Family Therapy - Advice and Commentary Wanted

OH let's not forget this situation that happened in therapy. Somewhat paraphrasing but only because I don't remember the exact precise words. The words may not be exactly the same but the statements and implications are.

Mother: *to idiomie* "You keep using suicide as a way to get what you want like a selfish 10 year old 'if [fiancee (me)] can't stay over then I'm going to kill myself (note: the thing was actually "I need fiancee here to help make sure that I am safe and don't hurt myself because I am very liable to do so while in this house and without any support that's not online")' real adults don't do that it's shitty and manipulative"

Therapist: *to idiomie* "What do you think about that"

Idiomie: "Every time I ask for any help you say I'm being depressed *at* you, but I'm NOT, I'm just asking for the help and support that I need and everyone is acting like I'm evil for it.

Mother: "No, I never said you were being depressed at me. I swear I need to start treating you like a 3 year old and asking you what I said the moment after I say anything"

 

I mean, I understand why my parents parsed "[fiancee] needs to stay until I get a therapist I can see regularly because I am suicidal and [fiancee], not you, is my actual support system wrt that" as "if [fiancee] doesn't stay, I'm going to kill myself."

And then they wonder why I never tell them shit about how much I'm struggling but like. My parents really do seem to think that they're the only support I need, even when I point out the ways their "support" is actively harmful to me, and they seem to find it offensive that I would idk dare to have a support system that isn't them.

And actually, if people who are not @Lebesgue Integreat could comment on that, that would be really helpful. Because I love my fiancee, but my fiancee has taken the position that, as far as I can tell, nothing I have ever and probably will ever say about being suicidal is me being manipulative or abusive.

I don't have exact quotes, but what went down was I was home, and Lebesgue Integreat had come to visit, and was doing really really terribly. Like iirc, every private conversation I had with them turned into "but are you sure I shouldn't kill myself?" So they were obviously quite insistent that either I be hospitalized, find a regular therapist who thinks I can be trusted to not be hospitalized, or I went home with them. I categorically refuse to do the last option because if I do that, my parents will take it as a permanent rejection of them and cut contact with me.

So anyway, I was working on getting a therapist and my parents were like "Lebesgue Integreat has to leave now" and I was like. no. And we had this huge fight and I was trying really hard not to tell them I was suicidal at all, and finally it came out that I was suicidal and they needed to stay until I had a therapist, because they were my actual support group.

And I remember even in the moment, as soon as I said "I'm suicidal" my dad acted like I had said "do exactly what I want, or I'm going to kill myself." Which is why, despite being really quite suicidal since then anyway, I haven't said a fucking word.

 

Like, honestly, what is a non-abusive way to say "I'm suicidal, and [x] action you do makes that worse"?

Because no matter what I do, even saying "I'm suicidal" gets treated like I'm trying to use my mental illness to abuse them, and I don't know what to do anymore. That's honestly the big reason I want us to be in family therapy.

Because, for example:
- my parents expect me to work full-time and go to school at least part time, preferably, when the entire reason I'm taking a year off is because school and specifically being graded makes me want to die, and I am explicitly in therapy as "please help me learn how to handle getting grades and not immediately turning them into a measure of my worth and value as a person. while we're at it, please help me not do that with my paycheck."
- my parents have refused to accommodate my needs wrt seeing a psychiatrist or therapist; two summers ago, I had to go off my meds for basically the entire summer because my parents wouldn't let me take a day off and have someone drive me (even if that person was a friend of mine who offered! and not them at all!) two hours south to where my psychiatrist is located. So I couldn't get a new prescription. When I found a therapist in the area, my mother yelled at me until I was sobbing, because taking a day off from work to go to an appointment was "irresponsible and lazy" of me.
- my parents misgender me all the time, and make a point of praising me for when I perform any action of femininity, and my mother routinely calls me ugly (or, more commonly, describes my clothing/presentation as ugly) when I do things like wear cargo shorts and a t-shirt with a binder.
- my parents won't let me have friends over unless we get into a screaming match, and especially they won't let my partners over without trying to make my life hell. if i leave to go see my friends or partners, i come home to also my life is hell. this is actually probably the worst one because i am so lonely.
- on the topic of being lonely: i have tried joining things like a knitting social circle that a local sewing shop holds, and my parents have gone out of their way to make fun of it, and have not cared when they make plans that make allowing me to go impossible. i'm so lonely.

Like, if nothing else, I just want them to let me go see people without getting in trouble. Or at least, please, don't get in the way of me trying to make new friends.

 

Honestly, what even is just a non-abuse way to say "I'm suicidal."

 

Saying that you’re suicidal is in no way an inherently abusive action. If you were using threats of suicide to get people to capitulate to your demands, that would be a different thing. But what you’re doing is saying “I’m in pain and your actions are hurting me even more” and that is not abusive at all. Asking to have your basic emotional needs met is not abusive. Asking your parents to stop saying and doing things that make you feel like shit is not unreasonable.

