Re: Living With Schizo Mom Has Made Me Severely Depressed

58396..reading your story was like going back in time for me. I had a similar situation..living with a Mother who was neurotic, narcissistic and histronic (I've since arm-chair analyzed that she was undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder). I identified with so much of your story, about how you feel trapped and how you from time to time feel strong. It brought many memories back to me and I feel qualified to give you my two cents

In order to get away from my Mother but having no real wherewithall to do so I married someone. He was just as critical and negative as my Mother, but he did indeed offer a way "out". I stayed married to him for nearly 25 years but I repeated many of my coping strategies with him that I had with my Mother..the most significant of which was major depression. During that long marriage there was one time when I was becoming close to being in a vegatative state. But...like you...something inside finally decided to fight back (the "stong" part) and I left him. It was (and still is) really hard because he was very important to me and I have no family now (My Mother died).

I am telling you all this because I think I made a fatal mistake when I was where you are now. I didn't get enough education to get a really good job to be able to make my own way in life. In my opinion, what you should be working on tooth and nail right now is carving out a plan for a career for yourself. Something that you love that will make it so you can be the master of your own ship and the captain of your soul. My esteem was so bad when I was young that making a real plan like that would have sounded impossible..but I was capable of much much more than I ever thought. Life has to do with mastering things, one thing at a time.

You and I were not given very good instruction about the big rewards that come from delayed gratification. Decide what it is that you want to DO in that big city and find out what it takes to get there. You have to get away from that Mother of yours. She's done her so-called job (albeit poorly) of raising you. Now it's your job to make your own way. I can tell from your post...you can do it. I'd like to see you do in in this decade, instead of 2 or 3 decades from now (like me). It's scary to think about the big world and whether or not you can manage it. But look around..people are managing right and left. You'll do it if you have the resolve to do it. Don't believe any negative thoughts about it. The guy pumping your gas into your car is making his own way and you can too.