Nuts (Triggering)

I'm from Canada, but thanks for looking for resources. I feel that the Americans are further ahead on disabled rights than we Canucks.

My family lives 8 hours away by car. My parents were the ones who tried to have me declared incompetant and institutionalized. They rushed down to where I was hospitalized for depression last spring and told me not to go back to my apartment.

They were very nice to me before the Power of Attorney was signed. Too nice. I was their verbal punching bag for the first 22 years of my life. They harboured bitterness and anger towards me, for that 1 1/2 years in the psych hospital, for a botched operation and much more. I was screamed at for crying too much, for being immature. In the summer of 1992, I had a right hip surgically removed and I was screamed at when the surgery did not provide instant and total pain relief. In fact, it clearly made matters worse. This while a nurse coming in to help care for me was telling me how well I was doing, considering I was now minus a hip joint. So I asked her to tell my father that. She did and then Dad yelled at me again when she was gone...for revealing a "private family matter".

Among the worst things about that first botched operation, aside from waking up from the surgery shrieking in agony (age 12) and permanent nerve damage, was the anger I felt my parents directing at me. The pain of that is with me still. I wasn't going to take the fall for a second botched operation, especially for a surgery I never wanted in the first place, so I "decided" to move out.

My father tried to stop me by informing me that if I moved out: "All my friends would abandon you like everyone else has."

I've been a hermit for much of my life because I figured other people would treat me just like my parents had or worse. The only time I was safe from the yelling was when I was at summer camp, in hospital for surgery, or when my parents left me with a baby sitter. It's hell to know that you actually look forward to surgery because then your parents won't be around to yell. I was hospitalized hundreds of miles away. They called once a week and visited when there was major surgery or if something went wrong. And the first sound I heard when I got home was my dad yelling at a sibling.

At age 8, I dreaded my father coming home from work, right around the same time I tried to run away from home. I tried to tunnel through the wall of my bedroom by using a toy to chip a hole in the plaster wall. In those days, I was going to a special school and they had a tendancy to overreact. Drawing a tank in my writing book basically got me deprived of 1960's Batman for several years.

Family counselling sessions consisted of my parents pointing a finger at me and screaming about what a hardship I was. I'd go to private counselling sessions and return home for more yelling. My father had me pedalling 15 km a day in 45 minutes on a stationary bike, with my legs. I was and am confined to a wheelchair. My bones were so fragile I had a broken leg every six months.

I never questioned what my parents did until that hip removal. Hip dislocation is a side effect of cerebral palsy and I was too young for a replacement. I hid the pain from my parents for a year before my father found out, because I feared the surgery would go wrong.

Last summer, my parents were saying wonderful things to me. My mother went on and on about how families stick together through thick and thin, this while making plans to place me in a nursing home and commenting to the case manager about how it was easier to deal with me while I was in pain. I asked my team to stop co-operating with my parents for that comment, which no one had any reason to make up. It was the case manager who told me what my rights were.

My father phoned me to try and pressure me back into line. When I refused, my mother sent me a nasty e-mail.

Synopsis of letter

" I am very upset with the decision you made.You once listened to a so-called 'friend' and left us years ago.

You had the right to do what you did, but you have not figured out that families are there for one another through thick and thin. Clearly you are not interested in having a family. Tomorrow morning, we will make arrangements with the power company and you will be responsible for your bills once again. You are now on your own. I wish you well but you will not turn us away a third time."

They were helping me with a $1200 debt and that ended when I refused to co-operate with them. The next day, my psychiatrist told me what my parents were trying to do to me. He thought it was funny.

I was withdrawn even from family for most of my life because of the yelling. That withdrawal was the real reason for my 18 months in the hospital. My mother lied to me about that reason for years. I've had no friends until recently and I am shocked when people treat me well. My siblings were never even told why I was in a wheelchair. My sister had to go digging thru a desk in secret to find that out. You would also be hard pressed to find a photo with me in a wheelchair and there were only a handful of photos of me after age 12 when confinement to my wheelchair became permanent.

My family has lived in stigma and fear for years. It's taken me years to figured out just how messed up my parents are. Depression runs rampant in our family. I feel responsible. Communication is not one of our strong points. My siblings at best don't know what is going on and sometimes even taunted me when I was being yelled at. My hobbies and interests were systemically attacked and my father treated me like he felt I was an idiot. And they wondered why I never made progress in therapy.

My siblings are all living close to my parents.

