Hi, there.
I've never opened up about trauma before this year. I've been working with a therapist for a while who has helped me to see a lot of things I was denying. Although I've had many other therapists (treatment-resistant chronic depression going on 20+ years), somehow this year is the first time I've been able to recognize that the sadness, fear, and pain in me might be worth looking at. I'd never so much as discussed sex or abuse with a therapist before. Sometime last year, I began thinking about it, progressed over months to sometimes crying about it, and now I'm (tremulously) approaching the point of speaking about it.
My life has been a jumble. I'm 38. I've had many "good starts," interesting career changes, moves to new cities. Clean slates. Again and again. But I've never been able to rise to the challenges at work or in relationships, and I end up failing and floundering in a short matter of time. I feel like my brain falls apart whenever "finally getting it right" is within easy reach. I've been out of work since last year. By the time Summer, 2020, rolled around, I had stopped leaving the house completely. Nowadays, it's rare for me to leave my bed. I don't know how it got this bad, but it's bad. I don't sleep because of nightmares, don't want to go out of the house because the most unexpected things trigger me, and I can't stand that everything reminds me of the thoughts and feelings I am trying to stop having.
Last month, after a few weeks of full-blast suicidality that I couldn't overcome without intervention, I started a course of ketamine infusions. As an emergency option to prevent imminent death by suicide, it was basically a miracle. The change in that impulse was immediate and enormous. As I continued with the infusions, my mind has opened up in a way, almost as though I can feel new pathways growing. I'm literally having brand new thoughts I've never thought before; I had forgotten that was possible! I'm looking at childhood sexual abuse in ways I've never considered it before, and while that is a good thing, it's also really damn hard. A lot of things I've "always" thought turn out, quelle surprise, to be constructs of trauma. The truth is worse, and the truth is more painful.
I suppose that's the dreariest introduction I've ever written for myself. Makes me want to tell a joke and laugh it off, but I can't think of any way to get there from here.
Eek. Nice to meet you.
I've never opened up about trauma before this year. I've been working with a therapist for a while who has helped me to see a lot of things I was denying. Although I've had many other therapists (treatment-resistant chronic depression going on 20+ years), somehow this year is the first time I've been able to recognize that the sadness, fear, and pain in me might be worth looking at. I'd never so much as discussed sex or abuse with a therapist before. Sometime last year, I began thinking about it, progressed over months to sometimes crying about it, and now I'm (tremulously) approaching the point of speaking about it.
My life has been a jumble. I'm 38. I've had many "good starts," interesting career changes, moves to new cities. Clean slates. Again and again. But I've never been able to rise to the challenges at work or in relationships, and I end up failing and floundering in a short matter of time. I feel like my brain falls apart whenever "finally getting it right" is within easy reach. I've been out of work since last year. By the time Summer, 2020, rolled around, I had stopped leaving the house completely. Nowadays, it's rare for me to leave my bed. I don't know how it got this bad, but it's bad. I don't sleep because of nightmares, don't want to go out of the house because the most unexpected things trigger me, and I can't stand that everything reminds me of the thoughts and feelings I am trying to stop having.
Last month, after a few weeks of full-blast suicidality that I couldn't overcome without intervention, I started a course of ketamine infusions. As an emergency option to prevent imminent death by suicide, it was basically a miracle. The change in that impulse was immediate and enormous. As I continued with the infusions, my mind has opened up in a way, almost as though I can feel new pathways growing. I'm literally having brand new thoughts I've never thought before; I had forgotten that was possible! I'm looking at childhood sexual abuse in ways I've never considered it before, and while that is a good thing, it's also really damn hard. A lot of things I've "always" thought turn out, quelle surprise, to be constructs of trauma. The truth is worse, and the truth is more painful.
I suppose that's the dreariest introduction I've ever written for myself. Makes me want to tell a joke and laugh it off, but I can't think of any way to get there from here.
Eek. Nice to meet you.