Child Abuse Survivor » Depression

Emotional Abuse

MikeM — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:25:57 +0000

I spotted a post by Rainbow Gryphon’s blog the other day, mostly due to the fact that she linked to this blog as an example of how men can suffer emotional abuse. As I read her post, I realized that for all the years I’ve been writing here, I haven’t really gotten into the details of how emotional abuse affected me, or men in general. Obviously, when you’re talking about having been physically, and sexually, abused the fact that there was emotional abuse sort of goes without saying. In fact, in terms of my own writing, it pretty much has gone without saying. But it is interesting to consider that the emotional abuse is part of the overall impacts that we deal with as adults.

It may also be impossible to separate out the effects of the emotional abuse too. I grew up without learning how to make decisions for myself, too busy surviving what was happening to me to pick up normal adult behaviors that other kids learned. Is that an effect of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse? Really, it’s an effect of all of it.

The depression I lived with in my twenties was also an after-effect of all of it, but I think that’s where you can really see how emotional abuse plays it’s part. It’s not the fear of people hurting me, or the issues I had with relationships, especially with males, which were obvious signs of being beaten and molested. It’s looking at yourself at the age of 27 and seeing nothing worthwhile. It’s growing up without any sense of self, with no concept of the value of your own life. It occurs to me now that those were not a result, directly, of what happened to the physical me, those were the result of not having any unconditional acceptance as a child, of never being “good enough”, of having no underlying sense of being of value to anyone.

It also occurs to me that, as an adult, it may be unlikely that I will ever have to deal with being physically harmed, even less likely that I will have to deal with being raped, but even if it did happen to me now, I’d have a core sense of myself, and my position in the world, to help me deal with it. I have enough emotional health in myself, and enough sources of support, that it wouldn’t be as catastrophic as it was when I was a child. If I had been a child with a stronger self of self, a strong sense of belonging and love, I would have stood a better chance of protecting myself, possibly even being strong enough to tell someone what was happening. The emotional abuse left me without any of those things. I had to learn them myself, as an adult, and I continue to struggle to see myself in a more positive light. I’m not sure that you ever can completely recover that sense of self worth later, but I try my best to get a more realistic sense of myself little bit by little bit.

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Speaking of Depression – There’s a New Blog

MikeM — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 23:57:40 +0000

I guess it’s only appropriate that Pysch Central launch a blog named Managing Depression Skillfully on National Depression Screening Day, eh?

Actually, I think it will be quite an interesting look at dealing with depression, and recognizing all the things in our lives that contribute to, as opposed to helping with, depression. If nothing else, it will certainly give those of us who have, or are currently suffering from depression something to think about.

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National Depression Screening Day

MikeM — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:33:31 +0000

Apparently, it’s today. I think it’s good that we have a reminder for folks who may be wondering if they have depression, but as Dr. Grohol mentions in his article about it, it’s not like you have to wait and make an appointment with a professional to begin to get some idea of whether you might have depression or should seek help.

But in this day and age of the Internet, I’d argue there’s little need to see a professional just to get a screening for depression. Our online depression screening quiz has been available for nearly 15 years and is a reliable, instant screening tool that you can take from the comfort of your home. Join the over 3 million others who’ve already taken the test, and share it with your friends and loved ones.

And frankly, the diagnosis of depression isn’t rocket science. You can review the symptoms of clinical depression yourself and see if you or a loved one may be at risk for it.

None of these online tools or symptom lists can substitute for a real diagnosis from a trained mental health professional. However, they can act as a quick screening tool to help you understand if this is a concern that you should consider seeking out further help for.

On the other hand, since today is National Depression Screening Day, if you are wondering about yourself, take the quiz, and if you’re wondering about someone you love, check the common symptoms and encourage them to also take the quiz!

