Can A Person Be Too Broken?

[Mashed Potatoes]

Can a Person Be Too Broken?

I’ve been thinking about this for a little bit now…

Can a person be Too Broken?

I think of the things I, personally, have survived:

molestation
rape
physical abuse
emotional abuse
child loss
parent loss

I think of the things they say I am:

depressed
anxiety / panic
PTSD
brain issues from too many concussions

Am I just too broken?
They say I can’t work anymore
I’m literally never alone

Some days I feel like I am those things
Some days I feel like there’s hope

I see people making plans
Going out with friends
I don’t know if I’m that person anymore

I over message my friend
I promise myself I won’t
Then I do
It’s a connection I don’t truly understand
Yet I can’t stop thinking I’m supposed to have it
Weird, I know

I feel like everyone needs to know how broken I am
Then I wish they didn’t
Then I wonder why I feel like I need to tell them
I know I don’t act my age
I know I am overly emotional
I know I care sometimes too much for others
I know sometimes I don’t make sense
I know sometimes I say / do stupid things
I think I want people to understand why

Maybe they don’t need to
Maybe it doesn’t even matter
Maybe I am too broken
Or maybe I am just trying to heal in some way…


thoughts?

 

[DharmaGirl]

Hugs. You are who you are. What are the best things about you? What are the things you like about yourself? These are the important things. I just read a letter about my psychiatric problems, and I am still looking at who I think I am. I am learning to love myself as I am.

 

[Justmehere]

I don't think YOU are broken at all.

I think you have been through horrible trauma and are struggling to cope with being traumatized and having a TBI.

It's different than *you* being too broken.

I think you also may be scapegoating yourself and by emphasizing your sense of brokenness, you are perhaps unintentionally pushing people away... and then when they stay at a distance... it's reinforcement of the sense that you are broken.

When it's not you that is broken at all. You are dealing with the normal effects of going through hell.

I think you are an amazing survivor. I think it's great you are reaching out for connection and questioning if the message of being too broken is wrong.

Because it is wrong. I can't judge your abilities and prognosis, but I can confirm that as a person, you are not too broken.

Have you considered joining a TBI support group? They have some in my area and I imagine other areas too. A friend of mine with PTSD and a TBI was struggling with the same things as you are and after she started going to the support group, she discovered that while some things may be out of reach, connection and relationship and creating a good life worth living is not out of reach. She also gained a lot of good tools for explaining her TBI related limitations so that people could connect with her better.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I used the think I was until recently, but that was my negative thinking, it was easy to think I was too broken and not try and give up. But I reached a point after being hospitalized for a manic episode that I was unhappy with things as they are, and I either wanted to change things for the better or I did not want to exist. It's still that way today. The later gives me a reason to do the opposite which is try and try and try.

So the answer is no one is to broken to be fixed, but the definition of fixed is hard to define. As my abuse therapist asked told me to not expect the work we do to leave me cured and fixed, but to expect to be able to cope with the past and present better. And its a painful slow process, that I can say, as I am experiencing the process now.

My question for you does it matter how broken you are? What matters is that you can rise above where you are now and improve the moment.

 

[Mashed Potatoes]

Hugs. You are who you are. What are the best things about you? What are the things you like about yo...

those letters!?! I read what they said about me and it made me re-think who I thought I was. I like your advice to me, my advice to you 'burn that letter' ;) <3 HUGS!!!

 

[Mashed Potatoes]

I don't think YOU are broken at all.

I think you have been through horrible trauma and are struggli...

I never really thought of it that way but it makes sense about me pushing people away. I feel like they see how I act or that they can see that I'm broken so I feel like I need to tell them everything but then no one really wants to be around after that. I don't know if there are support groups in my area but to be perfectly honest, my husband most likely wouldn't let me go. He'd say something like 'you're fine', you don't need that, or it would just re-trigger you. I believe he means well. I believe he loves me but sometimes I do want help, sometimes I get really spiraling and want to, but he doesn't think it's a good idea.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

So the answer is no one is to broken to be fixed, but the definition of fixed is hard to define. As my abuse therapist asked told me to not expect the work we do to leave me cured and fixed, but to expect to be able to cope with the past and present better. And its a painful slow process, that I can say, as I am experiencing the process now.

Well said! Healing is a process, and injuries leave scars, but being alive means you are not too broken.:hug:

 

[7Cs]

[GALLERY=media, 4049]Kintsukuroi by 7Cs posted Jan 11, 2017 at 5:35 PM[/GALLERY]

Can a Person Be Too Broken?

