SuicideByBelt
Student
- Sep 18, 2019
- 142
My mother was an abusive and controlling parent. I was raised to be afraid. The only way disagreements about life paths were settled were by either embracing the abuse, letting her scream, intimidate, shout, and threaten me over weeks until she loses energy, or let a counsellor take it on themselves to get involved in the situation. By the time I was 18, three counsellors stepped in to defend me. I never asked any of them to do this. They all saw what I was saying and took it on themselves to do so.
She would deny any medical issues were real, mock me for spiralling into suicidal ideation, scream at me for having worse outcomes, scream at me when she tries to deny me medical help and I take issue with this. When I plan on ending my life, being told "BOO HOO, YOU HAVE IT SO TOUGH" and attempts to cut me off medication cold turkey is the last thing I want. When I tried to explain why I wanted to keep taking medication, I was told "YOU HAVE TO MAKE EVERYTHING AN ARGUMENT." There was a bloody good reason I was making an argument: I didn't want to kill myself and didn't want to recklessly get off medication with no medical assistance. That was a terrible idea and I wasn't being taken seriously. A counsellor told my mother I was planning on committing suicide that week with a time, plan, and intention, but that wasn't enough to believed. Nobody believed I was actually doing to kill myself despite a plan, time, and intention. I was told "This is serious" as if telling a counsellor, a person paid to support the vulnerable, about a serious intention to kill myself isn't taking it seriously. It is exactly what I should be doing if I'm planning to kill myself. Dad was asked to come to college to support me for the day because I told the counsellor I was going to kill myself that week. He didn't see being informed by a counsellor about a plan to commit suicide as legitimate so he shown up, stayed for a few hours, told a family friend about it, and went home early. This was a home environment which can have the full awareness I have serious plans to commit suicide, watch me spiral down, be apathetic to it, sometimes mock me for it, then scream me down 5 minutes later for asking to study at university.
I was forced to start two art courses. I asked to leave the first one and was screamed down for it. When mum brought up a second one, she had her fists on her hips and I knew perfectly well how she would react if I was honest, so I did a year of another course I never wanted to do. Not sort of, not unsure, I flat out never wanted to do either of them. I have a lifelong passion against doing these because of the fierce backlash I went through for trying to not do them. Defying my family is the proudest thing I've ever done in my life and it is the most important thing I've ever done for myself. To get out, I would have had to endure weeks of abuse until you give in like every other life path was, a counsellor intervention, and maybe a suicide plan. When asked by others why I was doing these things or where I wanted to go with it, I wasn't able to give an answer because I didn't want to do them. In fact, I was passionately against doing them. I was screamed down at home if I even said one honest sentence about these courses, so I didn't. I was told my worries would go away when the course started. They didn't. My worries about putting myself into $30,000 debt and spending 3 years of my life with no clear opportunities afterwards didn't go away, it amplified, and I couldn't say this because I expected to be screamed into submission for questioning this. I'm not going to suddenly stop worrying about my future because a course is fun. It didn't make me happy or inspire passion. It wasted my time, money, and taught me to hate my mother.
These experiences left me with symptoms of a complex post-traumatic stress disorder. "Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is a psychological disorder that can develop in response to prolonged, repeated experience of interpersonal trauma in a context in which the individual has little or no chance of escape." I might be living with this for the rest of my life. What I dealt with was ongoing, unapologetic abuse. I would have liked a loving relationship where I can be honest and vulnerable, in the family that supports my wants and needs, encouraging me to reach what I wanted, but I didn't. Bottling up was the only reasonable thing to do. Any attempt at being honest resulted in abuse, me not being taken seriously, or a life plan being decided for me that I'll have to endure abuse to get out of. I grew up in a home where vulnerability was a weapon that will be used against me, so the best thing I could do for myself was keep quiet and keep out of view.
In this house, following what I was told meant not questioning, not thinking for myself, hiding my honest feelings about my wants and needs, giving up on a future I want, and committing suicide. To resist any of this meant I was screamed, threatened, intimidated, and had counsellors step in to defend me. The fact I managed to stay alive and take a path I wanted was rebellion.
Anyone outside the situation can look at this and reasonably understand why I'd want to cut off my mother. Unfortunately sister doesn't. Sister says I'm just "blaming her" and "need to be an adult." To anyone without any loyalty to mum, it is easy to see how wrong this is.
What sister is doing can be described as victim blaming: "Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them." No child deserves to be abused or neglected. Every child deserves the safety to be honest about their wants and needs, feel respected and listened to. Any violation was undeserved and should be met with a sincere apology and attempt to do better. If a counsellor takes it on themselves to step into a situation, then the situation has gone too far and something needs to be adjusted. If 3 counsellors step in by the time I turn 18, then there is a serious and ongoing issue at home. If you are informed by a counsellor about a plan and date to commit suicide, the bare minimum is to take it seriously, not mock it, not discourage me from telling support workers about it, not cut off support, but to take it seriously. If you disagree with this, then you have no credibility to me. If your response to lifelong abuse, neglect, suicide plans, and counsellor interventions is to defend the abuse and blame the victim for taking issue with it, you are completely blind. Sister's upbringing may have been "boring" but that doesn't mean mine was too.
Most of my peers were not regularly abused by their parents over years, learnt to hide information and stay out of their parent's view for their own safety, fight ongoing psychological warfare to get the life outcomes they wanted, have 3 counsellors (let alone one) step in on their own initiative to defend them, have conversations about my life path get so hostile I'm considering self-harm and suicide, not get taken seriously in a suicide crisis, get mocked and yelled at in a suicide crisis, cut off medication cold turkey in a suicide crisis, yelled at and dismissed for experiencing the effects of a serious mental illness, be forced to start 2 art courses they were actively against doing and screamed at for questioning, threaten to cancel a course I want to do to try control me, discouraged from telling a counsellor about a suicide plan, threaten to stop financially supporting me to try coerce me into things I don't want to do, leave home with a complex post-traumatic stress disorder that led me unable to work or study, cut off their parents, or reach a point where the situation got so severe over years that studying something they actually want to is the proudest thing they've ever done in their life. Most importantly, most of my peers did not have a lifelong enemy plotting to destroy their plans, derail their life in unwanted paths, cut off the support they needed, and try to abuse them into unquestioning submission. This was not a respectful or loving family. This was an abusive one. If anyone in a workplace or a relationship behaved how she did, the common sense answer would be to remove them or get away from them. If sister can't see any issues here, she is blindly loyal.
A few signs of a dysfunctional family:
On top of this, I was recently diagnosed with comorbid Aspergers and ADHD. 4 doctors, including 2 specialists, all agree it is real and needed treatment.
Comorbid Aspergers and ADHD is why I have consistently failed at maintaining study or employment, alongside challenges on emotional regulation, behaviour, concentration, prioritisation, impulse control, being consistent with tasks, social interactions, etc. To put it simply, I was already going to have a difficult life because of how my brain works, living in a world that doesn't suit me, particularly since I was undiagnosed and untreated. Now add in how I was abused and neglected at home so badly counsellors regularly took it on themselves to step in, people had to intervene to stop me from killing myself while my own family embraced aggressively cutting off support, I left home with a complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and was abused, threatened, and intimidated into taking paths I was passionately against doing.
