Hi Anne-Marie I am so excited right now. TODAY IS GOING TO BE A GOOD DAY!!!!!!!!!! This morning in the midst of the mindless surfing instead of sleeping thing that I do I accidently stumbled across an article about incest. This article has crystalized my thoughts and my feelings. Between your help and this article I feel so validated. For the first time I feel hopeful that people might slowly start to understand this never ending battle. For the first time in years I feel ready and able to go to war against the sick, twisted, soul murdering ********'s of the world! I hope other's in my situation are able to read this article and feel the validation and understanding. Here goes: TEN REASONS WHY I WOULD FALSELY ACCUSE MY PARENTS OF INCEST OR RITUAL ABUSE* By Jezanna Rainforest 1. I needed a new reason to stay in therapy or I would have to leave. 2. I wanted to suddenly start having tremendous difficulty in relating to my partner, lose all my trust and alienate her/him to the point where we would begin fighting constantly and then have to break up. 3. I decided, for a change of pace, I would begin to experience bouts of intense suicidiality. 4. I thought it would be a good idea to experience, first hand, what a mental institution or prison was like. 5. I wanted to get back at my parents for all the loving, supportive, caring things they had done to me as a child. 6. I wanted to be disbelieved and called a "liar" by every "respected" newspaper, talk show and radio interviewer, "expert", "scholar", lawyer, "friend" and family member. 7. I felt left out and wanted to desperately to belong somewhere. 8. I got worried that my self-esteem was too healthy and thought I'd like to rectify the situation. 9. I wanted to be different, special and get lots of attention by breaking down and becoming incapable of taking care of myself. 10. I wanted to wake up in the middle of the night screaming in terror, unable to breathe, re-experiencing over and over again the times I was raped as a child. *Loosely re-created from a flyer done by FIST(Fabulous Incest Survivor's Tirade)during the Examiner's "false-memory syndrome" series. TRUST YOURSELF

Hi The rest of today...well I guess it is actually tomorrow now has been not too bad. I never did manage to get any sleep but I will try again. I am assuming that a person can not stay awake forever. On the upside I didn't feel like leaping off a bridge today/tomorrow. The days and hours seem to blur together somehow. I think I will consider that progress. I have actually felt almost stable for quite a few hours now. I can even sit for more than 15 minutes at a time. I will take the mini victorys for now. I have another question for you if you don't mind. Because I just have to torture myself with all the what ifs and could it be's. I sure hope I don't end up driving you crazy. I was just wondering if anyone has ever been cured of depression? I don't mean the situational kind like someone dies or something and you go into a depression and then overcome the grief and eventually go on with your life. I mean like major depression, or clinical depression or bipolar. I see everywhere depression being referred to as a treatable disease but have never heard it described as a curable disease. Is it possible for someone to have multiple episodes or even one episode and then be cured, come off the meds and never experience it again? I have never heard of anyone being cured. Everyone I talk to on the boards is a repeat customer, definite frequent flyers. Everyone I have ever talked with will say that they feel okay at times and sometimes even come off the meds but there is always a setback or a relapse at some point. In all the info and stuff I have read I really have never heard mention of it being curable or being chronic. They never really say one way or the other. All they say is it is treatable. I wonder sometimes if this is smoke and mirrors on the part of the doctors and the huge drug companies. It is like they dangle this carrot in front of you and always offer the promise that things will get better and that happiness is always just around the corner. This all can be yours if you keep taking their drugs and will yourself well. ha ha Maybe they can't tell the real deal because they think you will off yourself? Well I will stop here because I don't want to drain

Sleep well. Let me know how you feel tomorrow?

Holy cow you are still here. I thought only us wired, hyper, insomniac crazy folks were the only ones who were on the computer 24/7. You are so dedicated. I can only begin to imagine all the people that you must have helped here. Thanks for having having faith in me when you don't even know me. Well actually you probably know more than you ever wanted to know. lol Thanks for seeing a redeeming quality in me. I have been finding them pretty hard to locate lately. I will phone my friends and tell them to expect me back soon. Thanks for calming me and giving me back some of my will to fight this battle. I think I will use a few of my half hour chunks to get some sleep. It has been a few days and missing sleep like that never works very well for me. Thanks for believing in me!!!! I will try to do you justice. tons of hugs heather

I'm so glad you seem to be calming. Half hour chunks are good. Maybe before the day is through it'll stretch out even more. You are a very bright person who expresses herself very well. And throughout this ordeal, you focus your anger to the offender and remain kind to others. I'd hate to see you ever give up on yourself. The world needs kind people. This is such a difficult time for you, but do call on your friends and touch base to let them know you'll be back to your old self soon.