I’ve been thinking about this for a little...

I relate 100% but I don't think we can be "too broken".

 

[7Cs]

oops! Triple post!

:roflmao:

 

[Deleted member 37085]

Can a Person Be Too Broken?

I’ve been thinking about this for a little...

@Mashed Potatoes I don't know of a person being too broken - I really don't have an answer to your question. I do not know the definition of being: too broken? I do know that many, many ptsd sufferers have committed suicide because these precious pain-filled sufferers believed within themselves that they could not take another moment struggling with their ptsd and so - I can only speak about my brokeness, precious one and I will try to never speculate and/or analyze another beloved ptsd sufferer's life. I have heard of patients in psychiatric wards that have been diagnosed with psychiatric catatonia and have read that with treatment most all patients recover. I am not a clinician and only am able to draw from my own personal unique extreme trauma. Just as you have @Mashed Potatoes shared about your own personal trauma unique and authentic only to you. If a TBI is a concussion, I have had two concussions (both from vehicles) and then who knows about the blows to the head I took long ago (dissociation). My sister was there and she's not talking.

And I have decades of psychiatric records where I was so misdiagnosed with bi-polar and have in medical notes where highly educated and intelligent medical personnel have made atrocious errors and life-altering misdiagnosis and medical mistakes about my mental health as well as with my physical health. Some mental health professionals have said crippling comments to my face about my family as I was trying to understand about the near fully devastating trauma I too, just like you @Mashed Potatoes have survived and at this moment in time we both are surviving, yes we are. No doubt about it.

I have been exposed to everything on your above listed post in this thread @Mashed Potatoes and I stopped cutting myself back in '03 and stopped trying to leave this earth (last suicide attempt was in 2000 (?) I believe. In my most recent past, beloved people whom I know have said they don't know how I have been able to endure the horrific trauma and aftermath of having to live with the knowledge that people who were suppose to love me and care for me did absolutely the opposite. My Dad gave me things and taught me nothing about love, self-love, respect, self-respect, forgiveness, core values, patience, strength, standing on my own two feet (instead he taught me learned helplessness).

I am so very grateful beyond words for your post here because why? I know that I am not alone anymore. You and countless other survivors are here. No more do I have to sit up inside of my head and feel like I am the only survivor of atrocious heinous traumatic events. I do care about you, and we both are walking talking miracles. For we are the living proof that what was done to nearly break us, which up to this point, has only served to make us (as we continue to walk through our despicable traumas and mind-bending events that nearly destroyed us) day by day - at times minute by minute - a little bit stronger, and on this web site myptsd.com - we no longer are alone anymore. We, thanks to @anthony and this wonderful myptsd.com web site - can come here when we feel like we are at beyond our mental breaking point and share and talk with one of our people in this community where we all speak the same basic language of ptsd. Sending great love and hugs and holy kisses (cheek) to you this moment @Mashed Potatoes. JadesJewel

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I have heard of patients in psychiatric wards that have been diagnosed with psychiatric catatonia and have read that with treatment most all patients recover.

I have many instances where I was hospitalized in a catatonic state. And I recovered every single time.

I think it comes down to you the individual, do you want to be too broken? Do you want to be less broken? the latter is a great starting place.

 

[OneBloodyMoment]

Can a Person Be Too Broken?

I’ve been thinking about this for a little...

My ex-wife told me I was "too broken", despite the fact that I supported her and our 3 kids and tried my damnedest to fight all my PTSD symptoms (from severe childhood abuse). I was pretty high functioning, never lashed out and wanted more than anything to be a good husband and father. But I was fighting depression alot; I was isolating. Everyday was plagued by my hypervigilence, tho I don't think she ever knew; I had dissociative episodes that she never understood (never tried to understand).

That was some 17 years ago. I thought she was just being cruel because we were going through a divorce at the time (in truth she was trying to be cruel) but over the years I have wondered if maybe she wasn't right. I've certainly felt too broken many, many, many times.

One of the only things that makes me think that just maybe I'm not too broken is my good relationship with my kids.
I'm broken, that's for sure. I'll never be in one piece ever again, my stepfather saw to that. But too broken? I don't think so.
*******

I understand you thinking this way, but I don't think any of us are too broken. I think we've just got to gather up the pieces we have and try to assemble them as best we can. We'll probably be doing this jigsaw for the rest of our lives but as long as we have pieces to work with, we're never too broken.