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It Goes On

MikeM — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:16:21 +0000

I saw this quote from Robert Frost the other day and I thought that it was one of the one-liners that really explains exactly how the healing and recovery process continues, even when it doesn’t appear to be.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

I couldn’t have seen it better myself. No matter how much today may seem to be a struggle, life will continue and tomorrow will be another day. It may be easy to get caught on the rollercoaster of struggling and healing, and struggling again, but if you can keep the big picture in mind during all of that, you’ll realize that while all of that is going on in your days, life just keeps going, and will continue to keep going, no matter what your day is like.

There’s so much hope in that, knowing that life will continue to go on, with all the changes, joys, sadness, and everything else that goes along with it. I hope you can see that as well.

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My Holiday Survival Tip

MikeM — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:30:50 +0000

We all know that, as survivors and just about anyone else, the holidays can be fraught with all sorts of bad memories, awkward time spent with family, depression, and mourning for the family we never had. I’ve seen a number of folks listing tips for surviving the holidays, and I absolutely encourage all of you to do whatever you need to do to take care of yourselves during this time, and always.

In light of that, I thought I’d share something that has helped me. I can sum up the attitude in a sentence I spoke to my wife last night regarding something outside the scope of this, but somewhat relevant too.

“You take care of the people who take care of you.”

What that means to me, is that I spend a lot of time during December trying to fine small gifts, tokens, or other things I can do that will brighten the days for the people I most care about. Instead of dreading all of the things there are to dread about the holidays, or spending my time hoping for things that I’ll probably end up being disappointed about, I try very hard to concern myself with showing appreciation to the people who deserve it. I make sure and spend time with my wife, and allow her to enjoy all the things about the holidays that she always has enjoyed. I spend time going through the holiday cards my wife designs for us each year and figure out which one each of the people on my list would appreciate the most. I make time to have lunch with friends I need to catch up with. I buy small gifts for friends, not so much for the gift itself, but to show them that they’re important to me, and that in the midst of holiday craziness I thought about them for a few minutes.

Usually, by the time I’ve done all these things, like now as we close in on Christmas day, I’ve been so rewarded by the smiles, hugs, and appreciation of the people who are really important to me, that the rest is easy. I know where my support is, I know who’s important to me, and whatever comes from the next week or two is nothing compared to the strength I have within myself, and gather from the awesome people in my life, even those of you who I only know online.

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Depression: Out of the Shadows

MikeM — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:54:23 +0000

I caught a bit of this documentray this afternoon on our local PBS station. Not enough to write a review on the News and Reviews site, but enough to have picked up a couple of interesting tidbits.

One was a discussion with a doctor about how each case of depression is different, and has to be treated differently. He talked about how the task of finding the correct treatment, at least in terms of anti-depressants, is a bit of trial and error. There was one teen girl who went through 7 different medications before finding the one that helped her.

The other was someone from the National Institute for Mental Health, I think, who mentioned that compared to other diseases, depression takes a long time to see results. She said we feel good about something that begins to show some promise in healing the pain and anguish of depression in 6 weeks, whereas other painful ailments can be eased within minutes.

Both of these comments struck me because I’ve talked to many people who have tried to get help and gave up. Either they didn’t like the first therapist, or the first drug they tried didn’t work very well, or it had side effects, etc. Remember though, all treatment for depression is hit and miss. What worked for the last patient may not work for you, whether it was a certain drug, a certain therapist, electro-shock, etc. This isn’t a cold, you don’t just grab the over the counter cold remedy and get better a day or two later. Depression is a very complicated disease of a very complicated organ, and there are many, many different types of depression. Finding the right “thing” that will help you takes time, takes effort and takes constant, close monitoring. You have to be willing to do that, but the results of that work make it all worthwhile, there’s no debate about that!

If you’re interested in viewing the show, you can on-line, and if you beat me to watching the whole thing and want to post a review, let me know!

