Looking For Hope

[WendyA]

It's been a while since I felt I was able to post here. I am still not entirely sure that I can put sentences together that would make sense and explain how I am feeling, but I feel like I have to try. I am devastated about what has happened to my life over the last 6 months. I obviously had repressed things, but I felt like my life wasn't completely awful and I always made the best of things or fought my way out. I am wondering if it is almost worse that I had a life before PTSD because I am starting to feel like I'm too far removed from life to get it back. Plus I realize, painfully, what I am missing and how broken I am right now and nothing like my former self. I don't recognize myself at all. I am a different person and not something I like. I am needy, insecure, negative, depressed, distant, not helpful or good at anything right now and really just a ghost. I realize that this stuff had to come up at some point and I would have to deal with it, however, with the PTSD I just feel as if I am being abused and violated over and over again, which I guess I am. I am feeling PTSD can give you PTSD because of how awful it is.

None of my words written here seem to help or be able to express how I feel. It is so frustrating. I was writing for a while and now I feel as if I have writers block. Like maybe I went too long without writing, there is a bottleneck in my head, and I just can't get any coherent thoughts or words to come through and assemble.

I have been in a lot of pain for a while now and was hospitalized back in November for an attempt, however, lately it just seems that I just don't care anymore. My therapist recently fired me and I'm not sure exactly why. I have a telephone call with her to find out, but I am wondering if that will make things worse. Why would she abandon me and reject me when I need her the most. I just got through telling her that I respected her and thought she could actually help me. My best friend is exhausted by me. I have no one else that I can connect with. There are some others who have reached out and I do reach back and try, but I feel nothing. Really my best friend is the only one who I have a connection with in my current state. He sees me. He gets through to the part of me that is not dead yet.

Since this all began I just feel like the floor drops out from under me over and over again. I can't gain ground or make any headway with healing because something major always seems to surface. And at this point in my life even the small things seem so incredibly overwhelming. I am so lost and feel so alone and unloved and uncared for. And it would be different if I was just alone, but I have this PTSD demon that keeps me company and it is the worst kind. It is so ugly, evil and negative and is the worst in the evening and overnight.

I don't know what else to say. I'm broken. I feel like I am fading fast. Someone please help me. Someone please love me.

 

[Hashi]

WendyA, I'm so sorry. I want you to know that I read what you wrote and I feel for you very much. It has made me think about one of my very worst times, when I felt that there was only a single thread keeping me connected and able to keep going. For a "normal" person that would be a gigantic connection, for many people with PTSD it might be a number of threads with gaps inbetween, but I really felt I was down to last single thread.

The first thing I'd like to say is that I have got past that point and I do believe that you can too. It's such a truly terrible and awful place to be, I can imagine you might not be able to believe that. There have been a number of times when I simply had no hope for myself. At those times I needed someone else to hope for me. If it's OK with you, I would like to hold the hope for you. I'd like to know for you, on your behalf, that you can get through this. Because I've got through, and others have got through, and I believe that even though this might seem like an impossible struggle, you can too.

The second thing is more wanting to explore something with you. I have no sense of this so I would need to ask you what your sense of this is. I'm wondering what strategies you have for coping (perhaps surviving is a better word). I feel from what you say about your friend that you have support, and I understand how important that is. I also understand concerns that this is asking a lot of another person. I'm wondering what you try to do to support yourself. I'm not talking about anything big, just some very basic things like how do you get through a day like today?

For myself, I had a bottom line. It was to ignore everything I was meant to do and get into bed (away from anything I could use to harm myself) and stay there and not think or move. I had strategies that were one step above that, but your post is making me think of my absolute bottom line strategy. Do you have an absolute bottom line strategy? Do you have any strategies that are one step above that?

I think posting on the forum is amazing, given how you're feeling. Reaching out is very, very good. I'm also wondering what happens when you reach in? Inside yourself?

