Nothing Good To Move On To

[LifeCutShort]

A lot of people that recover from PTSD or depression, usually do so by moving on to something good in their lives. An example is finding love. If you have nothing good to move on to with your life, you will never get better, only worse. I speak from experience. Sure you can swallow a tablet or attend therapy, but if you have nothing good to move on to with your life, treatments are limited.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I don't understand the concept of having nothing good to move on to? Isn't that in large a construct of your own doing? Why can't you find a new love, a new career, New friends, New interests.....?

 

[LifeCutShort]

@Solara You have a simplistic point of view. Life can be more complicated than that. I have a lot of barriers in my life, barriers that I am not responsible for creating. My life is raped and destroyed, it is not a construct of my own doing, so you are wrong.

 

[Friday]

I have to disagree from personal experience... Also, I suspect your premise is backwards.

The first time I managed to get my symptoms under control I didn't have anything in my life, really.

During those 5 years of chaos, the first time my PTSD was in full hard swing, I'd had innumerable good things in my life. They didn't make me better. Sometimes, some of them may have masked my symptoms for a little while, but it was at best short lived. I was pretty intent on destroying anything good in my life at the time, but more often I couldn't even recognize them as good things.

It wasn't like a switch. I didn't get better overnight. And there wasn't a "rock bottom", in my story, although some people do get to one... I'm perfectly happy to drag face first through coral for the duration, apparently. Got a shovel? I can dig. Instead, it was a gradual easing. An uphill climb with many, many plateaus. Until I found myself, one day, essentially myself. Days, weeks, and months passed without panic attacks, or nightmares, or flashbacks, or anything else. I wasn't numbing myself, or self medicating, or self destructing. I was me, sans all the bullshit.

I also happened to be at loose ends, and had been for several months. No job. No relationship. No home. Not even any friends. None of the hallmarks of success or happiness. But for the first time, in a very long time (5-7 years) I was okay. And had been for a little while. It lasted a little over 10 years.

I've also been in this latest tailspin, started it 3 years ago, with my life full of good things and promise. I had a very amazing chance at life spread out before me. And I systematically lost it, in spite of it. Have come damn close over these 3 years of losing everything.

Why I suspect your premise is backwards? Is because both in my experience and observation, while we might want something good in our lives, until we're healthy enough? We can't keep those things. At least not easily. Some do (shout out to all the supporters out there!), I know I didn't. We sabotage, and self destruct, and struggle. It's not that having good things in our lives allows is to recover. It's that recovering allows us to have good things in our lives. To find (and hold onto) love, careers, homes, lives, interests, friends, etc.

 

[Victory Is Mine]

@FridayJones I thoroughly agree. The idea that any outside circumstances can heal you is exactly what keeps you from healing. Bad things happen to everyone. Everyone has barriers in their lives. Some people are luckier than others, I admit... but many people have their lives smashed into tiny pieces over and over again. Some of them even manage to be happy throughout. I am not one of those people, so I don't judge anyone who feels utterly cheated and finds it hard to cope. But, the fact remains other people and events cannot heal you. You must find it in yourself. It is not fair, and it sucks and I still haven't managed it, but it's true.

 

[sun seeker]

I think the idea is the pills, if they work, get you to a place where you can benefit from therapy, and the therapy gets you to a place where you can create the good things to move on to.

I know that's oversimplifying and that it doesn't always work that way.

I don't know the details of your life or present situation, except what you said in another thread about never having had anything good happen to you. I would gently question that, as I did the last time: by the very fact that you are here communicating with us, there have been good things in your life. You are part of this forum = good thing. You have the use of a computer = good thing. You are functioning at least well enough to put together a coherent post = good thing. I don't know anything of your circumstances, but I suspect you could go on.

