The Next Version Of Me

[sanmagic7]

hey, bach, maybe it would help to break things down to smaller pieces.  instead of 'didn't binge today', maybe 'ate an apple' (which is healthy), or instead of 'didn't stay in bed all day' could turn into 'got dressed today'.  it may not seem like much, but it is a start, and don't we say here that every little thing counts?  i truly believe they do.  i get overwhelmed by those big categories and one statement has to fit everything into it kind of thing.

this stuff is overwhelming when we're not looking for it.  i've had to break trauma work into the tiniest of pieces just to be able to process w/o losing it for weeks (literally).  please, be as gentle on yourself as possible.  you are full of wonderful things.  sending love and a hug full of the goodness of you.  

[Bach]

Thank you, san  That means a lot.  It's a good suggestion, too, but I have to deal with my feelings of guilt and shame and inadequacy, like nothing I can do will ever be enough and so I shouldn't write anything down unless it's PERFECT.  I know all the reasons I "shouldn't" feel that way, but still, I do.

I had a ridiculous and frustrating therapy session today.  I talked about how I know all the "whys" about my depression and dysfunction now, but that knowing WHY I'm like this doesn't tell me how to fix it and not be like this anymore.  I told my therapist that I feel hopeless, and that I'm "done".  She asked me what I'm "done" with, and I couldn't really answer her.  She asked if I'm done trying, and I said no, because trying is all I know how to do.  Then I said "Done with hope, I guess.  Done thinking that anything will ever be any different.  I'll just keep trying because that's all I can do, but I suppose I need to just accept that I'm going to live this life until it's over and nothing is ever really going to change."  Do I really feel that way?  I'm not sure.  I suppose I hope not, but I'm just so tired of everything. 

Lots of intrusive thoughts.  "Why doesn't anybody love me?"  "Why can't I be the person I want to be?" "What's going on with my mother?"  "If I was dead, I wouldn't have to deal with any of this crap anymore".  "Why can't I just die peacefully in my sleep?  Go to bed, get all comfortable and cozy, happily drift off and just never come back."  Ugh.  It all sucks.  And I wish I could get free of my mother.  I haven't communicated with her since September 19, and I'm almost obsessed with wondering what's going on with her, why she hasn't contacted me lately, when she's going to contact me, whether I should contact her.  My mother is awful but parts of me just can't let go of her.  Parts of me still want her attention.  Very ambivalent parts, who want her approval, but who also want to call her out on her horribleness, stand up for me, for my sanity, for her craziness, for the things she did and didn't do that made me the festering stinking mess I am today.  But really, I just want to be well, and content, and loved.  I know there are people who love me but it never seems like enough.  I'm always chasing something.  And I'm gaining weight like crazy.  I can't tolerate any of this.  I want to self-harm, but I won't do that either.  I will just keep going, keep trying, keep withering emotionally as I fatten physically, keep growing older, ruing my life, and keeping my mouth shut about all the things no one can help me with.  Keep drowning in my unsheddable tears.  That's the one WHY I still don't know and never will:  Why I even had to exist at all.   

[paul72]

hi Bach,
I am sorry that you're feeling such despair.
I don't have any good answers for your questions ... other than I am so glad you exist and are here.
A lot of what you say resonates when I am feeling despair too.  I totally can understand how knowing the whys really isn't helpful sometimes. It's the how to escape it, that we wait for.
I am gaining a lot of weight too. I put some dye in my beard last week and told my wife I've given up losing weight, but that I'd try to look younger at least (it made us chuckle)
Sending positive wishes for that feeling to ease for you. I hope you can be gentle with yourself, Bach.
It was thanksgiving for us Canadians yesterday, and I'm so thankful for you and all you share. I'm glad to be here, hoping for any healing, alongside you.

[Armee]

I'm glad you're here, Bach.

I understand too the obsession with the mother. It's almost an addiction. I had the same when I went low contact still always wondering thinking and remembering to keep the drama alive. Once she died that all went away immediately. I hope you get relief from her one day. I know some here have had luck going no contact and eventually moving beyond that kind of obsession with the ones who hurt us. It wasn't something I could do because of specific circumstances but I hope for relief for you one day or another.

The hopeless days suck. Suck suck suck. The hopeless feeling will pass and give you a break, hopefully soon.

[sanmagic7]

dearest bach, trauma sucks, period.  it can be a never ending source of all you've written about - the hopelessness, the striving for the impossible, the obsession w/ someone who continues to hurt us.  it is difficult to begin wanting kindness, peace, and calm to take the place of hurt, pain, and abuse in our lives.  difficult because we have so little practice at feeling comfortable w/o the pain.  yet we hate it and want it gone at the same time.  ugh!

sending love and a hug full of relief from the terrible whirl-away that you're on.

[Papa Coco]

Bach,

I feel your pain. I feel the hopelessness with you. I'm glad that when your therapist asked what you were done with, you didn't say you were done trying. I'm glad you're still trying. I've been trying for decades, and it really does pay off.