"For people with autism, having co-occurring mental health conditions increases the possibility of worse long-term outcomes, 8 9 10 11 including increased mortality risk. 12 For instance, co-occurrence of autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with greater impairments in adaptive functioning, health-related quality of life, and executive functioning than having autism alone. 13 14 15 16 Similarly, co-occurring anxiety in individuals with autism amplifies autistic symptoms, including social impairments, 17 18 19 sensory features, and repetitive behaviours, 19 20 21 22 and might be associated with the development of depression, 23 24 contributing to increased risk of suicide and early mortality. 25 Aggression, self-injury, and oppositional behaviour might also begin or increase with the onset of depression. 26 Autism diagnoses are also associated with increased risk of severe mental illnesses, including psychosis spectrum and bipolar spectrum disorders. 27 Co-occurring mental health conditions in autism tend to persist from childhood into adolescence, 28 and the prevalence of co-occurring psychopathology increases in adults with autism, 29 contributing to substantial long-term negative effects on health and quality of life." - Lancet Psychiatry, The, 2019-10-01, Volume 6, Issue 10, Pages 819-829
I am taking a medication for ADHD and it has helped me in a lot of ways. Someone described it as "being put on ADHD meds was like wearing glasses I didn't know I needed" which makes sense to me. I have better self-control, ability to act on my intentions, emotionally consistent, able to concentrate, prioritise, think about consequences. It is a "normal people pill" for me in that I was victim to impulse, inconsistent emotions, and lack of clear thinking. I've spent years smashing relationships and opportunities, not knowing why, learning from my mistakes, then messing up again. Now I can see why life was so difficult for me. I wish I did this a long time ago. It explains why I consistently struggled at both employment and study. Up until this point, I wasn't able to manage either while being told I was just lazy. With the medication, I feel like I have a chance at life. But after everything I went through, to properly start life at 25 after a lifetime of hell internally and externally, I just can't be bothered carrying on.
My coach says "Your life has been hard - the incredible thing is that despite all of these awful circumstances - you are still here. You've persisted through way more than most people will have to deal with in their lifetimes." This is someone whose job to help a wide range of people in difficult circumstances. When I had plans to kill myself, I was told "BOO HOO, YOU HAVE IT SO TOUGH." Yes, I actually did have it tough. He also said "You survived. Far longer than a lot of people do."
Considering how much resistance I was put through to get the help I need and take a life path I want, while trying to blame me for the abuse I got, I'm tired. I don't want to spend the rest of my life pretending my family didn't try to destroy my options, abuse me into submission, drive me to kill myself, pretend nothing wrong happened, and put the entire blame on me for being abused into giving up on my future and slaughtering myself to death.
Nobody understood me. Nobody was able to help me in a meaningful way. I was just suffering and told I deserve to suffer. I wish I knew everything I knew now so I could save myself. My home wasn't going to save me. The mental health system wasn't going to save me. I was fucked. Fuck this world.
If mum had her way, I would have given up on anything I want to do with my life, be beaten into submission, had my spirit crushed, and killed myself before turning 19. If sister had her way, I would feel terrible about myself for things I didn't deserve.
The proudest thing I ever did in my life was be a rebel. To grow up and make my own choices despite everything stacked against me. I should have killed myself early in life but I didn't. But the fact merely asking to change schools, not study art, or go to university were wild acts of rebellion that I prepared to see keep escalating over days or weeks until counsellors step in and I'm making plans to kill myself was beyond ridiculous and wildly inappropriate. These were reasonable things to ask and I didn't deserve to suffer for it. I'm not your personal punching bag. I'm a human being who was just trying to get by in life.
"You can do whatever you want as long as you're happy" was the biggest lie I was ever told. Doing what I want was outrageous, rebellious, and controversial. "Shut the fuck up and do what I tell you to do or I'll bring you pain. Also, if you kill yourself, I don't fucking care," was the real message.
If you think "being an adult" means pretending all this was normal and acceptable, or going so far to believe I deserved any of that, then to put it simply, your opinion is bullshit.
I'm not going to spend the rest of my life pretending I wasn't abused into giving up on my options and killing myself for social niceties. It shouldn't take qualities like courage, persistence, fortitude, or determination to advocate my wants and needs to my own family, but I had no choice. This family didn't run on love, respect, support, or autonomy. It ran on dominance, abuse, and control.
