I am going insane all the cool shit is fem and my character looks like a twit ):
THEY ALSO NEED TO BRING BACK THE FORESTBELL SPELL WINGS RIGHT NOW OTHERWISE I WILL BE ON THE NEWS
Ugh. This is going to be a long one, as so much background is needed, so I’m sorry for that. Here’s also the obligatory “English is my third language, sorry for any mistakes.”
My (M20) family’s mental health is not stellar by any means. Some of it is genetic and some of it is generational trauma finding new and creative ways to kick each of our asses in a unique way. But nobody in my family will ever admit it.
Starting with me, I had undiagnosed ADHD for my entire childhood, and it got to a point where my teachers and friends were asking me to get tested. When at 16 I finally grew the balls to bring this up to my parents, I looked up lists of symptoms and presented them to them seperately. Dad told me “In my day, there were good kids and stupid kids. And we bullied the dumb ones until they became good.”
When I told Mum along with explaining how each one applied to me. Her reaction to this information, about a genetic disorder often passed from parent to child, was “You can’t have ADHD. That’s normal. I experience all of that as well and I’m normal.” Right.
All the rest of my family has a similar mentality.
It literally took until I was hospitalised for my third suicide attempt at 18 for them to figure out something might actually be wrong with me. Turns out, I have BPD as well, so that’s another win for me in life, I guess. They finally let me see a psychiatrist, and only because the mental hospital forced their hand, and I got diagnosed. They have never treated me the same. So that’s the mindset around mental health in my family.
My aunt (F39) hasn’t had an easy life by any means.
Her father, my grandad, died unexpectedly when she was just a toddler.
Her mum wasn’t necessarily abusive, although she did beat them sometimes (different times, I reckon), but she is certainly… a colourful character. She can be exhausting and draining, even just as my grandma.
My cousin’s (M15) biological father left my aunt when she was pregnant. She had a couple of boyfriends after that, but either she has the worst luck or the world’s shittiest taste in men. My cousins dad would regularly miss sending alimony and didn’t bother ever contacting him. Aunt had a job, but not a great one, and being left to her own in her third trimester and under financial stress definitely didn’t do her any favours.
All that to say, her mental health has been down the shitter ever since then. I’m not sure how she managed before that, but these events were clearly big triggers. Nobody in this family tells me jack, so I’m working with what I know.
Whatever state she was in beforehand, she began experiencing intense anxiety. But, given how my family felt about mental health, she left it untreated.
She has struggled to keep jobs because there’s always something wrong. Either the salary isn’t to her liking, or the job is boring, or too draining, or, most often, she doesn’t get along with her coworkers, sometimes straight up claiming she’s being gossiped about and disliked to the point of bullying. I’m not saying its impossible to have bad luck with people in your life a few times in a row, but I am also saying that when everywhere you go smells like shite, maybe its time to check the soles of your own shoes.
She can be pretty vain and stubborn.
She barely replies to messages from anyone, although if that was caused by anxiety or her self cantered nature, only texting when she was down and/or needed something, I don’t know.
Rarely comes to family gatherings, despite always being invited. When she doesn’t get invited after a while, she gets all pissy, so the cycle just repeats.
She had a brief stint with online therapy, but she only did like two or three sessions and them decided the doctors weren’t a good match. She’s the kind of person that thinks she knows better than the professionals, and also, in my opinion, tends to revel in her misery, in a romanticised tortured way.
The past few months however, her state has worsened significantly. I don’t know it it was gradual or something specific triggered it, but her general anxiety at some point transitioned into specific anxious compulsive thoughts and frequent panic attacks. It eventually drove her to complete dysfunction.
At some point, she stopped going to work (again) despite this being the first job in years she hasn’t excessively complained about. As far as I know, she even had a few work mates.
