Hello to all you brave and courageous members of this community. Grateful just doesn't even begin to describe how I'm feeling about having stumbled on this board...
I'm actually not even really sure what to say - I'm not used to talking about myself. I'm pretty good at being the one who listens. And that seems (strange as it may sound) to be part of the problem. I love to be there for people. I love to support them and sit with them in all the moments that life brings us. And. It is close to impossible for me to give myself permission to need someone to listen back.
So here I am. Feeling like the only person in the world who lives this way. Feeling like I have lived two lives for the last 35 years - the life the world knows about and the life that I, my parents (also the people who have hurt me most deeply), and my treatment providers know about. And feeling utterly exposed because three weeks ago various events led to the truth of my "secret life" being outed in all its ugly, messy, raw reality. There was some initial love and then one by one friends (all but one) started to disappear.
How do you talk to all the people in your life who always knew you "struggled" because maybe you flew below the radar for a while here and there, but they never knew what the struggle really looked like until they were hit in the face with the truth of emergency rooms and filthy apartments and medication and poor nutrition and financial chaos and therapists and psychiatrists and groups and... Do they even really want to know? Or did they maybe like the "public" me a whole lot better than the real me?
But the public me took so much damn effort to keep up that I have yet to be able to live a life in line with my values. I miss birthdays; I don't initiate social plans for fear they don't really want to see me; forgetful is my middle name; avoidance is my game; I hide; I sleep 20 hours a day when I think no one will notice; my best friend since I was 10 has a two year old I've never met because it's too painful for me to face the fact that I'm 35, single, and too scared to think about children given that I can't even take care of myself. I don't like this person I am. I have so much love in me for so many people in this world that sometimes I feel like my chest is going to explode. And yet, you'd never know it from the way I behave. I am inconsistent and unreliable. I am forgetful and disorganized. I lie about "car trouble" so I don't have to leave the house and see anyone because I am so profoundly exhausted from "behaving" during the times I do go out and see people.
I am in therapy. And things are changing. Slowly. But 35 years of trauma (yes, it continues to this day given that I am still in close contact - and am 100% financially dependent on the people who hurt me most deeply: my parents. Though I will say that those relationships are changing and growing too. I truly believe that while my parents actions resulted in life threatening emotional wounds, they were doing the absolute best they could with what they had/have at the time) takes a long time to heal. And the darkness has been deeply hidden for many, many years.
Again, to be able to speak all of this out into the world and to trust it will not be judged and, most likely, will be understood is one of the greatest gifts I may have ever received. Thank you. To each and every one of you who are here, struggling along beside me. We may not be able to see each other, but I feel your light and your presence as I sit here alone with my dog.
With love to you all. Thank you for letting me be here. Thank you.
"It's never too late to be what you might have been." ~George Eliot
I'm actually not even really sure what to say - I'm not used to talking about myself. I'm pretty good at being the one who listens. And that seems (strange as it may sound) to be part of the problem. I love to be there for people. I love to support them and sit with them in all the moments that life brings us. And. It is close to impossible for me to give myself permission to need someone to listen back.
So here I am. Feeling like the only person in the world who lives this way. Feeling like I have lived two lives for the last 35 years - the life the world knows about and the life that I, my parents (also the people who have hurt me most deeply), and my treatment providers know about. And feeling utterly exposed because three weeks ago various events led to the truth of my "secret life" being outed in all its ugly, messy, raw reality. There was some initial love and then one by one friends (all but one) started to disappear.
How do you talk to all the people in your life who always knew you "struggled" because maybe you flew below the radar for a while here and there, but they never knew what the struggle really looked like until they were hit in the face with the truth of emergency rooms and filthy apartments and medication and poor nutrition and financial chaos and therapists and psychiatrists and groups and... Do they even really want to know? Or did they maybe like the "public" me a whole lot better than the real me?
But the public me took so much damn effort to keep up that I have yet to be able to live a life in line with my values. I miss birthdays; I don't initiate social plans for fear they don't really want to see me; forgetful is my middle name; avoidance is my game; I hide; I sleep 20 hours a day when I think no one will notice; my best friend since I was 10 has a two year old I've never met because it's too painful for me to face the fact that I'm 35, single, and too scared to think about children given that I can't even take care of myself. I don't like this person I am. I have so much love in me for so many people in this world that sometimes I feel like my chest is going to explode. And yet, you'd never know it from the way I behave. I am inconsistent and unreliable. I am forgetful and disorganized. I lie about "car trouble" so I don't have to leave the house and see anyone because I am so profoundly exhausted from "behaving" during the times I do go out and see people.
I am in therapy. And things are changing. Slowly. But 35 years of trauma (yes, it continues to this day given that I am still in close contact - and am 100% financially dependent on the people who hurt me most deeply: my parents. Though I will say that those relationships are changing and growing too. I truly believe that while my parents actions resulted in life threatening emotional wounds, they were doing the absolute best they could with what they had/have at the time) takes a long time to heal. And the darkness has been deeply hidden for many, many years.
Again, to be able to speak all of this out into the world and to trust it will not be judged and, most likely, will be understood is one of the greatest gifts I may have ever received. Thank you. To each and every one of you who are here, struggling along beside me. We may not be able to see each other, but I feel your light and your presence as I sit here alone with my dog.
With love to you all. Thank you for letting me be here. Thank you.
"It's never too late to be what you might have been." ~George Eliot