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Dissociative Disorder – Adam Duritz

MikeM — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:41:46 +0000

Psych Central today mentioned a Men’s Health article written by Adam Duritz, of Counting Crows fame. It caught my eye because, in it, Adam talks about his struggles with dissociation, something that I have had problems with in the past, and something I don’t tend to see written about very often, outside of the more obvious cases of multiple personality disorder. (Which is a form of dissociative disorder, but one on the far end of the spectrum that starts with simple things like highway hypnosis)

I was glad to see someone writing about something that was very similar to what I experienced, shutting down during difficult or stressful times:

This was not depression. This was not workaholism. I have a fairly severe mental illness that makes it hard to do my job — in fact, makes me totally ill suited for my job. I have a form of dissociative disorder that makes the world seem like it’s not real, as if things aren’t taking place. It’s hard to explain, but you feel untethered.

I agree, it is hard to explain. If you’ve never felt like this, I’ve always described it as the difference between something happening to you, and watching it happen on TV to someone else. When you have this disorder, you don’t see any difference between those two things.

Thank you Adam, for having the courage to talk about it publicly!

Technorati Tags: AdamDurtiz, DissociativeDisorder

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Exercise for Mental Health

MikeM — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:53:20 +0000

Thanks to Psych Central for pointing out a British Journal of Sports Medicine study that shows as little as 20 minutes of physical activity can reduce the levels of anxiety and stress.

I know that I can tell by my stress level if it’s ben too long since I’ve been to the gym or gotten some other exercise. Spending some time working out is a great way to put a long stressful work day behind you, so this study really shows that I think many of us already know to some extent.

So, if you want a head start on dealing with anxiety and stress, go for a walk!

Technorati Tags: PsychCentral,Stress,Exercise

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Guest Post – Insights

MikeM — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:01:23 +0000

This post was contributed by my good friend, and fellow Friends in Tech member, Kevin Devin.

This past Tuesday morning my colleagues and I were summoned to a 15 minute all-hands meeting within the hour. Of course, impromptu all-hands meetings never end up with “we think you all deserve a raise!” or anything else of any good, so folks were naturally nervous. The last meeting of this nature was an announcement of layoffs and restructuring and prior to that was the sale of the company — so folks were naturally imagining the worst.

Unfortunately, the news we received couldn’t have been any worse. A co-worker, who occupied the cube next to mine, could no longer cope with the demons inside him and took his own life on Sunday. It hit us all like a massive punch in the gut. Our friend and colleague, an extremely gregarious soul who was always full of laughter and always the life of the party, had committed suicide.

He was also a person who liked to push limits. He is one of the few individuals in my IT career that I’ve specifically taken away local administrative rights to their PC.

This afternoon, while sitting through the memorial service, I began thinking about the last four years he and I had worked together, and specifically the removal of those admin rights. After a few months of running without these rights, and much begging and pleading, I finally restored his admin rights and from that point on it was a running joke between us, “HEY Kevin… I haven’t messed up my computer yet!” It was always good for a little chuckle. But it got me to thinking about it all… I had taken away those admin rights to protect this person from himself. To limit the access he had over his PC so that he could remain productive. That’s when a bit of parallelism struck me… it’s too bad that there isn’t a better way for someone to remove the administrative rights to the master computer — the brain. Had those admin rights been removed from my colleague’s “personal” computer, he might still be around today as it would have protected him from doing harm to himself.

Rightfully so, the ability to grant or revoke that ultimate set of privileges are left to the supreme SysAdmin, nonetheless, the parallelism amused me.

So I guess my point is… I don’t really know. What I do know though is that 5 kids are now without a father because of a self-destructive behavior. For those of you with kids, take some additional time this weekend, and every day onward, to spend time with your kids and other loved ones. If you know of someone dealing with depression who also happens to have a self-destructive behavior, keep an eye on them and intervene if you can.

If I could add anything to Kevin’s story, it’d be this. If you are coping with depression and self-destructive behaviors of your own, get help. Talk to someone, now, before those are your kids without a parent, or your coworkers and friends who are left to wonder what might have been….