Hi Anne Marie Thanks for the wise words and the answers to my questions. Thanks for pulling me through. You are a special person. I hope your friend appreciates what a good friend you are to him. I am sure that he feels blessed by your friendship. One of the positive things that I did forget to mention while dwelling on the negative is that I have really good friends. They have stood by me and supported and comforted me through this whole thing. I feel I was remiss in not acknowledging them and giving them credit. I am off the caffeine for quite a while now. I am hyper enough already and like you said the caffeine sure doesn't help. My latest addiction is caffeine free diet pepsi. I guess it is okay cuz I have had worse addictions in the past. lol By the way I neglected to mention that my doctor was in on my coming off the effexor. He thought I would be okay without it especially since it is an added expense. Oops we both know better now. Believe me I have already learned the lesson about coming off the pills on my own. I am afraid that I sometimes have to learn things the hard way. Hey I guess there is a little bit of the real me left...even if it is the stupid hard headed part. lol It seems like you are always here. Gee whiz do they ever let you take a break? Please tell the powers to be that I say they have to take extra special care of you okay? I think I may have come down enough to try half hour chunks at a time. Thanks again for your care and support. heather

Hi. Glad you're decompressing a little. I do know how this can be a very lonely illness. That's why you must not push people away who care about you and want to be there for you, regardless of how you feel about it during the time you feel most ill. If someone sticks around when you're at your lowest like this, it's a bounty and a gift. Yes, my friend did have psychotic episodes. We had an arrangement whereby he told me the truth when I asked. There was one time that he seemed out of control and when I asked him he admitted he was really having thoughts harming someone, he "didn't know who". I drove him to the doctor's and he was hospitalized for ten days. That happened when he had cut down on his medication. Now he really understands that he simply cannot function correctly without it. He had another episode last year when he had to change meds. As his safe person, I learned to detect the signs of his chemical imbalance and warn him. Now his family has begun to stand by him. For years they denied there was something wrong. Now they understand more. I don't know if you're a coffee drinker, but if you are, be careful of drinking too much coffee. If you limit yourself to so many cups per day, and then switch to decaf, it won't keep you wired up, and will give your meds a better chance to work. Hope your 15 minutes are stretching out to half-hours and maybe longer. Hugs back at you. :)

Anne-Marie Thank you so much for listening and understanding. To know that someone understands, the fear, chaos and despair means so much to me. Thank you yet again for being the voice of reason when I am freaking myself out. And thank you for not being judgemental...definitely something I am not accustomed to. Just knowing that you understand and care has brought me down a notch. Did your friend have psychotic episodes? Does the medication control this now? Has he ever hurt someone? Sorry for all the questions. I have been pretty negative. I am sure having a hard time putting a positive spin on this whole thing. I guess I will have to put faith in the adage that what does not kill us makes us stronger. By virtue of that saying I should be a pillar of strength by now. I have decided to spend my next 15 minute chunk of life on trying to accept this illness and try to find a way to carry on and deal with it. I hope that one day I will be capable of providing support and reassurance for somebody in distress as you have so kindly done for me. Lots of hugs and thanks. heather

Heather, I understood every word you wrote. Remember the friend I wrote to you about? He too faced sessions with the police much in the same way you did. Yet he's doing well now. Don't make your boyfriend's decisions for him or send him away. That isn't fair. He obviously finds something wonderful in you or he wouldn't stick around. You write as someone who is weary, and focusing on the negative. How about treating yourself to a relaxing warm bubble bath? It's ok to vent, but allow yourself some relaxation times too so you don't get over agitated. Let the meds work. Do you have any relaxation tapes? Here's a ((big hug)) for you.

Thank you for responding Anne-Marie. There have been many times in the last 8 or 9 months that your caring supportive posts to me and to others has gotten me through the night. I hope you realize how much I appreciate you being here. The children I was referring to are not my children. They are my neice and nephew who I love a lot. I love children way to much to have any of my own. I could not take the risk of passing down this legacy of mental illness. I could never watch my own child go through that nightmare. And what kind of mother would I be. One that can go crazy at any time. I can see kids teasing them because they have the crazy mother. I could never take the risk of projecting my fears and insecurities onto them. I am afraid that they would lead a frightening half life too. I am glad that you saw some spunk and potential left in me but to be honest it just isn't there. I am so empty inside. I am completely vacant. There is nothing there except for the gut wrenching fear and the occasional flash of anger. I have no emotion left. I buried the ashes of someone I really cared about and miss yesterday. I felt nothing. No sadness, no grief, no loss...just nothing...the big empty. I even walked two miles carrying the urn with her remains in it and felt nothing. I am afraid that the deep dark abyss has been slowing sucking away at my soul and has taken far more than it has left for me. I was told by my psychiatrist and my therapist this week that I would always have psychotic depression. That the only thing between me and sanity is a bunch of pills...and they don't work a lot of the time anyway. I was told to research psychosis because there would be more episodes, there would be more forced hospitilizations and that I need to learn to accept this and live with it. I can neither accept it or live with it. I am too tired to keep going through this. I can't take the shame, the humiliation, the degradation, the marginalization. They also told me to make sure that I was able to recognize the signs that an episode was coming. They told me that apparently I could become so psychotic that every trace of me is gone and I might hurt someone. I have never hurt anyone in my li