Stress Center Peer Support

Hello, my name is Jessie this is my story and I'm stuck with it. I was born the middle child in Ohio. I had an older brother 3 years, and a younger brother who was born when I was nine. Our parents were both alcoholics, fought constantly, and we lived in the projects in a very poor part of Ohio close to Kent State University where I spent a winter semester in 1969-70. I wanted to attend further but I had to work in a nasty factory just to be able to afford that one semester. My parents had helped my older brother financially, but when it was my turn they said they had no money For Me! I had just graduated from high school and my Dadkept yelling: when are you gonna start paying rent around here? He said, you are nothing but an ornament in this house!

I have been depressed my whole life. The Grandfather on my Dad's side had been molesting me from the time I was a few months old till age 10. At age 10, at the dinner table, I TOLD them what he was doing to me. They got so mad at me that my Dad threw mashed potatoes across the table into my face and started yelling that his father would NEVER do anything like that and I was a LIAR!!! I could tell my mom knew I was truthful, because the grandfather used to come over and when he thought no one was looking he would put his hands down her top and under her skirt!!! I witnessed this every holiday, and just about any other chance he could get. So, when that episode at the dinner table happened, and the response I got, something snapped in me, and I KNEW I was alone, that after I had worked up the courage to TELL, and they did not believe me the depression worsened.

My father worked in a steel mill for almost forty years and he made himself miserable and the rest of us also every day of it. He blamed everybody else for his problems, and drank booze to try to ease his emotional and physical pain. The steel mill went on one of many strikes when mom got pregnant with me, and for years after my Dad said they were so disgusted with finding out about a second baby that "it was the worst news they ever had". Dad told me to my face they did not want "another one"!! That story was told to anyone who would listen for years. My sin in the family, was that I was a girl. The grandfather hated women, even though he was married to one of the sweetest people I've ever known, my Grandma Helen. Who he treated horribly, but back then,as in most families you swept all the bones under the rug!!! When I was nine yrs. Old my parents wanted one more, hopefully a boy. That is when my brother James was born. They were elated, and spoiled him the best they could. One thing they thought was hilarious was holding Jimmy only Dad's lap and letting him "sip" beer out of Dad's glass. Jimmy didn't have a chance, he was alcoholic when he was only in his early teens. My parents would always deny,deny, deny that he had a problem. Jimmy was like a child to me, because they would go drinking on weekends, leaving me with a four month old baby. Older brother "Bo" never helped me, he was the meanest brother a sister could ever have. He was also an alcoholic. Jimmy never had a mean bone in his body and when he died after my husband and I took him in, was when the panic attacks started and I am still suffering from them. I will tell more about Jimmy in another segment, and more about the sexual and emotional abuse.

I have the most loving, understanding husband ever, but why does this immense black cloud encase me, yes I have been to a couple of therapists, they did their best, but I am still paralyzed with depression and anxiety. I am starting the course and on my third cd, and workbook study, I feel this is my last "hope". I will do Anything they tell me even when I don't want to!!!

Let's stick together-----------Jessie
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Hi, it's me, Jessie. Does anybody else on this anxiety and depression course suffer from extreme insomnia? Last night I went to bed around one a.m. And was still awake at six a.m. I go through this every night. I am so exhausted all the time, I end up doing nothing productive all day. I have been seeing a pain specialist for about three years because I have fibromyalgia, migraines, back pain, but most of all emotional torture! anyway, I told the Dr. I want him to wean me off the sleep meds I am on because they don't work anyway. So, I am taking it one nite, then skipping a nite, it does not matter what I am taking, I cannot sleep.

I need to get the spiral notebook Lucinda recommends to record all of the negative thoughts I get. I will be writing all the time! I pray to God this works-- I cry so much.

Sincerely----Jessie

Hi Jessie!
Thank you for sharing your story! I also suffer from anxiety, depression, and most recently insomnia. The meds I am taking me make me exhausted, yet I can't sleep at night. When I do, I wake with horrible nightmares. You are obviously an amazingly strong person to have survived all you did, and I'm sure you will get through this too. Best of luck to you!

Hello, this is Jessie. Thankyou so much for your response regarding insomnia, anxiety and depression. God bless you! I know exactly how that feels, concerning being on sleep meeds and they stop working. What frustration!!! I have been on various sleep meeds for years. The Doctors just want to change the meds, and I have just had it!!!

I had one of those sleep tests in a clinic where they hook you up to all those wires. What a waste of time and money!! I slept for fifteen minutes according to the technician, and therefore did not even have anything he could report to my Dr. Other than saying jokingly "I would need a sledgehammer to get this woman to sleep". That test was probably ten years ago. In my earlier life, my husband and I were in the music business. We moved from Ohio to Los Angeles and worked the club circuit there for about fifteen years. So it was perfect for me because we wouldn't get home until three or four In the morning, sleep till noon, then go to rehearsal, then shower go to the club again. Also, on our drive with all our equipment from Ohio, I had gotten pregnant and was so sick, that my husband had to drive the last eight-hundred miles by himself. We had two other musicians with us but they were in their own van, and had gotten quite a bit ahead of us. Before we left for California, we sold everything we owned "not much" and bought a small motor home. I did not know I was pregnant, I was only twenty-three years old, and my husband and I had been married for three and a half years, and it was not planned, even though we wanted a baby someday!! We had hardly any money, but was promised work as a result of an audio tape we sent to two men who claimed to be "in the business".

We made it to Ca. And after two Dr.'s appointments found out, and I was scared to pieces. How are we going to DO this? Anyway, we got work after about two weeks, but I had major nausea, and was sick all the way till the fifth month. We really wanted this baby, but I had to get up on stage everynite and smile, sing, and act like I was thrilled to be doing what I was doing-- the American dream!!! Long to short, we had a beautiful baby boy, then post-partum depression, then major guilt for leaving our baby at nite with people we hardly knew.

I don't know why I said all this but it just came out--sorry. Thanks again, for responding and for your wonderful compliment about being strong.

Sincerely, Jessie

Howdy Jessie,

My name is Dan and I too have been struggling with depression and anxiety most of my re-memorable life. Although I didn't have nearly as quite the dramatic childhood you did, I can kind of relate to you. Both of my parents were alcoholics and I grew up depressed and started drinking at a younger age than most of my peers to compensate for it. I dealt with it for many years, trying to force myself to sleep at night, toss and turning pondering thoughts of "what ifs", and always wondering why this is happening to me and why do I always feel like this.... When I was 20 I moved 1000 miles away from home to attend college again and hopefully start a better life. Since then I have successfully started, operated, and owned my own business while attending college up until a few months ago. When the pressure of school and work started to weigh down on me in my final year of college, I crumbled. That's when I started the program because I knew that it was NOT ME, it was my depression and anxiety talking, always telling me to take the easy way out. Session Three, to me, is the MOST IMPORTANT disk I have listened to because it is soooo true. Negative talk internally is what drives all of us down (at least most of the people on this forum) I feel like and that can be corrected. This is a lengthy process though, because your mind is used to what it is hearing so when you try and tell it to do something different or step outside your comfort zone, your brain doesn't want to process those thoughts because its difficult to look at yourself it that light. I did the spiral note with negative thoughts for a while but then it just got inconvenient because I had so many. Either way though its a good starting point because it makes you realize how negatively you think daily. For me, this is the toughest aspect to get over and I have been struggling with it for several weeks now because its easy to "Just say no" and don't do anything about the problem at hand and avoid it. Just know that your not the only person struggling with this right now, Jessie. If you have any input or advice that would be great.

Thanks,
Dan