 

just like that. simply expressing that you feel that way is NOT abusive. it becomes abusive when its something like, if you dont buy me this then ill kill myself. specifically "if you dont ___, i WILL kill myself." saying "when you do xyz it makes me feel really shitty and suicidal" is NOT abusive. basically if you set up killing yourself as a means of control over another its mad shady, and you are not doing that AT ALL. frankly i think your parents treat you like shit and you dont deserve that

 

From an outsider perspective, nothing you have said, in the way you said it, had been abusive or manipulative. But it IS something that's easy to gaslight you into thinking it is.

There are a lot of red flags in that list of things, tbh. *Especially* the "won't let friends over/won't let me go see friends" part. There's no reason for them to do that unless they 1. Are actively trying to isolate you, especially from any outside support 2. Are trying to hide what's going on in the household

That's very much classic abusive behavior.

 

okay but what if this is actually just me falling prey to the cult of the internet, because obviously you're all lying about my parents maliciously because my parents would never??

they love me very much and they want what's best for me and i'm jsut being stupid and listening to

uh okay im not gonna say what my parents think of "you" in the general sense because it's mean and honestly unwarranted

they are isolating me and i don't know why they can look at my relationship with ariel and agree that she was and it was bad and not see that they're doing the exact! same! thing!

it's different somehow. idk.

 

this entire thread is going to be useful to show my therapist tbh

except i'm not gonna see her for like. three more months

 

Yeah, none of what you've said in the way you're phrasing it has been abusive or manipulative. "I'm hurting badly, and doing X makes it worse, please don't do X" isn't abusive or manipulative, it's a clear statement of your needs and how you're doing. And that your parents are trying to isolate you and are against you having anyone outside the family as your support network is a whole parade of red flags on its own. That they're trying to gaslight you into thinking you're the one being abusive when they've made it so that you don't even feel safe telling them you're suicidal? That's an entirely different parade of red flags.

Frankly, what you're describing sounds like they couldn't be doing more to make you feel isolated and depressed and suicidal if they were trying. They've actively interfered with you being able to get your meds or see a therapist!

 

I just read this and I don't really have words, but I am now terrified of your parents the way I only have been when I've read stories of abuse, because what the hell, how can you treat your own child like that, why are they making fun of you trying interests, why are they so against you having a bigger support network, my parents are happy whenever I go see friends, want me to do it more in fact for my mental health, I can't imagine what I'd be if I were in your situation. I'm sorry they are making this so difficult on you, and refusing to meet any needs and have taught you to demean and make yourself little to suit their needs and their fantasies of what their child should be like.

 

:( well. sorry. my parents really are pretty great minus all the of the ... not so great, stuff.

OTOH shit like that is so incredibly validating of my plan to move the fuck out and set terms that we don't interact one on one til we've had family therapy.

like honestly i thought things were getting better in our relationship and that i could spend time one on one with my mother but. "i never said that, i've never been anything but supportive of your medication." ... and of course the only person who thinks she's lying is me, and i guess lebesgue integreat, not anyone else in my family.

is2g at this rate i will never ever be alone with my mother ever again.

 

Actually as I recall she doesn't think we're lying so much as deluded children who are inherently lazy and otherwise poor examples of human beings.

 

No, you parsed that wrong; I think she's lying about never saying that they wouldn't pay for my meds or psychiatric care. At best, I think she has memory edited out the entire fucking fight, that lasted several days, where she and my father cornered me and told me I didn't really have bipolar, and that anyway, even if I did, the medication regimen for bipolar is just a lie by Big Pharma, that ended on them telling me they didn't want to pay for me seeing my psychiatrist because she was out of network and then refusing to consider me finding a psychiatrist that would be in network, but would require one of them (probably my mother) to pick me up from school and drive me back home to see them every few weeks. (And it was weeks at this time, because we were still fiddling with my dosage and what I was even on, and so I was seeing my psychiatrist every six weeks at a minimum.)

Like, their actual fucking solution to "i have a psychiatrist, but she's out of network, so every appointment costs me $260" was "stop having a psychiatrist." "I've never been anything but supportive" my entire fucking ass.

 

Oh right, I see what you meant now.

 

Like! They never even offered to pay for the fucking psychiatrist! I didn't have enough money to cover the first appointment, even a copay, so everything got billed and mailed to me later, and I paid it then!

I am really fucking salty about how I have spent thousands of dollars on my psychiatric care and my parents have the fucking gall to act like if I'd "ever said anything or asked for help" they would have. I did! I literally did!

And I'm not ready for my dad to join us at the beach because like the last time we fought was the last time we saw each other.

oh dear

i'm not ready for that at all

 

okay, but seriously, "my fiancee needs to stay with me until i get a therapist to help with my suicidal ideation because [she] is my primary support for this, not you"

is everyone really really sure that that isn't secretly abusive

like, really sure

 

and also when i do finally have a therapy appointment, should i make a point of telling my therapist that that was what i said, not what my mother related to the therapist, which was, and i quote "... 'i'll kill myself if [she] doesn't get to stay,' which, if anyone else had said that, i would've said don't let the door hit you on the way out."

 

Yes

 

Yes that is exactly what you tell her, because you need to counter the lies