Dear Javier:

I didn’t notice that you posted following my May 13 post until a short time ago. You are welcome and I am glad to read that about 8 hours ago, you touched your heart and “got this calming feeling. For the first time in ages, I felt at peace”.

It’s a good start, that you felt at peace for the first time in a long time. Question is how to extend that feeling of being at peace so that you can sleep at nights, get stronger, and be at the beginning of your road, and not at the “End off the Road” (the title of your thread). I want to address two topics in my effort to help you with the beginning of your road. You may not be open to examine these two topics, and that’s okay, it is your choice and I respect your right to choose for yourself. The second topic involves looking into your childhood a bit, trying to better understand how your guilt regarding your mother came about. If you don’t want to go there, you are welcome to not read (and not respond to) the second topic.

First topic, drug addiction and SSRI medications, ex. Prozac:  You wrote on May 9: “my therapist would ‘inappropriately’ prescribe me psychiatric drugs like Imipramine and Prozac. I have struggled with heavy drug addiction in my teens. MDMA and cocaine were used on a daily basis”-

– Imipramine is an antidepressant that is not an SSRI. Regarding SSRIs, I don’t think that there is any scientific evidence that SSRI drugs are inappropriate for people who were addicted to MDMA, or other street drugs. Taken from the Ashwood Recovery website (outpatient rehab facilities located in Idaho, treating alcohol and drug addiction: “A lot of people recovering from drug or alcohol addiction are under the mistaken belief that antidepressants- also  knows as SSRIs- are a ‘no-no.’ This is unfortunate. Many people who have made the commitment to abstain from drugs and alcohol could greatly benefit from taking SSRIs… Because antidepressants are considered by many to be mood or mind-altering, recovering addicts or alcoholics erroneously believe using these medications would be considered a relapse. To put it bluntly, this is wrong thinking… SSRIs do not get you intoxicated. There is no feel-good buzz, no experience of euphoria, no trippy hallucinations, and no thrilling high. This is why you can’t relapse on antidepressants… Antidepressants do not work on the brain the same way that drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamines do. They just don’t get you high- plain and simple. Furthermore, it can take weeks for antidepressants to begin to work, and when they do, the change is slow and subtle… antidepressants ..are a help, not a hindrance.. They are not narcotic painkillers like Oxycodone, stimulants like Adderall, or tranquilizers like Xanax and they are not addictive”.

Second topic, Guilt: May 8: “I have always felt responsible for ruining my mother’s life”, May 13: “I still feel guilty and responsible for ruining her life”.

You shared that from the time you were about 6 to the time you were 16, your mother had an affair with a married man. You and your siblings met him, and I am guessing therefore that he spent time with you, your siblings and  mother in the apartment where you all lived. Maybe a lot of time over the years.

As you grew up from 6 to 16, you went through puberty, your sex drive developed and was as powerful, I imagine, as it is for all healthy teenage boys. As your own sex drive was getting stronger, you were well aware that your mother (who was in her 30s, I am guessing) was having sex with that married man, a man who was not your father, and who had a wife and children of his own.

I know that lots (if not all) of pre-teen and teenage boys feel uncomfortable at the thought/ mental image of their mother having sex, even if it is with their father. I think that it is possible that you were angry at your mother in these circumstances. Anger may be behind you not asking your mother how she felt, etc. (“I’ve never asked her how she felt, never shown any concerns or any caring”, May 8), and behind your choice to not visit her during your 10-year career on the cruise ship (“During my off-times, usually 2-3 weeks a year, I used to stay at home, all by myself, and maybe visit my mother and siblings once or twice.. I just met my mother a dozen times in a span of 10 YEARS (!)”

Anger may be behind the demons, negativity and poison that you mentioned here: “my mind is killing me, the demons inside me are torturing me… I have too much negativity inside me, too much ‘poison'”, May 11.

Children who feel anger at their mothers also feel guilty, guilty for the anger, because when angry we wish some harm on the person we are angry at. Children tend to think that if they  wish harm on someone, harm may happen to that person in real-life. Maybe you feel that your mother’s health problems, her failures in life.. were all caused by your anger.

If this is the case, I can see how understanding your anger, resolving it and the guilt attached to it, will be very helpful to you.

anita