How to live with the shame of not having had a life?

[tsukino]

It made me cry reading the posts of Disco Dancing Queen.

I kept getting used and abused, and manipulated, and treated so poorly. I didn't have a sense of being here in this now, or of existing in this time and space. So I had no sense of time, that things would past, I was just totally stuck in reexperiencing the traumas, over and over and over again, and being retraumatised again and again and again. So it was so really tricky to unpack.

It is me, too. I am now making the final steps out of the closed box I was in. So I hope.
It is very scary, totally nothing to hold on to, all alone, but there for the very first time in my life I can see and feeling my true feelings and senses. I am not everyone else, very different, very unsure, but I am a life just as I am. Admitting, accepting, realizing....

but, still, it was hard. this is hard. This life is so hard to live.

 

[ms spock]

Hey thanks for letting me know how it is going for you @tsukino it really does help to know that another person gets some of your feelings and some of your lived experiences.

If you can be gentle with yourself. If you learn how to be gentle with yourself, please come back and tell me how you did that, as I need all the tips that I can get.

Today I am doing a little bit better with this, it is not easy to deal with.

 

[tsukino]

Hello Disco Dancing Queen, how are you doing today?
I've read tons of books on psychology but never kept seeing a therapist or any of this kind. I was all, so all alone. What happened to me? Emotional abuse and neglect during my childhood was just enough to lock me in another world. I lost my life with hopes, dreams, loves for and to friends and families. I was nowhere at any moment of these 50 years.
I have to understand what I was doing, in a different sense. Nevertheless, I was living my given life, avoiding all the possible repeats of abuse and neglect from any person. Funny enough, I did not have a tiny bit of idea why I was so alone.

Still now, I tend to try hard to realize others' desires. My mother behaved as if she was suggesting that I was a bad person. With women, I easily become a bad person to be disliked by them. My father behaved as if he was saying that I didn't exist. With men, I disappear in a flash and start to obey them. Both would go away when I got close to them, so still now it is very hard to be with people because of the fear that they will go away.

Well, a lot more to tell, but now I think this way. Including all that happened to me and that is in my mind now, I am one whole being. There is nothing to be ashamed of. This is me.

How are you doing? I am learning how to be gentle with myself, like you wrote.
Hoping you are well.

 

[ms spock]

I am not doing so well with this at this time. I am really struggling.

 

[mumstheword]

I do wish we could go dancing together! So many ways we have commonalities.
I think the inner gifts and that you share them count much more than "worldly" accomplishments. But I will be facing similar challenges when I finish my own degree and get serious about money-earning job hunting again. Right now it's still recovery focus for me, and getting through the degree.

 

[mumstheword]

I am not doing so well with this at this time. I am really struggling.

Bummer to hear/read you are having a hard time, right now.:-( I am sorry, wish I could do or sat something to help, support, encourage, hearten you. You give so much, work so hard, bare your heart here and you are an inspiration to many, I know, whether you can feel/know it, right now. Hugs and empathy.

 

[ms spock]

This was about moving from Stagnation to Generativity. It is a normal part of an adult's developmental development stages.

As a child, I got stuck in Mistrust, Shame & Doubt, Guilt, Role Confusion, Isolation & some Stagnation. I did do some things that were okay and some good stuff in my life. However I was so completely dissociated, I never had a feeling of being there/here. I missed out on connections with others and community.

And I am back here I am binge eating again. I am in a bad way.

I kept getting used and abused, and manipulated, and treated so poorly. I didn't have a sense of being here in this now, or of existing in this time and space. So I had no sense of time, that things would past, I was just totally stuck in reexperiencing the traumas, over and over and over again, and being retraumatised again and again and again. So it was so really tricky to unpack.

Yeah and this is still a problem. And I am dealing with the fallout of PTW who totally ripped B off and who used both of us, and who, now, is engaging in domestic violence emotional abuse and threats and intimidation with his ex, not before pulling his own particular brand of shite with me, and yeah now being in B's house is actually triggering me at the moment.

I have had to do a wide range of strategies to start getting on top of this for myself. I had to do really small incremental steps, again and again.

Yeah and I am so tired, I have worked so goddamned much and I have to do it all again. I am so weary.

I really feel for anyone who struggles with this as it is really tough going. But everyone struggles with their identity and life choices in middle age, so we are not such aliens and weird, we just have extra layers, which can seem overwhelming at times, to work through.

And it is a totally shit gig.

So I am now working on grounding and being in my body, working on my boundaries, having a life, making decisions, working on how to communicate with people.

And I can't do this at the moment I am really weary. I can't do any more than what I am doing. I am really tired, and I want to not have to struggle so hard to be alive anymore.

Being alive and being in my body is just too hard. I can't do it. I am so tired and weary.

 

[ms spock]

So this has taken over again. The shame has me in a straight jacket, once again. I so don't want to feel anymore. I never want to have another emotion. I have never been one much for feelings, I really don't know how to manage any of that. And learning to feel feelings and being in your body when you are 47 is shitful. So embarrasing, and horrible. And it sucks that I have to learn how to do this now.

