My issues aren't about my self-concept. Ultimately they're about my ability to
be.
I'm sorry. I've told and re-told my issues to people and in places I've had to do so much writing and telling and screaming and begging for people to understand and to believe - not just this, but other things that were happening. And it's not only psychologically/emotionally/mentally difficult, but it's physically a problem as well. It's not that I don't think people might understand at least some of the components individually. It's too much for me to write about here and there is too much pressure to make it
understandable (which is yet another whole can of beans). Frankly now people are talking about stuff in this thread that is something that's one of the ultimately terrifying things for me so I can't deal with that. I can't deal. I can't deal. And even if other people can or do somehow - not minimizing their experiences - but I.just.cannot.
And then most of the time when I write, it pisses people off. They'll attack me, assume certain attitudes in me or just don't like the words I use or the types of words or whatever. This is a lifelong thing. Over and over.
I've been writing a vent and it will probably offend somebody. And even this - talking about the "psychological" things - it's only part of the problem. There's ultimately an overarching, concrete thing. I can't deal with. It feels hopeless. In other people's minds it's "just" a matter of ___________(fill in the blank with various "attitude adjustments" or "healing" or "open-mindedness" or some sort of magical situation that hasn't yet happened and when the
opposite has happened, over and over, throughout my life, every.single.time...it's a lesson hard-learned that
it's not the right answer for me. Just because it's "normal" or "expected" or "what people do" doesn't make it right for me, and I don't have any other solution. And I can't deal with the consequences. I can't.
I think - I mean, there's no reason for anyone to not assume this is my first attempt to reach out in an environment of people who are positioned to understand at least some aspect of where I'm coming from. And there's no reason for anyone to know that even in those environments I may have been shot down or completely not-understood. There's no reason for anyone to know how old or experienced I am, where my knowledge about life and self come from, how
long or
how many experiences I've had. (Because I haven't talked about it.) Or how many and what kinds of experiences of being told things based on common axioms that have the effect of actually negating and twisting around my self-knowledge, gaslighting, causing me to completely doubt myself on such a deep and holistic level that it has created a completely unstable "soul-scape" (to borrow from "landscape"), so to speak... some by well-meaning people, other times by horribly abusive and terrorizing and even psychopaths who
thought they were or gave the
impressions of being well-meaning... Terrorizing that was
positioned as if it were an "intervention." But that's not the only thing. It's a big trauma but it's only a part of everything. It's such a mess... I can't even talk about that, either. Everything is just "too big." It's overwhelming because it
is "too big." It
is too many things. It's not just a
feeling of being overwhelming, it
is. And it's stuff that's so basic to life, safety, all that - I've never been allowed to feel safe in life. On a basic level.
I can't "feel" cared-about because, people who are strangers don't even know me. And people who
do know me - almost exclusively don't "get" me. So I spin my wheels just trying to explain myself, futilely. I'm tired. I'm too old for this shit. Too old, tired and unwell to be so desperate and to have been beaten down so many times and expected to just magically fix it. I simple do.not.have.the.resources or ability to deal with this kind of life crap anymore. All I ever wanted was just to
be and I never was allowed, and now here I was supposed to be
forced into finding the magical solution and I
still failed, partly because of fears and ptsd and partly because I'm obviously just a worthless loser. And I don't mean I don't have "value" to anyone else. Oh there are others who I'm sure
need me, but I hate that. I don't
want to be "needed." That doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It just makes me angry. I want to be
understood and valued for
who I am. And frankly there's not really anybody who does that. (At least not further than the impact of what "who I am"
does for them.)
Anyway I'm posting the rant and I'm sorry if it offends anyone. I'm also really angry and upset. This isn't directed at anyone in here. It's just my impression from experiencing the world "out there."
All the “shoulds” and axioms and rules and psychobabble are all so numerous and frustratingly espoused that from another level it all becomes just that – babble. And contradictory.
It’s all just too much. I can’t care anymore about what should or should think or be or do, or how to hold one’s thoughts or not hold them or what one is “supposed to” do with one’s inner mind (which btw was also something I was condemned for in a cruel lengthy terrorization situation, however inappropriate it still caused an extreme amount of damage). It’s just too much. I don’t want to be bombarded anymore with what I’m supposed to do with my head. I get angry at the jargon and triggered by the words – by nearly everything, in some form. It all becomes one giant “it doesn’t matter.”
I hate, hate, hate all the “be strong” crap. I’m tired – well, well beyond tired or even exhaustion – of being “strong” and being expected to “be strong” and people being praised all the time for “being strong” and of society only granting respect to the “strong.” I’m not a friggen warrior and I’m sick to death of battles that keep coming at me and I just can’t handle it anymore!!!!!