Technorati Tags: Guestblogging, KevinDevin, Suicide, Self-destruction

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Love for February

MikeM — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:48:58 +0000

Ever since Marj mentioned that she was giving this month’s edition of the Carnival Against Child Abuse a love theme, I’ve been struggling with what I wanted to say about love. Obviously, with tomorrow being Valentine’s Day, the idea of romantic love is in the air, but that is only really part of love. A small part at that. I’m lucky, I have a wonderful wife to share that kind of love with every day, so while the day is a nice chance to show my appreciation for her love, I don’t love her more on this particular day that I do every other day of the year. The day really isn’t that big a deal.

On the other hand, love is a big deal. Even if you’re not lucky enough to have a spouse or partner who you will be growing old with, it’s important to have love in your life, wherever it comes from. Not necessarily romantic love, again, that’s only a small part of the love that plays such an important part in our lives. The love of family and friends is equally, if not more, crucial to survivors.

Most crucial of all, of course, is love of yourself. For survivors this is a huge struggle. We don’t often see ourselves as lovable. We don’t look in the mirror and see movie star good looks, don’t judge our character to be upstanding, know there are always smarter and more talented people around, etc. But I’m here to tell you, that’s not love at all.

One of the best definitions I’ve ever heard of real love, I heard many, many years ago in a church teaching. The speaker was talking about the classic Biblical passage about love (Love is patient, Love is kind, Love believes all things, etc….) and was specifically talking about the idea that so many people tell him they don’t love themselves. He disagreed. He finds very few people in the world don’t love themselves if you get down to the core of what love is. His response when someone talks about not loving themselves was this “Did you shower today? Brush your teeth, have some breakfast?”. If you did, you love yourself.

At the very core of love, is meeting needs. You love yourself by taking care of yourself. The only people in this world who don’t love themselves, are the people who don’t meet their own needs. I was one of those people when I was in the midst of major depression, because I didn’t believe I was worth taking care of.

By the same token, the people who truly love you, are the people who are there to help you meet your needs. Again, be they a spouse, partner, family member or friend, they show love by being there to help. Friends, and family members, who only strive to take from you, don’t love you in any deeper sense.

If you take anything away from this rambling, let it be this. Loving yourself isn’t about heaping praise on yourself, or repeating phrases. It’s about understanding that you are as worthy of being taken care of as any one else in this world. Any tool that detracts from that core goal, is useless, in my book. Taking care of yourself is the most important thing you can do in life and should be the main focus of every day. If you get up, go to work, feed yourself, clothe yourself, etc. then you are loving yourself. It’s not warm and fuzzy, but love isn’t hardly just the warm and fuzzy stuff.

Secondly, to really love someone is to look out for their needs. To be ready and willing to help them however you can. Again, it’s not about the warm and fuzzy stuff. I love my wife. I do that by taking care of myself, taking care of my work so that I have a job to help pay our bills, listening when she needs to talk, laughing when she is silly, crying when she’s in pain, just generally trying to help her be the person she wants to be in any little way that I can. Very few of those things give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. I don’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling every time I pay our rent, help one of her friends with a computer problem, straighten up around the house, or help her run errands on a weekend. I assume she doesn’t either when she comes home and starts dinner, or spends an evening ironing. Those aren’t highlight-reel moments in our relationship, but they involve just as much love as Valentine’s Day, a wedding day, anniversaries, etc. In fact, I would argue they involve even more love, because in those moments, we are doing the things we need to do to take care of us. That’s the core foundation of love. Not the gifts, cards, poems, candlelight, or other romantic tricks of the trade. The every day work and thought that goes in to meeting needs.

This month, as survivors, let’s strive to do three things, in this order. See ourselves as worthy of our having needs met, learning how to take care of ourselves, and striving to love other people, by giving them what they need from us.

Technorati Tags: CarnivalAgainstchildAbuse, Love

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