Getting Rid Of The "feeling"

[Thinkingman85]

I know there is a difference between wanting to die and feeling that you want to die. I don't want to feel like I want to die. PTSD has instilled this feeling. Has anyone had success getting rid of this feeling?

 

[712xx]

Wanting, to want to live; not wanting, to want to die.

Yep, know how that feels. I think a lot of us, if not most of us, have felt that way at some point (and maybe feeling it right now right along with you). Some will be afraid to reply, because they don't have an answer and don't want to make you feel worse.

I can, and will, tell you what I do that helps, but this is highly personal and your situation might need a different approach.

First, I take a B-complex vitamin each morning. This gives a boost to my focus and motivation; as long as I have a following goal in mind for the day, this gives me more spring in my step to get there. Having a goal, something to focus on and keep busy is key. Taking the vitamin without having anything to do that day will, at least, help ease the feeling a bit (it does for me, but can't speak for everyone), but it won't get you all the way to 'not feeling' the uneasiness on the cusp of wanting & not wanting.

Second, keep a daily schedule. You don't have to do the same things everyday; just have a plan for each day, and a set scheduled time for all your daily activities. Maybe you like to be impulsive and free to do things on a whim? You can schedule that in too -- call it 'free time @ 2-3pm' :)

This sounds like work; it is. If you realy want to pull yourself out of this feeing, it isn't easy. The easy way (which ends up being the hardest way) is doing harmful things to your body like drugs and alcohol. You end up in more trouble than you started with -- so don't fall prey to things that seem like they could be helpful in the moment. Maybe they are helpful in the moment, but do more long-term damage than if you took the harder sweat & tears road.

Third -- tears. Letting yourself feel bad is ok. Cry if you have to; it is a tension releaser. Expressing your inner turmoil in the form of outward emotion, writing your feelings, talking to the wall, hitting a punching bag (I have one in my attic I wail on, along with 3 thin mattresses tacked to the wall for hitting and kicking to my delight). Whatever it is -- expression of feelings can release some pressure and you'll begin to feel less of that inner turmoil (because you've let it out).

Doing all these things combined helps me a lot. Maybe they can help you too?
Hope you find some peace, I really do, because I know what that 'wanting, not wanting' thing feels like.

--{@

 

[Thinkingman85]

Thanks for the response 712xx. I appreciate your honesty. Anything productive helps you stay invigorated...i.e. exercise/nutrition (and supplement), daily planning, and emotional release... For my diet, I follow Joel Fuhrman's method...stick to routine bodybuilding...and try to vent my emotions through making music. B-complex is good... I focus on getting nutrients from food and just take fish oil.

My main problem has been being able to get back in tune with reality. My mother passed away when I was 15... She had an aneurysm on Thanksgiving Day, was in a coma for the following week, and was put off of life support. After her death, I changed my life around for the better... went to a 4.0 in high school. Her death was my motivation to better myself. However, two years later, I woke up and saw my father in his bedroom after a massive heart attack. I'm not going into details, but the sight has damaged me... hopefully not permanently. After I left the room and realized that he had died, a feeling of "It's over" came over me. Because both of my parents passed, I feel like there is nothing left to fight for. Life has shown me that I am it's prey. Since then I've been alienated from life. I am starting to think that PTSD is my destiny and living a simple life is the only way I'll be able to survive. If the "It's over" feeling went away, I might be better.

 

[stuff]

I haven't rid myself of it, but I've definitely learned to deal with it. That being said, those feelings come and go for me. Unfortunately when they come, they are so strong that I sometimes don't know what to do with myself. What I have learned through therapy and over time is that they aren't my "feelings". They are pieces my history coming back to haunt me in very scary ways.

Struggling with the symptoms of PTSD makes me want to give up sometimes. There are times when it feels like death would feel better than what I'm going through, but the more I learn to confront those feelings and own myself, the easier it gets to stare them in the face and call "bullshit".

It can be the hardest thing on earth to reach out to another person when you are feeling like that. I am constantly struggling with worrying about burdening my few close friends, but working to reach out has literally saved my life on a couple of occasions. Sometimes all it takes is another person on the end of the phone telling me about the random boring crap they just watched on tv to break myself out of the spiral. Sometimes I don't even have to get to the point of telling another person how bad it's gotten. I have been utterly surprised by the kindness of other people as I've slowly learned to open up about my life.

