Exhausted newbie

[PandaQueen]

Hi everyone, I have lived with CPTSD for decades and was finally diagnosed during Covid lockdown. I don't know anyone else with this condition and people just do not get it. I am continually exhausted, isolated and deeply mistrusting of people. I have the full range of symptoms which makes daily life a misery. I find little joy in life and I am in denial about my suicidal feelings. This is the first time I have acknowledged that I have them. If I knew I was going to die in my sleep I would shrug, lay down and drift away. If I lived in a country where guns were readily available I doubt I would still be here. I just don't have any strength left, hope has kept me going but I am running out of that too. My life is a failure, I am utterly trapped by my brain. I am here because I don't want to damage my kids, and that is all. I don't know what to do. I don't have the energy or ability to engage with recovery. I don't really believe I can recover. I have fought this for my whole life, it is me. I pretend to be normal every second of the day. I just don't want to any more.

[Papa Coco]

PandaQueen,

Welcome to this forum. Through your writing, I can feel the struggle you're in, and I totally empathize.

I have found this community of people to be a place of great comfort. These are people who will readily understand your situation. We've all experienced life in a world of people who just don't get it. But here, on this forum, we all seem to get it. It feels SO GOOD to have others like me within reach. I hope you are able to truly feel that too. I look forward to further interactions with you. While I'm saddened by your struggles, I'm very glad you found this community.

Welcome.

[PandaQueen]

The kindness of your reply has breathed a tiny bit of life into me, thank you. I live in an almost constant freeze state, it can take hours to just get in the shower. I often can't bring myself to prepare food. Days pass like I am in stasis. I have found that I often can not speak but I can usually write. Reading was my only real escape in childhood, so I have always loved books and words. Maybe that is why this method of communication usually remains open to me, and why I am not overwhelmed by the idea of this forum. I hope to take some refuge in it and it's anonymity. 'I hope' - I don't say that very often.

[Desert Flower]

Welcome PandaQueen, I read your post and I hope that this forum will help you express your feelings like it has helped me do. You went through so much terrible stuff and I can imagine getting stuck with that as well and just be constantly frozen. If you can write about it, that might help process things, little by little. I totally relate to you saying you don't want to pretend anymore that everything is all right, when really it's not. For me, doing just that has opened up things tremendously. This is a very safe and compassionate community and I hope it will give you the support you need.

[Kizzie]

Hi and a very warm welcome to OOTS PandaQueen    I hope a hug is OK, it sounds like you could really use one.

CPTSD takes so, so much out of us that it's no wonder we do think about suicide. I know I did. It just seems like the only option when life becomes unbearable as it often does with CPTSD. I hope though that now you have found OOTS being able to talk about all that you are feeling will help spark a bit of hope, relief and some warmth to help you move out of the freeze state I think you're in. As others have said, members here absolutely do get it and that means you are safe to speak about all that you are going through.

Glad you found us     

[Chart]

Reading was my only real escape in childhood, so I have always loved books and words. 

Hello PandaQueen, I too took refuge and escape in books from an VERY young age. I remember other kids didn't believe I was really reading the books I brought to school, they thought I was just pretending to read.

Words are safe, mostly. And books can be a powerful way of dissociation. But at least reading is learning and imagining and that was very good for me throughout my life.

Welcome to the forum. Sorry you are suffering, but you have found the right place for understanding what you're going through.


Chart

[Dalloway]

Hello PandaQueen, welcome to the forum. I know many before me wrote this, but I just have to ditto that this is really a safe place full of wonderful and supportive people.
I'm really sorry for your suffering, I felt the pain from every word of yours. I can relate to the feeling of being stuck in your brain, I often describe it as being a prisoner of your own mind. And though I'm at this moment in a similar phase as you describe and can't really see hope for recovery myself (maybe these are just my illusions about 'full recovery' a.k.a erasing the past and everything that happened in it), I can tell that just by reading the supportive and kind and warm comments on other people's and also my posts, gives me a little bit of (what I also don't often use) hope.
So welcome and I'm looking forward to hear from you. 

[Little2Nothing]

Hi PandaQueen and welcome to the forum. 

[Denverite]

Welcome, PandaQueen! I think you'll find that joining a community like this is an important step towards healing. We realize that we aren't as alone as we once thought. Knowing others truly can understand our pain is immensely liberating!

[MarkTheRobot]

This is my first day here. I'm glad you are here.