Dear Thelma: I do not feel loved by my own family

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Dear Thelma,

How do I explain my situation? I wanted to tell my parents and younger sister this without hurting their feelings but I don't even know how to start.

I don't feel loved by my own family. One of the reasons is that every time I try to explain my reasons for buying the things I want to or for doing something I want to do, they never acknowledge my reasons and instead refute them rudely without a care for my feelings.

I feel that they never even cared that they have an elder daughter/sister at home and that my feelings and reasoning never mattered to them. I feel hurt by them.

I once told my parents about it and they told me that they will change but I noticed that their change is non-consistent. Sometimes they acknowledge my reasoning and refute my reasoning without hurting my feelings but sometimes they didn't and in the end hurt my feelings. Those hurt feelings made me spiral into thinking about suicide.

I wanted to tell someone but I never dared to tell my parents and my younger sister about it. I never even told my friends and cousins about it because I'm worried about my parents will think that I was just joking.

But I can't keep on acting like I'm fine. I wish someone would just understand me.

Thelma, when I have suicidal thoughts, I always wish I had a family like those in the fantasy book series – like the Weasley family from the Harry Potter series or the Jackson family from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series – whereby the parents always understand and respect the family members and always help one another.

When I compare that with my own family, I always feel more depressed and think I should just leave my family or just do suicide.

I don't know how to explain all this to my parents and how to approach this problem, and how to stop myself from thinking these suicidal thoughts. What should I do to stop making this situation worse? Please advise.

Depressed university student

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Dear University Student,

I'm sorry to hear you're having a bad time. As you have suicidal thoughts, the first step is to talk to a psychiatrist, a medical doctor who specialises in diagnosing and treating mental illness.

There are several ways to do this: if you are actively suicidal, go to a public hospital accident and emergency centre and talk to staff there. Alternatively, talk to your family doctor or ask your university counselling or student service to help you make an appointment.

Whether you are prescribed medication or not, it will be worthwhile to schedule some talk therapy sessions too. Again, as you are at university, they will help you access to free services. Take advantage of these!

The other issue, that you feel unheard or slighted by your family is a tricky one. Your letter suggests that you may be suffering from long-term depression, and that typically affects how we view our world.

Technically, we talk about depression leading to cognitive distortions. Common ways it affects us include negative thinking, black and white thinking, over-generalisation, and catastrophising.

For example, if someone answers quickly or briskly, we might normally think they're just a bit busy or they're just not in a very good mood. It happens, right?

But when we are depressed, we may perceive it as personal, and we might think it's because they don't like us – or that nobody likes us. It's not true, that's the depression talking, but it feels true.

If that's you, then you will currently see your world through a haze of depression. So, it is entirely possible that when the depression lifts, you will say that the problem with your family never existed; that it was just depression talking.

On the other hand, it is possible that your family are brusque in their communication. Perhaps they are also hurtful sometimes.

However, the wishful images you pull up, the Weasleys and the Jacksons, are so compelling because they are ideal. We love them but they are impossible to emulate. Nobody can live up to idealised fictional characters.

So please don't stress yourself out by longing for the impossible. Human beings are fallible. Therefore, your family will sometimes snap or speak without thinking. As we all do it, we understand this and we love each other, warts and all.

However, it does not mean that we just accept everything thrown at us.

Ideally, friends and family are open-hearted, expressing their thoughts and emotions freely. This includes disagreement and difficult discussions. However, there must be mutual respect. Also, hurtful expressions should be avoided.

So, "You're spending half your salary on a fancy car. Are you sure you want to do that?" is perfectly acceptable from a close friend who is concerned about your future. But, "Bodoh! Why are you spending half your salary on a fancy car?" is not.

Again, people do say some wild things to each other, especially family. Perhaps because we're so close, we feel we can drop common courtesy.

When people are rude, you can assert your boundaries. From your letter, you've done this and your family took it well. So that's great. But they slipped here and there. That's human.

People who have a long habit of being a certain way, find it quite difficult to change, especially when they're tired or busy.

My advice is this: in your therapy sessions, figure out if there are particular issues that come up repeatedly. Work out acceptable model responses in the session, and practise them in that safe space until you feel comfortable enough to use them in real life.

Also, I think you will find it helpful to focus also on your many blessings. You're educated, at university, and that shows your family care a lot about you and your future. There's bound to be more, so talk it over with a therapist. Remembering the positives is a useful way to help manage some of the depressive thoughts too.

I hope this helps. Please reach out for help as soon as you've read this. You deserve to be happy!