I'm struck by what you say about having a life before PTSD. I have a metaphysical approach to healing, and as part of that I feel that my self at different times can help my self now. In my case, it's my future (healed) self. In your case, I'm wondering if your self before trauma can help you here. Because that's still you. Whatever has happened, and however hard it is to find or connect to, the deep, essential part of you is still there. It can't be touched. You are wounded, very badly wounded, but you are still you.

This journey isn't easy. Sometimes, it can seem impossible. Sometimes it takes someone from outside to say - it's still possible, despite what you think and feel.

Please do have hope. I have hope for you.

 

[WendyA]

@Hashi Thank you so much for taking the time to read and reply. I feel like I haven't even really started to tackle this. I have not found a therapist or one thing that has taught me how to cope or given me much of anything. I am sort of just hanging out here now. I don't have any coping skills and the ones that people typically give out don't seem to be strong enough or work for me. Such as, meditation, breathing etc. I have found some horrible surviving skills like self harm and an eating disorder through this, but nothing good. I stay away from alcohol, but I did get drunk once and it was nice to escape for a bit. I don't want that as a new problem so I am very careful, plus with the eating disorder I worry about calories so that helps me stay away also. I will probably read your post again when I get home to fully absorb what you said. It made me cry just thinking of the hope that I just don't have right now.

 

[Valentino]

It feels to me that you're dealing with raw grief, in that state, it's totally normal to feel utterly empty, helpless and hopeless. Coping strategies and other people will probably be of very limited help.

What might need to be done is radical acceptance, or pure surrender to these feelings. It's the body's natural way of purging and processing old emotional attachments. It's very uncomfortable, very sad, highly overwhelming, totally dark and emotionally draining. But the more you allow the process and get your ego the hell out of it's way; that might be the best practical strategy to help.

Emotions of grief, sadness and shame really HURT when you try to limit & manipulate them. When you fully surrender to them, there is an amazing preciousness and total awe that also comes out. Sometimes the only way out, is through. But at the end of the tunnel can be such a sweet surrender.

 

[Jane.l]

I know what you mean about coping strategies I find it hard to see how they can be effective it feels like fighting a raging inferno with a water pistol - but so many people here find them useful I feel I am missing something or doing something wrong . I don 't know I don't get it so like you - infact exactly like you I end up going with the unhealthy coping methods

I do however find the support of my T invaluable. I am sure this would help you work though some of this hopelessness you are feeling. I think you need some professional help to find some stability and a way to move forwards. What happened with
the T you had ? Whatever happened that must be causing you more stress and upset. This is a lot to deal with on your own you need someone on side . I think it would be a really positive step to find a new T someone who can guide you out of this cycle of hopelessness. You just need a glimmer of light to find that immense inner strength and resilience that you have that got you to here.

 

[keifer]

You have said a lot of things I identify with. I can tell you I have really appreciated your posts and insights.

Broken. What a word. I try not and focus on this and just cope with my feelings and/or physical symptoms. There are days/times it all goes to poop.

I look at it like this, when I fail it gives me the chance to get up and become a better. Sucks too. Ok, I don't either at times.

 

[Hashi]

@Valentino I think radical acceptance is a coping skill. I think it can be quite a hard one to understand, especially the nuances of surrendering to feelings with acceptance but not action, if feeling suicidal. However I do think it's a valuable - and life changing - skill and very much worth working on as soon as there's any stability.

I don't have any coping skills and the ones that people typically give out don't seem to be strong enough or work for me. Such as, meditation, breathing etc.

I wouldn't expect instant results. It takes time and a lot of work. You do need to find what works for you. At the same time when people say coping skills don't work for them I wonder what their expectations are. I had to practise them for at least two hours every day, often more, at the beginning. They get stronger through practice, they will never start out feeling very strong.

I'm still learning them, but I don't work that intensively now. I had to, though, when I was desperate.

Have you looked at DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) skills? They were developed for people with Borderline Personality Disorder but are now used much more generally. In particular, the skills are for dealing with things including suicidal impulses and self-harm. I found this book very simple to use and helpful. Dead Link Removed

Radical acceptance that Valentino talked about is one of the skills. Unfortunately I don't think this book was good on that one. But it's great on the others, like distraction, self-soothing, distress tolerance, emotion regulation and so on.

