notrydoyoda Posted January 2012
The Caregiver & Dysfunctional Families: How are you doing?
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Many of us, myself included, come from a dysfunctional family which adds a lot of weight to the challenges of caregiving. I have read stores on various threads on other topics and decided it would be good to have a thread just for this topic for people to share, vent and discuss.
The idea for this thread originated on the thread named "The Caregiver....How are YOU doing today?"
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I don’t blame you one bit for being frustrated. You have been through a lot. Not to mention, that you have cared for your wife as well.
Sending hugs, love, support and prayers your way.
It sure is exhausting to go through these medical procedures on top of a wrong diagnosis 20 plus years ago that put me on disability, etc. Frankly, I feel like I've been a guinea pig for the medical world. That does not make me very happy. :(
Today, saw this:
There is a proverb that says Until the story of the hunt is told by the lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. The person who holds the narrative holds the power. Until now, we have only told the story of the hunter. Books about narcissism tend to talk about narcissists. We are deeply curious about these charming people who seem to get away with so much bad and hurtful behavior with so few consequences. We are compelled to understand why they are ostensibly so successful and why they do what they do. As much as we may not like narcissism, we glorify people with these personality styles—they are our leaders, heroes, entertainers, and celebrities. Unfortunately, they are also our parents, partners, friends, siblings, children, bosses, and neighbors.
But what about the lion? What about the person whom the hunter goes after or harms?
Dr. Ramani in her book: "It's Not You"
I hope that Yoda will find the answers that he needs. It’s exhausting to go through medical procedures.
And this is why doctors refer to treating a patient as “practicing medicine.” Right?
Many situations aren’t clear cut black and white issues. There are so many gray areas in medicine.
I remember my fertility specialist telling me this. I struggled for years to have a baby.
My fertility specialist said that I was one for the text books. He called his professor at his university to help, and another fertility specialist to assist him.
He said that he felt that he learned all there was to know in med school and quickly discovered that wasn’t the case.
He felt that he learned so much more after he began his practice and dealt with so many challenges. Then, he said after dealing with my case, he decided to study further.
They asked me for permission to film my four hour long surgery for med students. I agreed, because I felt that if I could help with the progression of treating infertility, then I would.
I had three specialists and a group of med students in my operating room.
My doctor was honest and said to me, “We are practicing medicine. We don’t always have immediate answers to every problem.
I have patients who view their doctors as mechanics. They look at their bodies, like we look at our cars, thinking they can simply bring their bodies in to be repaired, like we do when we take our car to the mechanic.
Our bodies are complex and sometimes we have to explore many different directions before coming to a decision on how to proceed.”
Anyway, after many years of trying, my doctor finally told me that I was most likely never going to be able to conceive a child.
I was on the strongest fertility meds. At one point, the nurse overdosed me with meds and I almost died.
I had three unsuccessful in vitro fertilizations. I went through major surgery for endometriosis and so on.
I finally decided to get off of the highly emotional infertility roller coaster. We adopted our first child.
Then, seven years later, without any assistance from any fertility specialist, I got pregnant!
We are proud parents of two beautiful daughters.
Doctors are brilliant people but there are situations, where they struggle to find solutions or even identifying the issues.
I felt like a Guinea pig too when I was trying to have a child.
I truly hope that your doctor will be able to figure out what is going on and help you with your situation.
Wishing you peace as you continue on this journey.
Thanks for your response. Have you ever seen the comparison between the x ray of a normal brain and a depressed one. It is unique.
I'm off of trazodone and only taking Nuvigil to stay awake. I'm still not getting a good night's sleep, but I have had a few days more active than others. I've contacted my sleep doctor through mychart, but he has not responded. I was able to get an appointment with a neurologist here who is a sleep specialist. I see him August 1.
Two weeks ago, my psych dropped a bombshell of a comment. She's known me since around 2005 or so. I had sleep and tiredness problems back then as was diagnosed with sleep apnea back around then also. My doctor told me that she is now of the opinion that my narcolepsy was beneath my diagnosis of depression and possibly bipolar but she still sees some mood swings. Thus, she claims that it was my undiagnosed and untreated narcolepsy which put me on disability from in my 40s until retirement in my 60s. Wow! Talk about feeling like you have been used like a guinea pig. That was for more years than my mother abused me for. BTW, this mother's day was rough. It's been a while since the flash backs have been coming. The ones on mother's day were the worst.
