Around a week ago, my aunt came with a pastor to my house and made him pray for me. Actually, it was more like he was performing an exorcism on me; he was speaking in tongues, he blew in my ear, he made me sip a bit of oil he had prayed over earlier--it was all so weird. At some point he was also making prophecies. He said that I should have died in March in a car crash, but that God saw kindness in my heart and stopped the tragedy from happening. He also said lots of other crazy shit that I won't even brother posting on here. Well, to be fair, the guy did say some things that were true, like when he said that I self harm and that I'm suicidal. For a person who's never met me, he's quite the guesser. And the thing that suprised me most when he was saying all this was how my mother's eyes were bloodshot from crying her eyes out. I mean I told her weeks ago that I self harm and am suicidal yet there she was acting like she was hearing it all for the very first time... Anyway, after he was done 'praying' for me, he said that Satan had left me and that even though I will encounter him again, if I pray this time around, I'll be a-okay. Little did he know that he had managed to make me feel twice as bad about myself that day. So my aunt and her beloved friend the pastor left and my mother & I were left alone. I remember her walking into my room and pretending as if nothing had happened when she knew damn well that I was pissed at her. The first thing I told her the minute I dropped out of college and confessed to self harming and suicide efforts was to not relate any of my misfortunes to religion. I told her that just because mental illness isn't apparent on the outside it doesn't exactly mean that it's caused by invisibile, demonic forces. I told her to take me to a therapist. I told her that I will make a sincere attempt at getting better. Fast forward two weeks and she's kneeling on the floor, praying and occasionally looking up at me while I get harrased by some cracker they call a pastor. No therapist. Nothing. I haven't talked to her since this incident. She's apologized for it, but I'm not sure what exactly she wants for me. She did the one thing I told her not to do, how is an apology supposed to fix that? Now the thing I find most hilarious is that since the crazy person (the pastor) said that I'm 'Satan free', she actually thinks that I'm over my depression. Really, mom, really? You think my problems have vanished when a single aspect of my life hasn't changed a bit? I hope you and your ignorance live a long and wonderful life. Gosh, all I want is to get better, to have someone to talk to, someone who won't allocate my problems to fiends. I wish I could leave this stupid country, cut off all contact with my bigoted relatives and start afresh. A new life, a new me. But instead I'm surrounded by morons who make me feel like garbage on a day to day basis. Would anyone blame me for wanting to kill myself?
Wow I feel for you. Truth can be stranger than fiction...I'm so sorry you went through that experience. So 1950's or something.
As difficult as it may be to empathize with your mother right now, it's possible that she's just scared - scared for you, scared that she doesn't know what to do, and is grasping at straws to find a way to "fix" the situation (though really it doesn't need fixing, of course). If she's trying to apologize, and you can at all find a way to move past this, it might be worth it. If she didn't think there was a problem with what happened, she wouldn't have been trying to apologize, I would think. So, when you feel like you're ready, try to talk to her about it again, re-establish that you would really like to see a therapist...and hope for the best? Regardless, I'm sorry that this is playing out the way it is. Obviously it's adding extra stress that you don't need right now. I do hope that the seeds of something better are there, though.
this is the sort of crap my mum would pull with me every day throughout my childhood, except she'd do the whole praying in tongues exorcism oil shit herself. it's pretty fucking ironic that these people blame demons and satan for everything between sexuality to depression when they're clearly the ones who are suffering from severe mental health problems. i wouldn't put much stock in him mentioning the self harm - if you told your mum there's a good chance she told him beforehand. you'd be better off looking for somewhere else to live. being around that stuff is incredibly damaging.
My mom and I are on speaking terms once more. I felt a bit guilty not talking to her cause she pays the bills, my college tuition and what not (in what state would have I been if it hadn't been for her financial support?) About going to a therapist—I had already mentioned it to her about half a dozen times before, I won't bother mentioning it again. And besides, I live in a trashy third world country which is unfamiliar with homosexuality and self harm, I don't think I'm gullible enough to except my life to improve at the hands of an inexperienced doctor, especially one who gets paid by the hour. My emotions always tend to vary; one minute I'm happy, but I'm completely shattered the next. I've started cutting myself again. I guess it takes my mind off suicide... Lately I've been daydreaming about killing myself a lot. What annoys me is that there's a small part of me that tells me that I'm just being dramatic, that my problems aren't valid enough to be considered problems, "Suck it up." I think of all the things that make me want to end my life so bad and most of the things that I come up with include: -the fact that I do not have friends (I just can't get along with most people), -insecurites I have of my looks and my body, -my recent drop in grades -the likelihood of me never leaving this country and not forming a family of my own -being seen as a failure by people in my life, especially by my family -how i keep letting myself down -how cliché (ish) my issues sound I really do not know what difference I'm making by typing this right now... I guess venting helps.