It wasn't like me to consider suicide an option. I changed churches because of their stand on euthanasia, in favor of one that was pro-life. I had been showing symptoms of depression for much of my life. But when my chronic pain was diagnosed, the depression exploded. I've had to fight the urge to make suicidal gestures and feel like my life is over.

The business over my "family" didn't help. Ironically, my parents pushed me to fight for disability rights with my "disabled friends". Had they been concerned about my well-being, my parents would have told me to stay far away from the people who wanted to use my pain to manipulate me.

My mother works with terminal cancer patients. Their "help to me" over the past 16 years was to drive down twice a year with groceries, put in or take out a second hand air conditioner and go home. No letters, no phone calls....my stress and fear skyrocketed whenever my parents came down here...and from this, they pleaded "burnout" with MY DOCTORS, MY PSYCHIATRISTS, MY FRIENDS. My mom is still working so she can "maintain her dog in the way it's used to."

It's been like that all my life...my parents point fingers at me, scream at specialists to jump and the specialists would comply. I am now an emotional quadriplegic and a physical wreck of a human being. I invited my first friend over only this year....I wasn't allowed that growing up.

I have lived with low self-esteem and fear of other humans for my entire life. Psychiatry hasn't even come close to addressing the real issues that are driving my depression. Psychiatrists have told me "You're depressed because you can't do things other able-bodied intelligent people do." I was in too much shock to put these people in their place and I was treated like dirt in the ER during my last psychiatric emergency.

I know there is something deeply wrong with my suicidal feelings, not morally wrong, just something deeply wrong in my brain. My chronic pain has obviously changed my brain workings somehow. I now have high prolactin levels, heart problems and weekly migraines. I can only find temporary peace at a nearby church. It sickens me to come home, even to my two cats. The priest who knows me best and who I trusted is changing parishes. I will never see him again...that's not the reason for thinking of death but it is a serious blow. He knew how hard it was for me to reach out, talk about my issues and make friends. He also knew my heart had been broken more than once.

Before my parents rushed to the mental hospital, I had nightmares three nights in a row about their taking away my apartment and putting me in a nursing home...and that's what they tried to do.

I am scared to take my own life, but those thoughts keep coming, even when they are unwanted. They cause uncalculated pain and take away what little quality of life I now have. I certainly wouldn't grieve if a terminal illness were to strike me down...that is what the past five years have done to me...and what my parents tried to do was just the last straw.

I have also been pouring massive amounts of sweat from my body for no reason, adding to my misery. I can only take things one day at a time, but I am in a world of hurt and it just keeps getting worse.

I keep trying to understand why I could be disowned for not going into a dismal human warehouse and forfeit my cats, my books and my rights. I do have some one coming in twice a day, but there is friction with some of the staff.

I am so sorry to hear about all that you have been through - I feel unqualified to respond because I'd hate to say anything that would make you feel worse especially since I understand that once people have gotten under your skin even the smallest wrong statement can hurt so bad it might just be akin to having to deal with cerebal palsy (I hope I'm not overdramatising it or belittling your illness).

I do feel I can possibly explain the sudden sweating. It sounds to me like your body is having panic attacks. Because it cannot give you more pain (what you already go through sounds pretty unbearable) and I presume you've probably cried your fair share of tears, etc, it's getting you through sweat (or that is the new symptom that you are noticing). I have really bad panic attacks where my whole body shakes like I'm freezing but I'm boiling hot to the touch and sweat bucket loads whilst I cry insensently. And even between panic attacks I can sweat horrendous amounts whilst doing nothing to warrant such a physical response - nothing but be overwhelmingly stressed that is. I hope you manage to work on some of what is stressing you because then I believe that symptom will go away in time...

I'll reiterate what everyone has been saying: please do stay on here and keep writing (you are indeed a wonderful writer) and I hope you find some comfort in the fact that people do exist who aren't going to judge you or put you a 'category' because you're in a wheelchair or belittle what you are going through but simply want to be here to listen because you are a wonderful person who deserves so much better.

Hi Hamstergirl

I am glad you came back.  Your story is one that reads like...a book.  You are very articulate and outspoken.  The name you call yourself...can you tell us more about that? 

I hadn't known you are from Canada.  If you need us to look up any resources for you please let us know. 

What help can this community be for you?  We are a bit powerless to do much on an internet site but to give you an opportunity to share your story and to provide you with emotional support.

