Where do I begin. This is all a little new to me... both this forum and C-PTSD, even though I have learned quite a lot from a clinic I stayed at for seven weeks, just four months ago from now. I'm going back there, in what they call "step two", in three and a half weeks.
I'm kind of blank right now. Things scream on the inside, but I'm so tired. There's a lot of sadness and grief on the inside. I don't know exactly for what, right now. I've started having flashbacks from my childhood and youth a couple of weeks ago. About things in school and things from my teens. I just burst out into tears. That's not like me. And that's a good thing ( I don't cry much, usually). I didn't think school was such a big issue, I thought that it would be family that would surface, but yeah. I can hardly contain my tears writing about it. I feel so little. So very, very little. So ashamed. So afraid. So... unsafe. I'm crying again.
I just want somebody so bad. I feel so utterly alone and lonely. I have friends, but none of them can... it doesn't feel right. I feel like the character from "The Wall", everything is unsafe. Everybody is scary. I'm seven years old again. The world is so scary. As of now I have one friend that I really can talk to. Even though that's a little contrived as well. In this state of being, everything's contrived. And the shame. And I have my mom. But I'm not really comfortable showing feelings to her. I can talk about them, but showing them is a little bit different. And god knows there is a lot of emotions these days.
I just want to be... hold. Loved. Comforted. But there's no one I feel like letting in. And I've been burned before, talking about things. Being overflooded with good advice, with the wrong things, and opening myself up to people I don't really feel safe with, to feel safe. In a way. If that makes sense. That's one of the things I've learned... to be careful and wary about who you're talking to about things.
It feels so god awful lonely right now.
In the midst of all symptoms and when my ICr is at its loudest, I hear the lines of Coldplay in Square One...
"Is there anybody out there who
Is lost and hurt and lonely too
Are they bleeding all your colours into one?
and if you come undone
As if you've been run through
Some catapult it fired you
You wonder if your chance will ever come
Or if you're stuck in square one"
I feel so terribly lost and hurt and broken and defect and small and shameful.
:bighug:
I am so sorry you are feeling so alone and vulnerable right now. That's a horrible feeling. :hug:
Please be very good to yourself. You are taking very important steps to go from surviving to thriving. It's a long and sometimes (very, very) painful process but you have the strength and the resources within you to help you get there - and you also have professional help (only a few more days now!) and empathy and support from all of us here on OOTS.
Just wanted to let you know that you're not alone. Hang in there! :hug:
Quote from: keepfighting on March 29, 2015, 03:14:40 PM
:bighug:
I am so sorry you are feeling so alone and vulnerable right now. That's a horrible feeling. :hug:
Please be very good to yourself. You are taking very important steps to go from surviving to thriving. It's a long and sometimes (very, very) painful process but you have the strength and the resources within you to help you get there - and you also have professional help (only a few more days now!) and empathy and support from all of us here on OOTS.
Just wanted to let you know that you're not alone. Hang in there! :hug:
:hug: Thank you. On days like these, I feel like I'm not doing anything. And that becomes a symptom, or what I should say. My ICr really shouts. I feel like utter *. And I feel so stressed on the inside like it feels like I'm gonna crumble and die. I've been to the doctor several times, but nothing's wrong, physical.
Thank you, nice to know that I'm not alone :hug:
I wish I could be better friends with myself. I'm so hard with myself, and I know that's symptom nr. 1 (or at least one of them) of C-PTSD, and it strikes at the very core. I still wish I could be nicer with myself. Accept more from myself. Tolerate imperfections and flaws. And change some of my views about flaws. I wish I could take better care of my IC these days, I really need it. I really need comfort, kindness, to be soothed, and... love, most of all. I wish I wasn't so dead hard on myself. It's a fight that I always loose. I know I can't win a battle for validation and acceptance, born under those premises. So I try to be good and kind towards myself. I try to be supportive, to be my best friend. But it's so hard.
It's so hard. The days are so hard. So heavy. And The christmas is so demanding.
I'm angry. I'm sad. So sad. But I'm angry. I want to shut down and not relate to anything. But it doesn't work like that.
Hi, Convalescent :hug: .