Turns out, those specific anxious thoughts were in the hypochondriac flavour. I don’t want to be too specific, but we found out she was going mental over things like getting infected with serious illnesses, such as HIV or hepatitis, via completely impossible means, even when there was absolutely zero plausible way she could’ve contracted them. Her fears tended to stem from irrational fears such as not having washed her hands enough, being touched by somebody who seemed dirty to her, inhaling dust or dirt getting to her eyes, or even being infected purposely by a nurse when she went to get her blood drawn.
Eventually, all she would essentially do was sit on the couch and ruminate. She would have several panic attacks a day, frantically clean herself and her flat, and then sit on the sofa and just stare into a wall for a few hours. No amount of negative tests, rational conversation and convincing or evidence from anybody would change her mind.
All of this was naturally unbeknownst to any of us in the family.
All this would be fine and well, if my teenage cousin wasn’t in the picture.
My aunt has always been a questionable mother to him at best, which I took issue with, since pretty much every since I’ve been sentient enough to have coherent adult thoughts, I knew her “parenting” would cock him up big time in the future if it hadn’t already.
Examples include keeping him pristine, treating him more like a dress up doll than a child, ever since he was little, to the point he wasn’t allowed to play with us when we did common child activities as kids, such as climb trees or go to playgrounds, going mental if he had even the smallest perceived flaw with his clothing or appearance when he came back home.
Not giving a sod when he came home, where he was nor whom he hung out with ever since my cousin was capable of leaving the house without my aunt. This one drove me up the wall specifically, because I had a bit of a helicopter mum, and my curfew was 8pm until i was 18, and then my, at the time, 12 year old cousin would tell me all about how he went to take the dog out for a walk at like 1am like it was normal.
But the worst one, and most relevant one, was that ever since my cousin was old enough to talk, my aunt used him extensively as a personal free therapist. Telling him all about her relationships, both with us and romantic ones, her depression, fears, etc. She would also used him to pass messages between her and my grandmother, divorced parents style, since my grandma stepped up to raise my cousin when his father left and they just can’t help but argue constantly.
I could go on, but all this to say, their dynamic was messed up, and resulted in my cousin essentially being his mother’s parent at, like, 14, which naturally produced an extremely anxious and self conscious people pleaser, to the point he wouldn’t even bother asking for presents for his birthday or Christmas, and when you asked him how he was, he would automatically just ask you how you’re doing instead.
I was pretty vocal about my opinions about her parenting and the way it would affect my cousin, but I always got shut down quick, mostly because my family has gotten used to walking on eggshells around my aunt as to not offend her, because when she was sulking, she would usually cut her already sparse communication with us for months and start pointless fights. So nothing was ever done.
My cousin, then, to the shock of everyone but me, proceeded to attempt suicide when he was 14. Since then, its been well known he’s pretty depressed and mentally unstable and my family has mostly accepted my aunt wasn’t doing him any favours in that regard, but naturally, nobody lifted a finger, again.
Eventually, somehow, my grandmother found out about my aunts current mental state and practically moved in to help out financially and with things like cooking and cleaning.
About 3 months went by like that. Family found out after about 2. I found out just recently.
Since then, my aunt is at risk of losing her job, my grandma is exhausted and fed up because my aunt wont get off her arse and get help, despite me insisting that she at the very least finds a psychiatrist.
I begged them (both my cousin and my aunt) to get themselves admitted to hospital, since healthcare is free in my country, and a short stay at the psych ward would so so much for them, because it would force them to face their issues head on, disrupt the bad routine at home, isolate them from each other, have access to professionals 24/7, be under constant watch as their meds get adjusted, meet others with similar issues, and get pointed in the right direction upon release. I can speak on this as that is precisely what helped me when I was trying to kill myself left and right, and trust me, mental hospitals aren’t bad in my country in any way.
They both refused. Naturally.
Until my aunt caught my cousin cutting and got him hospitalised.