Sometimes it's okay to let yourself feel like crap too, as long as you acknowledge that the awful feelings aren't who you are, they are pain from an injury inflicted on you by unforeseen circumstances, and it's okay to feel that pain as long as you remember that you are a person inside. Allowing yourself to feel that pain can be a healing process too.

PTSD is like learning to surf. It can be scary and even a little dangerous, but when you practice riding your waves and owning them (good/bad/and ever really bad) life starts to get beautiful. You learn to value the small moments of happiness that you can carve out (and that takes hard practice sometimes), and they really do build over time. Sometimes you hit a scary wave, but over time you learn to look at the ocean instead.

 

[Thinkingman85]

Thanks for the poetic and inspiring response, stuff. Right now, there is something holding me back from taking that step. I'm a very rational and "feeling" oriented person, and something is just wrong. I'm starting to think that people can subconsciously attack my emotionally damaged mind. I know that I am speaking in an abstract kind of way, but it has been hard to go outside.

 

[712xx]

Yeah, paranoia can get out of hand sometimes when you don't know if you are interpreting people's actions correctly, or their conversations seem like they have double meanings. I'm unable to get close to people because of it -- thinking they are trying to trick me by being nice and wondering when they will turn on me.

Sometimes I can see they are being genuine, but past experiences make me think once they get to know me they will eventually defect. Rationally, I know this is all in my head, and can actually cause them to hurt me by believing it to be true. Like that saying, 'believe it hard enough and it will happen'. I do have good reason to believe it, but people are not all the same; it takes a lot of practice and suspension of beliefs to prevent past experiences from interfering with present interactions.

When reality just feels wrong and unnatural, you might be going through a disillusionment period. Where fundemental things you thought were solid and true become untrue or skewed from what you thought. Kinda like when I lost my faith a god (the only thing in my life that had unconditional love for me was gone) ... everything I thought was true became completely wrong and the world was upside down.

I eventually found self-love, but it took a long time. Whatever bad feeling this is you have right now, this will pass with time. It sucks, but no feeling lasts forever; some do need a push to get moving. Emotions (even the weird ones without an actual label) are fluid and have a cause; maybe finding triggers for other stronger, more grounded emotions might be a good start.

I'm not a social person, so don't have any social examples to use to help things along. I really like construction work and landscaping though. Doing hard labor and getting really sweaty and dirty -- feels really good and constructive. Anything that I can do physically that is also productive in getting something accomplished is pretty rewarding and lifts my mood; forces my focus outward rather than inward.

Keep posting if nothing else. Telling the ether about your troubles and uneasy feelings might be just the thing to get it off your chest. Time keeps ticking -- the end of these bad feelings does exist, and just have to keep doing good things for yourself till you get there. The hard part is the first journey. If you ever experience this again in the future, you'll know for sure there is an end and the waiting isn't as difficult (because you've experienced relief before you'll know it will pass again). It is the unknown that makes things seem so much worse.

 

[Thinkingman85]

I am very conscientious of people potentially hurting me. It is because I live in the same city where the PTSD occured. It's like whenever I'm around people before the PTSD was born, I'm waiting for them to throw in an innuendo attack or try to get the upper hand on me. I believe that I respected much more because of this. However, it is tortuous. Every day, I think about moving and not coming back. It's like the people who aided in causing my PTSD are still living amongst me. At the same time, I have respect for them because they are good people.

Regarding disillusionment, I, too, am an atheist. When my mother died, my faith in Christ strengthened. When my father died, my strength in Christ strengthened, but I was angry at him. As my life was getting worse, I started having doubts. I took a philosophy course in college and finally took my Christian mask off. Being an atheist makes you see how cruel the world really is, but it helps make you be in control of your own life. All that I did was put faith in something that put me in hurt into putting faith in myself. However, I still have the "God hole"... i.e. I can't say 100% that there isn't a God or else I won't function.

Starting to feel like I belong might be what I need.

 

[ericaboo]

I have tried to transform the feeling of wanting to die to a feeling of wanting relief from the psychological pain.

One doesn't need to die to obtain relieve - in fact, by dying, you eliminate the possibility of healing.