It's always good to see you here. You expressed the thought so many of us share--about wanting to "shut down and not relate". I hear you, and also recognize the notion that apparently "it doesn't work like that."
Know this, though--you've shown via your posts here that you have a depth of being that can, and does, relate; in ways you probably don't even recognize. You don't see it. Maybe, like so many of us, it takes someone else who's on the trail with you to remind you of your ability to relate.
You once responded to something I'd said by asking me "what does it feel to be on the other side" of recovery. But it's always ongoing, for me...as to that "other side" I haven't a clue. Some days it feels good, and I feel further down the road towards it; but the other days...you know what I mean.
Keep trekking, friend...your steps to recovery are ever closer than you may realize. Whatever it's called, though, you've shown amazing recovery powers of your own, right here, right now, via the words you've shared. They may only seem as words on a screen, but I feel as if I see a huge heart every time you share the load. And I hope this helps a tad to make that load seem lighter. :sunny:
Quote from: woodsgnome on December 21, 2015, 11:25:28 PM
Hi, Convalescent :hug: .
It's always good to see you here. You expressed the thought so many of us share--about wanting to "shut down and not relate". I hear you, and also recognize the notion that apparently "it doesn't work like that."
Know this, though--you've shown via your posts here that you have a depth of being that can, and does, relate; in ways you probably don't even recognize. You don't see it. Maybe, like so many of us, it takes someone else who's on the trail with you to remind you of your ability to relate.
You once responded to something I'd said by asking me "what does it feel to be on the other side" of recovery. But it's always ongoing, for me...as to that "other side" I haven't a clue. Some days it feels good, and I feel further down the road towards it; but the other days...you know what I mean.
Keep trekking, friend...your steps to recovery are ever closer than you may realize. Whatever it's called, though, you've shown amazing recovery powers of your own, right here, right now, via the words you've shared. They may only seem as words on a screen, but I feel as if I see a huge heart every time you share the load. And I hope this helps a tad to make that load seem lighter. :sunny:
Wow, thank you... I had no idea that what I'd wrote on this forum had that much meaning or significance to anybody... :)
:hug:
Now I'm just angry. Really angry. I don't know if it had something to do with the previous "pause", or relaxed state of mind. Probably, in a way or another. I'm angry with a lot of my friends. Or acquaintances. A lot of my boundaries overstepped, with me not knowing about it a lot of the time. A lot of me spilling out my guts, sometimes not quite sober (which makes it even harder to feel what's right or not, of course), to people who don't really understand. And I'm starting to believe more and more not to open myself to people who doesn't suffer (or have suffered) from C-PTSD. 99% of my experience indicate that people don't know what they're talking about. They seem to have the impression that they do, but they really don't. Why should people be so keen on offering advice (and with such certainty and with such weight) when they don't know what they're talking about? It really gets me off. I'm also starting to, or... I started some time ago, but I'm getting more and more... I don't know. The people surrounding me as of now, well some of them, I've contacted some old friends and perhaps new ones, but the people that have surrounded me for a couple of years back and until now... they're not mine anymore. Some of them I don't even like. I've minimized contact with some of them, but that's a process as well. Just to... accept that I can choose what's best for me, and not have friendships that are duty-friendships. I'm in a small place, and somehow my world is intertwined and connected way beyond my comfort-zone. So, I guess the anger is natural and maybe even beneficial, it just sucks. It's not just related to that though, christmas and family and old memories and stuff resurfacing, more insight into my FOO, not really having anyone to feel safe around... it's hard. It's insanely hard.
I guess I just needed to rant a little now.
Thank you for kind words, woodsgnome, I can feel the sincerity and compassion from your words :hug: Keep going yourself as well, we have it in us, it's just really hard to locate, or dig out, or... yeah, whatever you want to call it. I guess parts of the scars will always be there, but I believe there is a "other side". I've heard people describe it. Maybe as what appears as.... emotional maturity? Emotional ground? Safety from within? It's there, I know it's there.
:hug:
Convalescent,
It was wonderful to see your observations here again. And I don't know if you were conscious of it, but I noticed some imagery associated with your return.
