Everyone talks a big game about preventing suicide but they see someone depressed and attack them for it. Calling them lazy. And everything else in between.
Anyone here who was not allowed to be depressed at home?
CPTSD Vent / RantYes! I was an ungrateful spoiled brat until I ended up in the hospital, then they couldn’t “believe I wouldn’t tell them about such a thing”
Don't forget the gaslighting once you try and point out all the times you DID tell them but were completely shut down, dismissed, yelled at, punished, etc. for attention seeking 🙄
I always think of that episode of SpongeBob...
"Gary, why didn't you tell me I was pushing you too hard?! ...you did?"
"Well why didn't you tell me I wasn't listening?! ...you did?"
lmfao that’s too accurate
“I would’ve noticed” ma’am you did notice and you made it worse
This is relatable. It was ungrateful to be depressed, it even just mildly dissatisfied.
Very relatable—off topic but wow I just freaking love your username
Yeah I was berated for being lazy when I was just depressed and overwhelmed. I'm still not allowed to show negative emotions or my dad yells at me. I'm now always emotionally numb at home.
Same for me! I felt so stiff in my body and couldn't move, but I was just called spoiled and lazy. Are you still living at home?
Are you still living at home?
Yes, unfortunately. I'm saving up money to get out.
Lazy!!! I forgot about lazy. I’m the laziest sack of shit in Canada, according to dear old dad. Not frozen from huis abuse - lazy.
I was always called lazy by my mother. I wonder how common that is, because it does seem to be something that I see a lot of people who post here (and in the narcissistic parent forum) talk about.
The truth is, I didn't like helping out around the house, because no matter what I did, it was wrong (I hung the clothes out on the line to dry, once, and my mother came out and lectured me that I'd done it wrong. You'd think there's only one way to hang clothes on the washing line, but no, I did it wrong, apparently).
And then they'd accuse me of failing on purpose just to spite them, so I just retreated and didn't help at all.
Oh wow. Yes exactly. I was afraid to help because it was always wrong. I was responsible for doing bathrooms. I was shown how to do it but left to it the week after. I was given a bottle of Lysol concentrate and a rag. Maybe gloves but they were comically too big and made work more cumbersome. After I finished one bathroom, I had to have an inspection by my dad and he sadistically pointed out tiny misses. Missed a wipe of the side of the toilet, do it again. Hair in the bathtub, do it again. Like the entire bathtub.
Crazy making.
Crazy making.
And the worst part of it is, it's a trap.
If you tell them, "No, I don't want to help", you're lazy and selfish and horrible.
If you do what they ask, they'll find fault or accuse you of failing on purpose ... and tell you that you're lazy and selfish and horrible.
It's a trap and there's no way out of it. You get hit, no matter what happens. I learned terror, as a kid, from whenever my parents asked me to do something. Because there was no escape.
Laziness is one of my inner critic's go to label for me. I know I got it directly from my parents conflating depressed with lazy.
Same here. If not in physical work I should be doing some mental work. I "should" be occupied doing some work.
At home if I wasn't I would be shamed attacked and emotionally blackmailed. Right now I am so used to doing this that I require myself to do some work all the time.
I deal with the public constantly. What I've found is that the whole acceptance movement is one of the fakest in the world. If I'm depressed and act like it people get vicious with me, I need to put on a fake smile all the time or they get pretty nasty with me. I mean I do work in retail so I see the worst of the worst daily but outside of it in the general public isn't much better.
So much this! At my work place we even have an mental health awareness month. But when a colleague broke down and ended up in hospital, because they gave her too much work and pressure we weren't allowed to talk about it and management told us she had back problems. Another colleague even told her it was her own fault because she should've simply not done the work that was given to her.
Ok and then get put on PIP and then fired. That helps depression too! 🤷♀️ You know, not having a job or home or not eating from not having said job…
God, that is terrible!
I was a doctor. The competition is cutthroat. And I got burnt out pretty quick. Dealing with people was the worst. I always thought I would take up surgery coz it had very little to do with people. But the competition was even worse and I didn't have the emotional ability to deal with that.
