"Venus" writes:

My life in my family has been  unhappy most of the time. My mother who is the closest person to me never understood me, never supported me no one in fact in my family did. Whatever ideas I had in the past trying to do something to change my life to have a better future was always met with criticism from them. They were always discouraging me when I tried to be independent. It is as if they spoke “different language” from my own. We are totally different emotionally. I am a sensitive, understanding they aren’t. I try not to hurt people and anyone who is close to me with what I say. They do it most of the time and don’t feel a sense of guilt over it. I think that most of the people in the world are like that. I have two older sisters. They are very controlling and domineering always asking me inquisitive questions not only  about my private life but what I do on a daily basis. They call me “child”. I think that whenever someone calls anyone a child it means that she/ he wants to dominate you. How can anyone feel free, well like that? You can only feel small and insignificant. When you are so “restricted” emotionally you aren’t likely to become a strong, successful. You aren’t able to grow up emotionally and be independent. I am not surprised that there are so many adults-children in the world, immature people.

    With such emotional background I plunged into two unsuccessful relationships. I had my first mental breakdown  when I was around 28 years old after break up with my boyfriend with little experience in people and human psychology I tricked myself into believing that the person with whom I was corresponding on the internet was my literature professor (so strong were my delusions) He sent me a photo in which the person looked like him. I would enter a chat room on the internet in which I was convinced was the professor. Initially I would  join the conversation with the people there, but soon many people wanted to talk to me in “separate windows” I gradually became convinced that these people were one person – the professor and the conversation in the  chat room was all written not by many people but by him. I became convinced that he was trying to send me some “secret message” What I would do would be to save on my computer, one computer page of that conversation and by reading it for several hours I would try to decode the “message” I decoded several of such messages which would “tell” me to burn all my photos to throw away all my clothes which I did, my jewelry, some of the books. These were all things of good quality. I became so addicted to the internet that I spent around 7 months “decoding” those messages on the internet which was a laborious process lasting several hours every day. My outlook changed. I cut my hair, I started to cover all the attributes of my feminine look. I didn’t go out anywhere. If I went somewhere I was convinced that I was followed, that people knew me, were talking about me. I was spending hours locked up in my room, lying depressed in my bed with the curtains drawn. After a few months I came to believe that it wasn’t only one professor who was sending me the coded messages but all the professors from the department on which I was studying.

       It all stopped when my computer broke down, but I transferred reading of “coded” messages from those on the internet to reading them in the letters which I was receiving. I received once a letter from my university and I was convinced that my professors were sending me there  a coded message in which was the date, the hour when they would call me. In another letter which I received from a bookstore advertising books I “decoded” that my professors wanted me to meet them. What I would do was to get on the train and go to the place where my university was – 7 hours one way. I would wait for them on the railway station and in front of the university but they never showed up. (To this day I don’t like going by train in my country.) A few weeks later it became worse and worse I think that my parents started giving me psychiatric drugs without my knowledge and consent. I stopped speaking completely to my family. I would utter a few sentences per week. I was afraid to go out of the house. I was convinced that people were following me, knew me, were talking about me. I was convinced that the priest from the Catholic radio station  which my mother was listening, was talking there about me in “coded” words. I also thought that the professors from my university were watching me through a satellite and knew what I was doing when I was outside of my house. Later I stopped going out of my house, I would spend hours in a room adjacent to mine and observe what was going on in houses next to mine to see what the people were doing and how they were behaving being convinced that everything had a meaning . I saw once people going in the street I thought that my professors arrived and that they were “showing” me some messages with they way they were walking (some behind others) (To this day I don’t like spend a lot of time in this room.) I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I would spend evenings for several months in complete darkness I didn’t want to show my neighbors that anyone was living on the floor of my house. I thought that I was observed by people (It is all very strange when I think about it now.) I had no control over my behavior, it is as if some stronger force was pushing me to behave like that. I think that the psychiatric drugs were pushing me to behave like that.

