Messages

Sunn, I´m very sorry for your negative experience with your group of friends. I can relate to the struggle of trying to set boundaries and communicating your needs and feelings. Not with friends, but in my family, especially with my mum who always gets very defensive when I try to talk to her about these things. Unfortunately, I don´t really have an advice or example of handling these situations well, but I want to say that I hear you and wish you well. 

Thank you very much for validating, Blue_Jays, it means a lot. I agree with you, it´s very hard to see and accept that our loved ones are suffering and we can´t really do anything about it. Except from listening, validating and being there for them. I like your house-metaphor very much, it makes perfect sense to me. At the end of the day, we need to work with what we´ve got, even if it´s just ruins.
I hope your journey will also continue to have these kinds of victories. Wishing you well. 

The last couple of days I had recurring dreams every night. Those dreams that I know all too well - about people not hearing or seeing me, me screaming and yelling and crying but no one seems to notice or care and about me and my mum arguing and while I´m trying to explain my feelings and my side of the story, she doesn´t listen to me. These dreams are very frustrating and emotionally draining and I often wake up extremely exhausted and crying. Not their presence but the frequency is what surprised me these days. I usually have these dreams once or twice a month maybe, but this time it´s every single night that these dreams come.

So I started to wonder what´s the meaning of it. Not the dreams´ meaning, that I more or less figured out, they´re about my childhood and all the emotional neglect I suffered with the lack of mirroring and responding to my needs. Of course there´s always more space for interpretation, but why now?

First, as usually, I started to blame myself saying that these things are arising because I haven´t been taking care of myself properly, so they needed to warn me. That I neglected myself and all the stuff my inner critic would say. But then I switched the perspective from viewing this as a negative sign and started to wonder, what if it´s not because I don´t take care of myself but cause it´s time to turn to these things. Because now I´m mentally stable enough to face the hidden things that appear only in my dreams yet. Maybe the lessons come when the student is ready? It´s a nice things to believe.

Welcome back, Cascade, I´m glad you returned. I think it´s a good idea to slow down when you feel overwhelmed. I get overwhelmed often, especially after therapy sessions, when my buried and repressed memories and emotions come to the surface. It´s very hard, but it´s great you have a supportive T and a close friend you can talk to.   

Thank you, Dolly, yes, I also think that making the decision itself and deciding to do something for myself is a huge milestone and wherever my journey takes me, this will always remain an important (first) step. 

Thank you, WabiSabi, this means a lot.  It´s not easy for me to acknowledge something that I´ve done, but in this space I feel safe enough to write down that I´m proud of myself. 

Thank you, SenseOrgan, I´m so grateful for your cheering.  I´m scared and excited at the same time, constantly waiting for something to happen and ruin this. It´s so unbelievable that I was finally able to make this step, that I can´t really believe it yet. 

Yesterday - in fact, in the last couple days - I made the first step towards an important thing in my life - I decided to go back to school. I have a profession that doesn´t fulfill my need for meaning and I´ve been pondering doing something that really matters to me. I always came back to the only thing I can imagine myself doing for the rest of my life, and it´s helping others, helping people who need it, who cannot take care of themselves. So I want to get a degree in social work.

They say that people who suffered abuse and/or neglect and were hurt often end up being in helping professions, because they´ve been there and know what does it feel like being alone and then getting help and support. I am certainly more sensitive to the suffering I see than maybe most of the people around me.

I´m scared to start this new chapter. I´ve been passive for so long that now I´m afraid of everything it may bring. Change is uncomfortable for me, because it means abandoning my shelter and becoming visible. It´s scary but it´s also exciting because I know that this is what I want to do. And maybe in the past, when I kept hesitating, deciding, then changing my mind and backing out, I really wasn´t ready. I had to give myself time to learn and heal and maybe now those parts that were holding me back, are healed enough to take this step. I hope for the best.

Welcome to the forum, droopsnoot! I found validation, support, care and a bunch of very-very kind and compassionate people here, and I hope that you will find that - or something similar - here, too. 