What brought you to this site?  How did you find us?  And what support can we provide to you?

Please do keep writing and sharing.  Let this be a place where you can feel safe to talk about what is going on in your life. 

I took the name "hamstergirl" when the events listed below took place. I had never had a hamster, and took the name figuring it would make it impossible for my family to find out I was writing about my past.

The events took place before my depression became severe and before suicidal ideation became a regular part of my life. I am not suicidal because I've changed my mind on euthanasia. I have a biochemical disorder of the brain of which isolation, sadness and desires for death are just some of the symptoms. I take medication and nutritional supplements to help.

I knew things were really bad when I started wanted to act out with toy guns. The suicide rate for chronic pain and depression is quite high and I knew myself to be emotionally vulnerable to begin with.

Doug is the friend I write to every day if possible. He's been here to visit. He's working with mentally ill youths because of what I've told him about depression. There are a few times he's lost it, but he's still a great friend.

I have heard stories about suicidal ideation in chronic pain patients going on for years. Even if I have the goal of wanting to fight these feelings I still suffer from them and feelings of burnout. I have met many wonderful friends at Church and despite some of the hare-brained comments some of them have made, they are still good friends, some of them, anyway.

I am real tired of fighting this out though and I have had to add two more doctors to my file. I go for a brain scan tomorrow. I had a seizure a while back, my first, that or it was my heart acting up. (I have something called Wolfe-Parkinson-White)

I wish I never had to go to a hospital again, let alone live in a "home" surrounded by uniforms. I wouldn't last two weeks in a nursing home. It would be giving up whatever I had left that made my life bearable. I figure my being in severe pain gives me the right to choose where I want to live for the rest of my life.

I was prepared to move closer to my parents, because they wanted me closer to home. It would have been extremely painful to lose all my wonderful friends. But to add to that pain by forcing me into an institution. Since they are so fixed in their vision of me and where they feel I should be, there will never be reconcilliation. I care about my family, no matter what my parents think. I am frightened of my parents and for good reason and I wish they would wake up to that fact and think long and hard about what reason I might have had for ditching a comfortable middle-class existance to live below the poverty line

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/catholic stories/cs0379.htm

Hi Hamster Girl,

You probably have never heard of me, I go by the name of Smomdukes, that is what my girls have called me all of their lives.  That is what I call my mom, she now has Old Timers or better known as Alzimers, she was a school teacher.  Now I have MS now aint that a blimp.  But life does go on.  Let me lay my life story out for you.  I was told at age 44 that I had MS all my life but at the ripe age of 44 is when it decided to rear it's lovely head.  Wrecked all of my life's dreams.  But I had at least raised my two daugthers, they were in marching band, competion cheerleading, on the debate team, and girls choir.  So you see my life was busy.  I was over the youth at church, with the band group, the girls were with a baton twirling organization, then MS said, it's time for me to come out, and it did!  My whole entire life changed.  I went from walking 4 miles every morning before I went to work, to not being able to walk 4 steps down the the hall of my home.  I have broken, my ankle, my knee, my shoulder, (twice) and my leg all within on years time.  I can no longer wear my Prada high heel shoes, or my Jimmy Choo heels, I hve to wear, nine west flats, white mountain flats, hand painted kenya's or I will probably break my ankles.  I have toi use canes, now most of them are hand craved, and I have to use a wheel chair in the afternoons due to severe fatique.  Now tell me it that is not enough to make one want to jump off a bridge.  I could, but life does go on.  I have to go on.  No one said that life was going to be easy, if they did they lied.  Life is not easy, If you have an auto aumune illness with no cure in site like I have life is tougher, but you have to keep moving.  Sucide is the point of no return.  That is not the anwser.  Step back take a deep breath count to 10 and let's try it again.  It is not going to be easy, it never is, but then it would not be fun then, right?  Think about it, let me know your thoughts, I am always around.  Sherry/smomdukes

