Mental & emotional health
I really need some sound advice. I am in a dark, lonely, place and feel unloved, worthless and an absolute drain on society. I have been physically sick since January with heart related problems, respiratory and now gastric problems have re-surfaced this week. I haven't had those in 15 years since my last episode with depression! This leads me to believe that STRESS and unhappiness is making me deathly ill. I am taking zoloft and prilosec which neither seem to be helping at all.
My last episode happened when I had problems from three directions all at once with my family. I was in my mid 30's when my husband stopped being intimate with me. It was devastating and I tried every way I knew for both of us to get help. Didn't happen. My husband just would not confront the issue, it wasn't important enough to warrant doing anything about. My daughter, who I love with all my heart and soul, married a man who was abusive and would not allow her to have a relationship with me, she went along with it and I did not know where she lived or her phone no. for six months. It almost killed me. I had always thought that we were grounded together for life, I had raised her to 10 years as a single parent before re-marrying and that had made us unusually close (I thought). Then at the same time, I had sold a business to a woman who defaulted on the loan and I had that come crashing down along with closing another business I'd opened supposedly with help from my mother/sisters who were so eager to be involved, but after it was up and running were "no shows". I was literally dumb founded that my family did not come through as they had said they wanted to/would with the new business. I am ONE and could not be in both businesses at once, so I had to close one and eventually filed bankruptcy as the other one had literally been run to the ground when I got it back and worthless. I had thought I was handling it all relatively well till I ran into my garage one evening coming home from work, hit the gas instead of the brakes. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. I went into the house and LOST IT. I took a bottle of sleeping pills, wasn't thinking to die, JUST TO GET SOME SLEEP! I had not slept well in months and just wanted to sleep a freaking week. My doctor said it was an "old fashioned nervous breakdown". I call it not handling it well at all. I am ashamed to this day that I did something so stupid.
Eventually, my daughter left her abusive husband and our relationship returned to normal, my husband and I developed a relationship without intimacy that was tolerable. I did not leave him because I was not interested in anyone else or ever having another relationship and considered him my "best friend". I did insist on moving full time to a summer house we had that I loved dearly. It was a place I healed emotionally over time. I accepted responsibility for relying on family to help me in a business venture. I never should have opened the second business in the first place and do not hold them responsible. They all have their own problems and reasons for not coming through with what they promised.
15 years later, my mother has dementia. I tried to help her by having her come stay with me during the week so I could care for her, taking her home on the weekends. When she came, I had her hair done, buy her nice clothes, gave her long, warm soaks in the tub, body massages, manicures & pedicures along with 3 meals a day when she was here. I overheard her tell my brother that I'd "abused" her physically so that he would take her back home! I even pampered her little dog! It broke my heart that she would say something that was a total 180 degrees from the truth and of course, my brother knew it was not true but it still was a shock to my system that my mother was capable of saying that when I had killed myself to do for her. Now, she will not come back because she's afraid she'll have to stay all week, I can't drive over 50 miles one way to help her so I am limited in what I can do to help. FRUSTRATING. I have to watch her live in squalor at home and the rest of my family thinks they are doing "God's work" by enabling her to be at home living like a homeless person allowing her to live in utter filth. There is nothing I can do short of having my family arrested for parental neglect. I will not do it, so that is the never ending cycle of my mother.
My daughter re-married what I thought was a wonderful son-in-law. Their business started suffering from the economy, my daughter was sick with pneumonia and their dog had cancer. My son-in-law decided to call his "friend" 257 times in a month's time and became abusive to my daughter after 8 yrs. Together. It literally broke my heart for my daughter. She left him to try to reconcile as they were so volitile together. He even had his girlfriend on their boat and called the police to have my daughter physically removed from their home when she went to confront him. (I had told her NOT to leave their home, she wouldn't listen). I was totally with my daughter in whatever she decided to do, helped her with money and a place to stay during the separation. I did speak out about my son-in-law being abusive publicly. My daughter was LIVID about me doing it, she wanted it to remain private. I respect that and I told her I was sorry. To make a long story shorter, she went back to her husband and NOW barely speaks to me... AGAIN.
All the while this all is going on, I become soooooo sick, literally so dizzy some days I can hardly function. Then, my dog who is like a baby to me starts having horrible seizures in the middle of it all. My heart is broken for him. All I can do is sit and be with him till they are over and try to adjust his meds.
Then, my husband comes home and tells me that he is going to start taking his secretary out to lunch... often. He said "he didn't want anyone telling me they saw him with a woman and not know about it". That would be just fine if she were not such a screwball! ALWAYS having a crisis with her HUSBAND, etc. Once she called my husband during our Thanksgiving meal to talk to him about their marital problems. Just a total NUT and I do not like her at all, she is trouble with a capital T. I COULD NOT BELIEVE HE TOLD ME THAT! I am at the end of it with my husband. He crossed the line with that one KNOWING that I am sick as a dog, my dog is sick, my mother said I'd abused her and my daughter won't speak to me again! This is what I've been given for trying to DO FOR MY FAMILY!! I can barely function and the idiot is going to start taking his fluzzy secretary out for lunch... OFTEN?? I have not eaten with him, nor allow him to sleep in our bed in a week now. I am 52 yrs. Old and need to get a LIFE AWAY FROM ALL THIS. Surely, there is LIFE OUT THERE other than this one.
SOMEBODY OUT THERE HELP ME!! I AM ABOUT TO LOSE IT AGAIN. I am in the FLIGHT OR FIGHT mode and don't know which direction to turn. PLEASE HELP!