I'm out of this world.
She would deny any medical issues were real, mock me for spiralling into suicidal ideation, scream at me for having worse outcomes, scream at me when she tries to deny me medical help and I take issue with this. When I plan on ending my life, being told "BOO HOO, YOU HAVE IT SO TOUGH" and attempts to cut me off medication cold turkey is the last thing I want. When I tried to explain why I wanted to keep taking medication, I was told "YOU HAVE TO MAKE EVERYTHING AN ARGUMENT." There was a bloody good reason I was making an argument: I didn't want to kill myself and didn't want to recklessly get off medication with no medical assistance. That was a terrible idea and I wasn't being taken seriously. A counsellor told my mother I was planning on committing suicide that week with a time, plan, and intention, but that wasn't enough to believed. Nobody believed I was actually doing to kill myself despite a plan, time, and intention. I was told "This is serious" as if telling a counsellor, a person paid to support the vulnerable, about a serious intention to kill myself isn't taking it seriously. It is exactly what I should be doing if I'm planning to kill myself. Dad was asked to come to college to support me for the day because I told the counsellor I was going to kill myself that week. He didn't see being informed by a counsellor about a plan to commit suicide as legitimate so he shown up, stayed for a few hours, told a family friend about it, and went home early. This was a home environment which can have the full awareness I have serious plans to commit suicide, watch me spiral down, be apathetic to it, sometimes mock me for it, then scream me down 5 minutes later for asking to study at university.
I was forced to start two art courses. I asked to leave the first one and was screamed down for it. When mum brought up a second one, she had her fists on her hips and I knew perfectly well how she would react if I was honest, so I did a year of another course I never wanted to do. Not sort of, not unsure, I flat out never wanted to do either of them. I have a lifelong passion against doing these because of the fierce backlash I went through for trying to not do them. Defying my family is the proudest thing I've ever done in my life and it is the most important thing I've ever done for myself. To get out, I would have had to endure weeks of abuse until you give in like every other life path was, a counsellor intervention, and maybe a suicide plan. When asked by others why I was doing these things or where I wanted to go with it, I wasn't able to give an answer because I didn't want to do them. In fact, I was passionately against doing them. I was screamed down at home if I even said one honest sentence about these courses, so I didn't. I was told my worries would go away when the course started. They didn't. My worries about putting myself into $30,000 debt and spending 3 years of my life with no clear opportunities afterwards didn't go away, it amplified, and I couldn't say this because I expected to be screamed into submission for questioning this. I'm not going to suddenly stop worrying about my future because a course is fun. It didn't make me happy or inspire passion. It wasted my time, money, and taught me to hate my mother.
These experiences left me with symptoms of a complex post-traumatic stress disorder. "Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is a psychological disorder that can develop in response to prolonged, repeated experience of interpersonal trauma in a context in which the individual has little or no chance of escape." I might be living with this for the rest of my life. What I dealt with was ongoing, unapologetic abuse. I would have liked a loving relationship where I can be honest and vulnerable, in the family that supports my wants and needs, encouraging me to reach what I wanted, but I didn't. Bottling up was the only reasonable thing to do. Any attempt at being honest resulted in abuse, me not being taken seriously, or a life plan being decided for me that I'll have to endure abuse to get out of. I grew up in a home where vulnerability was a weapon that will be used against me, so the best thing I could do for myself was keep quiet and keep out of view.
In this house, following what I was told meant not questioning, not thinking for myself, hiding my honest feelings about my wants and needs, giving up on a future I want, and committing suicide. To resist any of this meant I was screamed, threatened, intimidated, and had counsellors step in to defend me. The fact I managed to stay alive and take a path I wanted was rebellion.
Anyone outside the situation can look at this and reasonably understand why I'd want to cut off my mother. Unfortunately sister doesn't. Sister says I'm just "blaming her" and "need to be an adult." To anyone without any loyalty to mum, it is easy to see how wrong this is.