What was most triggering was the prices of medicines and investigations were so expensive that some people couldn't pay it. I tried my best to get doctors to patients quickly despite it being the emergency and high case loads. And it got worse when patients didn't co-operate.
I worked in a charitable hospital. Which actually gave some discounts to people and cut down their health care expenses massively. Still I got burnt out pretty quickly emotionally. Now I no longer work.
I wish the environment was different and we had more doctors like you who can actually feel something...
Maybe. I got burnt out pretty quickly. And they are still able to work in that field. I think my cptsd complicated matters.
And in the long term they help more people than I, if they are able to cope. I think that's why having insurance providers and ethics boards to hold doctors accountable is important.
You're probably right. The competitiveness in this field sucks, though, and I think it would be better if things weren't so ego and money driven. This would make it easier for people like us to contribute and patients would be treated with a little bit more empathy.
You're also in healthcare?
I think empathy comes from those doctors who have faced such a situation themselves. Competition is not a very good trait for patients. Fortunately or unfortunately.
Got constantly mocked and humiliated by my whole family anytime I was around them... Then when I decided to stay in my room instead of interact with them, I was mocked for that too.
I had the role of the family entertainer. If people were not happy my role was to cheer them up. Unfortunately my sense of worth got tied to how much I could entertain my family. 🙈
Sorry for what happened to you.
Right, and then probably no one acknowledged you when you were feeling depressed bc your worth was tied up in making them feel better? 😮💨
I was told that I let my moods control me too much.
I stopped letting myself feel depressed coz then I would be attacked for being lazy.
Me too, I was also family entertainer. The backlash I got from my aunts and mother if I didn't fill that role, and instead, explained how I was dealing with crippling depression, was immense. I'm sorry you dealt with that too ❤️
This is an interesting thread. A lot of famous comedians struggle tremendously with deep pain, but people just buy tickets for a few laughs, then go home at the end of the night. I highly recommend the documentary "Cracked Up" about the SNL comedian Darrel Hammond -- he was abused and stuffed it down, almost to a tragic conclusion, for many years. He came through by speaking his truth -- one of the hardest "acts" a "performer" could undertake, especially when you've learned nobody should take you seriously.
Oh wow, that's interesting. Thank you for the recommendation! I was always told I wasn't funny by a lot of boys as a kid, yet expected to be cute, entertaining and happy for my extended family, and ignored or punished when I wasn't. I wonder if there's a lot more comedians out there with trauma who weren't as brave as Darrel?
I think Robin Williams had similar issues.
I remember reading about that somewhere. It always breaks my heart to think about the well of sadness in him.
I was thrown out of the house until I “ got over being depresses”
That'll certainly make you not-depressed, without a doubt.
My Dad when faced with my telling him I was suicidal at 12 yo dismissed me. As an adult I asked him why, (my brother got professional help), and he said because he assumed I was a hypochondriac/attention seeker like my mother. Wow. So heartbreaking. I'm the "broken" drop kick in my family despite being 4 months from completing my Master's course and having survived and conquered severe depression and anxiety. No one in my family can really see it besides a weakness or a indelible scar of a flawed and wasted past they can't relate to.
Your family may never see it, but we do! Amazing work, not only on surviving such a tough life, but getting your master's! You've gone above and beyond. Glad you're with us <3
Thank you, that's so very kind of you to say. Huge hugs
I was told I was too young to be depressed, and that I was just melancholic. That I must have hypocondria and that I am "reading too much" online. When I confronted my mum about why she said these things decades later she said she thought I would "bounce back" from my depression. Urm, there's not how mental illness works lady. And she worked in a mental hospital. Yikes.
My mom's a doctor. She said- you let your mood control you.
I was simply 'too sensitiv'. My father once had a serious talk with me about my depression. He was so full of himself he always thought that when he gave you a stern talk things would change. So he said to me something like: "Look, you can't kill yourself. Because if you do, your mother would go crazy and then I would have to shoot her, too." Perfectly understandable - so here I still am!
Wow, your dad's a full-blown lunatic. Who the fuck says something like that??
My mom said that if I killed myself it would kill her so I was basically threatening to murder her.
