current life is really good, yet i still feel awful

[inkpistachio]

when i was a young child, i figured everything that happened to me was normal, or at the very least, what i deserved. i thought that being heavily verbally abused by your father was what every child had to go through, and if i didnt want it to happen i just had to "behave", and if i didnt, that was entirely my fault. i thought the same about the abuse i faced in my primary school, i thought the people punishing me for my autism and anxiety attacks were doing so because i was a brat who was failing at my goal of being a good child.

when i was around 9 or 10, i started to realise my worldview was wrong. when i discovered i didnt deserve what i had gone through, and was still going through, i became enraged and started to lash out at everyone, which only caused the awful treatment to worsen. i was in so much pain i wanted to take my own life at 10, which i dont feel was taken seriously enough by the people around me. i felt so trapped. all i wanted was a happy life.

now my life is great. i go to art school and love it. i have great friends, i have an incredibly supportive family, and my life is generally really pleasant.

but it feels like no amount of present day joy can keep me away from the pain of the past. being stuck in what felt like hell for the first 11 or so years of your life is guaranteed to mess with you a little bit, but i dont know what to do about it because its taking a major toll on me now. ive tried running away from it completely, but that didnt work. sometimes talking about my past makes me feel a little better for a while, but im worried if i do it too much or too often it will lead me to have another anxiety attack.

im hoping i can eventually live my life without the burden of things that happened years ago latching onto me and sucking the happiness out of my life.

 

[Teal]

I wouldn’t put so much pressure on yourself to feel a certain way - even if your circumstances are good now. Be more patient with yourself.

This might be the first time in your life where you’ve actually been able to breathe for once.

 

[Movingforward10]

The past has a sneaky way of just plonking itself firmly down in your present to say: now it's time to focus on me.
I think that when life is going well, that's when it rears it's head. In the same way it does when there is a stressful event and it makes itself known then. Maybe the difference is, when life is going well we're more able to manage it? I feel I am going through that at the moment. It's like all the lovely positive stuff now is just hlighting all the trauma from then. I got nothing else to pin the feelings on and ignore it or dismiss it or other crap I need to deal with first.

It's possible to make the past the past. It's a long difficult grieving process. I don't have all the answers. I'm learning it never goes away. But we can learn to live with it and be present.

 

[inkpistachio]

The past has a sneaky way of just plonking itself firmly down in your present to say: now it's time to focus on me.
I think that when life is going well, that's when it rears it's head. In the same way it does when there is a stressful event and it makes itself known then. Maybe the difference is, when life is going well we're more able to manage it? I feel I am going through that at the moment. It's like all the lovely positive stuff now is just hlighting all the trauma from then. I got nothing else to pin the feelings on and ignore it or dismiss it or other crap I need to deal with first.

It's possible to make the past the past. It's a long difficult grieving process. I don't have all the answers. I'm learning it never goes away. But we can learn to live with it and be present.

i guess i just wish i could be free of it. like, im just super eager to start a brand new life without my old life holding me back. i think teddie is right, i need to be more patient with myself. its just so tiring living a life that feels so encroached on by the first portion of it, and i wish i had more time to breathe