So even though I still feel "that feeling", I've assigned a new name and identity to it, and I think it's motivating me forward in some way.

 

[stuff]

I can't say that I don't get the paranoid feelings myself. I've been through a lot at other peoples hands and that makes it really difficult to trust, but I'm learning to give it a shot these days and every time I get surprised by people acting like decent human beings I feel like I get a little better at trusting.it's the scariest thing I've put my face into in a long time and there are days when my trust suddenly disappears for no reason and I feel like I barely know my close friends. The best way I can describe it is some sort of trust amnesia. I have to work really hard every day to remind myself that there are people in my life who don't intend to hurt me and try to give it my best shot when I can.

 

[Hashi]

That feeling is my constant companion, and I agree with what others have said - give myself a structure to keep to in terms of what I do through the day, try to recognise my achievements, try to remind myself that there are good guys.

It's also important to me to see something bigger than just me. That doesn't have to be religion - in my case, it isn't. It could be something you identify as religious/spiritual, or it could be something like a love of animals, an affinity with nature, connection to people, the way you feel about music - anything that has a special kind of energy that's about more than just surviving. For me, it helps to be aware of that and hold on to it as a way of seeing more possibility for myself beyond PTSD.

Thinkingman, I wondered if you've had bereavement counselling/trauma therapy or if you think this would be helpful? I had a friend who died in a very distressing way and I know there are all sorts of feelings that can seem too painful to look at, but because of the culture of the country I was living in there was a lot of openness talking about her death. There were also rituals to "talk" to her after she died, to say things I wanted to say, even to give her a small gift and write her a note, and to say goodbye. It helped me move through my feelings rather than becoming frozen in them.

I know your situation is different, and I'm in no way saying this is easy, but reading what you wrote I felt that perhaps there are aspects you need to work through regardless of where you are located?

 

[Anna]

Yeah, paranoia can get out of hand sometimes when you don't know if you are interpreting people's actions correctly, or their conversations seem like they have double meanings. I'm unable to get close to people because of it -- thinking they are trying to trick me by being nice and wondering when they will turn on me.

Same here. I get really some strange delusions sometimes of what people really want. Most of the time it is harmless. Paranoia sucks, but without it we would never have survived.

I worry sometimes too about not living to see my kids grow up. I love being alive. Cherish every moment of it, even when it hurts. I think when you have seen the darkness and swam in the river of shit, you really appreciate the small little luxuries in life. Even if it is just having a warm bath, having clean water or good sex :P

 

[712xx]

^LOL, yes, I know what you mean Anna, about appreciating the little things. I've always seen that as one of the positives to having been through a lot of crap. There are so many negatives, we can forget the ... 'blessings'. I wasn't sure I wanted to call the positives blessings, because it gives a religious tone to it like it was a lesson in life someone wanted me to learn.

I struggled with the god question growing up in a cult-yish religious community, and wondered why I was being punished for who I was >> punished for being who 'god' made me. If he didn't make mistakes, then why were so many people punishing me for being different? Am I expected to conform away my differences and unique personality? Did he make me different just so I'd learn to ignore my true self?

I didn't lose my faith till college (science major). I had to go through my entire development trying to be someone I wasn't. I didn't get to explore who I truely am till after a few college semesters; almost everything I was taught during childhood became false. I found who I was and was relieved to know there was nothing wrong with me from the start (then really angry). I had wanted to just die as a kid, thinking that I was so flawed no body wanted 'me' ... I had to be someone else the rest of my life. Or hide away on a deserted island somewhere away from everyone.

It was almost like being traumatized again, but I had to decide not to go there (and keep deciding not to go there) -- not to turn my anger on myself or 'them' anymore. I had just started life, and didn't want to give that up. I was relieved, but at the same time scared. Everyone around me seemed to have a sense of self, where I was just finding out who I was; up till then I just knew who I wasn't. People underestimate the value of knowing who you really are inside.

You can't fight for yourself, form solid beliefs, feel a sense of belonging to 'something' till you know who your core self is; our differences make us who we are, but the society I was in made us conform to be all the same. Who could want anything in life when forced to go around not being able to express your unique nature? I didn't want to live like that -- and do feel blessed to not have to anymore.