Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ruthie K on March 30, 2013 at 8:15am

I'm the survivor type, too. My sister was the first to die (leukemia, 1997) and my mother committed suicide in '98. She was completely unable to deal with her grief. My father became a mean, nasty drunk and he died last year of cancer, leaving only me.
Occasionally I watch "Intervention" on TV. The addicts almost never have "sob stories" as bad as mine, and yet they completely gave up on life. I have a brother-in-law who is a junkie and he claims that life is just too tough, but the worst thing that has ever happened to him was his parents' divorce. Honestly, I get sick of people like that who can't keep it together. I think I'm a bit self-righteous in that regard.
This is not to say that I don't struggle. I have my moments of self-pity when I just want to be done. With everything. But I have a husband, three children, friends, and extended family who are all in my corner, rooting for me.

Permalink Reply by Jessica Granantowski on April 2, 2013 at 12:22am

Ruthie - Thank you for reaching out.  I feel the same way about the sob stories, and that feeling of "literally, NOBODY understands me" makes the whole thing so much harder to deal with.  In an intellectual and humanistic sense, I'm grateful to be alive, to be intelligent, to be healthy, to be successful, and all of those things....  on the flip side, I find small talk insufferable, people who complain about their parents abhorrent, and clearly I've developed the same self-righteousness that you're talking about.  I just moved from New York to Texas and when I see a person in their 20's or 30's panhandling, the reaction is just too much.  It's this crazy combination of "That could have been me," and "Get a freaking job!" that I really don't deal well with.

Have you found any support groups, books, or individual therapists that helped at all? 

Permalink Reply by Ruthie K on April 2, 2013 at 1:56pm

I haven't found anyone or anything that has helped. I saw a therapist for a while after my father died and I saw that I was left out of his obituary (he used to blame me for my mother's suicide and we had been estranged for a few years.) The therapist didn't really seem to get what the problem was, so I stopped going.
No one gets it. I feel like my family was in some terrible wreck and I was the only one to walk away from it, but I'm clearly injured as well.

Permalink Reply by Kate on September 20, 2015 at 11:27pm

Hi Jessica,

I just joined this site a few days ago and came upon your group and of course this discussion.

I'm in a little bit of awe right now at how much I am in agreement with how you see others when they complain about 'the little things' as well as your humanistic approach. I even wrote about this in my profile section. It's a very rare thing I think, to go through our kind of trauma (although not completely alike) and come out of it a 'survivor' with at least a grateful approach to life.  It's a struggle every single day.

I had to write and comment on it even though this thread is over two years old. 

Thank you for creating this group and do hope you are faring well in Austin.

-K