Paint it Black

[voicelessagony2]

Trigger warning: might be depressing. As if "Paint it Black" was not enough of a clue...

One of my favorite songs of all time is this one by the Rolling Stones. Even more now that I look at the lyrics as if they were spoken by my inner critic:

"I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors any more, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by, dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes"

For me, seeing girls in summer clothes awakens my worst insecurities about my body... the constant comparison of myself against the impossibly flawless skin, the perfect teeth, the flat stomach, perfect hair... always in every way so much better than me. The darkness I feel is not envy or hatred toward them, it's simply my persistent, all-encompassing self-hatred, wishful thinking, and blaming myself for not exercising more, or eating too much, or not wearing the right styles, etc.

"Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts
It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black"

That's where I am now. Purposely fading away by dropping out, not participating in activities where I could be meeting professionals, not going to parties with friends.

Saturday night I forced myself to go to dinner with friends that I haven't seen in a long time. It was one of my best friends' birthday. I hated every minute. I felt ugly next to every one of them, inside and out. I felt like I had some sort of disease I could not talk about. They were all going dancing after dinner & when they asked me if I was going dancing, I said no, and one friend said "Oh come on, you never go out any more!" and I said a little snappy, "I'm out now!"

Honestly I secretly hope they completely stop inviting me to anything. I am running out of excuses, and I realized as I sat there listening to all their stories about their vacations and trips, that I have absolutely nothing to talk about. My life is so small. I'm barely surviving while everyone else is enjoying adventures. It made me want to run back home, which I did, to my safe, comfortable little room, my boyfriend, and our pets.

It's exactly how I feel about my career. My professional story, at this point in my career, should be a series of stepping stones, success stories, challenges overcome, and happy customers. Instead, what I see when I survey my history, is a giant train wreck of instability, failed attempts at grandiosity, ideas never seen through to fruition, and rejection after rejection, with gaping holes of depression and poverty here and there.

There isn't enough whitewash in the world to varnish this train wreck and make it look like a success story. How am I supposed to market this mess?

I honestly don't know if I should be trying to stitch together a rehearsed happy version of reality, or if I should just start building birdhouses or knitting baby booties & selling them on ebay. 

[Badmemories]

Keep on keeping on! 

[alovelycreature]

Man the IC can be vicious! Do you ever feel you can accept other's imperfections more than your own? I've often felt that way. Did you get to the part in the Walker book about people with CPTSD feeling ugly?

I always try to avoid looking in the mirror. I actually for years only had a mirror where I could see my face because I just couldn't stand to look at my body. I think that was the first time I started actually buying shorts because I was tired of being so hot in the summer, but I couldn't see how I thought they looked on me. Since then, there has been all this positive body image stuff about loving your cellulite and love handles... so that's been helpful to me. I found this quote about body image and put it on my mirror for a while, "You're not going to look any differently today, so love who you are today."

The other thing I have been practicing thinking is, "My body is an amazing machine. Look at all the things it can do! It's my mode of transportation for navigating the world."

We're taught by the world around us to hate how we look. It's a marketing scheme. If we don't hate who we are and how we look, then we're not going to buy anti aging creams and suck fat out of our bums. Maybe this is something anger is helpful for, not letting money hungry jerks control your self image.

Know you are beautiful, today and every day because you are the only you in the universe. 

[Kizzie]

Saturday night I forced myself to go to dinner with friends that I haven't seen in a long time. It was one of my best friends' birthday. I hated every minute. I felt ugly next to every one of them, inside and out. I felt like I had some sort of disease I could not talk about. They were all going dancing after dinner & when they asked me if I was going dancing, I said no, and one friend said "Oh come on, you never go out any more!" and I said a little snappy, "I'm out now!"

Honestly I secretly hope they completely stop inviting me to anything. I am running out of excuses, and I realized as I sat there listening to all their stories about their vacations and trips, that I have absolutely nothing to talk about. My life is so small. I'm barely surviving while everyone else is enjoying adventures. It made me want to run back home, which I did, to my safe, comfortable little room, my boyfriend, and our pets.

It's exactly how I feel about my career. My professional story, at this point in my career, should be a series of stepping stones, success stories, challenges overcome, and happy customers. Instead, what I see when I survey my history, is a giant train wreck of instability, failed attempts at grandiosity, ideas never seen through to fruition, and rejection after rejection, with gaping holes of depression and poverty here and there.

There isn't enough whitewash in the world to varnish this train wreck and make it look like a success story. How am I supposed to market this mess?

I honestly don't know if I should be trying to stitch together a rehearsed happy version of reality, or if I should just start building birdhouses or knitting baby booties & selling them on ebay. 

Just had that thought that I have a lot these days and never had much before of "I could have written that it sounds so much like me!"  - a very sad/glad kind of thing; glad to be in a community where I can finally relate to others, but of course sad that we are here at all.

Like you things did not go as I would have liked in so many areas of my life and it has really hard to come to the slow realization that my life in many ways was/is about survival.  It's sad, no two ways about it. What balances that for me is that at the same time I know  that I have been in survival mode because of the abuse I suffered and not because I Kizzie am a defective human being. So much of my energy has gone to keeping myself safe, to survival and now that I finally know about CPTSD I can turn it toward recovery and move out of survival mode, hard as it may be.  I want a bigger life, I deserve a bigger life as does everyone here.

I have had moments these past few months of almost a "lightness of being" that I haven't had before.  And when I realize I'm in that moment I find myself saying, "Oh so that's what not being weighed down by trauma looks and feels like - hunh, I guess I really have been dealing with a lot of stuff most people don't have to deal with."  It's that "great train wreck of instability" you describe and now I'm finally "getting it" (emotionally, not just intellectually),  that it's because of abuse and psychological injuries that have not healed yet, and not because I am a less capable human beings than everyone else.  Lately whenever I feel that trainwreck kind of feeling I try to remember those lighter moments I'm beginning to feel and hang onto the notion that working towards recovery will bring more and more of those.   

I hope this helps in a small way VA.

[voicelessagony2]

Thanks for all the replies. It means a lot to me, to be heard.

lovely, I am still struggling with body issues, and I wish I didn't have the giant mirror in the bathroom that allows me to see everything. I've been aware of this body-related self loathing for a while, but I can't seem to find anything to hang onto that works for me. I think I'm eating badly because of depression, because there is still so much more work to do in general, so I just keep going, and trust it will happen eventually.

Kizzie, thank you for sharing your struggles. It does help knowing I'm not so completely alone. 

Rain, you are right. This is my cruel, relentless IC at work here. It's hanging on and fighting harder to stay, now that I know what it is.