Does Anyone Else Feel This Way?

[Heather]

I feel completely vacant inside. I have no idea who i am anymore. What i want. The medication i'm on has helped alot to even me out. there's no more craziness, no more ups and downs. The best way i can describe it is to say that it's muted my emotions but not in a bad way. People that haven't seen me in a long time that i run into first say: you look really good secondly: you look very calm. That's the topomax all 400mg of it. It's the first time in my life that i feel completely level, totally even and that's a nice place to be but on the flip side of that is a vacancy. One counselor I spoke to said that's what "normal" feels like and when you're not use to it, it feels strange. You have to give yourself time to adjust. But I still feel vacant and it's been 6 months. How much time do i need? I don't think it's that i think it's still the ptsd. i watched the interview with dr. petit on oprah and everything he described: the not sleeping, feeling "fried", having flashes entering his mind etc. I experience and I remember thinking to myself, "oh my god I have all of those same things too" and when I said that to my therapist he asked me how come you thought you didn't have ptsd? I answered: when you're going through it, you don't realize what it is.

Truth is I don't want to deal with it. It's just to damn painful. I avoid and avoid and avoid until my body says nope: you have to deal with it....not going to let you run any longer. That's what happened last spring and by July I was in the hospital. Cause i'd been down this road when I was 18 and i knew what i was in for and i knew how much it sucked so i tried as hard as i could not to face it and push it away but in the end it didn't work. I suffered for 8 months. I was ok for 4 and now i'm back in hell again. I'm tired of this shit.

When I was 18 my passion was teaching. I wanted to teach the 3rd. grade. I worked at the ymca in their afterschool program. I would get up in front of 65 kids and teach arts and crafts. I was in my element. I loved it. If I missed a day I couldn't wait to get back to work. Then I told my therapist I cut myself. He told me I was showing a lot of signs that I had been sexually abused as a child. My world stopped. Flashbacks started, cutting, suicide attempts, hospitilizations, depresssion, anxiety, fear, self-loathing, sleepless nights, anger, endless amounts of tears and years of feeling like I was losing my mind. Twenty years later and who I was at 18 is gone.....that person who had so much passion, who was in her element, who had a desire to be something....I don't know where she went. My therapist asked me to think about a 5 year plan. I just stared at him and said a 5 year plan? He said ok. how about a 6 month plan? We'll start with that. 6 month plan I said? Ok he said how about next month? Next month? I said. Next week? he said Heather we need to start somewhere.

 

[suzie q]

I hear you Heather and can relate.

As you have found out, I realized that my running from confronting my issues and feelings only made my symptoms worse. I felt like I didn't have enough inner strength and no answers on how to deal with my past abuse, both in childhood and into my adult years. It was too overwhelming and I felt like I would just shut down and never come back to reality. I often questioned my own reality and so felt great fear in dealing with all the pain and fear of my past.

I too am a sufferer of all the things you listed. I became aware of my pain in my early 30's. As a child, my mother constantly questioned my reality and forced hers into my being. She has a mental illness and all her childishness and torment was forced to become my reality, a reality she said was everyone elses. I had disassociated most of my life and through all the traumas had emotionally distanced myself from all the pain. I suffered DID and when I was finally integrated, I was totally lost in who and what I was. I too had passions and thought I had solid plans for my future in society. I was completely lost with no idea where to begin again.

I began searching for therapists who could help me with the serious symptoms I was experiencing and also began a 12 step program to stop all my self-medicating. (drugs, alcohol, shopping, suicide, eating disorders) Once I removed all the numbing agents in my life, I came to finally see me. I was 36 years old, had been in the Navy, lived on my own until 26 when I married, was barren, had a rageful relationship with my family of origin, no friends,no life, and no career. When I was younger, I had wanted to be many things, a veterenarian, landscape architect, surgical nurse, oceanographic research tech...now all I wanted to do was cry and try to work through my past pain.

I went through many unqualified therapists and was prescribed all kinds of wrong medication. I never gave up and finally in my early 30's I found a psychiatrist that worked my meds out and they began to work on keeping me balanced emotionally. I worked with a therapist (one of many) for 8 solid years working on my past. I finally came to a point where I knew that I had to start living life on my own with the tools I had been taught both in therapy and with my self-medicating.

My vision of myself changes from time to time. When I first saw me I was rageful, protective, mouthy, controversial, and proud. This was my survivor self. I was proud of what I had been through in this state, but decided that I didn't have to survive I had to live and find some balance and peace. As I continued to process all my past hurts, over and over again, I would find the final answer and could put that hurt to rest. My perception of myself changed in this process. It continued to become stronger, more likeable, less proud, and more willing to continue to change and work on my sense of serenity. I no longer saw my "passion" in a career aspect, I saw it as the person I had always wanted to know and be at peace with. One that connected with others and stayed in harmony with some kind of higher power. All the other things like career and having children seemed less important.

I now see myself as a person in continual progress. I see the world around me in more than one or two aspects. The way I identify myself and my passions are on a daily basis. I like and love the changes I've made to me and continue the slow process. Some days I am angry, some sad, some pitiful, some inspired, and some I just don't know and that's OK. I only have right now to focus on. What I will do in a week or year can be planned, but it is only setting goals. If they are not reached, it is not the end of the world because I have today.

You will find yourself...just give it some effort in discovery and healing and see yourself today as someone worthy of great things. You have already been through hell after all!!;)
Hang in there...Suzie Q

 

[Pickle]

Its not just you. I can relate to feeling vacant and lost and unable to feel things I know I should. For me, it often feels like I'm watching the world go by on a video, even though I'm functioning and noone would know that's how I feel inside. Its hard to explain and its incredibly lonely. I've always been very goal oriented and passionate about life, too, and feeling stuck like this is foreign for me. I am realizing that I keep trying to figure out who I was before...and its not about going back to that person. Its about figuring out who I am now. That might mean just starting with today, not even next week, for me!

 

[Abrasky]

I' feel like I've been in three places, not having PTSD, getting PTSD when I was 19 and not functioning with antideppressants, and now I'm 31 and have PTSD but am functioning a lot and working as I'm a mum and not on antideppressants. That feeling of numbing you describe is exactly what I felt like when I was on antideppressants. It sort of felt like to me I couldn't feel anything bad but I couldn't feel anything good either.It was good to feel calmness though, and the break I needed.