Your slew of entries yesterday--December 21--coincided with the Winter Solstice, marking the return of more light to a world desperately needing it. Even though there's always dark days that find their way in, the return of more light has rightly been associated with at least the potential for better times.
Happy Solstice!!!
:hug: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :hug:
Quote from: woodsgnome on December 22, 2015, 01:56:10 PM
Convalescent,
It was wonderful to see your observations here again. And I don't know if you were conscious of it, but I noticed some imagery associated with your return.
Your slew of entries yesterday--December 21--coincided with the Winter Solstice, marking the return of more light to a world desperately needing it. Even though there's always dark days that find their way in, the return of more light has rightly been associated with at least the potential for better times.
Happy Solstice!!!
:hug: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :hug:
Happy solstice :hug:
At the bottom... christmas. I'm walking around in a coma. Not feeling anything, feeling everything. You know, depression, the worst of them. I lie in the dark, listening to Failure and Autechre, just to get a little darkness to hold on to. I'm mad, and careless at the same time. I don't even know why I bother to write this. I want to shut down every possible feeling, and just exist. Just be, in something that doesn't require consciousness. Something without beginning and end. Oblivious. I know I'm going to halfway remember writing this. It's like that. Dissociation I guess.
I haven't got any hope. Christmas is all on the outside of everything. I'm not there. I just try as best I can to slip away. Live inside a vacuum.
Vacum vacum vacum. Blah blah blah. Write write write. The sound of letters being pressed on the keyboard. Incoherent thoughts. Incoherent everything.
"Incoherent everything." Your words, but I echo them, 'cause when it comes down to it, it's really all we can know of where we are. Or even who we are. And if not incoherent, a lot of this is so contradictory, and it all hurts.
It would be easy to fall back on the everyday cliches--it'll get better, etc. But those are as incoherent as anything, too. It's all humbug, to borrow the seasonal reference.
I'm only going to venture this--you shared that you felt an opening the other day. More incoherence, perhaps--at least that's what your mind might try to convince you it was. All that matters is that you felt it, really really felt it...and you wanted to share the joy you felt.
Maybe you did gain something with the incoherent writing, as you call it, 'cause your words sure struck me, and I'm guessing many others who read your reflections and have felt that same pain, that same feeling of giving up. We know it too well, kinda wishing it were truly incoherent so we could say we call it something, to give it a label at least, even in that vacuum we feel when we don't see a way forward.
I probably shouldn't butt in here; journals were designed to be stand alone reflections of the writer, but I was drawn to say something about what I see in what you've shared. I'll even risk a judgement call and say that to me your writing was not incoherent at all. It's beautiful and yes, in saying so I recognize it's also extremely painful.
Take good care. You may be "holding on" to the darkness, as you say; yet I still see that bright beacon of light from what you've given of yourself.
Thank you.
Thank you, woodsgnome :) Your words are like poetry, and you have such sincerity and goodwill in your words.
:hug:
The beacon of light is ever on and off. I can never shut it down all the way, which is frustrating. A good thing also, perhaps, but emotional pain is so hard. Darkness doesn't require that you feel all those heavy feelings off loneliness, despair, sadness, anger, etc.
All of this guilt, shame, fear, and conscience... it's just what's been imprinted in me for being controlled. Manipulated.
All this time I've thought that it's about me... not being good enough, not this, not that... whilst in reality it's more or less me being indoctrinated so my dad can get what he wants. Brought down to my knees by a war raging inside, by torment of fear and depression, while the world plays out its usual way without any immediate danger. It feels like a war that both does and doesn't exist.
And that's the the most awful part of having C-PTSD.... you're fighting war solely on a private and intimate level. I watched LOTR again the other day, and was overwhelmed with this incredible sadness and despair.... for * sake, I'm not even at war with something outside myself. I have no sense of companionship whatsoever in all of this. No sense of fellowship, no one to turn to in all of this. Yes, I have friends... most of them haven't a clue what this is about. The few that do, they're on the outside. As if on another planet. On planet Convalescent is only me, fighting an invisible war, wearing invisible scars, living in the aftermath of something invisible. Jesus christ, my own war, which is just me, is not even there anymore. It's just the scars and the feelings that linger on. How lonely is that? I don't think you can get anymore lonely than that.
