Does Anyone Else Feel Like Life Is Just One Big Marathon?

[Rumors]

I feel like I have just been running my whole life. Running from issue to issue, from relationship to relationship, from good times to bad times. I'm tired. I am just ready to take the armor off and walk for a while. I'm tired. I want things to be meaningful and authentic. I would really like to know that when I spend my last day on Earth, whenever that may be, that my days here were more than just running around and never accomplishing anything. I want to make a difference. I just don't want it all to be a waste and I am sick of letting the past dictate my future. I spend so much time focusing on how to keep my abuse as a kid a secret instead of how to get over it. I am pretty sick of doing that.

 

[Chava]

Yes, I feel like I've either put so much energy into overworking and crazy non-stop distractions, or now I'm suffering in different ways (crashed and trying to figure out what there is besides overworking and constant distractions). I have a lot of pain and just following the meds I take and tracking my activity (not doing too much or too little) seems very high maintenance. I don't have mental/emotional space to work on relationships because it seems that, try as I might, I am often stuck in some version of survival mode (just physically surviving).

I'm getting a little better at slowing down and staying in the moment, but it's bizarre how hard it has been for me. But it feels like the relationship and "meaning" stuff will become more clear later, and that I'm in the phase of undoing all my old responses and also responding to pain differently. I need quiet, space, and time because it feels so messy and exhausting.

 

[Lionheart]

I am just ready to take the armor off and walk for a while. I'm tired. I want things to be meaningful and authentic. I would really like to know that when I spend my last day on Earth, whenever that may be, that my days here were more than just running around and never accomplishing anything. I want to make a difference.

I can really relate to you on this @Rumors ....I have been disabled with PTSD and severe major depression for 18 years. I also struggle with ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, and COPD.

Most of the time, I sit at home and play on the computer as I do not have a social life at all. Life is an uphill battle most of the time and I get so weary that I have to break down and cry (weep). However, I took off my armor and allowed myself to be vulnerable and I am at least going out on occasion. I am finding that I can tolerate meeting new people and going to new places as long as I have someone to accompany me to and fro.

It is a start at least.

Anyways, I wanted to comment on life being meaningful...My father passed away from lung cancer 3 years ago and I thought about how hard he had worked all of his life only to get cancer and die. Thinking back on my life with my dad, I came to realize that it is all important. The lunches we had together, the heart to heart talks, the songs we listened to, all the good and bad times we shared, it was all important and meaningful to me!!!

So the next time you want your life to be meaningful realize that it already is and that you can make it even more meaningful by the choices you make, the things you do and say. The people you love and who love you will find it all meaningful, at least this is my hope for you.

I don't know, I cannot always find the words to express what I want to say...there are good days as well as bad ones, but life is beautiful and precious no matter what and so is your life precious and meaningful. I believe the world is a better place because you are in it, no matter what you do or do not accomplish. You make a difference just by being here.

 

[VioletButterfly]

I have no words of wisdom here. I used to feel as you, but with different glasses on and with a different mindset where authenticity seemed attainable (my Oprah phase). I still feel exactly the same way, but I think my perspective on those desires has changed; hope seems fleeting and there is more depression on board.

I find it ironic that I wrote a poem entitled "Running" when I was 18, that was many moons ago and I'm still in the same mode and still doing the same running bit. It has taken on different forms over the years, each time with a different captain at the helm in terms of mindset. Now, it is more impacting and exhausting as many of the filters that covered why I was doing and living as I was have now been removed. Now, I'm feeling and seeing, but not really knowing or understanding, the weight and realities of what I've walked, crawled, and dissociated my way through in my life. There is a lot of regret, anger, and fear on board, along with anxiety and depression.

Like you, I want the past to be a non-entity. I want to take on a new and happy persona and life. I can want it all day long, but the adult in my knows that there are no wands to wave, that getting to a better place will take a lot of work, treatment, grace, forgiveness, and acknowledgement.

I hope you find a way to stop running so that you can be in the present with yourself so that you can find meaning and authenticity in your life. Please know, however, that the only way out is through, so if you're still keeping secrets and not working through the trauma, you will keep running. Best to you. VB

 

[Rumors]

Love the replies. They are so real and authentic. It certainly is a battle we all are fighting at one time or another. I seem to just stay busy and that keeps my mind off of what I am missing out on. I no longer want that.
I have been very successful at my job, not because I have worked harder than anyone else or am smarter, but more in the right place at the right time kind of thing. I am a woman in a mans world so I am pretty used to being like stone. My past has served me well in that scenario because I can sit through pretty much anything without backing down. But now, damn I just want more. I wish I didnt!!!! Lol.

 

[The Albatross]

I don't know about making a difference... me I tend to settle for "ripples of kindness, compassion, or good deeds." Life is hard. Relationships are hard... with PTSD it's harder. But it's a struggle worth having. I tend more to think of us as students of adversity training 101 or 201, or even 301... and get feedback from normies fairly frequently about my tendency to be resilient over seeming adversity when they struggle so much over some things that to my own experience seem (but are not) small. Yeah, it's a marathon... the end goal is for me authentic character refinement in spite of my injury/debility/traumas. Life is a mess worth making in my opinion. The alternative is too dismal/lonely/despairing for me to even consider now.

 

[Stickler]

I feel more like it's a long, long hike, over the mountains...wearing cement mud boots.

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes absolutely a marathon of running, since 16 or 14 when the ptsd started, I can't remember except it was by 15 or 16 for sure.

 

[The Albatross]

Taking it back... mostly. Life is one big life long Nikka Costa song... Link Removed It works, or not... people connect or not, it's a trial of sorts I think rather than a marathon. So much easier to be in the race, than to be attentive to the ones and their needs we care about. At least that's what I think, in tandem with the adversity training thing.

 

[Tinyflame]

be(ing) attentive to the ones and their needs we care about. in tandem with the adversity.

Is what has been much of the marathon. I don't regret it and at times would have had it no other way, but I can't remember ever being able to stop running. And then add in bad running..

 

[The Albatross]

If that don't work there's always Rebelution:

... growth/post traumatic growth. Personally both work for me cuz consequences are a witch and I don't like them one wit."

"Ya better get up. Ya better get out. Ya better get up and turn your life around. You only live once, you better act now cuz you never know when it's gonna come back around."

If "marathon" is generally beneficial for you I say, fine. If not, I'd say find another perspective.

 

[The Albatross]

Hey Rumors... what does being authentic look like squared up with the life you're living right now... self examine and myth bust.