I, myself, have been wondering for over a year now if I have bipolar disorder and depression.
Narcolepsy is so easy to misdiagnose.
"Manipulation is when they repeatedly disrespect you and want you to be the bigger person to let their bullsh***t slide."
“Someone is mad at you right now because you picked peace over drama and distance over disrespect.”
"You're gonna piss a lot of people off when you start doing what is best for you.”
I am also disgusted but very intrigued by the mould-psych connection you mentioned! Excellent bedtime reading 😄
My manager said the coworker told her to tell me that I should talk directly to the coworker if I have a problem with her, instead of talking to others about her.
The coworker could talk to me anytime. She knows that.
The whole thing is silly; the coworker told the manager that I was talking to others about her behind her back to deflect the fact that she stole money from me a few years ago, and I caught her. I have been extremely civil with her since, even when she's been hateful to me, and I've long gotten over the betrayal I felt. She was a good friend. She's also BPD. So, I get it that she has some issues. All she ever needed to do was apologize and own up to what she did wrong. She has refused to do that, and years later, she is still trying to frame her wrongdoing as me being the wrongdoer.
I'm living rent-free in her head even years after this happened, all because she will not take accountability for her behavior.
She got the manager to fall for her sob story. After my initial confusion and arguing my innocence to my manager, I've just had to roll my eyes and move on.
I also tried to educate via online and in person for a time, after I learned about the connection between Stachybotrys/black mold and the onset of panic disorder. It wasn't just that I started having panic attacks--I had a metallic taste in my mouth, and my body odor was noticeably different. It wasn't only new psychiatric symptoms I was experiencing, and I was trying to tell my doctors something more was wrong, but they didn't know what to do with me. My symptoms didn't fit anything except psych/panic symptoms. A general symptom of panic attacks is that one feels like they're in great distress or dying, so there's this circular reasoning there: "Doc, I think I'm really sick." "Of course you do, Ali; you're having panic."
If your ailment doesn't fit the range of what they're testing for, you're really SOL. I've shared my thoughts about the shortcomings of psychiatry with you before. I know it helps a lot of people, including me, but they don't quantitatively diagnose most (any?) of the mental health issues they diagnose and then treat, and they throw powerful brain-altering meds at them and cross their fingers. I know psychiatrists do more than that, but I'm just saying... it's too close of a description, imho, to what they do.
I always say that if I have more health/mental health problems, I just want them to be of the common variety. At least then, med pros know what to tell you.
Just wanted to say I'm happy you've turned a big corner on this and that you're trying to make something positive out of it. Move forward and put this behind you as fast as you can.
either by narcs…
bad people in general…
or other things in life…
keep getting up.
we’re all facing difficult things on this forum, some of us much worse than others.
keep getting up.
solve 1 thing at a time.
they want to knock you down and keep you down. some of them even delight in seeing you doing so badly.
the more upset you are…the more you’re suffering, frustrated, overwhelmed…
the happier they are.
what they’re doing against you, is no accident.
your failure and destruction makes them incredibly happy.
in german, it’s called Schadenfreude.
know your “enemy”. know what they’re trying to do against you, so you know what you’re up against.
don’t let them win.
🍀🍀🍀🍀🌸🌸🌸🌸
I was told by a therapist years ago , that much of the drama in are life is drama that we caused.
So when things are not going well, I try to think, how did I cause this drama and how can I get myself away from the drama.
Congratulations, You have done the first steps in eliminating that drama.
Just be polite, be brief, and move away more and more from this gang. Mark chose and he is with them now. They will likely be fine. Like I said, not your circus, not your monkeys. Just ignore them. When things get nasty on the phone just say "Whoops, gotta run. Sorry. Talk another day."
You know where the calls are coming from. Accept on a week and move on.
You know who you are. Don’t ever allow anyone else’s actions to devalue your opinion of yourself.
You have been through so much. Take time to heal from all of this.
Wishing you well.
Well, Dustin has been nasty as heck to me since I rejected him (he was making sexual advances towards me. First of all, ew, second of all, ew. I am still legally married and that was my late stepdaughter's boyfriend! I am not the least bit interested as the guy is also a major pot head). Robert loves to treat me like I'm stupid and says I am an "airhead" and keeps reminding me how I owe him because he lost his job helping me. I paid for the trailer to get the rest of Mark's stuff from the house and the toll tag tickets, I don't feel I owe him any more.