Sames
OMG.
My father once tried to talk me through a suicidal phase by telling me that if I killed myself, "it would kill your mother. And I'd kill myself!"
It was funny, because clearly he was expecting some heart-felt reaction from me about begging them not to hurt themselves.
What he actually got was me, rolling my eyes at him, and going, "whatever."
Because even as the words were leaving his mouth, you know what I was thinking? "This is what abusers do." Hell, one of my friends was dating a woman who's abusive ex-husband threatened to kill himself to manipulate her in the divorce. And straight away, I saw it as just another manipulation tactic. My father wasn't interested in my emotional well-being, he wasn't interested in actually getting to the bottom of my awful feelings --- because that would've required my parents to realise that they caused a lot of this by their terrible treatment of me.
No, it was just a manipulation. We're going to manipulate you into doing what we want you to do, into shutting down and returning to your position as the Perfect Submissive Victim.
And my next immediate thought was, "You can't tug on these heart strings. You're the ones who cut them. They're not connected to anything anymore, because of you."
Of course, the next morning, my mother threw an almighty tantrum about it. "Why do you hate us?" and when I explained that all I've ever wanted was for someone to be on my side, she shouted and raged and pointed out how that I was being ridiculous and, "I was always on your side!" and -- despite the fact I'd tried to end my life, a week ago -- somehow, I became the bad guy.
This happened early, last year, and I think it was the point where I just gave up on them. These aren't people you can have a rational conversation with, there's no point trying.
You were smarter than me. I believed my father and felt so sorry for my mother. So everytime I had suicidal ideation I suffered even more, because I couldn't even think freely about it anymore. You did the right thing by cutting them off. I hope you're in a better place now!
I hope you're in a better place now!
Well, not hugely, but I'm getting better at ignoring them. They're just unpleasant room-mates I have to deal with, for lack of other living arrangements.
This made me laugh, because it is exactly what I used to say when I was still living with my family (more than 20 years ago). Very unpleasant flatmates. Emotional distancing is the best damage control. I hope you can move to your own space soon, though
I can look back and realised I spent my whole childhood in one long haze of depression, but I was just labelled lazy, ungrateful and difficult.
I did nothing, asked for nothing, said nothing, and did everything in my power to be invisible and not even leave my room. The less I interacted with my mother, the closer I got to 'being good', but it was still not good enough. And being shut down equalled 'being bad'.
I got beaten for being disassociated and 'not paying attention'.
"How dare you have any opinion or personality of your own! You better quit that right now!!"
Also "No!! Not like that!!!"
I didn't know my pervasive despair and anguish weren't ubiquitous. I got gaslit so hard about emotions and emotion-driven behavior being a "choice" that for forty years I actually went around believing everyone else felt the same way I did but they could just "control" their emotions and I couldn't.
So, to the best of my ability, I tried to shame all the emotions out of myself until about 3 years ago.
Spoiler alert: It doesn't work--you can't actually shame your own or anyone else's emotions away.
This is my story too. I’m only now in my 40’s finding out that everyone else doesn’t have overwhelming uncontrollable physical and emotional response to regular daily events. I really just thought that I was just lacking as a person. I’m hoping therapy can help me.
Basically, I learned that rage was me hating/punishing/bullying/rejecting myself for not being perfect enough to get the copy of my mom in my head to love me--and then hating/punishing/bullying/rejecting myself for my reaction to that shame, because that's how society taught me to treat people who rage.
So it was a neverending spiral.
Ultimately, the overreactions are trying to protect you from overwhelming feelings of shame and fear of rejection/abandonment. Once I was ready to face those feelings, the rage vanished like it had never been.
Why do they do it in the first place? Not being able to express your feelings has you locked up in your head and can lead to SI
Negative feelings weren't tolerated in my house. "Don't be sad," "don't be angry." I was never taught how to process my emotions, I was just told not to have them. And then I was told I was "unteachable" because I didn't do as I was told.
No, they just ignored it entirely, as well as my ED (which was obvious, I didn't even try to hide it). Although my mom did cry about how she felt 'distance between us' and how upset it made her, and my dad yelled that self-harm was just attention seeking behavior, so there was that.
