Depressed b/c my Heart is Torn
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| Mon, 12-27-2004 - 11:46pm |
I’ve been on here before, for different reasons, but I’m back again. I hope you all had a good holiday (even if you’re still celebrating too).
I think I’ve been a bit depressed lately because I am stuck in the middle of a bad situation. My heart is torn between my mom (and rest of the family) and my bf. I’ve been dating him for over 10 months now, and I really love this guy so much. I also love my family and wouldn’t intentionally do something to hurt them. I go to school 2 1/2 hours away from my hometown in TN, but drive home a lot to see my bf. While at school, and while this mess is going on, I study a lot, have a small circle of friends, but maintain high grades, A student.
My mom has bipolar disorder and a whole slew of other medical problems that make her “deny” having anything wrong. She physically / mentally / emotionally CAN’T see that she needs to see a therapist or psychologist, and me telling her doesn’t do any good either. She’s extremely protective of me, I’m almost 21, and gives me some silly rules like curfew at 12, I still have to *ask* if I can go out with my friends, etc. It’s one of those “our house, our rules” situations. I love her, and I understand what’s wrong with her, however, it hurts me when she says rude things to me. I try to tell myself, “it’s just her disease talking, she’s not really meaning that,” or “it’s only a bad day in her world,” and other things so that I’m not 100% emotionally worn from it all. She makes me feel so tiny, so useless, but if I tell her these things, she denies it, saying that I’m making it up as an excuse for my “problems.”
The whole Christmas night she hurt me so bad that I wanted to lash out at her because she was paying more attention to my cousin (1 of 4, paying more attention to the 1) than any of us in her own family. Personally, I felt like she was ashamed of me, for what reason, I don’t know.
Since October, I’ve been seeing a psychologist. Her recommendation to me was to keep away from my mother for as long as possible, only seeing her every holiday and maybe one other time during the semester. Seeing as that’s not possible, and honestly, pretty hard to just jump headstrong into, I’m feeling trapped. My mom suggested that I see the psych, but now that I am, she doesn���t understand *why* I’m seeing this lady. She told me to blame everything on her, but I can’t do that, and I refuse to blame it all on her, even though part of my heart says a lot of my depression stems from my mother.
On the other side is my bf. He hates seeing my mother treat me like this, and the two of them want nothing to do with each other. He bought me a very nice necklace for Christmas, and she brushed it off, saying, “I knew he would do something like that, but I don’t care.” I felt bad for even being excited about the gift, and it was something I had not expected, so I was all the more happy about it. My bf gets really upset when my mom won’t let me out of the house to see him, as it’s her form of showing that she still “has” me, and this rips me up.
I feel as though I’m stuck between choosing whether to do things to please my bf or to please my family. I know that *I* should be #1, but if that were the case, I’d have run away to New York by now and started my life over. I shouldn’t be like this at 21, I shouldn’t feel like crying every time that she does something to hurt me, but I do. I feel caught in the middle, and I can’t win.
Thanks for reading. If you have any advice, that would be great. If not, at least I got that off of my chest.
-Lauren
Edited 12/27/2004 11:52 pm ET ET by babe0206

Hi Lauren and Welcome
I dont think you have to run away to New York to live your own Life hehe. You are right though that you need to start living it.
*hugs