Hi Michelle, and welcome. You've certainly come to the right place if you're looking for helpful advice from lovely people. I can't even begin to imagine the enormity of what you've been through, and I'm not going to try. Can I ask what help and support you've had so far? What makes you think you make everyone unhappy? Has anyone ever told you this? Sometimes we can let negative thoughts about ourselves multiply and before we know it, we're allowing ourselves to believe all sorts of things. I'm sure you've not upset anyone x

Hi Michelle welcome to the site. That's a very hard thing to cope with,

All I can suggest is to go to GP and explain everything. I'm sure there is some

Kind of counselling he could suggest for you.

This is a good Forum for support and we would all have felt like

You have at some stage.

Hopefully we will get to know you and see how we can support you.

Hannah

Hi Lucy, I've got to counselling, I've spoken to doctors, my aunt who was my mums sister is a clinical physiologist says I might need some further help, but I just feel like I'm burdening people. I try to be this happy, bubbly person, but I feel I bring moods down with friends and family and I'm terrified of going out. So I feel like its best to stay away sometimes. I hope I haven't upset anyone I try my hardest to make people happy instead of myself. I try so hard to stay positive as I don't want my mums death to be for nothing as I know I would not be alive had it been for that horrible day all them years ago.

Hi Michelle

Welcome to the forum.

That's awful so sorry to hear that. I don't want to go into details but did you see anything that has affected you?

How long have you struggled with depression? Do you know what brings on the panic attacks?

I hope you're getting help/support as you come to terms with this.

James

I'm so sorry for your loss. I cannot imagine how you must feel and how you have handled it so far but although you may not see it, you have a lot of strength. Have you tried seeking counselling or seeing your doctor for any support as i think that would be the right support for you.

Best wishes,

Kat

My step father pushed my mum off a cliff and he took myself and my brother to that cliff the day before her death. That might have affected me as I remember that day so well. I have suffered with depression from around 9 or 10 years old. I have panic attacks with my family ... Knowing if they are safe, as my grandparent looked after me when my mum died and if anything happened to them... I wouldn't be able to cope. My grandad has already had a stroke and that was unbearable having to watch him go through that and not being able to help him, thank you James for your kind message

Perhaps you need to redirect your focus away from constantly worrying about what other people are thinking, and towards how you're feeling. Trying hard to be something you're clearly not is bloody hard work and you'll never win that battle. You can pretend to feel better, or you can get the right treatment so that you actually do. It certainly sounds as if some kind of talking therapy would be useful for you. CBT maybe. Why don't you go and see your GP again? In the meantime, stay around and get to know us all; we're a friendly bunch! X

Good Michelle I think that would really help. Let us know how you are

And how you get on.

Hannah x

Michelle try not to please people too much. It's an impossible job. It's a job where you'll always be striving to do it and always questioning if you've done it, even when you have. It would be good to focus on Michelle and make her happy because I guarantee a happy Michelle goes a long way in making those around her happy

Hi Michelle nice to meet you and welcome to the site. I can't begin either to understand how you must feel, it is horrendous. You have had a very bad deal in life so far, but it will get better I promise you. Have hope for the future. Stay with us here and we will support and help you all we can. Take care xx

wow , such a tragic past , I feel so bad for you .. what happens in early life affects most of us for the rest of our lives ..I wish I could offer some real advice but the truth is most of us cope day to day as best we can xx

Hi Michelle,

You shouldn't worry about being a nuisance as you need and deserve help with this. You're not a nuisance at all, you sound like a lovely person who has been through a very difficult and distressing time. It's not your fault.

Not really much more I can add apart from seconding everything everyone else has said. I think you will find it cathartic if you talk things through with someone.

Gentle hugs,

wanderingwallflower xx

Hi Michelle

You had a hard time losing two people who you were close to when you were so young, and it must be particularly difficult to know your father was responsible for your mother's death because that means you lost him as a 'good' father too and instead I imagine he became a bad person to you. I was thinking, when I read your post, about how as you were a toddler when all this happened you can have had very few memories from that time. However you still feel a sense of loss. I think what you feel a loss of is not the particular people but the loss of being cared for, of having 'good' parents - even if they were not perfect before the deaths. I was also thinking about PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and how for a child, especially a very young child, the loss of everything familiar and in particular familiar people, is very stressful. You will not just have felt the loss of the people though that loss will be there, but you will have felt the loss of the world as you knew it, and that is traumatic for any one and very traumatic for a young child. You say you became depressed at the age of 8 or 9 and I am wondering what happened to you then? You say you were looked after by your grandparents and my guess is that you identified with their sense of trauma and grief which will have amplified your own. I wonder how you coped between being a toddler and when you became depressed? You do not say whether you have had any form of counselling of therapy, nor whether you are able to form stable and happy intimate relationships, in other words whether you are able to trust. Sometimes when we lose people we depend upon very early in life it is difficult to trust again and how to move on from your depression depends upon whether you are able to trust within an intimate relationships now. It sounds from what you have written as though your grandparents have become emotionally like parents to you and that now you fear a repetition of the trauma of losing both your parents emotionally as a toddler. There are various ways you can be helped to overcome your sense of loss. I would suggest that you talk briefly with your GP about needing to resolve the loss of your parents when you were a toddler and ask him to refer you for psychotherapy. He may suggest CBT but although that MAY enable you to cope a little better with the depression, unresolved grief does not usually benefit in the long term from that approach. Eye movement desensitisation can be helpful in resolving trauma from the past (which the loss will have been) and psychodynamic psychotherapy is also very suitable - I qualified within that form of therapy and helped many people overcome an early sense of loss.

Suexx

How did you get on at the GPs? I hope it was helpful. x