I feel like every few years I 'wake up' a bit from dissociation and then reality of my life and time lost hits me. I'm currently 'waking up ' again and I've gotten old. I'm 37 but I feel and act and dress & live like a teenager even a child in many ways but without the energy and hope anymore. I have nothing and nobody and no job no money. I have therapy and a mental health nurse who I see once a week.
Before I finally snapped and broke down about 10 years ago I had a promising life ahead of me. I was behind people my age in terms or career and relationship but I was starting out on a career and it held a lot of promise and I was beginning to really start my life. I then was drugged & raped and a few very intense family things were happening which went on for years and years so I was never able to recover. I had moved overseas to be with family so I had no friends or support networks and my dissociation just enveloped me and I've not been able to break out since.
I've become chronically mentally unwell and a completely different person. I worked so so hard to reach where I did and I always dreamed of having a home and a marriage and children. It all is lost to me now. I don't even have enough income to save for any comfort in my old age. I'm living hand to mouth with money and food and I'm ashamed to be this way and I know my family are deeply sad and ashamed I didn't turn out well in the end. I barely leave my studio room because of panic & anxiety & shame - it's not even a house basically it's a bedsit. I feel void of any of the hopeful energy that once drove me.
Waking up to this is incredibly hard. I've dissociated my life away and I feel like everything now is pointless because I can never be good enough anymore. Even working out - which I am trying to get back into, even then I will never reach what I was. Everything I do feels like I'm in deficit. I've lost my life and I'm terrified of going back into a dissociated sleep and waking up again and finding every single ounce of my life has gone.
I have no friends because I cut everyone out when I became unwell because I didn't want people to know. They weren't even real friends just people I knew from work. The emptiness and sense of loss and humiliation is vast. The world has moved on and I have stayed the same or deteriorated. I used to look about 15 years younger for my age which was a helpful asset but literally lately these last few months I've aged quickly and I don't know if that because I'm waking up and noticing and really seeing this 37 year old or if it's just suddenly caught up biologically as well as mentally as I've progressed in therapy. Like I've been frozen in time and now the unfreeze is happening in therapy it is happening to my body at the same time. I know it might sound vain but it was the last bonus I had - looking and feeling young. It's devastating to wake up to this. I don't know how to motivate myself to move forward. There feels like no forward for me because there's no goals left.
Can anyone relate?
Before I finally snapped and broke down about 10 years ago I had a promising life ahead of me. I was behind people my age in terms or career and relationship but I was starting out on a career and it held a lot of promise and I was beginning to really start my life. I then was drugged & raped and a few very intense family things were happening which went on for years and years so I was never able to recover. I had moved overseas to be with family so I had no friends or support networks and my dissociation just enveloped me and I've not been able to break out since.
I've become chronically mentally unwell and a completely different person. I worked so so hard to reach where I did and I always dreamed of having a home and a marriage and children. It all is lost to me now. I don't even have enough income to save for any comfort in my old age. I'm living hand to mouth with money and food and I'm ashamed to be this way and I know my family are deeply sad and ashamed I didn't turn out well in the end. I barely leave my studio room because of panic & anxiety & shame - it's not even a house basically it's a bedsit. I feel void of any of the hopeful energy that once drove me.
Waking up to this is incredibly hard. I've dissociated my life away and I feel like everything now is pointless because I can never be good enough anymore. Even working out - which I am trying to get back into, even then I will never reach what I was. Everything I do feels like I'm in deficit. I've lost my life and I'm terrified of going back into a dissociated sleep and waking up again and finding every single ounce of my life has gone.
I have no friends because I cut everyone out when I became unwell because I didn't want people to know. They weren't even real friends just people I knew from work. The emptiness and sense of loss and humiliation is vast. The world has moved on and I have stayed the same or deteriorated. I used to look about 15 years younger for my age which was a helpful asset but literally lately these last few months I've aged quickly and I don't know if that because I'm waking up and noticing and really seeing this 37 year old or if it's just suddenly caught up biologically as well as mentally as I've progressed in therapy. Like I've been frozen in time and now the unfreeze is happening in therapy it is happening to my body at the same time. I know it might sound vain but it was the last bonus I had - looking and feeling young. It's devastating to wake up to this. I don't know how to motivate myself to move forward. There feels like no forward for me because there's no goals left.
Can anyone relate?