Family ties of Depression

On My Mother’s

Mom-
I have seen you like someone might see a child: Scared and in need of affection. Like a little girl holding out her hand to be held while she crosses the street. Our relationship has always been complex and out of the ordinary, and for that oddity I consider myself lucky. Despite that I have never quite attained that met need feeling of mothering, I am grateful for the uniqueness of our bond. Especially now, these last few trying months, we have taken on mutual care taker roles, and perhaps I more so than you.
This depression, for you, I don’t think was caused by one sole thing or one sole event. Maybe the event was simply the trigger or catalyst for things brewing beneath the surface for years–and you just burst. More over it is a multi factorial thing, strings crossed and tangled. Childhood psychological development may have been hindered by a lack of ” Skin Contact ” and essential attention. No one was available to provide you with that doting mother role. As you said, with 6 children pining for attention, ” If she couldn’t hold all of us at once, she just didn’t hold any of us.” Missing that critical piece, I think you took your twin sister and placed her in a make shift mother role. You could depend on her like a child might depend on her mother. You made her to be the stronger one and placed her in a leader role and followed her lead like a child might with her mother. You shared with her every joy and every sorrow and went to her in tears every time you had an accident.
Yes the loss of a sister is a deep and profound one, and the loss of a twin sister, none of us can hope to understand. The overwhelming aloneness and feeling of being perpetually lost may very well be because your perceived source of ” Constant love and True Understanding ” was taken away in her passing. You lost sister, twin and mother in one sweep.
In addition it is no secret our genetic predisposition to this monster we called depression, nor the passive aggression with which we end up dealing with it. All that is easily traceable down our family line. Severe and major illnesses during your childhood and into your youth years is another large contributing factor. A crash course in trauma , and early induction to mortality which is terrifying for anyone, especially a child.
You by no means have led an easy life and due to all these things it is easy to see, for me at least, how you could be swamped with sadness or anger or resentment. How you could have such high levels of fear and anxiety, a fierce need to be in control of yourself and your environment, a driving need for a sense of real purpose. The negative self images, the eating disorder you went through at my age, the continued social phobias..And I dont think, though I can reason with it and understand why, that there is any way to fix those things completely or reverse 50 years of the mentality that all those things might induce.

On Myself..

Myself, taking on this caregiver role early one, even at childhood, because your emotional state was interwoven with mine, as with any child/parent relationship at that age. Somehow, I felt responsible for the nights you spent in tears or the times I heard you speak badly of yourself. Maybe it was attention seeking on my part, but being so young maybe I thought that if I could make you feel better or stop crying, you’d love me. Or that I could get the ” Nurturing Mother Role ” that I needed filled. Who knows..
A lot of my problem is, it seems that through out my life, I have taken on that role with many people. Almost everyone I have come into contact with on an emotionally intimate level. It feels like a requirement, and if you love someone, maybe it really should be. But I seem to have sort of gotten flack for taking on that role. My kindness or understanding is met with aggression and malice. I take all those instances as me not being Good Enough. I take it as, because I have failed and have been met with such responses, that I am somehow ” Defective ” or ” Unlovable.” And those internalized labels I gave myself when I failed where reinforced in my abusive relationships where they where verbalized and acted upon by people who I truly loved, and truly believed loved me. People I mistakenly looked at for a sense of self worth and purpose, and they crushed those idea’s repeatedly..
I take these things out on myself in secret, and in the shadows, now. Like sinking into a hole of nothing but empty feeling, ineffectual, dissociated, isolated and doomed to this feeling like I will always be invisible.
I dont know how to prevent these forms of intrusive thoughts, as my trust seems to be broken at every angle and at every opportunity I give my trust. All this, this far into my 25 years of existence. I have learned to distract myself from it, and hide away these parts of myself to what used to be nearly and now is everyone. I put on mask after mask to fill these roles that are expected of me, while the marble face beneath cracks and weathers away without notice until no one ( Maybe not even me ) can recognize what I really am.
And sometimes I let that sickly sinking feeling just pull me down with it. I dont even try to fight it. Until all I can do is bow over and cry for hours at a time, in secret, with no real reason why and then more reasons than I can retain at any one moment. I am.. so broken..and it seems there is no end to this cycle for either of us… but you aren’t alone. I do understand you, and I am not leaving you. I would tare down the whole sky for you if I could.. and I dont blame you for any of this. Only love for you. I just wish there was still some form of catharsis for me.. but lately there has just been nothing.