been through traumas that can’t be just "healed by time" and you seem deeply influenced by them. So I hope that you’ll manage to find a good therapist (psychologist or psychiatrist with a good training in psychotherapy) who’ll help you to uncover the principles of these influences and to "move forward" – to become able to lead a "normal" life. Although you say:

I know the problem,i know the solutions,yet something in me has to change so i become the person I know i can be.

...it's probable that you still don't know some very important parts of the problem and it's also possible that the solutions you imagine might not be all working and you need some others. Mainly, you don't know that "something" that "has to change in you". "This kind of things" can be discovered much more probably and/or quickly (to be realistic: some months or few years instead of many years) with a professional help.

However, I’d like to add some subjective comments on what you wrote – maybe it will give you something suitable to think about. I’ll add some facts about my own life "for comparison".

I was also raised in a family with almost no men (the only man present (sometimes) during my entire childhood was my mom’s brother but I used to have the feeling for almost all my life that he despised me, so this "man figure" wasn’t very helpful). I don’t know my father, I know nothing about him. However, my mom has always been a very good mother, so I was very lucky in general. I have been loved by all the women in my family. I mention it, because I want to mention also that despite all this, I was also negatively influenced by the lack of men in my closest environment and I discovered the real ways/forms of these influences only thanks to my therapist and some literature about psychology (as books about the importance of father for daughters). You may thing that the influences are obvious in your case, but I wouldn’t believe that: Some of them are more visible, but there are surely several others that you just cannot see "from the inside", that’s why you’d need a professional for help.

For instance, your theory about feminism sounds fine, but I have a doubtful feeling about it: I think it might be only a simplification of much more complex influences, processes shaping your character, positions, life.

I also have a feeling that you’re rather strong, because despite such horrible experiences, you keep a solid level of sanity (although you obviously lack right coping mechanisms because you cut yourself , and you also are suicidal, which is a serious problem, too - I really don't underestimate it!). However, this might change in time because your current protection mechanisms might not be enough in future, in some situations you haven’t yet encountered. So it’s very good that you already started to worry about your situation and identified some problems, came here and are also willing to see a professional, although it will probably be complicated where you live. No doubt it’s very good that you’re doing this before your situation becomes "too serious" or "insupportable".

In the context of your mother, I’d like to emphasize that what she says to you is just a product of her mental illness and nothing more. I’m glad to see that you realize that it’s not true, but I suppose it must be hard to resist and to really be sure that you are NOT the cause of her illness or the suicide attempt. She blames you for her suffering and it’s tragic, but you really have to keep believing that she’s saying it only under the influence of her own issues, not because it would be true.

The feeling that you can do big things is much better than depression and very low self-esteem, but it might be also a kind of protection mechanism – maybe you exaggerate your abilities and possibilities to feel "omnipotent" because somewhere in the depth of your mind you fear that you’re "unable" and "will fail", which would be painful (and wrong) to think, so you replaced it with the other extreme, which is not healthy either. So maybe the fact that you still "can’t do anything that you imagine to do" is due to this deep feeling that you’re unable to do it. Or it may be related to the lack of meaning – you know that you could do many things, but you can’t find a motivation, a meaning of that all. Yet another possibility might be even more probable: The benefit of not doing what you "plan" to do (because don’t forget that what you do or don’t do brings always a benefit for you, although sometimes smaller than the benefit that would come from doing something else – and to be free in your decisions, you need to uncover/identify all these unconscious benefits, as well as the obstacles "lying in front of" some decisions, to be able to consciously choose which is better for you) may be that when you only imagine that all, then you "stay/continue to be omnipotent" and it’s pleasant to feel like that in your fantasies – you know somewhere in your unconscious that your plans and aims might not be fulfilled, and so you prefer to only play with them in your mind which is safer and "keeps everything potentially possible" – in opposition to reality which might show you that you might even fail if trying – so your passivity is also a protection mechanism, this time against the feelings evoked by possible failure. This failure would be now particularly dangerous, because you're currently deriving your motivation for living from the hope for future success in your plans.

And, of course, there are surely several other possibilities how to explain the reasons why you only fantasize about your plans but you haven’t yet try to realize them. In therapy, you might find out which reasons are true and "what to do with them". (But you may try to do it also before therapy, and you may write here about it, if it helps.)

One of the most important things: There are still reasons for you to stay alive, even if you don't "change the world (in the sense you imagine it)" . I hope you'll discover some soon...

What do you think about this all?

I wish you good luck!!!

Take care!

Edited August 23, 2012 by LaLa3
I added several sentences!

[Edmacnamera]

Andrei,

I realize your post is pretty old, but I'm wondering how things turned out.

 

Im a few years older than you but had a surprisingly similar upbringing- unstable mother (probably narcissistic personality) who attempted suicide, was emotionally and physically abusive, a father who never stood up to her and instead caved into her guilt tripping. Like you it was a family mostly of women because my dad was almost always at work. I agree totally about groups, political or otherwise that pretend to advance the common good and how despicable it is.

 

 I benefited from seeing a professional hugely, I'd be happy to learn more about your experience, help how I can, and learn more about your outlook, I have a feeling I could learn from your experience as well. I only just recently learned to fake compliments for my mom, it seems to work, but maybe there are drawbacks? 

 

Im almost 30 but it's crazy how the relationship still shapes who I am. I'm happy to say that I've been able to move forward, have a good career, wonderful, beautiful girlfriend and have a pretty optimistic outlook, but just the other day my "adult" mother had to be talked down from a panic attack after ingesting my epileptic little sister's medicinal canabis oil before going to a party. 

 

How are you doing? Reach out if you feel it would benefit you. Otherwise I hope you're feeling good since time has passed.