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Are you ever free?

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I think that we are scarred for life but the fact that there is a far better life than our traumas tried and failed to paint us gives me hope. EMDR changed my life for the better, i am no longer haunted or tormented by the bad memories.
 
I feel like it depends on what you mean when you say free of the past. As I see it:

In one sense it doesn't get better - our experiences really happened, and that fact never goes away.
But we get better, and so our experiences lose power over us.

My needs are informed by (and changed because of) my past experiences, and to a degree that is totally normal.
I have moments, increasingly, when I feel free to act on what I want and need in a way that isn't totally controlled or driven by trauma. And those experiences are really powerful. And fun.

Sending support, and hope, and a hug if you want it.
 
I guess it just gets old. Trying so f*cking hard to always seemed pulled back. I guess self patience plays a big part. The way my therapist explains it is each time I push my comfort zone, though I am pulled back, the more I do that, the more the comfort zone moves. It just gets so tiring and hopeless most of the time. A few times I get a glimpse of "freedom" but its quickly gone. It feels almost like being buried alive many times where my constant digging reveals a bit of light but the soil quickly rolls and covers me back up.

Anyway, I don't even know what I am trying to say at this point.
 
Trying so f*cking hard to always seemed pulled back. I guess self patience plays a big part.
I was reading a finance book recently, and you hit the nail on the head. Patience brings reward.

Basically, people want to save and invest for their future, yet they don't have the patience to wait for compound interest to take true effect, which is roughly the 7 year mark. If you invested $5000 per annum in a high earning super fund starting age 18, each year for 10 years, total $50k, then stopped, at retirement you would have roughly just over $2 million. If a friend started at 28, the time you stopped, and they put $5k into the same fund until retirement, the figures calculate roughly that they would have $1.6 million at retirement. Total investment for the friend, $180k and they still have less at retirement vs $50k when young for only 10 years.

The moral -- start as soon as possible with a plan, and stick with it. Compounding effort in self-help pays big dividends in future years vs trying to play catchup, changing strategies and / or giving up at times.
 
@anthony, hell, wish I could have kept my retirement in. Each time I lost a job, my 401K (retirement - not sure if thats the same in Austrailia) was 100% needed to keep me afloat until I got a new one. This last time was the most I was able to save in a retirement, $6,400 before any fees and taxes, in 3.5 yrs. It was a unique 401K where the percentage went up every yr on its own and I just left it and forgot all about it. Took a hardship withdrawl once to get my car current car as I had no other choice and put some of it back in but my point is I forgot all about it and just left it there and man did it collect. Its nice as most 401K has company match. My goal was to reinvest it back in a new 401K but I will be forced to spend the remainder for a new better used car. Any left and I'll reinvest it but I doubt there will be any or much left.

But, my goal when I set it to auto increase and forgot it was there to allow it to build up like that. And you are fully correct, either they don't know a 401K or other retirement is 100% necessary or watch it too much. I think when you start getting into your mid 30s, you start seeing the need for a retirement and try to play catch up. If I have a chance, and if I can, I will end up setting the percentage higher and make one time deposits to try to catch back up. Social Security just isn't enough anymore and most jobs aren't giving pensions anymore. It is up to you to have money to retire on and actually enjoy your golden yrs instead of just surviving. Most 28 yr olds, or even earlier, can't seem to see the golden yrs. I suppose its easier for me cause I have an almost 76 yr old father, whom with Social Security and a VA 50% disabilty pension, is also just surviving.

Anyway, patience seems to be the key to so much and 20 somethings (the age of entitlement) seem to not want to do for themselves (in my opinion), seeming to want hand outs. My last job had a speaker in the training class explaining why a 401K is good to invest in. Really?

But patience is a good thing to learn for so much. When it comes to self paintence I am weak there. I am so patient with others and so not patient with myself. Something to learn how to do for sure!
 
The only thing that seems to drag me back to the past is my immediate family, to which I now have to avoid them most of the time. Just this past Mother's Day, my father texted me to wish me a happy Mother's Day but then proceeded to follow it up with reminding me about how horrible my mom was. She left my father with $100K in debt after she died from her time living in Manhattan, and he constantly reminds me of that on holidays.

