This Is So Hard!

[WendyA]

I feel so strange posting here, very insecure for some reason, but this is the place to do it. I can't really talk to anyone else right now and just need to reach out to the community here.

I am having such a hard time lately. I feel like a broken record, but things seem to be worse. I started a new therapist a couple weeks ago and telling my story again always stirs things up. So, I'm not surprised, but this seems to be lasting longer. I have had a steady stream of pain, but these all consuming times are what makes me feel like giving up. Plus I don't know that I have the energy to do the work that is expected of me. All this is so upsetting because I've always considered myself a survivor and definitely not a quitter. But I want to quit now!!!

I am trying to do the "assignments" I was asked to do, but I am having so much trouble focusing and even feeling anything from them. I am still doing them, but feel like I need to hurry up and have them work, because I don't feel like I have much time left. This has been the recent theme. I find that in this "journey" there are things that come up and become a focus and this time it's time. I feel this urge to hurry up and get better so people don't give up on me, get annoyed with me, so I don't die, lots of reasons. But I can't help but be in a panic over this imaginary timer that is ticking away and I have no visibility into how much time is left and what happens when the timer runs out.

I feel so broken and don't feel like I can see any end in sight. I have people near me, talking to me or sitting in front of me and it's like I can't relate to them. I am SO detached from this world. It scares me because I can feel myself slipping. I also feel like I can't tell people because it sets off panic. I also feel like I need to isolate because not only am I detached, but sometimes I can be rude and other times I cry and am negative and miserable. And I don't cry in front of people, well only one person I can, but having to keep up appearances is exhausting. Other people exhaust me. Who would want to be around that? My self esteem is so incredibly low. I have no self worth right now.

Thank you for letting me get some of that out. I needed to get it out of my head for a second. :cry:

 

[Pencil]

I am SO detached from this world. It scares me because I can feel myself slipping. I also feel like I can't tell people because it sets off panic.

I have no words of wisdom, or even idiocy. All I can say is that I really relate.

 

[Notsowild]

Oh yes @WendyA I can also relate

I feel this urge to hurry up and get better so people don't give up on me

I feel this too. My family has been really supportive but sometimes I can hear it in their words "shouldn't you be over this"

I've been struggling for months now with my symptoms just getting worse. I am starting CBT with a psychologist this week. I hope this works. It's been so hard. I'm so glad I found this forum though. The people are so helpful and kind.

So you are not alone. We are here for you.

 

[Hashi]

I am trying to do the "assignments" I was asked to do... feel like I need to hurry up and have them work, because I don't feel like I have much time left.

I feel this urge to hurry up and get better so people don't give up on me, get annoyed with me, so I don't die, lots of reasons.

Apart from your own feelings, have you got any genuine reason to think people will give up on you if you don't do this quickly enough? Or that you'll die?

I'm going to both sympathise - which I really do - and also be a little bit tough. The way things have been until now hasn't worked for you. So you have to do things differently. You have a new therapist, new assignments, new ideas and I know that must be incredibly difficult. At the same time, it's a chance to make a change. And you need a change.

I'm not saying you can just change things overnight. Just that you don't have to decide right now. You don't have to decide - I can do this/I can't do this, or this isn't fast enough/the pace is OK, or things can be different/things can't be different.

I'd suggest you talk to your therapist about all this the next time you talk to them - tell them what you've said here. In the meantime, get through today and I think you're doing really well at that. I don't think you can be expected to do more.

I'm sorry for how hard this is, especially having to start seeing someone new. I understand about doubting you have the energy to continue. I don't know whether you have the energy to continue but I suspect you have, because against all the odds you've found a new therapist, and are putting in the work, and are doing the assignments, and all that is amazing, really. So I'd like you to know that I'm rooting for you and hope you can keep this going. You do need to lean on your therapist, and I hope you can tell them the things you've said here.

Sending you lots of good thoughts.

 

[Jane.l]

I know what you mean about feeling insecure about posting I get a little paranoid about it to hence I tend not to put any trauma detail in any of my posts.

Can also relate to all you are saying , I have been in a really dark place for a couple of weeks it's starting to lift a bit today , trying to work out why then maybe I could bottle it and send you some .

Now I am going to sound like a broken record but it keeps me here - just - just try to go from one moment to the next - just little steps -sadly we can't hurry healing it's going to be long haul. If I start to look at the bigger picture it throws me into a whirl of panic and doom . So I try not to do that . Just what is going to keep you here for today , if that's too hard just the next hour - the next 10 minutes .