Before you protest that I don't understand, I think I do, because there have been times I would have wanted to scream at anyone who said to me what I've just said. I know it can feel invalidating when what you really want is for people to hear just how much you are suffering and how hopeless you feel, and the last thing I want to do is make things worse. The thing is, on a forum for people suffering from PTSD, you don't have to work to convince us how bad it is. We already know. We've either been there, or we were there yesterday or two minutes ago, or we are online trying to find some distraction because we're there right now, feeling that pain right along with you.

So, I hear how much you are hurting and how little hope you are feeling. It really is a terrible place to be. It sounds like you have been suffering for a long time, and that creates problems of its own because the chemical reactions in our brains become more entrenched as they go on longer. Speaking only of the depression side of things, treating depression that has gone on for 20 years isn't the same thing as treating depression that has been going on for six months. That is not to say that it is impossible, though. It requires a support team with the right kind of knowledge.

@joeylittle, do you have any words of wisdom on treatment-resistant depression? I've been thinking about this recently myself. I hope it's all right to ask you that, you were the first person who came to mind.

 

[Deleted member 28812]

Why do you feel like this? Why do you feel you cannot find any love? Take one of my friends for example, he is wheelchair bound, has only a small pension and is 75 years old and he is still going to re-marry this year.

Are there other things you can look forward to? Finding new frienfds, reconnecting with old ones? A new hobby? Tell us a bit more about your lifes circumstances...

I don't know you but from what I see you live in one of the greatest country on this earth. People do drown to get into a country like yours (or mine nowadays). Is living in a country like this not anything to look forward to any day in your life? I am not trying to be mean - just try to point out your blessings.

 

[Jane.l]

At some point you can begin to make your own good things to move on to....

.... But you may have to accept that while you are healing, some things may not be right for you at this time . I have decieded I am in no place to be in a relationship at the moment, I don't want that responsibility and it brings with it too many issues for me right now But I do try and create some kind of purpose - and feeling helpful or useful makes the biggest difference to me.

 

[joeylittle]

A lot of people that recover from Link Removed or Link Removed, usually do so by moving on to something good in their lives...If you have nothing good to move on to with your life, you will never get better, only worse.

People with PTSD and/or depression move on to something good in their lives when they have (re)-learned how to live fully inside their lives. You're looking at it the wrong way around. I really do understand where you are coming from; I cannot see that I have anything good to move forward to. But I do believe that if I keep working on my illness, I will learn how to actually live my life, and once I'm doing that, I can start to reach out towards other things.

 

[arfie]

My amnesia was spotted in 1974. I dismissed it on this very premise. In 1989, all the good things I had moved on to -career, family, great social life- came apart at the seams due to sleep deprivation levels of insomnia, etc., etc. It was a long, hard road back.

Hope it works better for you than it did for me. Good things to look forward to remain essential, but running into the future is still denial...

Each of us is unique. This might be true for you. Gentle support while you sort your own.

 

[joeylittle]

[DLMURL="https://www.myptsd.com/c/members/25135/"]@joeylittle[/DLMURL], do you have any words of wisdom on treatment-resistant depression? I've been thinking about this recently myself. I hope it's all right to ask you that, you were the first person who came to mind.

(and then I read the whole thread...:))

Honestly, @LifeCutShort, I have not been able to identify anything at all to live for within the last four years. BUT: right when I started getting treatment for depression and things were working, I was able to begin taking those baby steps into a life that I was enjoying living - and that was after never even thinking that was possible for most of my life. So I do know its possible to be there.

But it's really hard. Do you have a therapist you are working with? You need to give yourself as much clinical support as possible. My best advice is to shrink your sense of time to just one day at a time, find ways to just get through one day with a sense that you've moved yourself forward a little.

 

[Casey_03]

I agree with everyone else on this thread -- it's not the good things that help you recover, it's the recovery that gets you to the good things. I had plenty of good things in my life before I started dealing with demons; I had friends, love, a decent job. I sabotaged them all like a bat out of hell precisely because I hadn't dealt with my past and was not ready to recover. Now that I am, I have nothing. But I'm trying.