You said you know that people love you, but you still feel unloved. I'm very happy to hear that you know you are loved. But the difficulty in accepting that sounds like trauma to me. You know the fact, that people do love you. So the issue isn't that you're unloved. The issue is that you are living with trauma. The trauma is not you. Your essence is a loving essence. The trauma is just a pest, like racoons in the crawl space. They're not supposed to be there, but they wreak havoc on your peace anyway.  No need to burn down the house, just keep working to rid it of the trauma racoons.

In an earlier post you talked about men you've known who were okay with their childhood sexual abuse. I've met men like that as well. Several in fact. In this world of 8 billion personalities, I can't begin to know how many different ways a boy can process what happened.

One of my favorite movies is Mysterious Skin. It's also a book. One boy (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt) and who's character was a bit narcistic, embraced the abuse he took at 9 by his little league coach. There was another boy being abused then too. But the other boy was a shy, quiet boy. The abuse made him go bonkers, (like it did me when I was 7) and he was so traumatized by it, that he went on believing he'd been abducted by aliens because that made more sense to him than what really happened.

The boys went their separate ways after little league, and their two stories are told in tandem, until the end of the movie, when at 17 years of age, the two boys reunite. Levitt's character, the one who liked the abuse, compassionately helped explain to the messed-up boy what had happened when they were both 9. I draw a few tears every time I get to that final scene. I relate to the confused boy, and I am always wishing someone would have had the compassion to explain my past to me.

When I read up on Melancholic Depression, which is the oldest term ever used for PTSD, coined by Hippocrates, I wonder if you and I feel that same sense of melancholic depression, still wishing we'de had better parents who would have protected us rather than make us feel unworthy. It's probably why I consider movies like Mysterious Skin and The Perks of Being a Wallflower to be my favorites, because I relate so strongly with the abused boys in movies like those. They just wanted to be loved, like me. I'm loved now, but I have to remind myself that when I feel unloved as a man, it's not reality, it's trauma reminding me that as a boy, I wanted to be loved back then also.

I don't know if my post here is relevant to what you're going through, but I just wanted to share that your post inspired me to write this response. It's how I am currently relating to what you are going through right now.

I like your posts. I hope you are able to keep separating your true self from the trauma. The trauma is not you. The trauma can be dealt with. And when it is, the loving essence of you is still there.

[Not Alone]

Bach, I have experienced feeling "done." It is awful. I wish I had wise words or a way to bring some light to your heart. I care and I'm glad you are here.

[CactusFlower]

Sweet bach, I'm so sorry you're feeling this despair right now. While I cannot presume to say I understand, I have sometimes felt similar difficulty of hope knowing Fibromyalgia will be with me from now on. We are here for you and all love and care to you. Knowing you, even just on here, enriches my life. I hope this will lighten a little for you. Whether it does or not, though, I'm here to listen and care.

[Hope67]

Hi Bach,
I related so much to what you said about your mother - and the obsession with mother and wondering how a mother is - no matter what level of communication (whether in contact, VLC or estranged etc) it seems that it's so conflicting for different parts of a person to cope with the interactions and relationship with a mother. 

I also wanted to say that I'm so glad you're here as well - I second what Not Alone said. 

I also relate to what you said about wanting to put something in a perfect way - and not feeling able to necessarily write something if it doesn't feel that way - such a heavy standard to try to aspire to, and I don't think it's normal or even possible to do it.  But the imperfect, maybe that's more normal, more relateable, and maybe it's ok.

Sorry - I have a headache just now, and I don't know whether what I'm writing is making sense, but I do care, and I send you a heartfelt hug - if there's part of you that is ok to have that hug Bach 

Hope 

[Bach]

I love you all so much

[rainydiary]

Hi Bach, I resonate with the experience of knowing "why" and still wondering why that isn't enough to move forward.  I am thinking of you as one complex being to another.

[Papa Coco]

I love you right back, Bach.

Big hug!

[sanmagic7]

love you, too.

[CactusFlower]

Love you, Bach, and littles too! fun grouphug for anyone who wants to join in.   

[Bach]

There's a raw spot inside me, I can almost see it.  I can't describe it but it's slippery and hypersensitive, like an eyeball or the oozing place that's left if the skin is peeled off from a blister.  It's there all the time and it hurts all the time.  It's the wound that has been there since the very first day of my life from having a mother who never touched me with love.  That pain originated with my little baby self, and I still feel it every single day.  Nothing reliably soothes it, and most of the things that sometimes, sort of soothe it even just a little bit are things that aren't terribly good for me. 

Lately I've been putting forth a lot of effort towards emotionally disentangling myself from my mother, which is exhausting but about which I feel a certain amount of hope.  It has begun to seem possible.  I wish I could put even the slightest bit of it into words, but I can't, really, it's so complicated and weird and there is SO. MUCH. BACKSTORY.  Earlier today I talked to both My Person and my therapist about the stuff that I've been thinking about lately, and I felt like I was really onto some things, but now it's all jumbled up in my mind and I can barely remember what the heck I was thinking.  Except for the fact that Little B still wants Mommy's attention and approval, and Middle B still wants to stick up for all of us.  Those parts are clear.  What's not clear is what I can do about any of that to make myself healthy and whole, and to stop wallowing in my fundamental addiction to the toxicity.

Oh, I am so tired.