Parent Loss

Depression can be worse at certain times of the year, especially around anniversaries and milestones.

This is is how it affects one person.

But March isn't really far behind, in my book.

Both months have been difficult for me for the past nine years. They're the anniversaries of my last nervous breakdown, which for the most part I have put behind me, except when the anniversary comes about.

Nine years ago, my life unraveled.

I was in New York, alone, dealing with a dubious relationship. My dad was dying, I'd just lost my job, mom was refusing to let me come down to Florida, I'd lost my disability and my apartment was a disaster. On April 23, 2004 I wound up going into the hospital, on the fifth floor locked ward (the irony of that being that there was a movie of the same name made in the '70s).

Amazingly, I can laugh about that now.

On April 27th, 2004, my dad passed. I wasn't allowed out of the hospital for the funeral. Nine years later, around this time every year, the guilt comes back full force. Even though I know he understood. Even though I went to his memorial service a few months later, when we buried his ashes.

I never really got to say goodbye, and I needed to. I suppose I'll always feel badly about that until I get to see him again and apologize in person. If I'll even get that chance, which is doubtful with the type of faith crisis I'm having now.

I've been told God doesn't give up on anyone. More credit to Him then. I feel like I'm a lost cause and I'm just waiting for Him to realize the same thing.

Bottom line, living with major depression is a bitch. I hate talking about it, I hate feeling like this, I hate everything about my life right now. The only thing that's changed in the past nine years is that I may just have better tools to deal with it. I use my sarcasm to make fun of myself. I don't lash out and alienate people as much as used to. I basically retreat from everyone, rather than cling on to people as much as I used to (for the most part anyway).

I channel the bulk of my crap feelings into writing, or going for a walk, or singing at the top of my lungs, managing to distract myself from the garbage for a while. I remind myself that I have the most awesome social media (and real) friends ever, most of whom I don't deserve, and two that I will never understand why they stick around, but they do.

And all this is good, I understand that. But the thing is, that I'm alone most of the time. I've been trying to remedy that for the past six months, and everything I've tried has fallen through. For the next six weeks, I don't know if I have the energy to try to do anything at all.

The other thing is that my year is rapidly developing into a series of doctor and dentist appointments, trying to get my sugar stabilized, trying to get my teeth fixed, trying to get my eczema under control. Most of the time I want to stay in bed. I'm longing for warmer weather, because then I'll be out more, walking, and feeling better. I know once my teeth are fixed, and I get on the right dosage of diabetes medication, and everything else, I'll continue to feel better.

But there are times, especially during these next six weeks when I just want to find someone - anyone - lay my head their shoulder, and cry until I can't anymore while they hug me as tightly as they can. I know this will pass.

It's the waiting that kills me.

Thanks for listening.

We all have letters we'd like to send, but know that we can't. A letter to someone we no longer have a relationship with, a letter to a family member or friend who has died, a letter to reclaim our power or our voice from an abuser.

Letters where actual contact is just not possible.

Do you have a letter you can't send?

Why not send it to The Band?

Dear Cindy,

I hope it's okay to call you that even though I never met you. I wanted to meet you. I was terrified to meet you. I wanted you to like me. I wanted you to see how much Adam means to me.

I know I'm not good on paper. I've been married before and I cheated on him. I have two kids and they live with their father because he is the better parent.

But if you watch your son do dishes because he knows I hate to do them or cut the meat off a rib because bones make me gag, if you could watch me gather up his laundry because he will procrastinate for weeks until he has nothing remotely clean to wear or french braid his long curly hair (I think he got those genes from you) because he likes to be touched, you would see how much love there is between us.

If you could see him comforting me when I feel like a wreck, crawling into the empty bathtub with me where I'm hiding to talk to me and let me know that he wants to hear me; if you could see me staying up guarding him all night the day you were murdered or just existing near him when the grief is too much to keep inside. If you could see these things, I know that that you would be glad that he has someone to share his life with.

I don't know what to think of all thing things I've heard about you since they pop holes in the beautiful vision I have of us getting along and being friends (oddly enough, I was never friends with my ex-mother-in-law until after Thomas and I split), so I will focus on the knowledge that you raised a son who came through the difficulties of youth to be a wonderful man.

Sincerely,

Your Daughter In Law

We all have letters we'd like to send, but know that we can't. A letter to someone we no longer have a relationship with, a letter to a family member or friend who has died, a letter to reclaim our power or our voice from an abuser.

Letters where actual contact is just not possible.

Do you have a letter you can't send?

Why not send it to The Band?

To The Woman I'll Never Meet,

I see your face every morning when I awake.

I've seen pictures and I know it's your smile that peeks out of his face. While he may have his dad's twinkle in his eyes, it's your dimples that I fell in love with from the very start.

It's your open mind that I know I can share anything with, that I know will understand me when I don't understand myself.

Occasionally I'll watch a romantic comedy or those silly wedding shows on TV and I have a brief thought that I'm lucky to not have to worry about having a mother-in-law that I don't get along with. But my heart lurches with that thought.

I want so badly to know you.

I want your help as we make these tentative plans for our future. I want lunches with you where you tell me stories of when he was younger and we can giggle over how much he hasn't changed.

I want to be able to tell you what an amazing son you raised.

Do you know that you raised someone who puts everyone else's needs before his own? That he is so giving of himself that he puts himself last?

