Here's The Shit Sandwich I've Been Choking Down The Past Quarter Century...

[PreciousChild]

really? in a lot of ways I feel like my lack of supportive relationships (and inability to engage in...

I hear you, reddy4765. On bad days, I feel that nothing good came of my trauma. If not permanent and incurable, at the very least, the effects that trauma had on me were deep. It angers me that all the pain, loneliness, and daily stresses I go through were the result of my parents, who could have done things very differently. I've accepted that I cannot change any of the things that happened to me. I'm in this mode of self-acceptance of everything embarrassing, awkward, shitty, and ugly. I can't change any of the causes of why I feel this way about myself, so I'm trying to find ways I can affirm myself. And there are good things there. I do think that I'm grounded about things that others aren't. Like I don't get worked up about trivial stuff and stuff others get stressed about. I'm thinking, "you think that's bad??"

 

[reddy4765]

thanks to everyone who wrote.

I'm grappling with the fact that I don't really know what happened. several years all seem like a blur. I remember vaguely a day I visited the emergency room for a migraine, and not having any medication for it because I didn't know I didn't have to visit the doc every month to refil my scripts (they never protested, and obvy my family wasn't there to answer any questions). I was choking down robitussin I'd swiped from the local grocery store in an effort to at least dull the nerve pain and it was making me so sick but I kept going because it really did make it more bearable. it went on for two days and I don't know how I survived. finally I couldn't take it anymore and biked over to the e-room where I remember vaguely the janitor being the kindest and most mature person there, and being laughed out of the hospital by the white nurses who I can only assume were employed as nurses because they were white.

I don't know why there was no one to talk to me, even a "this is how you manage your medication" chat. we aren't born knowing the ins and outs of the system. teenagers obviously don't know.

thru this time I was living alone and avoiding my family as the symptoms of ptsd had just become too bad. my dad responded to this by stalking me; he was literally breaking into my house when I was and wasn't there. sometimes he'd do it when I was half-unconscious and paralyzed from the ME and then I'd have flashbacks to when I was a very little girl and I'd have hidden myself in the closet and my mom would be banging on the door telling me if I didn't come out she'd get a weapon.

I don't understand how you are supposed to love or trust when this is your first and defining relationship. I dated briefly in my early 20s, but the entire experience smacked of the mild bullying I received in grade school. I don't think that humans are actually good at performing acts of cooperation. even reading this forum most of the posts seem to lack true empathy. this is true of the ME forums I frequent as well: showing true compassion for someone else is v hard and most people do it very badly. the same is true for when people talk about their inner experience: the words used for pseudophilosophical discussions are very ugly and tedious. I think it's an inflexibility in understanding of the psyche, maybe propagated by therapists.