Yes, anytime I was sad or cried or was anything less than neutral I was yelled at, mocked or told I was begging for something to cry about, sometimes followed through with smacks. By the time I was a teenager I had switched off all emotions and literally felt nothing.
Tw: physical harm and suicidality. The male parent saw the marks in my body and proceeded to explain to me how to actually take my life choosing the right parts of the body. I was 13. He humiliated me when crying until I stopped. Never cried again in front of anybody for years. The female parent would beat the shit or of me since I was little for crying, sometimes, even if I cried while being beaten. Both were surprised that in my adulthood I didn't show emotions. None of them visited me when I was hospitalized for depression.
I'm sorry. Your parents suck.
They did suck and I'm still recovering from all the terrible and cruel things they did to me. However, I decided they are not my parents anymore and it has been one of the most liberating things in my life 😊
I’m so sorry. My nasty mother did the same thing when I was 16-told me I was supposed to cut across my wrist instead of trying to slice the vein open lengthwise. She also screamed that my self-harming would make people think badly of her. Yep, I was drowning in a deep sea of depression and her only concern was her reputation. She’s in her 90s now and just won’t die. I’m convinced she’s a damn vampire.
I started hiding when I was sad and going someplace safe to cry silently. Then, I'd wipe my tears and fix my face so that it didn't look like I'd cried.
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10mo
Same here. I apparently was living in the lap of luxury here. Also not having to walk to school and "eating 4 times instead of 3" was something I was asked to be grateful for.
Never mind that despite eating 4 times I would still be hungry. And telling my mom to give more food would be met with - " that much is enough for you "
I preferred walking to school - it meant I could get there right on time and not have to deal with the awkward social interactions.
And same on the hunger/food thing. Sure, I was a bottomless pit, but I was also very tall, psychically active, and super anxious constantly. I didn't start gaining weight until after I moved out even though my parents always told me I needed to bulk up some... They always told me I needed to eat healthier. No, I just needed MORE food. Me eating unhealthy was because it was what was available to me
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10mo
My bad. I didn't expect it to have such a reaction from you. I just thought we were sharing.
It’s ok! I honestly didn’t want to overshare or take anything away from what you’re feeling. I sent you a dm
I can't be depressed. I can't be angry. I can't be sad. I can't express any kind of emotion about anything.
Don't forget happiness and joy -- true abusers ultimately want to prevent that, along with independence and success that will free you. I totally feel this whole thread.
I'm gonna leave this here.
Especially in the case of happiness and fun.
Yep can relate 100% wasn’t allowed to be anything except fake happy
I’m from a South Asian immigrant family where negative emotions are not allowed because they came to America 50 years ago, live in a nice house and have food on the table.
Meanwhile in the states, there are mass shootings, natural disasters, abuse at the hands of powerful people behind closed doors, racist/homophobic attacks and people in the military fighting for freedom.
If I’m mad, I’m deemed as ungrateful.
Yes. When I was burned out and depressed, my mom told me to act happy because my sad face made her feel bad. She also thinks I'm doing better now because of the way she treated me. She forced me to do things I wasn't ready for and act happy around her. I'm convinced my recovery only took longer because of her. 🤦🏼♀️
Definitely. Not being able to show your authentic emotions is a violation of your identity. As a human being.
It's worse than prisoners being forced to do stuff in my opinion. Coz the guilt of causing hurt to your parent exists. And that's nasty.
Any illness, injury, or emotion was punished in my house, seen as a weakness the needed dismissal, or more discipline to eradicate. You’d think by the immediacy of the punishment that maybe it was my parents who were impulsive and needed the instant gratification….
Yes definitely. It backfired because they're the main cause of my most extreme symptoms. I can't clean the house a lot because of different factors but one of them is that my parents cause me to dissociate 24/7 because they make me extremeley anxious and depressed. I actually clean more and better when I'm outside the house, but they don't want to hear that.
🤚got yelled at for crying at the dinner table
“Depression doesnt exist! Its just lazy people with too much time on their hands”
“What have you to be depressed about. There are starving children in Africa”
“You’re depressed!? I’m depressed I’m the one keeping us alive”
“Have you once in your life tried being grateful?”
my dad kinda does this, though to a lesser degree.