I visited my father and my grandmothers grave just now. I felt like spitting on it. I didn't. Instead I asked my dad why I should feel anything bad for him, you're both psychopaths. It's like it didn't happen. Guess I'm dissociating again.
Blah.
I just know that it will get better... I don't have many words right now, but I just know.
God, I'm angry. Just really angry. Angry at my therapist for talking to me like a piece of *.
It's been forever since I've been in here. It's kinda been forever since I've really been dedicated to stuff I've been dealing with, I guess. Everything is just chaos, feelings all over the place, physical stress, mental stress, and it's hard to know where it's coming from.
I wonder why it's so hard to just feel things out, not block or run away... and then it dawns on me that I'm not in a safe enough place to do that. So I avoid it. And avoid it some more.
Really wanted to get drunk today... don't know what held me back. Mostly that I have an appointment with my therapist tomorrow, probably.
I'm drowning in depression these days.
Many of us drown in feelings of depression. I know you've gone through this before, too many times probably. But you're still here, and you're willing even if you don't quite know where to take your willingness.
The way ahead isn't very clear, but it's obvious you're trying. That says a lot about your ability to keep trying, even in a fog of confusion. Keep trying, but in the trying I hope you remember to relax and know you're worthwhile, deserving, and have been and are going to find a way. Be easy on yourself.
Unfortunately, being easy doesn't always seem so easy, but it's still the best starting point I've known that felt okay.
:hug:
I'm sorry things are rough for you right now. :hug: don't know what else to say but I wanted you to know you've been heard.
Thanks for the replies, haven't been here in a long time...
Wow, what hellish couple of last months... my therapist got sick when we started to really get into things, and I haven't got an apointment for a couple of more weeks. It's been * opening up those wounds and the therapist just disappearing. Triggers a lot.
So where am I at... I don't know if I should say this online, but I'll take my chances. I think I've been sexually abused. It's not something that I can rationally explain, I've just got this awful feeling. Makes me sick just writing about it.
My relationship with my girlfriend is... troubled. Our relationship is ok, but I'm tense, sometimes I find it hard to be touched or kissed. It's the best relationship I've been in, but it's also very tough to have someone so close.
It's awful being alone in my apartment... I get so restless, and something that I can't quite put into words. I binge-eat, binge drink, binge... a lot of things. And I just can't be in my own skin. Like I'm waiting, and have been waiting for ages for something. Want to work, can't work, want to something. I don't know what.
I used to talk to my mother about my problems, now I just can't. I get so easily irritated with her, and just can't talk to her. Just want to be somewhere else. And I love her, and miss her at the same time. Lot of stuff from my childhood and youth resurfacing. I sometimes talk to my girlfriend, but it's hard talking to someone close. Easier talking to someone you don't know so well.
I can't remember the last time I relaxed.... well, yeah. Half a year ago.
My god...
That could certainly be very triggering, to have your T be unavailable as soon as you start uncovering stuff!
I would say, trust your instincts. So many of us have uncovered memories just by listening to what our bodies seem to be trying to tell us.
It's important for us to move at a pace that's comfortable, although it's tempting to try to rush through things. It seems no matter what symptoms you're experiencing, someone else here in the forum will have had the same experience and/or feelings. It can feel very uncomfortable when you start to openly discuss things that your abusers wanted you to keep silent about, but we're here to listen when you want to talk. :yes:
Haven't been writing in here for ages...
So what has happened? I've moved in with my girlfriend, I've stopped drinking, stopped taking antidepressant. Started with a new therapist (the last one was no good, lack of understanding, yelling at me for things, wouldn't accept that I was drinking at the time, thought I was disrespectful towards her).
The last couple of months have escalated and I'm going through *. I'm really on edge, all the time. Getting really anxious from nothing, my mind is a torture chamber, I can't drive anymore. I can't ... it just makes me really nervous.
I try so hard to get to where I can live a normal life. I try so goddamn hard with therapy and getting my life together. To move on. But it doesn't work. I feel like *. I feel like the world is a cold and ugly place, I feel like I can't trust anyone, I feel like I'm a failure.
I don't want to deal with anything anymore. I want to quit therapy.