Hi HAMSTER GIRL, I read your story with horror. Im from IRELAND, whilst Im not in  your position, Ive been abused/put down all my life for suffering from Nerves/Anxiety and Depression. My Grandmother reared me because my mother totally rejected me and went on to have 7more by the same man.. my father. I understand Isolation, Hamster Girl, I understand being thought of as an 'EMBARRASMENT' when I was in psychiatric hospital in the 60s [Not a nice place to be in Ireland in the 60s] I suffered great abuse from the psychiatric staff, over prescribing of tablets and sexual abuse from a well know psyciatrist [I was cute enough to realise that if I retaliated, Id never get out of that Hospital, so I pretended it didnt happen! I was 5stone and couldnt keep down any food, not one -My Grandmother, her daughter [my Aunt and guardian too] came to see my, nobody was to be told. Basically Hamster Girl, like u, I was an embarrassment, something to be hidden away.   I wasnt allowed to sit at the table because I had an awful Tremor and my grandparents eldest sons, [my moms brothers] couldnt stand it... so I stayed in my Bedroom.   I am not in any way trying to put my own human suffering on a par with yours, this site isnt about that. What I got through every day is more than I can bear at times.I do want u 2 know that this is a really good Site, the people are absolutely wonderful. We all share one thing.. we suffer a great deal of Depression and Pain, few have had good upbringing.  You have come to the right site Hamster Girl.  If my arms could reach across the Atlantic Ocean from Dublin to Canada, Id give you  a Hug for being so Godamn Brave, I mean that !! youre a true survivor. Your parents have huge problems, unfortunately theyve become your problems, you have people here on this Site who CARE, SUPPORT.  YOU ARE HOME !

It would be a pity to give in to suicidal ideation now,just when youve found us !! I and many others onl the site know what its like to feel blackness,hollowness and a feeling of wanting to end it all.    the thing is... Ive a feeling that youre getting your own power back, mentally, spiritually. Many people with your illness live independent lives  even here in Ireland, infact there is a lady up the road from me here who lives in an apartment which is tailormade for her needs.   You made the right decision not to give up your Autonomy and go into the 'Home'. I love Cats too, and books, I live alone without any family support and its wonderful to have your own place. We all get into debt. Its hard trying to make ends meet. Your parents have tried everything from emotional blackmail to 'terrorising you fiscally' about the money issue... and youve stood your ground so to speak ! Well done.  Ive a feeling [genuinely] that things will start to look up for you from here on in. Be kind to yourself.  Enjoy your independence living alone, the visitors that help are an intrusion but try and keep the right side of them, Its never too late to start again.. I DO realise youve got a very painful illness. I understand bad pain. I  have Rheum.Arthritis which is slowly taking away my mobility. The worse pain is the pain from uncaring people.  You need to slowly build up a group of caring and intelligent friends. There has to be an association for people with your illness? Only those who suffer understand.  We understand depression, Were here for you. I just want to applaud your bravery,constancy,insight into your life and your sheer grit in the face of so much Adversity. Hamster Girl... your life is just beginning. Stay with us.. 

I signed that Power of Attorney because my father said he needed it to help me. I knew that my parents couldn't force me anywhere unless something bad happened to me.

My parents saw it as their way to force me back to their neck of the woods. They thought once my signature was obtained they were home free. They said nothing of what they were planning to me, but were telling my friends, my carers and my doctors and specialists that I needed to be institutionalized. And the people they were talking to were coming to me with very alarming and painful statements, the worst of which was: "We can't be her parents any more unless she's in an institution.

Understand that it took me 22 years for me to understand I was being abused. I knew I never wanted my right hip removed, but I was pushed into it. I feared it would make matters worse and events vindicated my beliefs...and my parents wanted me to take the blame for my worsened condition. They blame me for my condition worsening as I got older, they blame me for the depression, they'd blame me for the Crucifixion if they could find a way.

The day my parents confronted me about my moving out, it was the day after my 22nd birthday. I tried to give my parents two choices, even if I was in tears and in terror of them both:Stop the yelling or I'm gone.

I was not going to take the blame for a second operation going wrong, especially if it was going to make me hurt even more. I was so desperate to end the yelling one way or the other. I asked my sole best friend at the time to be with me, when my parents confronted me, so they wouldn't intimidate me into going back with them for study week. Once in the van, I would have needed their help to leave the van, and the van, as my sister once said, "was Dad's favorite place to yell". Especially on eight hour car trips. It's a long way from Hull to London (I've changed city names to protect those involved.)

My parents actually invited me to lunch that day, obviously thinking to lure me to the van. They came there solely to yell and they wanted me to go back to my dorm room so they could scream at me in private. They didn't like being left to yell in an on-campus restaurant or asking a friend to be there to support me. They spent much of their time trying to humiliate me in front of me and tell him how incompetant I was. They made no attempt to lower their voices and my father even tried to start a fist fight with my friend....and my friend was like "Bring it ON!" As far as my parents were concerned, my friend had no business being there because he wasn't the parent of a disabled child.