Still not.
Yup, lazy, defensive, "daydreaming", ungrateful child here🙋♀️ Also: "you're so smart, why don't you act like it?", "no one has to sleep that much" and "smile to me, I'm your mother". But they tried to improve after I got diagnosed at 19.
Yikes. All these are words my parents used as well.
I remember being in the midst of my darkest teenage years crying and begging my parents to get me in therapy and my parents saying, “You’ll be fine,” and leaving the room. And I just sat there realizing I had no hope. I wish they had told me I was worthless and yelled at me - because then I would have known they were emotionally abusive / negligent… but literally during my whole childhood I begged for help and they acted like I was fine… so I thought I was the problem. Sigh. I’m in EMDR for a lot of reasons and it’s very validating to hear my therapist today say that’s not good parenting and I wasn’t the problem.
Fuck. That sucks. The invalidation is so painful it's worse than being dead. I don't know why I feel that way but it's nasty. I feel helpless for you.
You’re too kind. I really struggle with the urge to invalidate my own experiences… even here… because my parents always invalidated my experiences. I want to say, “Don’t feel bad for me I’m fine,” even though I’m not. Sigh. Trauma is so complex.
"What do you have to be depressed about?! We've given you everything you need. There are people in the world with REAL problems."
"People in the slums grow up hungry". "They don't have any food to eat". "They need to walk to school", " they don't have vegetables in their dishes".
The last one was when ever I didn't like some vegetable. And I had few preferences. She did everyone to shame me out of it. And still I loved her. 🙈🙊
Ooooh my mom would blatantly mock me. She was severely mentally ill and had gone through horrific trauma as a kid. That was completely legit, but basically no one else in the family was allowed to have feelings because we didn't know what it was like to have it as bad as she did. Any being upset on my part was just shut down immediately. I feel like I turned to stone before I was ten years old.
Ohh yeah. No one else should have feelings was the defacto rule in my family too.
Absolutely. Nowadays my parents understand mental health issues much better and they even support me financially to go to therapy (lol as they should...). But when I was a teenager, my mother just thought of me as a lazy piece of shit and asked what reason do I even have to mope around all day instead of getting a job. Wasn't helpful.
Yes!!! My alcoholic narcissist dad grew up with his dad depressed and sleeping a lot. No one was allowed to sleep outside of when he deemed it ok. He’d wake us up by throwing blankets off us, yelling.
I was diagnosed with depression and I just need to exercise. I know now I was frozen from his abuse. How does one want to exercise if the world feels like it’s burning down around them.
Ohh yeah. I was depressed and I sued to sleep a lot because of that. He took some sadistic joy in ripping the blankets off and putting cold water.
Thank you for posting this. It’s so obvious and yet I never looked at it like that. Sometimes they will say things like, “well we just don’t know how to help you.” They are absolutely right, they don’t. <3
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10mo
I'm sorry. It's a parents repsonsiblity to find solutions to issues , especially that of their children. It's their responsibility. Your parents failed you.
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10mo
Hugs. Depression is a normal emotion. Everyone feels it from time to time.
But their parenting means that depression becomes the normal state of being. I'm sorry. No one should be dismissed for this reason.
Annnnd that's another reason I went no contact.
My dad told my sister a few years back that when I was moping around he would kick me in the but to get me in gear. I would have been a toddler when this happened. I don't remember this but I always hid my depression since as long as I can remember.
When my depression first became noticeable, it triggered my mother a lot. She couldn't understand how after all the sacrifices she made for us, including risking her life to bring us to a safe, more developed country with good education etc, I still wasn't "atisfied". For her it was as if I was throwing away all her hard work and lifelong sacrifices and love. All of her love was now "in vain" and I was refusing God's gifts and being dissatisfied. It has gotten better since, ironically she is now aware of her own depression as well and she got on meds lol.
