Go Ask Aunt Becky
Dear Aunt Becky,
Let me just start out by saying, you are fucking hilarious, and great!
Okay, I have PTSD, depression, anxiety, OCD, and a bunch of other stupid shit that I can’t deal with. I don’t even know how to start with dealing with it. I have panic attacks nearly every day, but I don’t know where to turn to for help.
Last time I talked to my mom about it, she had me hospitalized, and put on suicide watch for a month (this was after 2 of my brothers killed themselves, so I know she was trying to help me not follow in their footsteps) so I can’t go to my family. I need help, I know I do. I just need help getting help, which is super fucked-up I know.
Please, please help me.. I don’t know how to get through a day with out drinking/cutting myself/or other things I know are completely unhealthy.
Do you have any suggestions, or anything? Thanks, sorry to bug you.
-M.J.
Oh Prankster MJ, my heart hurts for you. Mental illness can be such a motherfucker, can’t it?
Now, it sounds as though you’re aware that you need help, which is the first good step. The second step: finding good help, may be tougher. Many doctors will require parental consent for treatment, which it sounds like you need. Although, not the inpatient suicide-watch you’ve been on before. You don’t exactly sound suicidal to me.
It sounds to me that with the right combination of therapist and/or medication, you could begin to develop healthy coping mechanisms to replace the unhealthy ones you’ve learned to rely upon. Sure, it’ll require plenty of work on your end, but you can do it. It sounds like you’ve already managed to live through worse, which means that treatment should be breezier for someone as tough as yourself.
I’d start by calling these numbers:
Boys Town National Hotline:
1-800-448-3000
Self-Injury Foundation
1-800-334-HELP
Teen Contact:
972-233-8223
to see what sorts of advice they have for you in terms of getting the proper treatment you require. I’m not as familiar with the laws governing parental consent as I should be, but I’d be willing to bet that these people would know where to direct you to further help you.
If you’re over the age of consent, then, well, you don’t need to worry about telling your parents (unless you’re on their insurance plan). In that case, I’d make an appointment with a doctor who specializes in handling your types of issues (I’d start with PTSD for one) and see if you click. If you don’t, try another one. If you don’t like that one, KEEP GOING UNTIL YOU DO.
Because if you’re going to get treatment from someone, you do need to click. And you’ll know when you do. From there, you and your doctor can develop a proper treatment plan.
I wish you the best of luck, Prankster. Sending you loads of hugs.
Pranksters? Any other advice for MJ?
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Dear Aunt Becky,
This isn’t really an aunt becky question per se…
I mean I am asking you a question through this because I can’t figure out where else to ask you. I know I read somewhere on you blog “It’s gin o’clock somewhere.” I think that’s awesome and funny and I want to use that phrase of yours in a post. I’m too scared about getting syphilis to just go ahead and steal it (and I am not normally prone to thievery), so I want to ask you before I go ahead and do that. Also, I think it’s PERFECT for your next t-shirt!! I would be first in line to buy it. 🙂 Did you always know you were awesome?
DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I WAS MAKING MY ORDER?!?!
I kid, I kid.
But I did, seriously, say it, and I am totally going to make that into a shirt. “It’s Gin ‘o’ Clock Somewhere.”
I am also going to take this opportunity to shamelessly remind you to order one of my new shirts. And enter into this contest, which, um, I guess I’ll draw a winner next Friday?
—————–
So here’s my beef Aunt Becky,
All of my BFF’s are popping out tiny clones of themselves. I already have 3 1/2 year old twin boys. I love said boys but they are a shit-ton of work. As I see all these cute pregnant bitches and then corresponding cute little leeches, I start to think I may want one. Then the other side of me is like what the frick is wrong with you. When I was pregnant with the doublemint twins it was not the cakewalk I wanted it to be. Bedrest at 6months, delivery at 32weeks, I almost died and stuff. 7 weeks in the NICU and a few near deaths in between.
I am super freaked out that if I have another baby I will be all trauma and this time I have 2 kids at home who need me as well. And what if the new kid is all left out because the first ones are all “wonder twin powers combine.”
I’m sure that I am overthinking all of this and just being a freak.
Really though, if you were me would you have another?
FUCK to the NO.
I mean, I was done with having kids after three anyway, but after the horribly traumatic birth and brain surgery and shit with Amelia? I cannot fucking FATHOM having to go into that again. I’d be a mess. I’d be SUCH a mess. I mean, MORE THAN NORMAL EVEN.
That said, don’t let fear hold you back from your dreams, or some such movie quote with a wispy-haired heroine staring wistfully off into the sunset.
Can you live your life content with the wonder boys? Will you always be wanting one more? Or will you always be wanting one more if you have fifty-seven kids? THOSE are the questions I’d think as I’d hide my uterus from invading sperm.
As for me? My uterus is CLOSED for business. Until I meet my rockstar husband, of course. Then it’s wide open, baby.
—————–
As always, please pick up wherever I left off in the comments, Pranksters. Opinions are like assholes and we want to hear yours. The opinions, that is. Not the assholes. Because that’s just GROSS.