I stopped taking my antidepressant last year, and stayed off for a while but am back on them, although a different type. I wasn't thinking clearly, and had to fight constantly to just keep my nose above water, if you know what I mean. Thoughts of death plagued me. I found it difficult to drive. I was afraid all the time. I'm much happier in antidepressants.
I'm sorry to hear your therapist was, how shall I put this - not competent, not trauma informed?... and mistreated you. We are here to listen.
Quote from: Three Roses on June 27, 2020, 09:00:34 PM
I stopped taking my antidepressant last year, and stayed off for a while but am back on them, although a different type. I wasn't thinking clearly, and had to fight constantly to just keep my nose above water, if you know what I mean. Thoughts of death plagued me. I found it difficult to drive. I was afraid all the time. I'm much happier in antidepressants.
I'm sorry to hear your therapist was, how shall I put this - not competent, not trauma informed?... and mistreated you. We are here to listen.
Thanks for replying, that means a lot. Yeah, that's about how it is for me now. I feel like I'm on edge most of the time, getting really anxious for just answering the door, talking with someone for a short amount of time. Afterwards, I feel really shaky and scared/overwhelmed. Kinda baffles me. I stopped talking antidepressant for two to three months ago... I was on 10 mg cipralex, although I really didn't think they'd done anything for me. I tried them just to try, and didn't really think they'd done anything, so I quit. Mostly because I gained some pounds and wanted to lose weight. So... the first couple of weeks were *. A lot of anxiety, a lot of emotions, anger, sadness, the works. And a lot of brain-zapping and fatigue. So... no brain-zapping or withdrawal-symptoms now, but yeah. I am where I am. Maybe they had more effect than I thought. I don't like the thought of taking an artificially made chemical that effects how my brain works, but maybe I should begin again. This is too much. I'm not drinking as of almost 4 months now... even though I wasn't drinking everyday, or alone, I was using it as a coping mechanism big-time, and really getting hammered just about everytime I get drunk. It really became a problem, it was almost over between me and my fiancee, so I decided, after thinking it really through, to give it up. So... I used sugar as a coping mechanism too, got that one down to a minimum. And quit antidepressants. And I'm really going into the works on my father with my therapist. Not just my father, but my life up until this point. How things have impacted my life in a much bigger sense than I thought. It's a lot to take in. A lot. Just the other day I threw everything I've gotten from my father. Tossed it in a bag. Afterwards I went berserk on it. Just happened. Right in front of my girlfriend. I felt really bad thinking I've made her scared... turns out it was ok. She's a good support. She's been through some things herself, so she knows how it is.
So... I'm trying to put all this crap in my life behind me. I'm thinking that I have to stop this at some point. I don't want to go the rest of my life "dealing". I want to arrive somewhere... I know that some wounds are probably too deep to heal, and that I'll have scars for life. That's ok. But I don't want to use everyday to think and deal and try and work with all of this. But I'm not ready to move on or put things behind me as of yet, anyway.
It's so hard... been given these cards in life... it's so excruciatingly hard to deal with all of life with this trauma on my back. In my body. In my head. In my everywhere.
I just wanted to send a supportive hug, if it's ok and tell you that I'm so sorry you're going through this right now. I very much feel what you are talking about, the endless trudge up a hill. Hope you find some relief or comfort :hug:
Quote from: marta1234 on June 27, 2020, 09:58:47 PM
I just wanted to send a supportive hug, if it's ok and tell you that I'm so sorry you're going through this right now. I very much feel what you are talking about, the endless trudge up a hill. Hope you find some relief or comfort :hug:
Thank you, that's one of the good things with this forum - feeling like you're not alone :hug:
You are most definitely not alone. :grouphug:
Here I am again... I almost can't remember how this is like. It's been some years. Feels like I can't be present at all. Like I need to have my head under water to not drown in thoughts and feelings. Like holding my hands over my ears. When I remove them, the noise is just too painful. It feels like I'm in a trance. In a dream. And I'm so sleepy. I feel like I could sleep 16 hours of the day.