My sister attacked me one time for a depressive episode. She verbally abused me for that and said Don’t ever get married, you wouldn’t make a good housewife and I never did. I was a teenager at the time and I was told I don’t help out enough and my sister bullied me into sweeping the floor. I was sitting there all hurt then she threw the broom at me for being depressed.
Sorry. Your sister sucks. People forget that good families are made rather than just happening. And your sister sounds like a douchebag.
It’s very tiring. Especially because they know you are in therapy and they are treating it like you took a painkiller because of the headache. I was never allowed to be emotional and that led me to be depressed later in life. And O got punished for that as well. It’s a never ending loop of misery and the only way out is moving out and trying to find peace. If you are capable to move yourself out.
I’ve never told my mother of the pain and depression i went thru growing up. A few years ago as an adult we were thrifting and I thought I could open up, I told her I was feeling really depressed a while back and she laughed at me. I even told her for some reason some plans I had of renovating a school bus and traveling, (I think I was just in a good mood that day) which also resulted in her quickly putting me down and scoffing at the ideas. Super painful looking back at it. Just shows you who is safe to share with and who’s not; for many of us our caretakers sadly are not. But there are people out there who are, and they make life worth it 💗
Yeah. I don't take make any idea known to my parents. My father has this thing of stealing my dreams.
So if I want to buy a car on my own he buys it. I got this gift from my friend - a Parker. He got jealous and decided he needs a pen and then he started buying expensive pens to show he was better. 🤦
Went to buy a fake mont blanc as well. And he told me it's the real deal.
So don't be surprised when you're parent does the same thing you told them about, which they had initially dismissed.
My mom always said “are you bleeding? are you hurt? if the answer is no then stop crying”
I'm sorry. Your mom sucks. She doesnt sound like she's mature enough to be an adult . Having a child as their responsibility.
I was told that I wasn’t feeling depressed. An example of me trying to express my emotions:
Me: I’ve been feeling sad these days…
My mother: No, you aren’t. What you’re feeling is ungrateful for what you have.
Wow. That so out of the blue.
Does she personally hate you or something?
Ah, man. That’s a harsh question to ask and a touch insensitive. Oof.
However, I think on some level she hates me because she can’t control me anymore~ I’m not the person she wants me to be, so she keeps on trying to hurt me until I fit into the role of what she wants for me.
Sorry. My parents used to do the same thing.
Usually when you say you're sad to someone no one says it's a lack of gratefulness. Thats just entitlement taken to an extreme.
Sorry if I hurt you.
Thanks for understanding. It’s okay.
I am sorry your parents did the same thing. It’s not okay that they did that to you.
I wasn't allowed emotions. Not even happiness or excitement.
When I overdosed when I was 13. She didn't even come to the hospital until discharge day, told me I was a stupid little girl.
No one is allowed to show their negative emotions in modern society. It really made me angry when Queen Elizabeth II passed away because the nation was expected to grieve and be sad. Yet I could not be publicly sad and grieve about my own issues that I'm actually daily struggling with that cause me grief..
As a child I was basically ignored or shamed for expressing emotion. Eventually I would have some sort of outburst or meltdown and be told "You shouldn't bottle this all up! It's bad for you". Ummm I tried and the only you will notice is when I have a meltdown...then nothing would change anyway, rinse repeat.
Another example of this is any type of "Mental Health Awareness" campaign because everyone likes to talk about how "it's good to talk" and "seek help", yet rarely do people have the emotional intelligence or capacity to provide that support. What actually happens is some invalidating toxic positivity nonsense instead.
Most mental health issues are caused by societies inability to accept emotions and validate them.
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that's very much a thing - and you can substitute anything for depression as the verboten feeling/activity/whatever could be anything. human families are weird.
My dad used to tell me “put it in your excuse Rolodex and save it for someone who cares”
YES. My mom had so much unprocessed trauma that no one else around her was allowed to struggle with anything. Not just my depression but any illness, headache, stomach ache, flu was an excuse to call me attention seeking. I had broken bones from being in gymnastics and it took a teacher taking me to the hospital because my mom sent me to school on a broken foot
Any signs of depression were mocked in my house, along with pretty much any other display of emotion. Strange how nobody could figure out why I would have random, huge meltdowns.