Welcome to the forum, BlueMoon! I think it´s one of the hardest and bravest things when someone can reflect on their behavior and challenges in their life. It´s a great place to start from and I hope that you´ll find this place supportive and validating enough to help you continue in this journey. 

I just found this thread and it´s really nice to read all the backstory about our nicknames.  I chose my name because at the time I joined this forum, I was reading Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. The novel, just as her other ones, resonated with me very much. Woolf´s writing is deeply touching and lyrical. She can express the existential pain her characters are suffering from with only a few words. She became one of my favorite writers and Mrs Dalloway one of my favorite book characters. Also, Virginia Woolf struggled with depression most of her life, which made her stories and characters so heartbreakingly real.

Nothing scares me as much as feeling better. The past few days were spent in an unusually good mood. Mentally, I felt balanced and at peace. Intrusive thoughts didn´t ruin my whole day, even if they popped up in my mind. So I started to wonder, where did it come from? I can´t identify anything in particular that could lead here. I don´t understand why do I feel better now, just like that. I get anxious when I can´t figure out the answer to something, can´t rationalize the feelings and explain the circumstances. It stresses me out, cause I feel like I´m losing the solid ground.

The other question is: how long will this last? Are we talking about days, weeks or months? I need to know because I want to plan every bigger step and I won´t make big plans if this is only temporary. I´m afraid of failing. And deep down I´m aware that pain didn´t go away. It´s still in me, buried somewhere. I´m not free from suffering and fully healed yet. Maybe that day will never come. Maybe I´ll just learn how to live with the pain.

So this is bothering me now. And sadly, I can´t fully enjoy this calm and hopeful period because my doubts and insecurities are poisoning it. But it´s all part of dealing with CPTSD, I guess. Nothing comes without side effects.

Thank you for the words of encouragement, SenseOrgan. I also think that it was a massive EF because it felt so endless and out of context. I´m doing much better now. Interestingly, this negative experience kind of gave me a boost to take better care of myself and listen to what my feelings are trying to say. I think these thoughts and emotions needed attention for a long time now, and maybe this is the right time to finally listen to and deal with them.
I´m sorry to hear about your EF. I hope it´ll get better, just as mine did. Returning the hug  

I just wanted to thank you all for contributing to this thread and Stussy7 for starting it. I´ve always looked at my fatigue and constant exhaustion as something that bothers me, so this very interesting aspect that it´s the body´s way to  calm and re-regulate itself is new for me and I like it very much because it makes perfect sense. And also helps not to blame myself for being like that. So thank you. 

It´s very hard, nearly impossible for me to connect to people on any level. This is something that bothers me very much, since I feel lonely and isolated all the time and I feel the absence of human connection as a huge, dark void in my chest. There are many, many things that make it very difficult. My constant fear of rejection, anxiety about people finding out who I really am and than leaving or hurting me, and shame for everything I am - these are the biggest but not the only obstacles.

Today I feel especially close to this part of my life. Something that happened earlier this day - an encounter with a stranger - triggered in me feelings of shame and sorrow and put thoughts in my mind as "keep daydreaming, that´s all you have left" or "you´ll never find happiness in this life, it´s out of reach for you". I broke down under the weight of all the cruel stuff my mind kept telling to me and the possibility that it could be true, broke my heart.

I often think that there´s so much going on in my life that it´s impossible to find someone who can cope with all that and carry that heavy burden with me. It´s extremely hard for me to open up about myself, about my dreams and fears because of the constant fear of being hurt. I was hurt by the person closest to me, my mother. My mind and soul will never forget the betrayal this meant to me. Keeping distance from everyone and not telling anything about myself to anyone is hardwired in my brain and it´s very hard to change any aspect of it.

Maybe there´s hope somewhere under this burden. Maybe I could allow just a little for someone to help me do this heavy lifting to see what else is under that burden. Hope would be enough for me now.