Addressing Mental Health Issues

Years ago I was at my friend’s house. My friend and their spouse had only begun addressing mental health issues with their spouse which had the potential to be a danger to them. I don’t remember if they had begun trying to find the right meds yet or not. Just because you start the process of finding medications, doesn’t mean that things get better. It took me several years to find the right blend and we still adjust my medications every once and a while and every person is different. My friend’s spouse has very different diagnosis’ than I do and a very different body. They had broken out in a terrible fight while I was there. The kind where the police might have been needed to bring peace back to the neighborhood because my friend’s spouse didn’t always keep the fights indoors.

One thing that I always respected about my friend’s spouse is that they tried to keep the fights away from their child. In response to the fight, I chose to check on their child, who was wide awake in their bed. They were scared. I sat on the side of the child’s bed and held their hand. I answered their questions. Their parents loved them and each other they just weren’t feeling well right now. We sat quietly and let our tears run down our cheeks until my friend came to let us know that everything was ok now.

Before Jesus came to find me, when I was 5, I never had anyone to hold my hand when the fighting started on the other side of the wall. The characters in my past were not that different than my friend and their spouse. One had the same diagnosis as my friend’s spouse and the other was raised trying to keep the peace and needing to be the provider. We all are Emotional Neglect Survivors and I have been in survival mode all my life.

I was born overly sensitive. I see, hear, taste, and feel things that go unnoticed by many; I always have. I am uncommon. Because I am overly sensitive I was perfect to be the scapegoat and I didn’t get my needs met because I naturally had an overly developed sense of responsibility for others…but not myself. Being a child of divorce, I had two camps and 3 parental figures and they were all, at one time, the scapegoat — at least that is what I can observe. If I keep peeling back the layers, I see that my great-grandparents were immigrants on both sides of my family. If that isn’t a test tube for dysfunction, I don’t what is. Every generation of my family is hard-working, strong, generous, creative, intelligent but there are cracks, as in any family. Some dysfunctional behaviors can be made to look so pretty you don’t realize they are a culture you pass down. I was told by a character in my past that if I am the only one bothered by something, it is my problem.

The truth is I am too sensitive for the petri dish I was raised in. I am not angry about it. I really have forgiven what I believe the characters in my past didn’t know what they were doing, in fact they had no intention of doing. The one dynamic of my past I don’t miss at all is gossip. Rarely did someone talk to me until a small situation was so morphed it was no longer true. Of course I would become enraged. I was only called to do something for someone. I can’t pretend it never hurt to be shown all the pictures of events I didn’t know about, while I showed them pictures of their dog I was watching so they could go…and they would be shocked to learn how much their dog enjoyed the fresh slices of sweet potatoes I gave them.

Why wouldn’t I want to go to the beach? To the park? To dance competitions? The kids’ school performances? Their birthday parties?

Off and on for 42 years I have been in different kinds of therapy…yes even as a small child. As a young adult, I became even more diligent for the last 27 years. I have been labeled lots of things in the last 9 years. Mental and physical. Some labels that were not available when I was a child when many of my issues were showing up. How can I be angry at parents that didn’t know that children could have chronic migraines? Neurodivergent wasn’t coined until 1998…(Social anxiety, Sensory processing issues, OCD are just a few I have always had). For whatever reason the people raising me did not hear me when I tried to tell them things. They didn’t listen to me enough that I quit telling them and so I did not get the help I needed. Honestly, I don’t think they had the ability to hear me. They had their own traumas that were never dealt with, their own physical and mental pains that were never healed because no one knew the term Emotional Neglect until recently. They were taught to work and that is what they did.

In the last 9 years, I have had numerous therapists. All of them told me to separate myself from the characters of my past. I didn’t want to. But I have. There are so many holes in my memory but I have a part of me I call Anna. She remembers my emotions. I am missing a lot of memories. I was in such intense survival mode, I hardly remember high school. I am sure it was great and that the people I went to school with were wonderful, but there are very few I remember. It is hard to have whole parts of my life gone. What is worse — walking into a room of people, you hardly see, and be flooded with emotions you can’t pinpoint. In the last year or so, I have begun having memories return as my brain has been able to heal. The meds and having a peaceful life is helping.

But I realize that there are nights I don’t sleep because I am tormented by conversations that never happened or situations that I am not sure happened because Anna wants to be justified for all these feelings she holds for characters that live in my head because I don’t hold space for them in my real life. I didn’t let the love go away but I had to let room for healing happen. I have to let them go if I am going to have quiet in my mind or any chance and reconciliation of any kind. I can’t get rid of Anna but I can parent her. She needs me to hold her hand and let the tears run down our cheeks sometimes. She needs to be told that I love her and we are choosing peace because the characters of our past didn’t know how to teach us that, but Jesus does.

So I have been thinking about how to let in more air and light. I can’t change anyone but me. I must change how I think because my thoughts are stealing my peace. I wouldn’t let my friend’s child continue to imagine negative things about their friends at school without suggesting some wisdom. I would tell them what my preschool teacher, Teacher Lou said: “If someone is mean to you, play with someone else.” This philosophy has worked for me in many situations. Anna doesn’t need to play with imagined characters and neither do I. If what I am feeling is a real memory that needs to be forgiven or sat with, we can do that, but if it is imagined then I am going to let them go. Either way we will ask Jesus to bless them and give us all good night’s sleep.

Just like any mental health issue the path continues; it never just gets better. Chronic is what chronic does so we learn to dance and move the best we can. Be kind. Be smart.

Read More

• The Lingering Harm of Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb Ph.D. for Psychology Today
• Neurodivergent by Cleveland Clinic
• Book Review that isn’t a Book Review: Running on Empty Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb, PhD with Christine Mussello, PsyD

~

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

For anyone reading this that isn’t a Christian, unapologetically, I am a Christian, but I believe there is room for lots of beliefs and religions in the world. It is not my intent to offend people with different beliefs than I have and I would be open to open-minded conversations with no goals of changing anyone’s mind, but sharing information.

If you are interested in becoming a Christian…Do you know Jesus? Do want the Holy Spirit to fill you and give you understanding and salvation? Ask Him. Want someone to pray with you? Contact me.

If you would like to know Jesus as your friend, but want to make this amazing commitment by yourself please pray something like this:

Thank you Jesus that You are the Son of God, the God that created heaven and earth. Thank you Jesus that You came to earth in the form of a man so that You would be able to empathize with my humanity. Thank You that You did this in order to fulfill the promises You made at the foundation of the world.

I realize that I am a sinner and do things that hurt myself and keep myself away from you. Thank You that You died for my sins so that You could defeat death and bring me into Your life. Please forgive me.

I ask You to be Lord of my life. I ask you to heal my hurts and show me what my new life, empowered by You looks like. Thank You for Your mercy.