It was during this argument that I was informed that one of my uncles had recently died. I knew he was disabled and retarded and in an institution, but my parents basically hid all other details from me. I've never even seen this uncle's face in a photograph. "Don't you care that your uncle has just died???" my father screamed.

Then my mother dropped a bombshell. I have scoliosis, a spinal curve that affects my breathing. I had had three operations during my teenage years to try and fix it. Now in trying to scare my friend off, my parents told him that my spine "could collapse by the time she's thirty". Thru much of the argument, they yelled at him as if I weren't there and they addressed this news to him as if I were there. My mother and dad were sitting at a very small table with me. I could have touched them easily and they were acting as if I weren't there and my feelings didn't matter. "You never told me this!" I told my mother. "We didn't want to worry you."

Their last words to me before storming out was "We hope you're happy you won!" Before leaving me to collapse sobbing into the arms of my friend. I spent the next six months spiraling down into full-blown depression, of which I had had symptoms of my whole life but especially at university. I spent months going into panic attacks because I thought my scoliosis was going to kill me. I was in hospital for depression by September. My big brother phoned me while I was out on a pass. When I tried to tell him about the yelling. he told me to "cut Mom and Dad some slack. They've had a hard life." I wasn't aware they had surgery scars or nerve damage!

My older brother and my sister have been making noises for years about how Mom and Dad had changed and were completely different. Sitting in my psychiatrist's office, it was Mom and Dad at their usual, brutal behavior. Screaming at people and telling them about what a hardship I was. They wrote a letter to my psychiatrist pleading with him to institutionalize me and sent a copy to every doctor and bureaucrat on my file. They way they wrote that letter, my psychiatrist couldn't tell who wrote it, because it was written like "Your mother did this and your father said that." This was a letter to my doctors, not to me and my father was a newspaper editor who had often corrected my own letters. I think they totally went bonkers last summer when they couldn't put me away on their demand.

It was the bloody case manager who had to tell me what my rights were. She was the one who phoned me about that awful remark on using pain to manipulate me. Throughout my childhood, my parents often saw me as a retarded, incompetant troublemaker who needed to be put in her place. All I could think was: "They want to use my pain to get their way, just who are they going to be sharing this information with? The staff at the nursing home?" Just rubbing my lower legs and feet with a washcloth causes me intense agony and at least one nurse did it to me in a fit of rage."

It took one final awful medical mistake to wake me up to who my parents really were. I had thought for years the abuse was my fault. I still do blame myself at times. But NOBODY gets away with using my pain to exploit me. I have been through 5 years of hell with no parole in sight. I thought surely that would glean some forgiveness from my parents for whatever wrong, real or imagined, I did them. And just recently, I have come to realize that my parents did things to me that would have likely landed them in jail on abuse charges. (What kind of sadistic brute would make a disabled family member confined to a wheelchair pedal 15 km a day on a stationary bike with HER LEGS and tell her to do it in 45 minutes. Mere trying to straighten my legs was enough to fracture my bones. Once my parents made me continue walking with my walker for three days while I had a broken leg. It was only when my schoolbus was late due to a snowstorm that my parents stripped off my snowsuit to check my lower extremities and found one leg swollen. That was when they took me to the ER.

I know I can't fix my relationship with my parents on this side of heaven. At this point, I want them to enjoy their retirement savings in peace, because they are firmly convinced of their opinion that I am a ungrateful hardship to them who has the mind the size of a kumquat. Treating disabled people as retarded turns out to be very common I later learned. And things I got screamed at for turn out to be quite common problems for raising a disabled child, or for depression. And no surgeon ever told them just what the limits of medical science were. One psychiatrist up here told me his most common clients were alcoholic surgeons of disabled children who drank because they couldn't cope with ruining so many lives thru surgery." And that psychiatrist thought he was helping me by telling me that....30 years after the damage was done and I was made to take the fall.

I know for a fact my mother has depression, maybe even bipolar disorder (she doesn't know about the latter) and suspect that my father probably sick as well. I know of mental illnesses that can cause a loved one to scream at his wife for an hour twice a day over the phone every day. A disease that can make a person scream at someone just for sending a get well card and writing beautiful sentiments. Apparently, bipolar disorder can cause more than mania and euphoria, it can cause people to scream at friends and family as well or worse....all without their realizing how sick they are.