    I had lots of crying periods without a reason. I was very aggressive towards myself. At that time my father was drilling in our new  bathroom making huge noise in the house. It lasted all days long for weeks. I would bang my head against the wall. I would also beat my head, my legs with my fists with all my force. I had plenty of bruises over my body. The noise and the drugs  made me full of violence for myself. I lost control over my behavior and over what was happening in my mind. The drugs made me feel worse. I couldn’t understand what was happing to me. I think that pharmaceutical companies make huge profits making people feel miserable on the assumption that the cause of mental illness is chemical. If the drugs were actually so effective people who take them for long years would be healthy after years of chemical therapy but it isn’t like that. The drugs made me violent, more delusional. I felt tremendous mental pain. I had  daily panic attacks which lasted for weeks.

      One day my parents asked the priest to come to the house to talk to me, as I stopped talking to them and was isolating myself. He came and asked me why I wouldn’t talk to him or anybody. The experiences from the internet were still fresh all the time in my mind. I didn’t want to talk to him and my parents locked the door so that I couldn’t get out of the house. I felt really bad and  humiliated that they put me in such a situation. I wanted to go to my university that day to “meet my professors” and they held me locked in the house. They didn’t allow me to open the door and were watching me to stay inside. Another day they asked a psychiatrist to come and visit me. She came and was aggressive and imposing herself on me. I barely spoke at that time. I must have been taking huge doses of the psychiatric drugs. Once my father called for an ambulance to take me to hospital. I was terrified and afraid of people. I locked the door to the part of the house where my room was. When the doctor arrived they couldn’t enter. My father damaged the door. When they entered my floor I locked myself in my bathroom and didn’t want to go out and talk to them. My father damaged the door to my bathroom too. My father told them to take me to hospital to examine me. I refused to go. They tried to use force. They said that if I don’t go with them they will put me in a strait jacket. I think that it was against the law to treat me like that. I was so ashamed that anyone could see me in a strait jacket that I went with them and my father. My father didn’t relate to me at that time as normal, sensitive father would to a daughter but simply ordered me to do things. When we got to the hospital I escaped back home.

      At that time I was convinced that people spoke in a  predetermined way I believed that you could respond to some questions only in a special “pattern”. I thought that to some questions there was only one possible response. My thinking was seriously damaged. I watched movies to see how people answered to each other’s questions, how they behaved. I thought that people’s reactions were also predetermined. I felt very confused and weak. I had a very low self esteem. I didn’t believe in myself and my abilities. I knew nothing about being assertive.  I was very suggestible. I didn’t know  how to relate to people, how not to be   used or dominated. I didn’t know what were “ psychologically normal” behaviors. With such thinking I was easily dominated by my family. At that time I came to believe that the professors sent someone for me to bring me in the car to them. Every time I left home I would take all the personal  things with me hoping for the car to stop and take me to the university. Once I left the house in the evening and went to the bus stop (There was a huge noise in my house from the drilling) I waited at the bus stop for the car. I was in such a bad state that if some car stopped and the driver offered  to give me a lift I would think that it was the person sent by the professors to take me to them and I would go with him. In this way I could be easily kidnapped. Fortunately no car stopped to offer me to give me a lift. Another time I came to believe that the professors wanted to meet me not far from my house. It was evening I would go to the place near which there was forest and complete darkness.  Fortunately nothing bad happened to me.

    All the time at that time  because of the drugs I heard constant ringing in my head -the sound of the ambulance. I was afraid of police cars I thought that they were following me when I saw one. I would speak to myself convinced that the professors could also hear me in my house. I felt very lonely. The habit of speaking to myself would remain with me for the next years being on the psychiatric  drugs all the time. When I was with my next boyfriend waiting for him to come home from work  I was in such a bad mental state that I needed several hours to talk to myself to be able to utter any sensible sentence to him when he came home. I felt all the time tense and unconfident. I  would talk for several hours to myself before he came home not to sound too depressed. I came to believe that if he saw me depressed he would lose interest in me and leave me which he eventually did months later. I think that if the man does it for such a reason it means that  he is immature. Life is never pink. If he couldn’t give me support in such moments it means that life with him would be a disaster. There are a lot of men who want their girlfriends to look good, to be happy, stable. Very few people look if they are compatible in opinions, and mentality. Maybe that’s why so many relationships are unhappy or fall apart.