What sister is doing can be described as victim blaming: "Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them." No child deserves to be abused or neglected. Every child deserves the safety to be honest about their wants and needs, feel respected and listened to. Any violation was undeserved and should be met with a sincere apology and attempt to do better. If a counsellor takes it on themselves to step into a situation, then the situation has gone too far and something needs to be adjusted. If 3 counsellors step in by the time I turn 18, then there is a serious and ongoing issue at home. If you are informed by a counsellor about a plan and date to commit suicide, the bare minimum is to take it seriously, not mock it, not discourage me from telling support workers about it, not cut off support, but to take it seriously. If you disagree with this, then you have no credibility to me. If your response to lifelong abuse, neglect, suicide plans, and counsellor interventions is to defend the abuse and blame the victim for taking issue with it, you are completely blind. Sister's upbringing may have been "boring" but that doesn't mean mine was too.
Most of my peers were not regularly abused by their parents over years, learnt to hide information and stay out of their parent's view for their own safety, fight ongoing psychological warfare to get the life outcomes they wanted, have 3 counsellors (let alone one) step in on their own initiative to defend them, have conversations about my life path get so hostile I'm considering self-harm and suicide, not get taken seriously in a suicide crisis, get mocked and yelled at in a suicide crisis, cut off medication cold turkey in a suicide crisis, yelled at and dismissed for experiencing the effects of a serious mental illness, be forced to start 2 art courses they were actively against doing and screamed at for questioning, threaten to cancel a course I want to do to try control me, discouraged from telling a counsellor about a suicide plan, threaten to stop financially supporting me to try coerce me into things I don't want to do, leave home with a complex post-traumatic stress disorder that led me unable to work or study, cut off their parents, or reach a point where the situation got so severe over years that studying something they actually want to is the proudest thing they've ever done in their life. Most importantly, most of my peers did not have a lifelong enemy plotting to destroy their plans, derail their life in unwanted paths, cut off the support they needed, and try to abuse them into unquestioning submission. This was not a respectful or loving family. This was an abusive one. If anyone in a workplace or a relationship behaved how she did, the common sense answer would be to remove them or get away from them. If sister can't see any issues here, she is blindly loyal.
A few signs of a dysfunctional family:
- Lack of empathy, respect and boundaries towards family members.
- Invading personal privacy without permission.
- Extreme conflict and hostility in the family environment (verbal and physical assault) between parent-child or sibling-sibling assaults against each other.
- Emotional, verbal abuse, ridicules behavior and blaming each family member.
- Stifled speech and emotion (Not allowing their children to have own opinions and neither accepted sadness or happiness emotion).
On top of this, I was recently diagnosed with comorbid Aspergers and ADHD. 4 doctors, including 2 specialists, all agree it is real and needed treatment.
Comorbid Aspergers and ADHD is why I have consistently failed at maintaining study or employment, alongside challenges on emotional regulation, behaviour, concentration, prioritisation, impulse control, being consistent with tasks, social interactions, etc. To put it simply, I was already going to have a difficult life because of how my brain works, living in a world that doesn't suit me, particularly since I was undiagnosed and untreated. Now add in how I was abused and neglected at home so badly counsellors regularly took it on themselves to step in, people had to intervene to stop me from killing myself while my own family embraced aggressively cutting off support, I left home with a complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and was abused, threatened, and intimidated into taking paths I was passionately against doing.