I also had to fight a lot to get ahead in life. I had a rough start where I had nothing, and was living a really horrible nightmare for probably 10 years. Now no matter what I do, how much money I make, it's literally never good enough for my family. I could always do better. Or I'm still an embarrassment. I was laid off from my high paying tech job, but now I run a successful business now living my dream job as an artist, I get condescending remarks about how that's not a real career. I bought a 3,000 sq ft house in a somewhat wealthy neighborhood in November, and my family's response was to tell me that they didn't know why I would bother buying a house. They won't even come visit to see it when my husband's family has already made several trips and stayed here, and my friends regularly travel from different states to visit. My father repeatedly compares me to my little sister who lives off of him in a house he bought her, and yet she's doing "great".

This also ends up being their type of responses to anything my daughter does as well, which I've had to protect her from. She wants to be an actor, they have torn that idea to shreds, but I won't let them say anything to her.

I've given up with them, but it's tough because that's where a lot of my anxiety issues come from. I moved 400 miles away and it has been a lot easier, but I still have a lot of issues feeling like a failure. I can't seem to escape that feeling. I end up being extremely hard on myself and sometimes can't see how good I have it so I am constantly trying to make things "perfect". I'm a grown adult, and I shouldn't need their approval, but it affects me. A lot.
 
I feel like the past has me locked up. I continue to reenact it...it rules me still. Are yo...
"Are you ever really free from it?"...Since it is a part of me, I don't see being free from it as a good thing. It seems to be good reminder for me to keep myself in check & avoid repeating the things that got me to a worse place than I was already in! But yes, there are days when I just wish I could escape the reminders of my past!...But if I force myself to do something, it snaps me out of getting stuck on having to relive the things in my head. Too much sleep often makes it worse 4 me!
 
I was laid off from my high paying tech job, but now I run a successful business now living my dream job as an artist

Im an artist but I was never able to make money doing it. I tried pre-done, portraits on demand using pictures that they wanted to give me. I cant draw or paint by looking at people. I want to get into oils and can still but I just was never able to make any money thus I buy everything on my own and its a hobby. My fear is its a passion and if I start doing it as a job and its on demand, I fear I will start to hate it and I never want to hate art. I started at 10 yrs old and no lessons. Just picked up a notebook paper and a #2 pencil and just drew. At 19, when I met my bestest friend ever and 1st landlord, etc, I started to learn that people loved it and thought I was "awesome" and stuff and everyone started wanting a portrait. People I knew. My therapist loves it and wants me to start drawing and painting again. He seemed very impressed.

Or I'm still an embarrassment

Yep, my family hatea me. I am the "crazy family member", their very words.

My father repeatedly compares me to my little sister who lives off of him in a house he bought her, and yet she's doing "great".

My dad compares me to my brother. Why can't you be like him? Its a horrible feeling!

I've given up with them, but it's tough because that's where a lot of my anxiety issues come from. I moved 400 miles away and it has been a lot easier, but I still have a lot of issues feeling like a failure. I can't seem to escape that feeling. I end up being extremely hard on myself and sometimes can't see how good I have it so I am constantly trying to make things "perfect". I'm a grown adult, and I shouldn't need their approval, but it affects me. A lot.

I've distanced myself from my family as well. They are nuts! People think I am lying but they really google me and known user names and phrases to find me online then they print shit and have changed words in emails to show everyone what "I said" and gossip about me more. That has happened on so many sites. My sister in law has become a member of another forum, pretending to be someone else, to catch me "lying" (per them, sadly its all true). Then makes my life a living hell!

I don't want a 3000 sq ft house. I am happy in a small 600 sq ft 1 bedroom apartment or even a tiny home. I just want to be free of the cult. Yesterday I dove right back into it and the rituals. Not even sure what started it but I am SO sick of it. I just want a "normal" life, not dictated by a cult's belief system. I feel like I don't control my own mind. Its like a robot or something. I don't know. Its frustrating. And you'd think that frustration would be motivational but I couldn't be trying any harder. I try to try harder and can't. I don't know what I am trying to say.

Since it is a part of me, I don't see being free from it as a good thing.

I think it would be. For me anyway.
 
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