General Lo

[Harley Quinn]

Reading his threads makes me understand more what he thinks because he is better at writing down his feeling than talking about it.

It hurts me knowing that he is I'm such pain. It hurts that he doesn't have good parents or any kind of rest at all. Lately I manage to keep his mind busy, to not think about this by making him smile or laugh but I feel that avoiding the problem isn't the best to do. @shimmerz , I know that you told me to keep away from his anxiety because it can lead me to have anxiety myself but no, it's not how it works for me because since I know him and when I said yes I knew that there would be suffering. Because he is hurt when he knows about my problems too.

Anyway, I am lost between the way I feel he acts when we are chating/ on phone and the way he is on forum. Even though I've seen him at his worse state but he didn't want me to stay on phone.

I know that the solution would be to be with him, but everything is hard, we both have awful parents and stuff.
But few years till I would eventually help him more.

I just read his new thread, and I've been disappointed by some people, that criticized him for some reasons instead of helping and supporting, knowing that he already had to endure bad remarks... Maybe not telling him that what he does is great but just being nice instead of making him feel bad .

He is on a rollercoaster of emotions and feelings, dragging me with him. But I hold on . Struggling with his pain but loving him till the end, even if I'm crazy, seeing weird shadows and not sleeping, I'm there. But I'm lost, I'm scared I don't help enough I'm scared of not being the one he needs even if he tells me that I am, I am scared that not being always able to make him feel better, will make him go away.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

You and Otaku sound EXTREMELY codependent. I'm sorry if you can't deal with hard hitting advice, but that's sort of how things work here. He was talking about drinking to excess, and since most of us are adults here, yeah, he's going to be called out on bad behavior

Nobody MAKES him fee bad, ok? It is up to him to be able to monitor his emotions, and if he cannot do that, then dare I say this forum is not the place for him. We don't throw out blind support to anyone, especially a 14 year old who spouts off about getting black out drunk and excuses it all away by saying he has a high tolerance.

You can't make him feel better. I think you need to understand this. It is his responsibility to make himself happy.

 

[Deleted member 28403]

@Solara

I didn't ever get black out drunk. Not once.

 

[Sweetpea76]

@Harley Quinn, I want to give you some advice as a supporter.

I know that you told me to keep away from his Link Removed because it can lead me to have anxiety myself but no, it's not how it works for me because since I know him and when I said yes I knew that there would be suffering.

He is on a rollercoaster of emotions and feelings, dragging me with him. But I hold on . Struggling with his pain but loving him till the end, even if I'm crazy, seeing weird shadows and not sleeping, I'm there.

I know you guys are really young, and young love is grand emotions, but you are going to go down a bad road if you don't educate yourself about PTSD. You can love and support your sufferer without his emotions "dragging you with him" as you said above. You suffering and being in pain for him does not help him or prove your love. In fact, it will add stress, and stress is not PTSD's friend. Please read about the stress cup, it really helps to clarify things. https://www.myptsd.com/threads/the-ptsd-cup-explanation.13737/

There are better ways to support him. Ways that are healthier for both you and him.

But I'm lost, I'm scared I don't help enough I'm scared of not being the one he needs even if he tells me that I am, I am scared that not being always able to make him feel better, will make him go away.

The first thing you have to realize is that you cannot make him better, heal him, or take away his pain. It is impossible. No supporter can. He has to help himself. You cannot fix him.

I am not saying these things to be harsh. I am trying to offer some advice. Please go read some threads in the supporter section. Think about the advice that is given there. There are a lot of supporters here who have been in healthy relationships with their sufferers for years, and have learned a thing or two.

 

[Harley Quinn]

@Solara I didn't say that I was OK with him drinking. I know it's bad, and I would like him to not do it. But what I meant by making him feel bad is being harsh with him like that. I know that heavy drinking, or just drinking at 14 is very bad, even with high tolerance. And I think I can't make him stop this because I don't have the power nor the authority to do that. I let it go. And I try to not be harsh with him. Even when I'm really mad at him or else ( anger issues).

EXTREMELY Codependent... Well sounds harsh again, like if we were drug addicts. Yes I am very attached to him. Maybe I can't make him feel happy as you say but I try to support him.

@Sweetpea76 , I read some of the posts, and read some things about PTSD lately , not done with it though , I kind of understood what it means. I can't fix him. Just support him at least. I guess

 

[shimmerz]

Just support him at least.

Yes, this. But the question I think you are trying to get to is 'what does support mean'? 'How can I best support without damaging myself'? If you aren't asking how not to damage yourself first and foremost then you are acting co-dependently. Him first, you last. All bad for both of you, especially with PTSD in the mix. In order to build a find house one must first have a good foundation. That foundation is giving support in a way that is healthy for both based on our experiences. We are not attacking.

So here we look at a posting and attempt to support, @Harley Quinn . If we see that a sufferer is damaging him or herself we try to NOT support the behaviour so we can support the person. Does this make sense to you?

 

[Anarchy]

Hi Harley,
reading that first post that you made
It is important for both of you that you don't try to follow each other into moods and feelings.

You are seperate individuals who choose to be friends. even if you do get together physically, you will still be two seperate people, two seperate minds.

Only one person has direct access to your mind - and that is you.

What that means is, that you cannot "feel" his sadness or distress - it is you making yourself sad or distressed, and that isn't going to be any help to him at all.

Someone else's "harsh" comments and judgements cannot hurt you - it is your interpretation of those comments and your thoughts that hurt you.

Your emotions are valid, you do feel what you feel, happy, sad, frightened etc.

Your reasons for having those feelings might be mistaken though. This is the field of negative assumptions. The thoughts which we have that put a negative bias on how we interpret what we are seeing, hearing and what is happening around us. There are positive and neutral biases as well, but they don't tend to cause us the problems that negative ones do.

We learn negative assumptions from all sorts of things - bad examples, abuse or us trying to be better people and making genuine mistakes.

It is important for our health and relationships that we learn what things we can change and what we cannot - and how we can change things.

You being upset cannot help anyone else, you worrying cannot change anything outside of your own body - but it can damage you.

You are still young enough that you can learn things very quickly.

can I suggest that you begin to read up on the issue of what interpersonal boundaries are? co-dependency does not require one of you to be an alcoholic or a druggy (though you certainly do see co dependency around such people - on average about 12 to 15 people showing co dependency for each alcoholic individual). You could easily have learned it from a parent who was around someone who passed responsibility for their actions and omissons onto others, or perhaps someone in your family does that and others try to manipulate them or cover for their irresponsibility.

how you get there doesn't matter. Healing does matter.

I'm reading "codependent no more" and it is a real eye opener for me. my family is full of codependency, and I hadn't realized. I strongly recommend that you each get a copy. These guys ship world wide http://www.bookdepository.com/search?searchTerm=beattie+codependent&search=Find+book

can I also recommend that you listen to this in short (15 or 20 minute) sessions. ignore the word "depression" in the title, it is useful for far more than just depression (the TED talk is good too) https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mindful+way+depression+audiobook&ia=videos

@Simply Simon came up with a great analogy a few days back; in any airliner, it says "first put your own oxygen mask on before trying to help others" there's a good reason for that advice, and doing that is not selfish.