Did you get to see how caring and sweet he is? Did you get to know this wonderful heart that he's given to me?

I watch him so often and wonder which of his little quirks he learned from you. I see him so often with his dad, I know what he picked up there!

Do you know that he misses you so very much? That his heart aches for you even on the most benign of days?

Your loss changed him in ways that I may fully never know.

I hope that you're still watching over him. I hope you can see how wonderfully he takes care of me, of his dad. How he's taken my son in and loves him SO GREATLY. How he works so very hard to provide for us and how he's still playing the music you inspired within him.

Do you know he sings now? That he's come out of his shell a bit? Occasionally he'll walk around the crowd while playing his guitar. Your shy son does that.

I guess I said all that to say this: You've raised a gem, a true diamond in the rough. He is my world and he's promised me a future together. I promise I won't take him for granted, this gift you've given me.

Thank you for raising the man I love. I only hope to do the same for my son.

Your Daughter-in-Law To Be

Substance abuse claims the lives of thousands of people every year.

This is her story.

Happy Belated Birthday, Mom.

You used to laugh about how we were all February women in our family. You, your younger sister, me, and two of my cousins were all born in the same month. You said it made us special. When I was small, I thought it was true. When I was small, there were still times I wanted to be just like you.

I remember making you birthday cards with clumsy hearts and sunshine drawn on them, folding them so carefully and neatly that my teachers were impressed. I remember handing them to you with excitement, waiting to see your smile and hear your praise. I remember you putting down your bottle of beer, just for a second.

After you died, I found most of the cards I made for you and, later, bought for you. Even in the depths of my numbness, I teared up a little thinking that it meant you were proud of me.

You loved me. I know you did.

No matter how you treated me, no matter how many times you told me I was getting fat, no matter how drunk or high you were, there was a part of me that loved you and wished your love for me took a different shape.

I told you once, after you'd laid the guilt on particularly thick, that when I hugged you I felt nothing. You got mad at me and said I was just lying because I was upset with you, that no one feels that way about their mother.

I did.

I do.

Still, it was your birthday. You would have been 54 if you just could have kept yourself away from the bottle. Away from the drugs. The little girl inside me wants to know why you couldn't love her enough to even try to overcome your addictions, even if the adult me knows it's not that simple.

It's never that simple.

Neither is love.

Indifference, though, that's a different story.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a family disease.

This is the story of an adult child of narcissistic parents:

To all my Band Members, HAPPY CHRISTMAS! 

With two narcissistic parents and two narcissistic stepparents, events that should be joyous family occasions have always been a source of distress to me.

This is the first Christmas that I've been knowingly recovering and it's going to be a tough one. My father died in 1997 (funny how he can still affect me from the grave) and my step-mother cut off contact with me after that, so I have to deal directly with my mother and stepfather.

I think that my mother/stepfather scene is so unique, that it's worth sharing. From one angle, it's quite funny!

When I was fourteen, my mother left my father for a rich American (I'm now 49 years old and writing from England), who we'll call Jim. She spent her entire life serving his needs, and therefore hers.

Of course, my brother and I were side-shows to her narcissism and suffered for it. Jim continued to be very successful, becoming a multimillionaire, assuming that my mother would continue to put him first in everything that she did. This she was happy to do.

Not content with a beautiful house in the country, a town house in London and a holiday home on an exclusive Caribbean island, Jim bought a castle!

Yup, a genuine castle in England, complete with turrets, a moat and drawbridge. Errol Flynn would look totally at home there. There are 48 acres of land, a tennis court and a swimming pool. It would be easy to say "how amazing!" but sadly, the place is hideous.

It's a shining symbol of his narcissism, not a place of fun or joy. Whenever my ex (or current) wife have visited with our children, the atmosphere is toxic, thanks to Jim's need for control; his need for us to play roles in his narcissistic fantasies.

I've always felt manipulated by my mother and Jim to pay homage every Christmas. I have complied, to the detriment of all of my loved ones. As a reflection of narcissistic madness, this castle really takes some beating!

This all sounds a bit petty, as I'm writing it. However, I have to remind myself that much - if not most - of my recovery has to do with the toxic parenting I received from my original parents, before my mother left. I am finally separating myself from a childhood of fear, physical abuse, verbal abuse, and emotional confusion.

I am connecting with reality at last.

Like everyone in The Band, I'm experiencing the courage to accept what happened to me, work through the pain, beginning to learn how to feel, and changing how I behave.

I am feeling for the first time, which is so scary, because the first feeling that I have experienced is profound emptiness. But I am beginning to fill that gap; I know that I will be okay, because no matter how hard some of the feelings are, it is far better than what has gone before. So now is not the time to be manipulated and undermined by some very disturbed castle-dwellers!

I am separated from my second wife but will spend most of Christmas Day with her and our kids. The threat to our marriage set me on the road of recovery. For the sake of my four children, I am devoting my life to stopping the cycle of pain that has blighted my family. If I can be reunited with my wife as a result of this work, I will be overjoyed.

I am learning to separate from and manage my narcissistic, toxic parent(s). Christmas is going to be a time when guilt and shame will challenge my resolve but I must remain strong, for the sake of myself, my marriage and above all, my children.

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Do any of you adult children of narcissistic parents have any advice for your Band Member?