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Topics - LucySnowe

#1
DR - Disturbed Relationships / Loneliness, isolation
March 18, 2020, 09:49:40 PM
Hi everyone,

I've been using this forum a little bit now but am a little anxious that I don't do it quite right. I'm trying to reach out, though. I'm feeling quite lonely. I've related to other posts in this topic about the pain of needing connection with others but not knowing how to make it safe or workable. Being in relationships always seems to involve lots of problems and pain, but not being in relationships seems to make everything else in my life worse—I'm not that healthy when I'm alone.

I realize this is a major conundrum for many of us with cptsd and attachment disorder (as addressed skillfully elsewhere in this topic), and there may be no real answers other than the daily work of recovery and self-compassion and -forgiveness.

I do get a lot out of just knowing that I can tell the truth here and other people will understand, accept it, and be kind. That's a big deal. And it is good medicine for me to be able to tell the truth somewhere; to verbally ventilate and grieve, which helps me move through the feelings and do some deep healing at the same time.

So partly, for me, just this is the answer. I'm also curious, though, what other people have found helpful, in those moments when they're feeling alone and scared, and wish they had warm connection to someone but don't, and don't know how to build it right now? What do you do that helps you?

Thanks  :heythere:
#2
Hello all,

I already started posting in some of the other spaces; I read all the requisite introductory material, but I somehow missed this space. Anyway, I'm here now to inquire whether there is a glossary of common terms and acronyms somewhere? Or whether people just know them from their own reading? I'm in the process of reading a cptsd book myself, and have had a lot of therapy and am familiar with many terms and acronyms, but there are still some I don't know, and so don't know what people mean when they use them.

I looked, but I will admit I have a tendency to miss things in plain site.
#3
The Cafe / A couple of potentially helpful items
March 17, 2020, 03:53:32 PM
(TW) New Yorker article about Fiona Apple

I found this deeply relatable and inspiring: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/23/fiona-apples-art-of-radical-sensitivity?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker


One-A-Day Reason To Be Happy

A book from my childhood that I still have and that gives really good examples of all the small and weird things we can be happy about every day, even in hardship (like taking one step, or seeing a small flower): https://www.amazon.ca/One-Day-Reason-Be-Happy/dp/0896381110

:grouphug:
#4
Hello everyone,

I'm new to this and not sure I'm doing it right. I tend to write a lot. I'll try to keep this somewhat brief (that didn't work out  :doh:).

I just upended my life—or what little, unstable life I had begun to establish in a new place, where after a few months it wasn't working out—and impulsively drove across the country to start again somewhere else, in a climate where I hoped my physical illness would be better supported. But part of that move also had to do with things falling apart in the 12-step group I'd begun attending in that other town, and the job I'd started there. Truly, though, I was unable to find safe housing for my environmental condition and had ended up living in my car, so it felt like there was little left to lose in relocating.

So now I'm on the road (and on the run) again, and feel I've lost the support and understanding of two close allies, on whose support and friendship I had been relying. And now I'm having suicide ideation again. I don't think it's anything serious—I've never been willing or able to actually hurt myself, and don't believe that (serious ideation) is a feature of my particular disorder. But it definitely feels like life doesn't work for me: I'm exhausted, depleted, in pain, and without connections or prospects. I'm heading today to a new town where I don't know anyone, don't have a job or place to stay, and now, with the recent loss of these two allies, feel quite hopeless and discouraged about making a new start. I had been hopeful, but now it feels like I'm just back in the same old place.  :fallingbricks:

And this is what I'm struggling with most of all—I've made such an extraordinary effort over my lifetime to get well. I've devoted all my energy and resources to it. Since I was 18 and even before, I examined and tried to improve myself, threw myself into therapy, tried different modalities including DBT and somatic therapy and group therapy, lived at a residential Zen center and tried unsuccessfully to maintain a personal practice after that, looked for community living situations, addressed my addiction tendencies with 12-step, worked very hard on my friendships, etc., etc. Some things have been much harder for me to do than others—like exercise, or any kind of formal practice that I have to self-motivate for (other than journaling). But I have pushed myself to the full extent of my capacity.

And here I am; 37, starting over again, alone, in struggle. I'm so tired. There seem so few resources, so little understanding, for people like us. It does seem like it's getting better out there—I found a book on cptsd, the first description of a disorder that properly fits me and encompasses my life experience, and I've found this forum. But I am so tired. I don't want to fight anymore. I honestly don't know how I keep going. I've had to largely cut off family connections due to their harm and unhelpfulness, and so I really have nothing right now. And this is what I'm left with—after a lifetime of heroic effort, which others can only struggle to see.

I need help and care and it's not there. I want to give up, but there's no real way to do that (as I am not actually suicidal; though—trigger warning—I honestly sometimes wish that I was; wish that I could leave this life). So what to do?

I pray to God (my stand-in word for the universe/cosmos/force of compassion and wisdom). That is something. I've been trying to practice more self-compassion. That is something also.

What do you all do? Does anyone relate to this?  :stars:  :heythere: