Epidemiology of Depressive/Traumatic Thinking

When I'm with her - more so when I am with her and her son - I feel happy.  I don't feel guilty for feeling happy, but in my mind I know: we will be punished for this.  The happiness will be taken away, and replaced by something horrific, painful.  And we will both go quickly quiet and numb inside.

So I feel, even now, impotent.  I radically distrust pretty much everyone I know.  I trust only that the Universe is a cold, heartless place, our world intentionally cruel, and others sadists deriving brutish pleasure in the misery and misfortune of others.

I honestly don't know why I'm alive; it's not as if I particularly enjoy existing in such a world.  But I have to do so, for her and for him I guess, though I also spend a great deal of time wondering whether or not they would be better off without me.  I wonder if I keep her from him, if the mere fact of my existence prevents her from seeing her own son.  Whether it wouldn't in fact be kinder to leave her be, perhaps send money to her when I can to help her.  The thought that I was keeping her from reunion with her flesh and blood is terrible to contemplate.  Almost as much as the fact that I know that there is nothing wrong with me, that I am a good person, a bright, intelligent, driven, and compassionate person, and yet by simply being around I must be a bad influence upon her, upon her son.  I have taken every step I can think of to ease the minds of those who are concerned by me; but I can never earn their trust, and I don't even want it.  I just don't want to keep her from her child.  I couldn't bear the thought of keeping her from her child.

It's the wanton and yet predictable nature of the cruelty, it's calculated application to crush any sense of self-efficacy, the way it is designed to teach helplessness.  For a grandmother to take her grandchild from her own daughter and to use that grandchild as a pawn, a tool with which to inflict pain on the daughter: I cannot think of many greater evils, and I spend my life contemplating evils.  But this must be the most horrific act imaginable: to have your mother tear your own child away from you and use access to the boy as 'leverage,' in a game of emotional abuse.

All I hope is that at least I am not harmful; and perhaps, if I am fortunate, I might be helpful.