My cousin insisted on signing a release after one day, upon which I went apeshit and basically yelled at him until he agreed to give treatment a try. Lo and behold, he got better. He even thanked me for convincing him to stay after a few days in hospital, as he himself admitted that being away from his mum and starting treatment helped him immensely, and after a few weeks, he got released and was no longer suicidal and kept telling us how he felt genuinely surprised at feeling actively happy for the first time in months. He’s also been free from SH since then as well, which i had kept a close eye on.
Upon release, my mum let him stay at our place so that he wouldn’t have to return to the toxic environment at home, which my aunt reluctantly allowed.
As for my aunt, she hasn’t done anything at all to get better. But losing her child might have been a small wake up call, as she finally contacted a psychiatrist and therapist.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, except for my entire bloody family aside from me, she got diagnosed with OCD.
We tried to convince my grandma to leave her to her own devices so that she recognises this can’t go on, but to my knowledge, she’s still staying with her, or at least visiting regularly.
I don’t know more than that. I do know that my cousin has had little to no contact with his mother, and that he had a panic attack when she called. And I also know that my aunt did get the diagnosis, but isn’t doing much else, if anything at all, to get better and learn to live functionally.
Its all just been weighing on me, mostly because since I am the first mentally ill black sheep of the family, and also have a very extensive knowledge on psychology and a vague association with healthcare, I’ve been everyone’s fucking therapist and i can’t take it anymore. They count on me to understand and comfort my aunt, since i understand her best as we have similar symptoms. But I did practically give up on her at this point, on account of you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, which is very much the case with my aunt, and i was just constantly repeating myself.
My cousin also relies on me for support because I’ve always been his role model and because I’m the only one he trusts to confide in about his personal life and mental health struggles.
All of this while nobody in my family never listens to me anyway and never takes my advice.
I’m just exhausted. I’m too unstable myself to be watching them all fall apart.
Everyone in my family is affected by this and are drained and irritable, and i can’t blame them. My parents practically have an extra kid now, and i also have other siblings, so naturally, they’ve been fed up as well, although i must say they’ve been really strong for us and holding up well. I just see it taking a toll on everyone and it makes me miserable. And worse, i have people, especially my cousin, relying on me, when i can’t even take care of myself, am actively self destructing wherever i go and am just barely hanging on and treating my BPD, and am having a brush with alcoholism. It scares the shit out of me, honestly. I’m not built for this. I can’t have people relying on me. I’m not a good person, and definitely not a good role model, and people relying on me is terrifying.
Yeah. No great conclusion. It does feel a little better getting it all out. That’s it. Thanks for reading.
I’m on my knees i don’t want any stereotypical gay stories but all fantasy/other book genres id be interested in are aggressively straight otherwise. Liked paryicularly how realistically the characters were written and the casual writing style. PLEASE on my knees for suggestions.
hey, i remember reading this book, I’m pretty sure the original was written in English but i can’t be certain, as i remember reading it translated to my native language, borrowed from the public library.
All I remember about the MC is that she wasn’t exactly a good kid, i guess you could say mischievous and confident to a fault, doing her own thing. I’m not sure if she was maybe supposed to even be a problem kid at the start if the book? Like a very flawed rowdy character. Can’t remember
A big part of her character was that she loved magic and magic tricks, particularly Houdini, i think there was even a plot point where she used some trick of his to her advantage during the conflict
The thing i remember the most is that there was a girl at her school named Martha(??) that was heavily implied to be abused and neglected at home. She was referred to as ugly, wearing old ragged clothing and smelling badly. She got treated poorly at school as well, even by the MC, before the MC was somehow forced to slowly befriend her, and give her a makeover or whatever and help her join like a dance or gymnastics team at school. I think there might have been a betrayal plot point by the MC at the end but I’m not sure about that.
It was very likely either a children’s book or YA.
I can’t remember the name of the book nor the main character for the life of me, but i remember that i really loved the book and related to the MC and it had a big impact on me as a kid. I wanted to read it again after i returned it but never found it again.
Help much appreciated
Thanks