How do you deal with guilt or shame about your mental health?

[SeekingAfrica]

I have to go to my parents for a month-month and a half(in another country nonetheless) and give up my apartment here. I'm having a huge PTSD flare and I simply can't do anything else.

The plan is to get a bit healthier, have change of scenery and go back in 4-6 weeks.
How do I deal with the guilt and shame for not managing better and having issues with my mental health making me this bad at this age when im supposed to support my parents not the other way around?
I mean I'll try to cook few times a week and clean and stuff but still. I'm going there to get healthy and save money and I don't want to waste that chance feeling all consuming guilt and shame.

 

[Tinyflame]

A Fire Captain friend told me never say woulda, coulda, shoulda. And you can imagine he would have had lots of temptations to do so. Just don't.

The best thing you can do is put all of that out of your mind, enjoy each other, and be kind and thoughtful. In doing so you will naturally want to help and you will be more able to express your own thoughts and boundaries too.

This may be the only opportunity you get to know and love each other better.

There is no shame. None of this will likely matter in the same way it feels now in the future. Just get stronger.

 

[Midnightmoon]

How do I deal with the guilt and shame

By gently telling yourself over and over again (and again and again) and listening to people here tell you that there is no guilt and no shame attached to your situation. None. Full stop. I hope slowly a bit of you can take that on board. You've been through some real crap and are making a really sound (and of course very difficult decision) to do...

I'm going there to get healthy and save money

This! That's sensible. That's looking after your health and wellbeing and showing insight into trying to manage unexpected situations, to keep yourself safe in crisis.

The plan is to get a bit healthier, have change of scenery and go back in 4-6 weeks.

Hold onto this. Take it slowly and don't set hard and fast rules and targets of when to be 'better'l finished/ done. They never work, they just make us feel rubbish and stressed and overwhelmed.

 

[SeekingAfrica]

By gently telling yourself over and over again (and again and again) and listening to people here tell you that there is no guilt and no shame attached to your situation. None. Full stop

How do I believe that? It feels like so many years of PTSD and anxiety I should know how to handle myself better and not get myself in....

Wait, I think I just realized something. My inability to work comes when I have a PTSD flare. And each time what do I do? Tell myself I got to do what I got to do, leading to freezing. Instead I could go to therapy, talk to someone, do all exercises I know, and/or postpone obligations to ease my schedule if it's really bad.but I usually know that pushing through doesn't work and kept trying anyway, so effectively not coping. Which is definitely something to keep in mind for the future...

But currently the guilt and shame are engulfed in the fear of what will happen once my landlord knows that I'm leaving and I'm just paying her back 1/10th of what I owe herand will be slowly paying the rest... like, I got myself in this situation. She got me scared not to leave before I pay her all, I didn't move to cheaper place, I had a PTSD flare and didn't cope and here we are and I'm still deadly afraid of her.

 

[Ecdysis]

Just leave without telling her. Put the keys in her letterbox or send them with the mail. Say sorry, it was a medical emergency, which is why you had to leave unexpectedly.

 

[Midnightmoon]

How do I believe that? It feels like so many years of PTSD and anxiety I should know how to handle myself better and not get myself in....

God isn't this the million dollar question.

Can you gently reframe? How is this situation of your construction, its not? It's a set of crappy circumstances that you've now got to unfortunately work within. Can you hear all of us tell you it's not your fault. No one has said look just chill and it's nothing. We all are acknowledging that actually this is really crap. You are doing your best to keep safe and cover the basics and making some hard hard choices.

And each time what do I do? Tell myself I got to do what I got to do, leading to freezing. Instead I could go to therapy, talk to someone, do all exercises I know, and/or postpone obligations to ease my schedule

I love that you've got to this bit
Completely, when everything is going tits up the small stuff becomes the big stuff. Telling yourself to get over it, hurry up, just put more effort in etc etc. doesn't work (because we'd all be 'cured' by now!!)

 

[SeekingAfrica]

@Ecdysis I couldn't... I couldn't even make it to Monday, thinking all that I was. I wrote her today I don't know when I'm getting paid, that I'll give her a chunk next week and then every 10 days wire what I can from my hometown until paid off.

At first she said I must pay off by end of month, then I repeated my capabilities and then she said OK. N9thing is stopping her from changing her mind atany point, except that I told her that the next week I'll come with the paid electric bill and one chunk, and will also prep and clean the apartment that week... so it's in her interest nit to throw me out yet. It was terrifying and I'm shaking but it's done.

Now I just need to get out of the feeling like I'm in shock.

@Midnightmoon Thank you for acknowledging how hard this is. I guess I feel it's my fault in the way of I must have coped better? Or when I'm really in crisis mode sometimes I even start getting actual flareup of memories and even more feelings and forgetting having PTSD isn't my fault. And all memories get really heavy again.

I like what you said about the cured part. For example I faced something that would terrify me without PTSD or anxiety... with them, it feels like someone hit my head and I'm in shock and the world is farand quiet.

I did what I felt was right but I might need a midday nap to snap out of it.

Because there are still a lot of tasks and decisions but also I feel in shock. Gotta find a middle ground. And learn to take care of myself.

 

[SeekingAfrica]

@Midnightmoon i really fell into the guilt hole today. It's easy to think retroactively I should've taken this apartment or should have moved a long time ago.

 

[Midnightmoon]

@Midnightmoon i really fell into the guilt hole today. It's easy to think retroactively I should've taken this apartment or should have moved a long time ago.

Yeah, the 'if only' spiral is grim isn't it. Because hindsight is oh so helpful... But you did what you thought was the best decision at the time, with the info you had available to you. Now, you're doing the best you can with the resources you have. Beating yourself up about how it should be different in some way or that you've failed is only going to cement that guilt more.

 

[SeekingAfrica]

True... but I did really fall into it. I'd forgotten PTSD isn't anxiety only. I literally snapped, I took it hard. Could have been worse, but I slept, cried, tossed, ate gummy bears and watched TV and I did that for just a bit and suddenly it was evening. I swear I forgot what punch in the gut losing time is. At least I'm back to somewhat functional.

And I can easily feel guilty about losing a day.

Or maybe I chose to be grateful it's just a day and do my best to do well tomorrow.

 

[Tinyflame]

Dear @SeekingAfrica you DID do really well, you contacted her instead of avoiding. Let yourself enjoy the win and rather than be ashamed be glad, proud and experience the relief of that much. Hugs to you,

Remember no woulda, coulda, shoulda. No one died. Like a friend told me once, "30 years ago??? Who are these people????? (that they invoke such paralyzing and overwhelming fear?)". And that is right. I think of it often when I am afraid in the present, or if I forget I'm a different person today than then. One day this will be the past and won't (shouldn't, lol) invoke in you the same fear.

Sometimes we have to be reminded because we get tunnel-vision , tunnel-fear. We have to choose something else but it's up to us to try to choose it too. Hope you will allow yourself some happiness and relief. Well done to face it!

 

[Friday]

Guilt & Shame are powerful things… that can kind of exist on their own.. or suck/sap the life/vitality from other things.

Personally?

I’ve decided they’re worth their own marquee.

Sucking off other things, like leeches & mosquitos? Diminishes both them, and me.

Either the guilt & shame Are. f*cking. Worth. Feeling. Or? Are annoyances to be ignored. The choice? Is mine.