Thought I'd gotten myself out of this hole some days ago, but the gravity sucks me back in. I'm flooded with thoughts and feelings of being worthless, a failure. Everything is hard. Trapped under ice. I can't understand why this is coming now. Fear and depression so powerful. It feels like everything is unsafe, and I think I got that feeling back again from long ago... wanting a father figure, a mentor, someone safe in all this.
I'm thinking and dreaming a lot about the past. When I smoked a lot of weed, how that affected me. My self-esteem was just as low as it can get. It was ok when I started, but after some time I just felt really really low. I kept smoking though, it kinda worked as an anesthesia as well. I got bullied for smoking and drinking to the point where I'd just pass off, throw up, or became like a zombie and could barely talk. That part of my life is something I haven't talked about a great deal, or "dealt with". My teen years. I don't really know what happened there. I thought I just "didn't give a ****", but that was just to mask the problem. My mom was out looking for me a lot, I heard from her. Didn't get home when I was supposed to, just went to people and got really wasted, and stayed there for the night. There's a lot of hurtful stuff about the past... things I don't... well, I get it, but it's painful and strange to look back at. The ways I acted, the choices I made. I've wished so many times for a different past and childhood, another life. Life just skipped forward, fast forward and here I am now, 37 years old. Doesn't feel like it at all. I'm trying the best I can to make a good life for myself and my fiance, but it isn't easy. There's all these things underneath the surface, tensions and uneasyness hiding feelings and past tenses. And now, a couple of weeks ago, I just drowned. I guess I've always used alcohol as something to regulate my feelings. Not on a daily basis, but it's been something to go to. Maybe it's that I stopped completely drinking 4 months ago. It's been 16 years, if not since I started drinking, since I had that long a break. It's not a break though, I stopped. I had to. I stopped antidepressants too. But it's been a long time since I've been here I am now, even before I started with antidepressants again.
It's like I just fade out when I'm like this. I can't find any words, I am not really here. I know that's a way of dealing with stuff that I used a lot in my childhood. I'd be bullied for being lethargic, or lazy. I just shut dowm. Staring out the windows, not talking. Stayed in my own world.
It's hard living with my fiancee now. I want to be with her, I want to be alone. I change between those two a lot now. I've talked about things with her, and she knows what I'm dealing with and understands a lot. Even so, it's hard. I'm feeling so low that I can't understand why she'd wanna be with me. So I try to "be the best version of me". But that gets tiresome and... I don't want to hold up a facade. That's not what I want a girlfriend for. It's just lonely. And hard.
Everything just feels like a dream right now.
I feel really really vulnerable, and I've had this feeling the most of my life. And there hasn't been room for this state of mind at all.
Wow, this really hit home!
https://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=2592.0
I don't want to be locked up in this prison. This is just horrible. I guess this flashback had to come... delving into the past with my T. And myself. I think about my dad a lot. I'm trying my best to find pockets of air... to find some freedom or love inside this. I'm so lonely in here. I'm not with people much now. I called a friend of mine just to talk to someone. He said he was gonna call me later. If the momentum is still there. I barely managed to call him. Felt like it yesterday too, just couldn't. Everything is warped right now. I'm so tired. And everything is so scary and weird. Like I'm inside a dream. I'm really at ground zero now. At the core. Maybe I can deal with this now, I don't know. Previously when I've come here I've been so down, so horribly anxious and in bad shape that I've been hospitalized.
.. Just had a talk with my friend. Even though I am where I was some years ago, I get these moments where I notice that I'm also not. It's easier to talk with people, I can, momentarily at least, get some pause from the depression, things are kind of easier. Even though it's * being here.
:hug: I know, the symbol can be considered as 'just' an icon, but it rises from the heart, no matter how it's represented.
One word popped out in your summary paragraph, when you said, a couple of times, that some of this has been getting "easier." That only sounds ... easy; we all know it really takes a lot to be able to say that about so much of what's happened to us. Given the circumstances, it's taken a lot for you to be able to say anything is easier. Based on what you've shared here, coming to the point of labeling something as "easier" is a welcome sign -- for you and for those of us who care so very much for you.
Speaking of signs, I'll just end with this one: :yeahthat: ... and hope you'll keep on keeping on, friend.
