I thought I needed to get this off my chest and thought this would be the place to do it.

I had some success on South Beach last year. I lost between 25-30 lbs. But gave up....not really just giving up way of eating but was ready to give up everything. I cant explain how I felt but will try. It's like I am every one in my family's emotional crutch....everyone calls Sherry when they needs an ear, some help, some money(which I dont have...lol). I have had so much to happen in my own life in the past couple of years.....My precious Mama and Papa both passed away....Mama very suddenly and Papa after months of hanging on and trying to fight. They had raised me and were like my parents....so my feeling of loss is huge.....still is even now.......and on top of that I had been dealing with my youngest daughter's abuse....she was sexually abused by a family member that is a minor......so I had to end contact between them so she could try and get to feeling better.

With everything that had happened I guess I just sort of snapped maybe. I decided that I did not want to live anymore. I even had a detailed account of how I felt, how I was going to kill myself and how sorry I was for being so selfish.....I had letters written to family members and had started the process of leaving video messages for my husband and children.........I had all this written in my journal(handwritten)......I know that my husband had to know something was up with me because I must have been behaving wierd....(breaking down)....so he snooped...read my journal and confronted me.....I lied and told him I had read on the net that it is good to put your feelings onto papaer then burn them......I told him that is what I was doing. I am not sure if he believed me or not........This was in October by the way.....going into November. I guess I had a clear moment and knew that I needed some help or something.......so I went to a local mental health facility and talked to someone.....this was getting close to Thanksgiving.....then it happened
.....
.....my daughter that had been abused......whom I am sure I had been neglectful to during my melt down......cut herself and said she wanted to die.......talk about a wake up call......she spent a week in a mental health hospital to be put on medication and recieve intense therapy. She got out the day before Thanksfiving. It's like since that happened I have snapped out of my depression......I have to be there for my children. We went through the holidays.....it was hard.....We couldnt all get together because we stay away from the boy that abused my daugher so we had Thanksgiving and Christmas alone mostly... We did have dinner with my mom and dad but no one else was there.

After Christmas my head was so much more clear.......but my body had gained all the weight back........and I knew that I had to do something to take care of myself if I wanted to be here to take care of my family.......I am in the process of learning to say no to others without feeling those pangs of guilt. There is nothing wrong with saying I'm sorry but I'll have to call you back later when I have more time or I don't want to discuss that, it doesnt really concern me, sorry......

SO with all that said.....I am definately a work in progress.....in more ways than one.

Thanks for coming back. You've really been through the mill recently, and it's great that you're picking up. You've really done well to deal with all the terrible things that have happened so that you're now coming out the other side.

For your daughter, I've learnt that the biggest help for abused children seems to be validation. Just letting them know that what happened was bad and shouldn't have happened. Healing itself though, will take time.

Books that I've found helpful include those written by Alice Miller, and also Overcoming Childhood Trauma by Helen Kennerley.

If you ever want to chat, PM me and I'll give you my msn and ICQ nos.

Hello Slynng,
Welcome back to the forum, you and your family has been through such a difficult time, I know how you felt. I had reach dark places in my life also. I don't think that my family or friends quite knew how bad it was, I am really good at surpressing my dark feeling to the outside world, but it was getting more and more difficult. I was eating to comfort myself, getting up during the night to drown my sorrow in Ice Cream, somedays as soon as the kids left for school I would go back to bed etc.. Everyone put it down to my coming close to change of life, but I knew better.
Then almost 14 weeks ago my SIL called and told me she was going to do Atkins to lose weight and if I wanted to join her, I did and also started taking vitimin D. Well the rest of the world remains the same but I am now in control of my eating, their are still days when things get to me, but now I know to walk away or deal with it. I laugh so much more and my DH and children sees the diffrence... Things are good.
I thank you for sharing this with us. I know it hard to write all our difficult things that happen in life, but I am glad to know that you are back and you will be taking charge of your life again. I am so sorry about your daughter, and so inorder for your daughter to heal you have to be there for her and for the rest of your family.
I will check on you from time to time.
Hope today you are feeling somewhat better.
Warmest Regards,
Joy

Seriously, your daughter has a good head start over many abused kids - YOU.

The most damaging thing about being abused as a child (or suffering other traumas, eg. big car crashes, witnessing murder, your home burning down or whatever) in the long term seems to be when it's ignored, not recognised, when the kid can't let it out and/or isn't shown that it was something that shouldn't have happened - Alice Miller calls this having a "knowing witness". Having you there for her, particularly as you recognise the issues, is a *really* big deal. You recognised that she was being abused and dealt with the situation in order to help her.

As an adult survivor of (physical) abuse, I think that was why I got so screwed up myself - not having even witnesses acknowledge to me that I was getting a raw deal. Your daughter has that because you are already there for her. Please, give yourself credit where it's due.

There are various therapies out there which may help, and I'm sure your local mental health services can tell you about them, but one which is supposed to help with trauma is EMDR (eg. see http://www.emdr.com/ ). I intend to try this myself soon, as my best friend works in a similar field and has offered to hook me up with local practitioners.

Oh, and another book which I've found extremely useful is Instinct to heal (author's website is http://www.nofreudnoprozac.com/ ). I've had more progress taking on just two of his suggestions in the last 6 months than I've had in the last couple of years of maintenance anti-depressants (though the pills and cognitive therapy really helped at crisis time).