My life has continuously gotten worse in ways that I was not aware were even possible and I developed new mental disorders that I'd never even heard of before which I think also caused some type of trauma because I had no way to explain how I was feeling to other people or know what was happening to me. And they don't understand what it's like because they've never experienced them. And I already felt lonely, emotionally distant,and unable to connect with other people because of childhood emotional neglect and neurodivergence affecting my ability to connect with other people like friends and controlling patients isolating and socially stunting my ability to develop life skills and practice social skills. And extreme anxiety because during and after that amount of control, they don't help me with things that other people's parents help them learn how to do so I am expected to know how to do everything on my own when I never even got a chance to practice figuring out smaller mistakes and problems with a backup support system instead of lack of assistance and being criticized and told what I should have done over and over after it was already too late to change anything that happened so it just made me feel worse about myself and like I always had to be perfect. And I did try to be perfect and a good person and do the right thing and follow most of my parent's rules. And was taught that people get rewarded for doing the right thing and told that things will get better. Well, I developed physical disabilities after finally becoming partially independent and trying to treat my mental health for the first time ever since it was neglected for years by my family. But, my mental health got worse than I ever could have imagined
The new disorders have made me unable to be independent anymore and took away the life skills that I finally was able to achieve on my own later than most people acquire those skills after my parents basically put up barriers to me being able to achieve them and prevented me from being able to do them even when I tried to on my own with extremely rigid rules because of their anxiety.
As soon as I moved out, I thought that things would "get better" like I had been told they would. Because I could get away from my controlling family and start my own life.
Except that I had no idea how to figure out problems because I hadn't been allowed to do activities where problems would happen when I was in my own before that because I was never allowed to do anything on my own besides school events & church. And I had no idea how to schedule my day because I hadn't been allowed to do anything on my own before that. (But not in a way where I would actually receive help with it)
Because my mental health had gotten worse and I had neglected it for a few more years after becoming semi-independent, I realized that I couldn't continue being independent without mental health help. So, I went to a doctor appointment which my parent also tried to prevent me from doing and getting help for and I had to try and figure out on my own.
Instead of improving my mental health, this made it worse and caused years of withdrawal and some of my new chronic mental health disorders. And I wasn't even able to go back to my semi-independent life because of how much my abilities were affected. I also never even got a chance to try counseling techniques with a counselor that I liked before this happened. And the medical field didn't believe me when I tried to explain it to them, so I avoided them. And my counselor at the time told me to talk to a doctor because they couldn't help me with it. (Speaking of following the rules, I had followed the exact instructions that my doctor had given me, I wasn't doing anything against medical advice.)
My experience was so horrific that I didn't want to take another psychiatric medicine and waited it out years for the severe effects to reduce so I could at least get back to my baseline level anxiety and depression state which I kind of did after 5-7 years.
Then, a different health condition I had that was also neglected growing up so I learned to neglect it myself became worse and chronic. At the same time, there was a traumatic family situation that I was expected to help with and not given breaks from even when I was begging to get someone else to help because I wasn't able to do it and needed to treat my health condition. I wasn't given a break and I'm pretty sure this contributed to my health condition getting worse because of physical & emotional exhaustion.
Because I wasn't given space to take a break and still expected to push myself to help when I wasn't able to, I developed another disability. (Also, right before all this happened, I had been trying to "slow down" and focus on my own life instead of other people's needs which I had been 'trained' were always more important than my own and my boundaries and selfish of me to 'ignore.')
It's complicated to explain and I don't want to get too specific, but even after this disability, I was advised by the doctor to take a break from helping, but my family didn't listen and I was still expected to help. I had to go to a hotel to be able to get a type of break from being expected to help with the situation. So, now also had another complicated condition that I had to try and research and find treatment for on my own. Which most people with this condition have help with finding from their family because it affects their cognition and ability to do many basic tasks.
And I already struggled because of possible neurodivergence (also neglected and not helped with trying to access evaluation for and I didn't know about the possibility until after my time being semi-independent and greatly struggling from not having life advice about how to do anything. And my other disabilities now affect the same things as these conditions, so I don't know if I will even be accepted to do a screening for them or if it will be considered accurate.)
So, I put all my energy into trying to research and treat that condition. No one in my family researched what it was or how it affected me. (It's a very complicated diagnosis and there is not much scientific research on it at all.)