     I was standing in a shop yesterday I saw a young mother with a small child who wanted an ice cream. She didn’t want to buy it to him telling him that he is ill. The boy started crying. I think that that she should have bought it to him and explain to him that ice cream aren’t too good for the health and can cause cholesterol. I am sure that the child would become more responsible. Some mothers don’t talk to their children, don’t explain things to them. In this way the child will always feel like a child –small and confused. I think that parents should guide their children staring from the small age teaching them about life and the world explaining things to them, and keeping an eye on them so that they don’t make a mistake in the life.

   I think that people become mentally  ill and depressed because they aren’t respected by their families. In my family people aren’t polite they will not ask you to do something with “Can you…” phrase but just simply tell you do this or that. I feel very bad when my family doesn’t ask me politely to do things. I think where there is culture, politeness there is more understanding and support between people. People don’t become hysterical.  I always end up with a mental collapse after my sister’s visit. When she was here last time she would tell me in the street to “go faster” to “wait” She had a remote control to my person and was changing the channels. She kept telling me that I have a mental problem that there is something wrong with me, telling me that I am a weak person because things like noise disturb me. I have to be assertive in my family. My sister is very domineering and controlling very similar to my mother.

There is a man who has a cottage in the forest near my house. He keeps on pounding on the metallic roof repairing it probably making huge noise. He has been doing it for several months now. The cottage is very small. I think it is very sadistic as he keeps on doing several hours per day every day. My windows are closed  and I can hear unbelievable noise. I told my mother that it is sadistic and that this man has no consideration for the neighbors. I told her that I would go to this guy and tell him to stop. She replied that it isn’t a problem for her and that I exaggerate and that I have a problem. This is how my mother can understand me. I think that depressions and mental illnesses are caused by such “understanding” mothers as my own. Another day on Sunday she criticized me for cleaning the carpet on that day (when people go to church) Sometimes I don’t feel that I live in my own house. Such things can gradually drive people on the brink of mental breakdown.

Yesterday I wanted to make a phone call, my mother saw me standing near the phone and asked me who I was calling. This is limitation of my freedom. It happened before in the past. I really feel depressed because of this. I am an adult and she wants to control me and my life. They say that people become depressed and mentally ill due to chemical imbalance in the brain. I think it is so untrue. I don’t think that chemicals in my brain make me hurt and consequently depressed but my family’s actions towards me do. Yesterday I also noticed that some of my things have been damaged. I think that my father does it. In my bathroom I found some stains on my bath sponge. I also noticed paint stains on the floor. It happened also in the past. I often found my things in different places than I had put them. I now lock the door of my room whenever I leave the house.

Some time ago I was having a number of bisexual dreams. Once I dreamt that I masturbated and I felt frustrated and wished that I had a penis. I think that it points to my bisexual conflict that I would like to have a masculine part of the body and not a feminine one like breasts. In another dream I dreamt that I made love to a woman. I felt really fine after the dream. I once dreamt also that I was dancing with a woman and later with a man. I think that it points to my bisexual nature. A few months ago I also dreamt that I had no breasts and in that dream I saw my sister with a baby. I also dreamt that I made love to a woman with breasts and penis. When I was ill I thought all the time that I have a GPS attached to my clothes (gloves, shoes, jackets, bags watch- which I threw away because of this) and that I am followed by the whole town. I read almost everything in the online Truman library “to decipher” in my mind the coded messages I thought my friend who owns the website  with whom I am in love for our secret meeting. I also thought that he was sending me coded messages via email. I would act under the influence of the moment and go to a different town or very far in the mountains to meet him. I was afraid of the cameras. I thought that people were taking photos of me. I thought that everybody knew me and that everybody was talking about me. I was also afraid of numbers. Anything which seemed illogical to me like this mark and a number # 111 or long numbers. I also thought that some things which I watched on TV were untrue  or done on purpose to send me some sort of message like the fires in California at the end of last year. I thought that people did that on purpose. I also saw at that time a program on some plane which – which they built (the biggest in the world) which could take several hundred people on board. I thought that this was untrue. I thought that the  people were trying to send me some message. The reminiscence of it all is very painful for me. I have made a huge recovery thanks to my friend. At that time I also thought that people were eavesdropping my phone calls, that everything was planned (to destroy me, to persecute me.) When I was ill I didn’t realize that I was ill and that something was wrong with my thinking. Once I went to a telephone booth from which I wanted to call my friend. I noticed some woman who was sitting there. I thought that he was dressed up as this woman. I think that it points to my bisexual conflict.