If you are finding your assignment too much right now let your T know . Some days I am in an ok place to tolerate having thoughts of the past there and other days no way can I do it. I know what you mean about the concentration levels too sometimes it feels like your brain can't take anything else on board .

The feelings of wanting to be alone and that you can't connect are I believe classic ptsd. It's understandable - you are going through all this inner turmoil that would make little sense to anyone but a sufferer or a T and it will make you feel distanced and different. Also your brain is telling you people aren't safe it's not going to be making you feel warm and fluffy you are going to be defensive and want to protect yourself - I struggle with this having previously been very sociable and a bit of a party animal .
Feel like I am waffling and not sure how helpful this is but I hear what you are saying and totally get it .

Small slow careful steps

 

[franciemarnie]

I can't add much to what everyone has said, but I wanted to say that about seven years ago, when I was fifty, I had for the first time in my life the visceral certainty that time was running out and that I had two years maximum to live. I didn't know where I got this crazy irrational feeling but it was as real and grim a feeling as death.

I did die about two years later - but not literally. I died from who I had been for forty years. I actually had the smell of human decomposition in my nose non-stop for three weeks at the end. (Thank God for Vic's Vaporub!)

Then the dawn broke one morning and I literally felt like a different person than I had been as an adult. I felt connected to the young innocent self I once was. The colors of the world looked brighter and deeper. I could smell everything. I could go on, but suffice it to say it was amazing.

Sometimes if you can make it thru the dark night of the soul, the light afterwards will amaze you. So hang on!

I am hoping this will happen for you.

 

[Marf]

I also can understand all of the feelings you are expressing. Please share it with your therapist. I ended up going on medications when I felt that low.

 

[Valentino]

I feel like a broken record, but things seem to be worse.

A broken record is a track that repeats over and over again, right?

So apparently a story is getting repeated over and over again, this time it's worse.

Is it a story that you're repeating for someone else to hear?

Is it a story from your trauma repeating that simply wants you to listen and acknowledge?

Somewhere the message is getting lost, so it's getting re-sent again and again, this time with more emphasis.

Message delivered = broken record stops.

 

[WendyA]

Thank you everyone. I feel like I have no control over my life, that this thing has a mind of its own and has taken mine hostage. It's so very dark and lonely right now. I feel stuck. I feel like I'm in a place where I have no motivation to get better, I guess that is called hopeless. At the same time I am here. I am still alive and I still come to this forum and read and search for something that will give me hope. I know I should be looking inside myself for that right now, but I don't trust myself. I'm so confused.

@Hashi I don't have any real evidence that would suggest people giving up on me. I just feel that everyone else's lives are going on around me and time is standing still for me. I am progressively sliding farther down and can see that decline over the last couple of months and since my last therapist gave up on me because she said she thought she was "losing me" and she wanted to protect her therapist license or whatever, I feel that other people will do the same. I know I can't trust myself to make those kinds of judgements and my best friend did tell me, and it's true, that I am terrible at assuming what people are thinking about me or feeling about me. At the same time, my brain is working overtime trying to convince me I know what I'm feeling and it is all factual.

I am not looking for enlightenment or anything lofty, I just want to be "normal" again. I want to go about life and help other people and even continue to put myself last. I don't care about being happy any more and I'm sorry I ever complained about that. I want more than anything to be loved, but even that I don't need now. I would settle for my broken, repressed memory life of before this all started happening 6 months ago.

 

[Hashi]

I don't think anyone expects you to go straight from where you are now to some kind of resolution. ... except maybe you. I think you're expecting too much of yourself. I'd like to suggest you're jumping ahead and don't need to. You don't need to for anyone else's sake, at any rate.

Out of enlightenment, normal, functioning, happiness. being loved... gosh, right now who knows? Isn't right now about getting through today, and then tomorrow?

I think the first aim is for things not to be so incredibly hard. The other stuff is somewhere down the line.

I also think that your supporters, in real life and here on the forum, aren't expecting as much from you as you might be expecting of yourself. One tiny step at a time is much admired! Keeping going the way you are, when you feel so terrible, is much admired. Just thought you'd like to know.

Wendy, I really am sorry for the immense amount of pain and difficulty you're going through. I still have hope for you.

Please keep working with your therapist and, I'd suggest, break things down into much smaller steps.

We're here for you.

 

[WendyA]

I also think that your supporters, in real life and here on the forum, aren't expecting as much from you as you might be expecting of yourself. One tiny step at a time is much admired! Keeping going the way you are, when you feel so terrible, is much admired. Just thought you'd like to know. Wendy, I really am sorry for the immense amount of pain and difficulty you're going through. I still have hope for you.

Thank you. I am so lost right now and feel like giving up and needed to hear that.