And it somewhat improved over a few years. But, I was able to do even less than I was previous to developing it. And I also didn't know what to do for mental health treatment even though I didn't feel like I could go without treating it, but didn't know what to do for that. And because I wasn't living somewhere else anymore, I was being extremely controlled by my parents again because they kept thinking something bad was going to happen to me if they let me do anything independently. Even though when I actually needed their help while I was in my independent situation, they chose not to and I was expected to figure everything out on my own with no life experience.
Then, my disability got worse with new symptoms that debilitate me even more and made me more dependent. I used to be able to occasionally leave my house and get away and still do some things independently. And now I can't get away from my parent's control and need their help, but they won't let me do anything they don't agree with which is almost all the options I want to try. And just tell my why they won't work. I also have an additional new chronic mental health disorder making my life even harder.
My life story feels like a nightmare. I keep thinking I have been through the worst thing I could imagine and never knew existed before it happened to me. And yet, worse things keep happening.
The thought of being able to get away from the family situations and become independent is what gave me hope growing up when the ideation first started and kept me going.
And now, I can't get away or be independent anymore. And I have worse mental illness and multiple new mental disorders that are getting neglected again since I need help to get treatment now, and I have no privacy anymore and even less control than I used to have after being overly controlled my entire life. If I had been able to see into the future what my life would be like, I definitely would have tried to CTB earlier.
I don't understand why all this happened to me when I was only trying to improve my life and follow everyone's "rules." And other people who are evil and don't care about anyone else or doing the right thing or what happens to other people are out there with money & relationships & the ability to go on vacations/fun events & follow their life dreams & express their personality and whatever they're thinking. (Another reason I wanted to get away is because my family criticizes me for having different beliefs and I don't even talk about some of them because I can't emotionally handle what their reactions would be. But they always tell me their beliefs even when I repeatedly ask if we can talk about any other topic. They also treat my family members with different beliefs as if that is part of the cause for why they have mental illness and/or physical disability.)
I wrote too much, but I agree with the comment above me. Except I would have preferred trying a medication and the issue being that it didn't work over what happened to me with it causing trauma and new chronic mental disorders. Because at least I would have still had hope about trying another option and not fear of how hellish it was possible to make me feel. Every time I figure out a possible problem to try and get help for (for example, autism & ADHD), another one starts happening to me. I don't even feel human anymore :(
(And people don't treat me like a person either especially after the physical disabilities. They talk to my other family members as if they know what I'm thinking and as if I'm not right there in the room available to ask. And those family members don't know because they didn't listen to my thoughts before all this)
Since becoming disabled, I've also had hundreds of offers from people such as social workers and medical staff to help me with certain things which they never follow up on or actually do. Which is also triggering because that's exactly how my family was growing up. (They would tell me not to worry and say that they would help me in front of other people and then never actually do it or give a reason why they couldn't when the time came around so I was on my own to figure it out just like I had known/said would happen, but other people didn't believe me and act like it's just "anxiety." Well, the reason I have anxiety about it is because it's true and has happened to me thousands of times over my life.)
I never thought that I would miss having my baseline levels of mental illness & ideation in the past because it was better than what it has become now
At this point, I am scared of how much worse it is possible to get (because I have learned that it can always get worse. I now have a fear of developing additional mental disorders. And I'm not even sure that mental health treatment today is less torture than when they were doing lobotomies and abusive asylum prisons. I found a website that says "While the drugs used today for mental health conditions are tested and safe, that hasn't always been the case." Mental health drugs today are still not safe for some people & can cause even worse mental suffering than what is already being experienced and long-lasting negative effects with no benefit.
One of my side effects (after taking not during) was years of anhedonia and not being able to feel anything at all did not make me feel less depressed because I was unable to feel any of the small positive emotions that motivated me to keep going even when ai was also depressed. Not feeling anything made it feel like there was no point at all in living anymore because my emotion never changed. How is eliminating all slight moments of positive emotion supposed to treat depression? Thinking about what I was looking forward to was what helped me keep going.
Except now I wish I could go back to being numb again because one of my new mental disorders is a level of ongoing panic that is stronger and more intense than what I had thought was humanly possible and gets worse from doing the activities I used to do to distract myself from depressive and anxiety symptoms and relax
And doesn't ECT cause brain damage & forgetfulness? Half the reason why I am depressed is because I already have forgetfulness from anxiety and neurodivergence that makes me look stupid which contributes to my depression and I'm worried about forgetting something important which greatly contributes to my anxiety. And I can't concentrate and stay organized when I'm trying to be productive. Making these symptoms worse will make my mental health worse. Oh wait, my new disabilities already did that)
And I'm not sure if I can access a way out anymore now.