Today I wanted to rake the grass which my father had cut yesterday. I wanted to take it to a nearby forest, my father ordered me to burn it. I told him not to tell me what to do and he called me an idiot and was shouting at me across the street. Does anyone has any doubts why people become mentally ill? It is curious that in normal loving families people don’t become depressed and mentally ill. The previous year in winter there was a lot of smoke in the hall in my house from the coal oven which we have to heat the house. I opened the window to air the hall and my father ordered me to close it. When I opened it again he put nails onto the window so that I couldn’t open. In the next weeks I became paranoid. It is hard for me to believe that it was due to chemical imbalance in my brain. I became ill because of my crazy father.

I think that my bisexual conflict made me ill twice, caused me delusions. (The atmosphere in my house made it worse). The conflict between my masculine and feminine self if I understand this well with predominance of my masculine side. I think that I was confused to which gender I belong feminine or masculine. I repressed my masculine side which caused my paranoia. It took me awhile to discover my feminine side. I feel well now thanks to my friend  Mike. It has been a long journey in my psyche. I wish everyone who is afflicted with any mental problems to undergo psychoanalysis, this is the only cure which can help, no drugs can help. I think that drugs can only confuse you more. The psychiatrists I think have no idea how to treat mentally ill people, they have no idea for a successful talk therapy. They are so little “intelligent” that the only thing they can offer is drugs which are dangerous for the mind and body.

My message to all the mentally ill people is: Don’t talk about your problems to chemical psychiatrists- they have no clue what you are going through. It won’t help you to talk to someone who doesn’t understand your problem.

Mike I was yesterday in the mountains. I saw many mothers with small children. They were shouting at their kids and were despotic driving the kids to hysteria and crying. You see this a lot in my country. I really don't like it. Parents can't talk to their children and be reasonable with them and use a sense of humor to calm them down.The kids are intelligent people and would listen to the reasonable arguments of their parents. I think that some parents consider their kids a possession not  human beings with feelings.

When I was ill I had lots of delusions. Very often there  was a helicopter flying over my house. I was convinced that the people inside were making a “movie’ about what was going on in my room. ( I don’t draw curtains) I thought that they were sent by someone to see what my room looked like and what I was doing. I was very noise sensitive at that time (probably due to the drugs) Whenever I heard someone use a horn several times in the street, when I was out  I thought that they wanted to upset me and did that on purpose to make me feel like this. I would become hysterical and irritated very easily (also probably due the drugs.) If I went out for a walk with my mother I believed that she was recording our conversation to show it to the psychiatrist. I know now that mentally ill people very often have these sort of illusions of being followed or they believe that their conversations are recorded. Now I realize only this, that people in my country are mainly impolite (noisy-drivers, people here aren’t so kind, open and friendly like in the US. In such an unfriendly, stressful atmosphere you are more like to become ill) I think that someone should give the people here and everywhere in the world a LOVE LESSON. Now I realize that these were only delusions and that people should say to each other more often I LOVE YOU.

I recently had a dream that I made love to a woman. I think that it points to my bisexual conflict. I think that the psychiatrists who think that drugs cure depression are wrong. Psycho-analysis seems like the best therapy where patient talks about what bothers him without being interrupted too much and asked too many questions thus being able to gain insight to his problem. I once went to a psychologist who asked lots of inquisitive questions which had nothing to do with my depression. I felt much worse when I left his office. I don't recommend to anyone suffering from depression or schizophrenia going to a psychiatrist who doesn't offer psycho-analytically oriented therapy. This kind of psychiatrist is going only to offer the psychiatric drugs which are dangerous to the mind and body. They can cause diabetes, heart disease, hair loss, tremors, aggression, irritation, suicidal thinking, blurred vision, paranoid thinking. These drugs don't cure schizophrenia but cause lots of bad side effects. I think that all mentally ill people are unassertive people. The good treatment for them is also assertivness training.