I don't want to be alive anymore. I just don't want to be here anymore. But I can't do anything in that direction. So f*ck it. I have to do the pain that is my life, again and again. I have to learn to feel my feelings. I have to learn how to be on my own. I have to learn how to feel feelings.

I have to stop trying to be "special" because you know it is just an avoidance of who and what I am. I have to radically accept it all, but it seems impossible today. But I have done the impossible before in my recovery process, so I will just have to do it again.

I don't want to have to do any more work.

I just don't want to do it.

It is so unfair I have had to work so hard to just get here, and f*ck it now I have to do more work, and those goddamned f*cking perpertrators my family, the Church, the schools, my extended family, the psychologists, they have all gotten off so easily - it does not seem fair.

I have to live with all this and struggle to manage the basics, and you know I can't do the basic things of being in my body and feeling.

So now more work! I feel so bitter about it all. They all have such societal approval, and I have to keep paying and paying. And it is not fair.

It is just not fair.

I should have kept my f*cking mouth shut and said nothing. My Father would have killed us all, and it would have finally been over, but no it just goes on and on.

And I have to be like this, and I don't want to be like this anymore. I don't want to feel so ashamed, so bad, and so lost. I don't know what is going to happen, I am scared.

So I am back in avoidance.

I just wanted to be good at one thing, you know, so it would prove that what they said about me, their character assasination was not true, that I am not so bad, but I have never managed to really stick with anything because of the shame!

I am so over everything today.

I don't want to work so hard anymore.

No wonder I gave up feeling feelings with all the stuff that is inside of me.

It is so unfair that such terrible abuse has such a profound impact of every arena of your life.

Even if the perpetrators go to jail they get out.

I can never get out. It is a life sentence. I can never get away, unless I eat and eat. And I don't think that I will ever be able to give that up. I feel so ashamed to go out in public as I am obese.

It is terribly embarassing to be me. It is such a shaming experience to be me.

The shame is really high today. It feels overwhelming.

I don't want to be alive anymore. I just don't want to be here anymore. But I can't do anything in that direction. That is just more pain for everyone. So f*ck it. I have to do the shit that is my life, again & again & again & again & again.

I have to learn to feel my feelings. I have to learn how to be on my own. I have to stand on my own two feet. I have to feel the aloneness and the pain. I have to stop the avoidance, and learn to have some distress tolerance.

I have to stop trying to be "extraordinary" or "special" because you know it is just an avoidance of who and what I am, or my fears of who and what I am. I have to radically accept it all, but it seems impossible today. But I have done the impossible before in my recovery process, so I will just have to do it again.

 

[mumstheword]

I am so feeling for you @Disco Dancing Queen . My pain echoes your pain and it does totally suck and its totally unfair. I think you are amazing and awesome though, and I totally get the shame and how hard it is to live in this body and feel all the feelings. My heart is going out to you, for whatever that's worth. It's all overwhelming at times and I also eat to numb out and to get some (inadequate) comfort and then loads more shame and self disgust. I wish I knew what to say to help, but I fear words are totally inadequate, at least any I can come up with. You do work so hard though, your commitment to amazing and awesome and inspiring and I hope you are giving yourself credit for that. I am carrying a similar burden and I get how f*cked it is, too much of the time. We are both still awesome though, even though we carry an amount of body armor that we are unhappy with, but that just sounds glib and trite so I don't really know what to say, and feel utterly clunky and clumsy in what I am trying to say, but I respect you and am feeling empathy and care for you.

 

[ms spock]

Thanks it means a lot @mumstheword

 

[ms spock]

I am highly experientially avoidant. I feel so ashamed. I talked too much to my house mate last night. I block connection with people to avoid connection. I am making my life worse by my avoidance, and by avoiding feeling my shame. It is horrible.

I am sabotaging myself and my own life, and I don't know how to stop it.

 

[ms spock]

I have to live with all this and struggle to manage the basics, and you know I can't do the basic things of being in my body and feeling. No wonder I gave up feeling feelings with all the stuff that is inside of me. It is so unfair that such terrible abuse has such a profound impact of every arena of your life.

Not happy about this!

I can never get out. It is a life sentence. I can never get away, unless I eat and eat. And I don't think that I will ever be able to give that up. I feel so ashamed to go out in public as I am obese.

This totally sucks. I have gone totally backwards with this one.

I have to learn to feel my feelings. I have to learn how to be on my own. I have to stand on my own two feet. I have to feel the aloneness and the pain. I have to stop the avoidance, and learn to have some distress tolerance.

I have to stop trying to be "extraordinary" or "special" because you know it is just an avoidance of who and what I am, or my fears of who and what I am. I have to radically accept it all, but it seems impossible today. But I have done the impossible before in my recovery process, so I will just have to do it again.

So off to do the impossible.

Even if the perpetrators go to jail they get out.

Yeah and they get away with it mostly, so not happy about this.