I Don’t Know Who I Am Anymore

[lostwanderer]

All I am now is a shell filled with former selves.

This is very relatable to me right now.  My heart goes out to you.  Seems contrite to say but you are not alone

[Bach]

I'm trying so hard to be okay.

[lostwanderer]

I'm trying so hard to be okay.

I understand.  From my own experience I know how exhausting it is to try.  I also know how uncomfortable it can be (at least for me) to not feel/be ok.  This won't fix anything but you're allowed to not be ok.  I'm allowed to not be ok.  It's ok to not be ok.  I'm so sorry it sounds like life is throwing some challenges your way @Bach.  Struggling with you.

- lostwanderer

[Chart]

 

Who am I? 

I am a person who has squandered her potential and disappointed herself to the extreme. 

Bach, For me this is Trauma speaking. I don't believe this is the true you. I feel so sorry that you are suffering so much. Please know that you are loved here. And try and make that separation between the true you and Trauma. You seem to be in a transition. The transition is often so very hard. Healing often hurts more as things improve.
Sending love and support.
 

[Hope67]

Dear Bach,
I want to send you my support, and I wish I could say something that might be helpful to you - I am so sorry that you're suffering at the moment, and I wish you could know and feel that people care about you.  I relate very much to what Chart said, about how healing often hurts more as things improve - I wonder if you are getting in touch with grief more - and feeling it, and it therefore hurts more.  I don't know, but it makes sense. 

Wishing you strength and sending you a hug of support 

Hope 

[Blueberry]

Who am I? 

I am a person who has squandered her potential ... 

I resonate with this today. BUT I think Chart is right in saying that that is the trauma speaking, for you and for me.

[Bach]

If you had asked me who I was 35 years ago I would have confidently told you that I was a writer.  I was always writing.  I carried a notebook at all times, two, usually, a small looseleaf one for my journal and a steno book or similar for my fiction.  My ambition was to be successful enough as a novelist to then be able to teach.  I sure was NAIVE.  And I never wrote much that was worthwhile.  I'm good with stringing words together but not so good at telling stories. 

I used to be good at stringing words together, anyway.  Nowadays it's a grim and time-consuming struggle to express anything in writing at all.  I don't know where all those words used to come from, but I sure don't have them anymore.  Never mind fiction, where I'd have to make up the story.  I can't even write about what I know best: My own life.  My own stories.  I want to tell them but I CAN'T MAKE THEM MAKE SENSE.

[sanmagic7]

from one writer to another, bach, i hear you. to be able to use your mind creatively like that takes energy, focus, and  concentration, plus a free flow of ideas.  when we're stuck in the midst of all this crapola, it can almost be too much  to be able to find our shoes in the morning! 

hangin' right beside you on this.  love and hugs

[NarcKiddo]

 

[Bach]

Thank you for the support, friends    I am hanging on here, doing my best to believe that I will eventually feel better.  Logic and experience tell me I will.  It's really hard to see right now, but it's happened before and it can happen again.

My therapist has been telling me that she thinks that what stops me from doing the things I want to do is that subconsciously I am convinced that I have no power, and that I want someone else to do all the hard stuff for me because I believe that I can't do anything for myself.  While she might not be entirely wrong, where does that leave me?  If consciously I've believed for years that I can help myself, improve myself, learn to function, to heal, however you want to put it, and have been trying as hard as I can, how can I overcome something so deeply subconscious that I can't feel in even the least that it's there?

[NarcKiddo]

Just running with the thought the therapist had in case it helps. You say she might not be entirely wrong. Maybe you should explore your response to that assertion a bit more. Why do you think she might not be entirely wrong? Are you being polite to her in not dismissing the suggestion outright? If there may be a grain of truth in it then it must be worth exploring.

The next point that occurred to me is whether you might be setting the bar too high and therefore missing progress along the way? It is always really hard to see progress, especially with CPTSD and the two steps forward, one step back nature of the beast. Maybe you could consider devising some really super baby steps to try? Or even mindfully seeing something you know you will do as completing a step. I mean things like going swimming, say, or going for a walk. Rather than just doing it because you like it and you have the time one day, actually see it as a step to healing (because it is!). Set up a star chart if it helps. I know this sounds pretty childish, maybe, but since we are all trying to help our inner children to some degree or another maybe a more child-centred approach might be useful.

Just my thoughts on reading your post. Happy to chat more if you want.

[sanmagic7]

bach, i had a similar thought to NK when i read what you said about your T might not be entirely wrong. i also think that's worth exploring, either on your own or w/ your T.  that exploration could also then help you to answer the questions you raise.  they're good questions and deserve answers.

this is a step by step process, for sure, and not all those steps go in the same direction all the time.  i think you're doing good work w/ this and i hope you are able to keep it up.  love and hugs

[Bach]

I absolutely believe I can do things. I think a bigger problem is that ever since the floods I'm struggling to feel that anything is worth doing. And I suppose if there's anything I want someone else to do for me, it's TAKE CARE OF ME. I never had much of that and I guess I never will. I've been working on learning to do it for myself for YEARS. I can do it in bursts but I've never managed to sustain it. I've always tried again, started again. But now I think I'm getting to be just too tired.

[lostwanderer]

I think a bigger problem is that ever since the floods I'm struggling to feel that anything is worth doing. And I suppose if there's anything I want someone else to do for me, it's TAKE CARE OF ME. I never had much of that and I guess I never will. I've been working on learning to do it for myself for YEARS. I can do it in bursts but I've never managed to sustain it. I've always tried again, started again. But now I think I'm getting to be just too tired.

Oh how much I relate to those words.  I'm so sorry.  I'm with you in the tired & the struggle.  I so wish I could take the hurt away because I know what it feels like.  I don't know how and I don't know when but I believe that it will be ok for you.  Sending you hope.