- Date posted
- 3y
I wish I could talk to them - rant
I (21F) just graduated college and moved back in with my parents. During this period I’ve been staying with different friends and doing long distance drives to my college town because my life is still there (church, friends…etc). So, while I’ve technically moved in with my family again, I’m hardly around. I’ve been in a really deep depression since graduating for a couple of reasons. I’ve applied to countless jobs and heard back from hardly any, I went through something really hard in June that kind of threw everything off for me, and I’m still mourning a previous relationship where the door just can’t seem to close (we go to the same church and are both pretty involved, although he hasn’t been as involved recently). My family doesn’t know I have depression, let alone OCD. Everything I’ve done for my mental health I’ve had to do behind their backs. Now that I’ve seen a psychiatrist and have talked to counselors about my symptoms and stuff, I realize that a lot of my mental health issues began in elementary school, and I wish I could have gotten help for them sooner. The thing is, even if they did know, my family doesn’t believe in antidepressants. I’ve tried opening up to my mom a couple times but it’s never received correctly. For clarification, it’s not like she tells me this stuff isn’t real, rather, she’s never helped me be proactive in it. Growing up it was always “well maybe you’re just not going enough” and “maybe you just need to do another sport” or whatever. I remember one time I told her explicitly I felt that I needed to speak to a therapist, she acted supported but then insisted she could find an “alternative”, aka, just talking to her friend about it. The worst part is I know this is her trying to be helpful, but it never is and I feel like I’m always stuck back at square one. Now that I’m out of college, I realize that I kind of have to do this whole “getting better” thing all by myself, and that’s what I’ve been doing. I found my first real therapist and we’re meeting for our first session tomorrow, and I spoke to my GP about re-prescribing me the antidepressants I was taking before my psychiatrist stopped taking my insurance. Anyways, like I said, I’ve been in a rut since college ended, but things are finally looking up. I just got a hybrid-remote job at my church (it’s part time but it’s 5 bucks above minimum wage), I’ve been doing freelance work for a couple startup companies, and I actually have a job interview tomorrow for a full time job pertaining to my major. The job is close to the city I went to college in (3 hours away from hometown. Church is in the same proximity) and would need me to move there, which I feel excited about. I feel like I had a rocky start, but things are getting better. HOWEVER, my mom doesn’t see it that way. She’s been telling me it’s “been too long” and I need to be doing something. She’s been pressuring me to do insurance. It’s all she talks about with me. Insurance this, insurance that. It’s gotten to the point where my whole family won’t stfu about how I should do insurance. I found it kind of funny at first but it’s become suffocating. I didn’t see my parents for a MONTH and the very first thing my mom said to me when we talked after three and a half weeks is how I should do insurance. Even if I was interested, I’m so sick of hearing about it. When I tell them I don’t want to do insurance, that I went to school for marketing and graphic design and want to do something in that field, my mom tells me that I’m not doing enough and I have to be doing SOMETHING. I’ve been doing freelance, she does not care. I just got the job at the church, I can tell she sees that as a waste of time. I just told her today about my interview, and she basically told me to choose insurance over the job that I went to school for. It’s just so discouraging. I’m upset because I’m TRYING, and she’s just so fixated on one thing that she can’t see me moving. It’s discouraging when my depression takes over and I feel like I can’t move and nobody in my family understands. It’s upsetting when I try to connect with my younger sister by confiding in her with my OCD diagnosis and she just shrugs and goes “I don’t see it”. Also, I don’t mean to paint my mom in a bad light. I love her and I know she’s trying her best despite her biases (for context my parents are not American; I think this might be a cultural thing). She’s the family member I’m the closest to (which maybe says something about how close I am to my family haha), and I hate having to sneak around her like this I WANT to tell her I’m going to start therapy and about my medication and all this great stuff, but she’s so anti antidepressant I don’t know what she would say. I’m just so tired of being discouraged. I feel like I’m lying to her, and i want to just be honest with my family that I’m getting help without them getting all weird about it.