"For people with autism, having co-occurring mental health conditions increases the possibility of worse long-term outcomes, 8 9 10 11 including increased mortality risk. 12 For instance, co-occurrence of autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with greater impairments in adaptive functioning, health-related quality of life, and executive functioning than having autism alone. 13 14 15 16 Similarly, co-occurring anxiety in individuals with autism amplifies autistic symptoms, including social impairments, 17 18 19 sensory features, and repetitive behaviours, 19 20 21 22 and might be associated with the development of depression, 23 24 contributing to increased risk of suicide and early mortality. 25 Aggression, self-injury, and oppositional behaviour might also begin or increase with the onset of depression. 26 Autism diagnoses are also associated with increased risk of severe mental illnesses, including psychosis spectrum and bipolar spectrum disorders. 27 Co-occurring mental health conditions in autism tend to persist from childhood into adolescence, 28 and the prevalence of co-occurring psychopathology increases in adults with autism, 29 contributing to substantial long-term negative effects on health and quality of life." - Lancet Psychiatry, The, 2019-10-01, Volume 6, Issue 10, Pages 819-829
I am taking a medication for ADHD and it has helped me in a lot of ways. Someone described it as "being put on ADHD meds was like wearing glasses I didn't know I needed" which makes sense to me. I have better self-control, ability to act on my intentions, emotionally consistent, able to concentrate, prioritise, think about consequences. It is a "normal people pill" for me in that I was victim to impulse, inconsistent emotions, and lack of clear thinking. I've spent years smashing relationships and opportunities, not knowing why, learning from my mistakes, then messing up again. Now I can see why life was so difficult for me. I wish I did this a long time ago. It explains why I consistently struggled at both employment and study. Up until this point, I wasn't able to manage either while being told I was just lazy. With the medication, I feel like I have a chance at life. But after everything I went through, to properly start life at 25 after a lifetime of hell internally and externally, I just can't be bothered carrying on.
My coach says "Your life has been hard - the incredible thing is that despite all of these awful circumstances - you are still here. You've persisted through way more than most people will have to deal with in their lifetimes." This is someone whose job to help a wide range of people in difficult circumstances. When I had plans to kill myself, I was told "BOO HOO, YOU HAVE IT SO TOUGH." Yes, I actually did have it tough. He also said "You survived. Far longer than a lot of people do."
Considering how much resistance I was put through to get the help I need and take a life path I want, while trying to blame me for the abuse I got, I'm tired. I don't want to spend the rest of my life pretending my family didn't try to destroy my options, abuse me into submission, drive me to kill myself, pretend nothing wrong happened, and put the entire blame on me for being abused into giving up on my future and slaughtering myself to death.
Nobody understood me. Nobody was able to help me in a meaningful way. I was just suffering and told I deserve to suffer. I wish I knew everything I knew now so I could save myself. My home wasn't going to save me. The mental health system wasn't going to save me. I was fucked. Fuck this world.
If mum had her way, I would have given up on anything I want to do with my life, be beaten into submission, had my spirit crushed, and killed myself before turning 19. If sister had her way, I would feel terrible about myself for things I didn't deserve.
The proudest thing I ever did in my life was be a rebel. To grow up and make my own choices despite everything stacked against me. I should have killed myself early in life but I didn't. But the fact merely asking to change schools, not study art, or go to university were wild acts of rebellion that I prepared to see keep escalating over days or weeks until counsellors step in and I'm making plans to kill myself was beyond ridiculous and wildly inappropriate. These were reasonable things to ask and I didn't deserve to suffer for it. I'm not your personal punching bag. I'm a human being who was just trying to get by in life.
"You can do whatever you want as long as you're happy" was the biggest lie I was ever told. Doing what I want was outrageous, rebellious, and controversial. "Shut the fuck up and do what I tell you to do or I'll bring you pain. Also, if you kill yourself, I don't fucking care," was the real message.
If you think "being an adult" means pretending all this was normal and acceptable, or going so far to believe I deserved any of that, then to put it simply, your opinion is bullshit.
I'm not going to spend the rest of my life pretending I wasn't abused into giving up on my options and killing myself for social niceties. It shouldn't take qualities like courage, persistence, fortitude, or determination to advocate my wants and needs to my own family, but I had no choice. This family didn't run on love, respect, support, or autonomy. It ran on dominance, abuse, and control.
I'm out of this world.
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