Having Trouble Again

[stuckinneutral]

I grew up in a pretty severely abusive environment. My parents split when I was very young, and my dad never had much involvement in my life. The women in my life were the primary "caregivers" and I use that term loosely. Basically, i was severely neglected (when I wasn't being abused). I don't know how I survived my childhood except that I was exceptionally intelligent and learned to take care of myself. Sort of.

I've never been in a real relationship. I'm almost 40, and I've always been alone. I'm not unattractive, I used to take better care of myself, but I usually try to eat right, get the sleep I need (when I can get it), and do the things I"m supposed to. But with this job market being what it is, I have gone through THIRTEEN jobs in the past 6 years. Before that I'd had a stable job for quite a while, but I decided to do an internal transfer in my company and was immediately caught in this spiral. I don't know how to right it anymore. I just got laid off yet again this past week. In the past 2.5 years, I've been through 5 jobs, laid off in every single one. I have no safety net, I lost everything, my savings...everything. I live alone, I have few friends, and I've been feeling extremely detached from everyone.

Last Christmas I went to my parents' home for the holiday and was attacked by my stepmom (severe narcissist) yet again, constantly. She's been trying to convince me for years now that she did nothing wrong with me as I was growing up, and that the behaviors she exhibited were my fault. She came at me aggressively Christmas Eve over some stupid comment and I immediately went into panic attack mode. I proceeded to drink quite a bit that night, but woke up at 5am to pack up my stuff and drive back to my home. The home I'm going to lose if I can't find another job, but i am so exhausted I don't know what to do anymore.

I get in these moods, especially if I'd been drinking heavily, where I start to severely ideate, and I ended up in the hospital last year as a result. My family doesn't know, and I'm not going to bother telling them. They just don't care. I feel like I'm cursed. I thought putting myself through college, working my ass off afterwards would allow me to find some stability in my life, but it's been sheer utter hell. I work so effing hard, I put everything into it, and still I lose. I'm always the scapegoat, no matter what I do.

I met someone recently I really like, but I'm not confident that's going to work out. I've never been fortunate before, why would that change now? I am surprised I made it this far. Given how isolated and lonely I am, and the fact I can't hold a job, I don't know how much longer I can go before I have to give in. I feel worthless.

 

[Artfulone]

Dear stuckinneutral,

You sure sound like your in a difficult place. This can be a good forum for finding people to connect with. In addition it can be a place to express your narrative. You are assisting in creating this narrative in this post. My family have often been of little use in looking for confirmation of my life's narrative and expressing what went wrong earlier in my life. My younger brother thinks my problems are all due to drugs. My older brother relies on pharmacological drugs as a treatment, but refuses to enter into therapy, thinking that it won't help him. He lives out the avoidance and denial of abuse that epitomised our earlier lives, and sees little connection to his present life problems.

You are not worthless, you are a beautiful gentle human being. Whilst you may feel very disconnected and isolated, you are a beautiful star in a sky full of beautiful stars, it can just take time to adjust the brightness setting on the TV screen of life and awareness to key into the twinkling beauty shining within and all around yourself. You are the centre of your own universe, your family don't have to be too involved if that is not right for you now. Your traumas will gradually cease to be be the centre of your life as long you continue the work of processing the attachments from the different branches of your traumatic attachment tree.

Best wishes upon your journey and in re-connecting with the fire at the centre of the star that is you.