My asshole doesn’t speak, but if it did it would be all. “I love you Aunt Becky, and I want someone else to have children with you” or something.
To the first person. Just go find a social worker that is your age and your gender. Someone you can relate to. Maybe someone only a couple years older than you. It’s not that difficult to find and it seems like a logical step rather than asking someone on the internet for advice on this topic.
To the first letter- Looking for some one you click with is a huge part of treatment. For example my mommy went until she was 50 until she had a breakthrough and started getting mentally healthier.
She was getting treament, just from the wrong person and didn’t look for some one who was better for her. She thought the problem was her and the doctor she was seeing was content to let her believe that. Douche.Canoe.
My point is, 50 is to old to start really living. “Date”, not literally, your doctors. Find The One.
MJ hang in there! Like pranksters above said, look til you find someone you click with. I never clicked w my first therapist but luckily I was able to connect with my therapist after a few sessions. (Have been seeing him for 2 yrs and recently guided me through my grandmothers death. I had reverted to self-injury as a form of self-soothing, which usually sends me in a shame spiarl. Thank God my shrink was able to help me these past few wks.). Aunt Becky, you totally need to make a shirt that says, I’ll trade you 2 Ritalin for 1 Xanax.
Dear Aunt Becky,
I need your help. There is a giant hobag named Jacqui Melksham who just made a billion bad calls on the US women’s world cup team in favor of Brazil, and it was such bullshit that I feel I need to call in some John C. Mayering help. I have posted a brilliantly incisive character assassination on the ref, JACQUI MELKSHAM right here http://badbadwebbis.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/o-hell-no/ and I need some Prankster help.
I know that this may not seem like a truly heinous crime, but seriously — this was the shittiest calling I have ever seen. Please…do it for the children, won’t you?
Also, MJ, all of the Pranksters are behind you. Do please take AB’s advice, because she knows everything. Your state probably has resources to help you, and if you go to the ER and tell them that you have these urges they will refer you to the proper authorities.
To the first reader:
You may want to familiarize yourself with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Even if it doesn’t sound *exactly* like you, there is a type of treatment- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) may help. You aren’t alone and you do not have to live your life suffering in this way.
Here’s a pretty good website which captures some of the ideas behind DBT so you can see if this might be for you:
http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/dbt.htm
I strongly recommend finding a therapist who specializes in this type of treatment (not all do.) Look up Behavioral Tech for information about therapists in your error.
Good luck to you.
strongly recommend you find a therapist who specializes
My heart goes out to the hurting above <3 I don't have anything of worth to add to it except Aunt Becky gives good advice.
On a parting note… just about blew energy drink out of my nose when I read FUCK to the NO.
Re: gin o’clock?
Over here in England we have something called Pimms O’clock. In fact It is Pimms advertising slogan (and has been for years :D). Btw- Pimms? So yum!
Re: gin o’clock?
Over here in England we have something called Pimms O’clock. In fact It is Pimms advertising slogan (and has been for years :D). Btw- Pimms? So yum!
Re Close for Business… and I hear you!… I hardly see you write about your middle child. You write a lot about the first and a lot about the last, but how’s the middle one doing? (and I swear I’ll look up their names!!!).
JENN
MJ – hang in there! I have no advice, but here is a virtual {{{hug}}}
Baby mama – I too have the baby fever, although I have three already and we are officially closed for business unless immaculate conception occurs. I feel as though I am missing someone lately. I constantly have to remind myself of my last extremely uncomfortable scary pregnancy and the fact that if I had another it would end up in the NICU because I would undoubtably have another premie.
But still . . . I see the preciousness and I actually miss the nursing and late nights in the quiet.
Somebody knock me in the head please!! 🙂
Just do this – HAVE NO REGRETS! Either way, just make sure you have no regrets.
Hugs
As to the last letter… I hear you. Oh, dear, dear, dear. I *so* hear you. I have one-year-old twin boys, and as I read about my online friends having second pregnancies, and see all my real-life mama friends going for their second or third, I think a TON about having another.
Yes, I feel insane to be doing so, but the truth is, I always wanted to have a lot of children. I don’t think the ol’ biological ticker will let me have more than one more (nor will the ol’ pocket-book… and the ol’ reasonably-sized-house…), but still. I really would like to try for another, even though doing so will mean hauling myself back to the RE and going through the hell of a FET and/or another fresh IVF cycle. I was lucky that my first pregnancy was pretty uneventful (other than being constantly worried as hell that I would deliver early, as almost every single other twin mama I know has done), but I still worry about how I would manage to care for twins while pregnant. Because they’re crazy. And ACTIVE. And OMG, do they ever stop moving???
Anyway, I just wanted to let the last letter’s author know that she is not alone in the baby envy, nor would I truly think she would be insane to have another. I mean, yeah. I’m pretty sure I’m a little crazy to want the same thing, but I’m not *really* crazy, right??
Thank you so much. Sometimes I feel like nobody understands. All people ever ask is: when are you going to have another, and are you ready for another yet? It gets so old. I know people do it all the time, but it is so much work. Then I see a cute baby and/or pregnant lady and I think I want that, but do I really? I just don’t know. You all make me feel so much better, and a little less crazy!