I think you need to think in terms of working on skills, practising and developing them. Rather than they're given out by other people and will either be strong enough straightaway or not. Working on them can be difficult, daunting and frustrating, but they make such a difference. It's worth persevering.

I'd suggest that you ask the friend who supports you, to support you in finding ways to be stronger in yourself. In particular, developing skills. Finding something in ourselves is very difficult, but it's also very healing. We have to find things we can do to relieve the suffering. It is possible, one step at a time.

 

[Valentino]

I think radical acceptance is a coping skill. I think it can be quite a hard one to understand, especially the nuances of surrendering to feelings with acceptance but not action, if feeling suicidal. However I do think it's a valuable - and life changing - skill and very much worth working on as soon as there's any stability.

Absolutely, Radical acceptance can be a coping skill. However I'm trying to point towards a level of surrender that is beyond coping or manipulation. There is a natural human mechanism of pure surrender, that is totally effortless. Imagine if a hot coal was thrown into your 2 hands, how much mental focus and energy would it take to surrender that coal? Dropping it in the fastest and closest way would be the most obvious, natural and effortless thing to do. How much coping or manipulation is involved there?

Below is an excerpt of an article Ms Spock shared written about the founder of DBT Marsha Linehan and how she discovered radical acceptance, what is of note, is her actual experience was spontaneous and totally obvious. Then she tried to duplicate the results for other people through behaviorism, turning radical acceptance into a behavior control strategy or pattern. Bill Wilson the co-founder of AA also has similar story, he had a spiritual surrender type experience (under the influence of mind altering drug concoction called belladonna), then he tried to copy it for others which led to the AA model.

She sensed the power of another principle while praying in a small chapel in Chicago.
... — and prayed, often, at a chapel in the Cenacle Retreat Center.

“One night I was kneeling in there, looking up at the cross, and the whole place became gold — and suddenly I felt something coming toward me,” she said. “It was this shimmering experience, and I just ran back to my room and said, ‘I love myself.’ It was the first time I remember talking to myself in the first person. I felt transformed.”

The high lasted about a year, before the feelings of devastation returned in the wake of a romance that ended. But something was different. She could now weather her emotional storms without cutting or harming herself.

What had changed?

It took years of study in psychology — she earned a Ph.D. at Loyola in 1971 — before she found an answer. On the surface, it seemed obvious: She had accepted herself as she was. She had tried to kill herself so many times because the gulf between the person she wanted to be and the person she was left her desperate, hopeless, deeply homesick for a life she would never know. That gulf was real, and unbridgeable.

That basic idea — radical acceptance, she now calls it — became increasingly important as she began working with patients, first at a suicide clinic in Buffalo and later as a researcher. Yes, real change was possible. The emerging discipline of behaviorism taught that people could learn new behaviors — and that acting differently can in time alter underlying emotions from the top down.

But deeply suicidal people have tried to change a million times and failed. The only way to get through to them was to acknowledge that their behavior made sense: Thoughts of death were sweet release given what they were suffering.

 

[WendyA]

Thank you all for replying. I am processing all the information given here. I do realize that I have not given much time to the "good" coping skills, probably because there is no instant gratification and I'm at a point where any effort seems too big for me to handle. I guess I need to just try harder. At this moment, everything good seems so far away. I think I do need to reply on some people here to hold hope for me until I can see it or feel it myself.