And all the strategies and tips and things that are supposed to help you “cope” or “overcome” fear – none of them work. None of them address the intensity of what I experience. It’s almost like all their end-game is, is just to say “don’t feel the fear.” And/or, “feel the fear, but don’t let it affect you.” Well, it affects me!!!!! And if I try to separate myself from feeling that fear, it’s the same as dissociation which “isn’t good” either. Nothing is okay. Nothing is right. I can’t take the fear, the pain, it’s too intense, too strong, too overwhelming, too damaging to me in and of itself. It’s too much. And it’s not a “can’t” of “negative self-talk” or that I’d just need some rah-rah self-esteem boosting as in “You can do it! Yes you can!” because that just ticks me off, too….. it’s not just a self-esteem thing. It’s genuine intensely and overwhelmingly excruciatingly painful. Mentally, physically, and emotionally. I am not able to handle that. So yes, then there’s “just fear of fear itself” because it is just plain too much for me. It’s all just plain too much for me. It’s not a matter of believing in myself. I’m way beyond that level of “I can be strong!” and “I’m a warrior woman!” and “blah blah blah.” And under no circumstance are the sayings about “being there before and handling it and you can do it now!” anything I’d want to hear. They’re not even relevant. I didn’t handle it. I am not handling it. It’s just too much. I honestly have had way too much to deal with, over and over again, and I am done. It’s too much. For too long. Too many times. Too many decades. I have no interest in “coping.” I just want the bad crap to leave me alone. Go away. Go away!!!!! But it won’t. Please stop beating me down, please stop, please just stop stop stop.
And “being kind to myself” only allows me to further not do so in the end is it worthwhile because it continues the badness. It’s already seriously endangered me. No matter what, it’s there, badness and badness and intolerable badness. And again it’s not a matter of “perspective” – it’s real stuff. And there’s no medication that can magically change that (or as they say “help you cope until…blahblahblah”) because the effects of the meds – if they even work, which they likely wouldn’t – are not anything I can or want to deal with, either. And there is no magical “until.” It’s not like this is temporary and there’s some sort of magical light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not temporary. There’s no magical light!!! Being foggy-headed and drugged up on drugs that may or may not work but would almost definitely make me sick wouldn’t help that. Fog is a problem. I’m already foggy and sick enough!!! Now we have these pills so everyone is all over the place pressuring you to take them and if you don’t, you’re a “bad” patient, a “bad”…person, whatever. They’re not necessarily suitable for me.
What I need is a real answer to my life, not medications and coping mechanisms. But the real solution. I need to be clear to do that. I need to figure out the solution, and I need to do it. Otherwise it’s all just stinky raggedy infected band-aids.
Then there’s all this “mindfulness” crap being bandied about and pressuring for, all over the place. But really, it sounds to me like detachment from one’s own self. Disengagement and detachment (to look/watch “objectively” what’s going on in one’s inner mind and/or self in its dimensions, right?). So detachment from the self is something that’s hampered me seriously. It’s not okay with me. I need to be more within myself, not less. This to me sounds very much like dissociation. Which is considered not a good thing. Detachment from self = detachment from self. Anyway it grates on me to be told this – this word and this concept, they are both so jargony and band-wagony and – to me, it makes sense when you consider it in a context created by itself, but when you look more holistically, that’s when I realized it’s detachment with another, more “acceptable” title. Anyway, I don’t like bandwagons or jargons or the soup du jour…
I hate the words “negative” and “positive.” Everything is triggering. Certain phrases – and there are so many. Even little things like the color halos on the letters of the Law & Order titles, trigger & flash me back to one of the terrorizing people who held their life in my hands and screwed with me so badly that there's nothing left. And this was just the end-game, it wasn't only one experience, it was just the most recent and the worst - a culmination of decades of repeated experiences. Pretty much EVERYTHING is triggering or symbolic of something that I can’t handle. Not only reminders of the past but reminders of the intolerable future and reminders of the waste of my life. Anything that brings to mind pretty much anything that happens on a daily basis with everybody else, but for me it put me back into hell. But even beyond those “little” triggers that are “just memories,” there are real things I can’t escape and which I also can’t bear.
It’s not just about the triggers or the fears. It’s so complicated. I feel like the end is near. It’s horrible. I can’t deal.
I feel so hopeless.
Pointless.
It’s all been just too much. Over and over and over again, for way too long. All my life.