They seem to be figuring out what I new for years . Lol
I saw my therapist and my psych on Monday.
I wasn't expecting what my psych said. She's known me from about 2005 on with my leaving for a year and a half before I returned. She said that those Narcolepsy meds that I sent her information on are the big guns for when nothing else works and they are not used as much anymore with the newer meds which have fewer complications.
Then, she said this bombshell statement. I am starting to question if narcolepsy has not been your real problem all along beneath the diagnosis of depression which may not be there and bipolar although I do see some mood swings.
She said this independently without knowing I was already thinking in this direction.
Thanks for your support!
The weather here is cool at night and warm during the day.
The sleep doctor that I had for my sleep apnea has now handed me over to their sleep specialist. I need a better medicine to get a good night's sleep and a stronger dose or another one to make me more alert during the day. I slept about 3 hours last night and was droggy all day long. This has got to end.
I think it's interesting how much family dynamics really come into play when you have a critically ill LO. I am just beginning to see a lot of things I should have. On Mark's side of the family, his niece did have to take care of his sister after her cancer advanced to the point it was in her brain. His niece also had to place her father in a care facility for a couple years. I think she would sympathize most out of most of his family. It's been a rough year for me losing my stepdaughter (she was 31) then my Peke (17 years old), and then all this came up with Mark.
So many beging with "am I the only one". I too thought I was the only one struggling with caregiving. The only one caregiving someone that has mistreated us in one way or another, in the past.
I felt so alone the last year, couldnt talk to my brothers, they don't care.
I told a long time friend that new my childhood, told her I'm having a difficult time handling taking care of mom, with the resentment inside me. She said, " well your just going to have to get over it".
Othere friends would just give me a look if I complained. One told me, ya just do what you have to do. Another told me to take her out to lunch more. Husband understandably wanted me to do less. But if I didn't go to moms , then I couldn't sleep, because I new she was annoyed with me. The look of horror on peoples face if I mentioned a facility, or if I said, shes not living with me and I'm not moving in with her. I felt so alone.
I feel like this is my "ME TOO" moment
I've got more work to do on myself, but you all through me a 🛟 and I grabbed it. So thank you!!!
but I don’t care.
i'm glad you stand up for your friends!
i also looked up tom cruise's description of his father. seems he had an abusive father.
tom cruise:
...a "bully", and a "coward" who beat his children.
..."[My father] was the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you. It was a great lesson in my life—how he'd lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang! For me, it was like, 'There's something wrong with this guy. Don't trust him. Be careful around him.'"
i feel this description is true about narcs/bad/abusive people, in general.
"Don't trust him. Be careful around him." --- smart advice.
protect yourselves. don't trust them. if you can, cut contact. if you can't...well,...you're in a very difficult situation, because YOU'RE THEIR TARGET, and they've got many sneaky ways to get at you. when was the last time you were truly happy?
In any case, I strongly believe narcissists know what they're doing. They're not a - victim - of some disorder. If that - particular person - does have a disorder (in addition to being a narcissist), then it's some other mental illness. You know, "doctors" have invented and eliminated mental disorders and mental illnesses for centuries. You don't need to believe everything "doctors" say. I guarantee you, 50 years from now, they'll say "narcissistic disorder" doesn't exist: what we're actually talking about is simply extremely selfish, self-absorbed people.
Before, "hysteria" existed as an illness. Don't believe everything "doctors" say. Use your judgement.
Back to my point, narcissists know what they're doing. You can test it very easily. Insert a WITNESS, whom they care about, whom they don't want to show their true colors to. Narcissists can absolutely control how they behave, and towards whom they behave badly. Narcissists CHOOSE their victim. Narcissists want to DESTROY their victim. Narcissists are often extremely JEALOUS of their victim.
And narcissists often like to - team up - with other narcissists.
Birds of a feather...
If you find yourself in the line of fire, of a team of narcissists, watch your back. Don't trust them. Stay away, if you can.
Narcissists will never give you peace. On the contrary. They'll wage war against you. They won't stop. They're the opposite of peace.