This is the only thing that can possibly lead to my forgiving my parents, that and the fact that they had to learn the lousy way they treated me from others.

There is only so much pain that you can assume is punishment before you have to believe that something else is happening, just so you can stay sane. And the abuse has contributed to my suicidal feelings a great deal. I try to fight those feelings off, but they still come. It's hard to overcome parental harms when you fear others will treat you the same if not worse. But being alone is definitely getting to me, even if trust is a major issue.

Greetings Hamstergirl,

I have read your story and all of your comments in horror.  I can't even begin to imagine what you've been through. At the risk of sounding cliché, I really believe that someone like Dr. Phil could help you.  I'm not suggesting to go on national television and exploit yourself, but if you e-mail him, perhaps he can guide you to the right professional, in your Canadian community, who will help you in a professional but loving and respectful way. 

I too suffer from depression that came along when post partum depression didn't go away after the birth of our first child.  It is fueled by stress.  There's a name for it, but I'm not good at remembering long medical terms. Right before the time of my diagnosis, I had read a book called, "When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends".  Telling, isn't it?  I was realizing, at that time, that my mother won't change her controlling and narcissistic ways, and that if I wanted our relationship to change for the better, I actually needed to change.  I am the only girl out of four children, and I've wanted nothing more than to have a great relationship with my mother.  I do have a lot of repressed memories and for good reason I suppose.  When she and I would fight, she would become jealous of my best friend, and yell at me about turning to my friend for a shoulder to cry on (which most human beings do to stay sane). My mother comes from a heritage that prides itself in their sons.  Basically, I've become "Robert" from "Everybody Loves Raymond".  I'm constantly learning to forgive the incomprehensible things that she says and does, because just when I think I've seen and heard it all, she springs something even more outrageous on me! I've also had some experience with professionals that really put the business of psychology and psychiatry to shame, including a counselor who is priest of all people! By no means do I desire to belittle your experiences.  They are beyond anything that one would think any human being could survive. Let me tell you that the human spirit cannot be crushed!  It can be injured, but not crushed!

A story just as horrific as yours is that of my dear friend, who is about 20 years older than I, but we are like soul sisters.  Her mother, who suffered from depression as well, constantly told her that she was the child of Satan, along with a litany of other psychological abuse.  Her mother certainly had her own issues that are way too deep to go into.  The only thing that kept my friend alive was her father.  He was her angel.  My friend endured years of this abuse from her mother.  My friend became a double amputee at the age of 21.  Eventually, her mother wound up committing suicide, and my friend wore bright orange to her funeral!  My friend almost committed suicide herself, but the thought of her unborn grandson stopped her in the process, and to this day, there's a special bond between them.  She has been through allot over the years, and she realized that her mother did only the best she knew how, as all parents do (just in different ways - some better than others obviously), so my friend eventually learned to forgive her.  These days, my friend is really very spiritual and has found a sense of peace.  My point is that with forgiveness, it is possible to move beyond such a horrific past, and with allot of support and guidance, the good news is that you can find peace as well.  This is not just theory, but it is practice on my part.  I'm not perfect by any stretch, but it truly works.

Yes, Hamstergirl, you have survived your experiences for a reason. Believe it or not, even with living a hermit-like life, you have touched many lives in ways that you may not even be aware of at this time. My unprofessional take on your parents is that they didn't know how to "deal" with you because they certainly didn't understand your cerebral palsy.  Generally, when a person does not understand something, they become fearful of it, and then they start to become (yes, become) the voice of that "fear".

I'm really not a pushy person (heaven knows that my mother pushed my personality in quite the opposite direction) when it comes to religion and faith. But I'm assuming that you are a spiritual person from your story and comments. I'm fully aware that your wounds and scars run to the core, so it certainly will not be easy, but getting to a point of forgiveness will heal you.  Hamstergirl, without true unconditional forgiveness, the negatives of the past have consumed you to the point of debilitation and thoughts of taking your own life.  This is not God's plan for you.   He is waiting with open arms to heal His Beloved Child.  If you are familiar with "The Serenity Prayer", pray it often. Also think of "Footprints in the Sand", because God will carry you when you are weary from despair. Bless it and draw from its energy. Hamstergirl, do not deprive this world of your existence. It is beautiful, it is God, and it is meant to be.  With time and patience, forgiveness will bring you to the beauty and reality of an existence that is your birthright.

With loving regards....