I am on my 4th therapist now since this all began around 5/6 months ago. The first one was my marriage counselor and he couldn't help but focus on my marriage even when I saw him alone. He thought that I needed to separate, but at the time I felt I wasn't ready for that change. Since then I have separated, as I realized my husband is a huge trigger for me and I needed to be alone in order to make any progress. Well, he said that he would like me to see a woman and maybe someone who dealt with trauma work. That was not a bad ending and he did care, but thought he couldn't help, so I was OK with that. The second lady who I was referred to said she dealt with trauma work and we started talking about my history and past, but she gave me no coping skills for handling anything and it took me down pretty quickly. That is what led to my first suicide attempt. She did, I guess, deal with trauma, just not PTSD. She just didn't understand all that was happening to me and didn't give me any tools to use. I finally found the last therapist, the one who eventually fired me after like 5 visits. She was certified in EMDR and I was sort of hopeful that she would be able to help. I was pretty suicidal and just trying to cope with all that has come up and didn't know how to do that. I was hoping she would give me some tools, but she really didn't. She did teach me how to "ground" when I was in a flashback, however, that wasn't all that I needed. It wasn't just the flashbacks that were plaguing me. Plus I was wondering when I get into a flashback, sometimes I don't realize it till I'm out. I kind of go into a trance, so how am I supposed to know to ground myself. I guess that is a question for another time. Anyway, long story, very long story, short she fired me because she kept telling me that I was on thin ice and she thought she was going to lose me so she closed my file. I guess legally in NJ your therapist can have their license questioned or taken away if the person they are caring for commits suicide. I don't know. Regardless it was incredibly painful to be rejected and abandoned when I thought there would be a little hope, I just needed some time, tools and patience to get there.

That set me back quite a bit. I didn't even think that was possible. Just when I think I'm at the bottom, it seems I have farther down to go. It is hard to have hope and hard not to be discouraged and think about suicide as a release from all this pain and suffering that doesn't seem to have an end in site. I'm so sorry to be so hopeless and negative sounding, but I am hurting so much. I feel so alone and honestly, for once in my life I just want someone to take me, hold me, love me and tell me everything will be OK. I want to feel safe, so no one can hurt me. I know, fantasy world, but a girl can dream can't she?

Anyway, I do have a new therapist I saw last night. Once again, for the fourth time now, I had to go through my history and once again it stays with me. You would think that it would get easier, but explaining it is just as painful each time and the night and for days to come I am affected. I am sitting here at work in anguish and feeling so insecure and alone. She was good, different, but I guess good. She took a lot of time with me and gave me a place to go where I am supposed to feel safe. I practiced that this morning and I guess will keep doing it until I believe it. She did give me some tools to use and I will listen to @Hashi and keep trying until maybe they have some effect.

I can't help but feel that people are way to quick to give up on me. I read through some of my posts and clearly they sound like I am a lot younger than I actually am in age and that is disturbing to me. I feel stuck. Thank you all for taking time to read and respond and validating my feelings and helping me feel not so alone and left out here. We will see where I can go with this new therapist. She is holistic so its very different from what I am used to. I'm just sort of in shock over this whole experience.

 

[Jane.l]

Well done for finding a new T , that's a really positive step. Even though
You maybe feeling weak you are showing your strength - you are trying to move forwards .you are showing your resilience in spite of the disappointment you have had in therapy and that in itself is seriously impressive .

I to have recently separated from my husband and although I can see it was very much the right thing for me , it is stressful and with everything that ptsd brings as well it sometimes feels like too much to cope with but -just in case this helps at all when you are feeling suicidal - would you tell me that suicide is the right choice ? This is not meant to sound patronising just another way of looking at things. Sometimes when I am fighting it I think if I had a friend -or someone here on the forum - who had my problems and history , would ending it all seem like a good idea ? and it's strange how it all looks different when it's not about you. Not
Sure I explained that well but it helps me at times.

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes I think Jane.I. is right, at least I know as regards myself I am kind of removed from emotions or feelings of worth, as @Jane.l said above. It takes an act of faith to try to think of myself in the same terms I afford others, or with the same concern and emotions, or to even look at such feelings and thoughts or decisions with any emotions at all (as regards myself).

 

[Hashi]

I am definitely holding hope for you, @WendyA.

Well done for seeing the new therapist. I hear how difficult that was for you. It's good that you're already working on safety together. I'd suggest keep talking to her about building up a whole toolkit that you can use.

I'm sorry it has to be so hard. But please know I have hope.