Quote from: woodsgnome on July 06, 2020, 08:56:12 PM
:hug: I know, the symbol can be considered as 'just' an icon, but it rises from the heart, no matter how it's represented.
One word popped out in your summary paragraph, when you said, a couple of times, that some of this has been getting "easier." That only sounds ... easy; we all know it really takes a lot to be able to say that about so much of what's happened to us. Given the circumstances, it's taken a lot for you to be able to say anything is easier. Based on what you've shared here, coming to the point of labeling something as "easier" is a welcome sign -- for you and for those of us who care so very much for you.
Speaking of signs, I'll just end with this one: :yeahthat: ... and hope you'll keep on keeping on, friend.
Thank you :hug:
I'm trying to figure out what's actually happening here, why the sudden booming depression ... then I realize it's been gradual. And I think it's a combination of things. I've been living alone since I was around 21. Last year I moved in with my girlfriend. We bought a house together. We've been together for over 2 years now. To have another person so close to deal with every day is... new and triggering. It's been hard lately, and the longer I know someone, the more stressful and harder it becomes. I think it's the fear of rejection, or that I'm feeling trapped. It's like I feel I have to be a certain way, like I'm loosing a sense of myself. Like they can get angry with me, put me in my place, decide who I'm going to be. And I know exactly where that comes from.
And the drinking... I no longer have a night out, party or drink with friends. That has been a coping mechanism for a lot of years. I've been having a problem with alcohol for more than 10 years, actually. And eating... eating food and candy. Been doing that a lot. I don't do that as much. And there's a lot of things I'm realizing of now... like how tortured I've actually been over the years, how hard my childhood has been. Unhealthy choices I've made. Things I've missed out on. How f'ed up my father have been (he's dead now, thankfully... I don't know how I would deal with this if he were alive). How he got me wrapped around his finger to the very end. How I always believed he had changed, how he always got me there beside him, even to the bitter end. I remember the phone call from my stepmom in the middle of the night. I thought she was drunk or something. But when she called me again I just knew. And the first thing I felt was relief.
And there's the antidepressants I've stopped taking. I'll use this day to consider starting again.
All I know is that I'm down in the dumps now... weird as it is, I have some easier moments... moments where I feel that safe warm feeling inside. I remember there was someone giving that feeling a name... it was in norwegian, so I don't know if I can translate it properly, but it's something along the lines of... "that homely cozyness inside your stomach". Tearing up just thinking about it. That's such a powerful feeling. Such a powerful state of mind. It reminds me of sitting on my grandfathers lap when I was a kid, on christmas eve. Falling asleep on his lap. It was that kind of feeling. Just being completely and utterly safe and sound. My T says I need to experience that feeling again, as evidence, or counterevidence, to the feelings and doubts I have that I'm not safe. I said that's not an easy task.
37 years... of barely being able to keep my head above water. It's so much to take in.
Maybe I'll check upon what I've been able to accomplish these last few years since I learned about C-ptsd/trauma.
I've been able to drive again.
To work, although minimal.
I've rediscovered part of my childhoods interests... that I like sports (thought I hated it). Mostly womens handball (a big thing here in Norway :) )
I have, a handful of times, experienced that utter and complete feeling of safeness and calmness. It's the most wonderful feeling there ever is.
I have been able to completely cut out benzodiazepines/tranquilizers.
I have been able to completely stop eating sugar as a way to deaden my feelings.
I have been able to completely stop drinking.
Depression have been coming and going, but I have periods where I enjoy the company of others and don't overthink everything I say or do. To joke about my mistakes or something that I previously felt like made me a complete failure as a human being.
Be able to relax more in the company of others.
Judging my self less (like I said, depression coming and going).
Not having to be hospitalized, or feeling that I absolutely need to be hospitalized.
Feeling like a part of something/ felt a genuine and strong connection with other peple.
Taking out my drums and playing them again (and actually having fun with it, not just playing to try to prove this or that)
Having an easier and more relaxed relationship with (parts of, anyway) my family.
Not feeling constantly like an alien who's just on the outside and have no connection or familiarity with other people.
I'm hearing that you are feeling down now. I also want to state that your accomplishments over the last few years are very big steps/growth.