I’m a 28-yr-old female. I have been diagnosed with chronic clinical depression, have done meds and therapy several times and am presently without either.I also have chronic vulvodynia, so sex has always been very painful–I know this can be linked to depression. I am angry, my self-esteem is low (starting with the ‘mean kids’in childhood) and I have little hope for the future.Suicide is a daily contemplation, but ultimately I don’t think that ‘s for me. And the realization that I can’t even take that route out only makes me more depressed, withdrawn and angry.I have no reason to get up in the morning. Friendships are few and unrewarding, romantic relationships have been a rotten series of 2-month horrors that left me feeling abandoned and obsessed with the man and the details, no matter how nonessential or undeserving either is. My relationship with my father is difficult because he’s an alcoholic, my brother and I also have a strained relationship dating from childhood rivalry.Ironically, I am considered very attractive and people are surprised I’m single. I’m petite, pretty, artistically gifted, intellectual, witty and I’m a professional with advanced degrees. But I’m undermined if someone is unkind.I attract abusive, damaged people whom I reject or who reject me–but then I become desperate for their validation. Thus begins the obsessing over the people, the events, the details–for months, sometimes years–and all over people I knew only a few months.I’ve tried all the therapy tricks–facing my anger, revisiting my childhood, acknowledging this and that. None of it helps because I overanalyze even that.I’m drowning in these obtrusive thoughts and obsessive remembrances and replays. I wonder if the guys who dumped me–abusive losers tho I know they were–were somehow right about me, or I start to wonder if they were REALLY that bad, if I’m not missing something because they aren’t in my life.And I’m angry that even sex hurts. Can you offer any insights??
Of course you are depressed. Your life is out of control. You have no pleasure, no decent relationships, no sex. You sound utterly stuck and doomed to be a victim in every area of your life.When I read your story, I had the feeling that you are getting some kind of satisfaction out of suffering. I know that your conscious mind hates to be in pain, but realize that the unconscious mind has a life of its own, which often opposes what the conscious mind wants.So, think for a moment about what your unconscious mind might be getting out of being a victim. It is said that victims are actually punishing their’abusers. ‘As the victim whines and complains, he or she is saying to others, ‘You bastards, look what you’ve done to me. ‘The pattern of victimization becomes the way of’releasing’anger and punishing your parents for your suffering. The fantasy is that when your parents see how badly you are doing that they will feel to blame, and you will feel vindicatedIn reality, you are the only person who suffers by holding on to being a victim. If it is true that you are getting secret satisfaction (releasing anger, punishing your abusers) by staying a victim, then you need to ask yourself if the gains outweigh the losses–being stuck in this miserable place.I suggest that you join a modern psychoanalytic psychotherapy group. In the group, you will be offered an environment in which you can restructure your character and break free of being the doomed victim.All your therapies so far have been intellectual, in which you form all kinds of theories about why you are screwed up. What you need is a healing’emotional’experience. You need to work with other group members who can give you a sense that you belong to a better family. These new emotional experiences and relationships can help you move past the pastIf you need help finding a modern psychoanalyst in your area, let me know.
