How to live with the shame of not having had a life?

[ms spock]

I don't know if any one can relate to this, but my perceived lack of life makes me sometimes feel...

Oh yes!

 

[ms spock]

Everyone has regrets in their lives - that is part of being alive - it doesn't take away from what I lived through and lost and all the opportunities I missed out on, the hardly being in my body throughout my life - but it is also the condition of being human to have regrets, sadness and loss.

Given what I lived through I did okay really.

 

[Powder]

I can so relate to this, even if I try to hide this from myself and others all the time.

What appears to me is that every "good day" or every "success" is engulfed by this black hole of my traumatic past and PTSD life.

PTSD and trying to move forward often feels like a game whereby I never let myself win. Winning feels like Losing is at my heels, gnashing its teeth. I feel safer losing or not trying too hard.

For me, this gets filed under the same heading along with:

• inability to accept/believe a compliment
• inability to see myself as anything but "damaged"
• inability to cease comparing myself against "normal" people who had "normal parents or childhood"
• inability to use every challenge, trouble, or bad luck to see my strength but instead see it as confirmation of my weakness
• inability to feel safe being good at something (assuming that it will come crashing down on me)
• inability to see identify as a good person, as likable, or as having something to offer that will last

Can't keep going, it makes me feel too bad. But it is true.

I can CBT this shit. I can fight back against this. It's true, but it seeps up again, doesn't it? It strikes from my blind spots in that emotional part of me that defies words and thinking. I use words and thoughts like shields, but this emotional power over me is a gas that moves around the shields.

Is that what others feel? Is this what it's like? It is for me. I deny it, and say I'm building myself up, but in secret it eats away at me.

 

[ms spock]

I can relate @Muse!

 

[Deleted member 487]

Ms. Spock, I fail to see the standards you have set for your life. So how is it you haven't lived, yet?
Your life is your business, you have nothing to explain to others.
While I am in one moment a Christian and the next I'm not a christian, I am a firm believer in karma. The Holy Bible indirectly talks of the concept as well. Treat others as you wish they treat you. This is very hard for me, as some people have gone to amazing lengths to cause me trouble.
Ultimately Ms. Spock, do not be saddened by your past. That will accomplish nothing. However, take praise for the good you do in the present. And you do, Ms. Spock, very well there.

Keep your chin up!

 

[Spaced Out]

Yesterday, my wife and I had some rare time together. We walked through parts of town hitherto unseen....

wow. this was pretty cool. thank you. I needed this

 

[EmmaOwl]

@Ms Spock - I have not read through this whole thread, but I read your first message here for the first time.
You certainly have experience as a peer counselor, or just a counselor if you don't want to write "peer". You also do not have to say whether or not you get paid for your work - you don't have to write "volunteer". I learned this at "unpaid internships" undertaken while I was in college... You just say intern, not unpaid! :D You may not be an expert in whatever field, but you're gaining experiences.

Anyway my life ended shortly after college so I have nothing either. I have no life, I live from week-to-week, therapy appointment to therapy. You, however, have moved yourself forward.

David Burns never did much for me, and I think there's nothing wrong with you if he's not your cup of tea.

 

[tsukino]

I came here late.....

I am in my 50s, living alone, with no children, no family, no friends. I think my present life is a repetition of my childhood. I do not, any more, need to be under the influence of my sad childhood. I need to grow my social skills to make friends.....I want to be with somebody else in my life....

Today, I cried like a baby for my parents, which I suspect I couldn't do when I was a baby.

 

[ms spock]

Thanks for your suggestions @Allie D.

 

[tsukino]

I'm reading little by little what the others write in this thread.

Like Nevermore, I am on Pete Walker's book about CPTSD, which has given me new ways to look at my problems. Alice Miller's too.

What was or is my life?
What I did is all an escape from the reality, the fear, the truth. I couldn't do anything for my life, getting a career, having a family, enjoying the life....nothing. I have so much to grieve, to get angry about, to feel the pain of.....then, after that what will be left? I will be there still alive. What does this mean?

I think I need a new philosophy to live by. What has a meaning in my life?

First, I love myself. Then, a humble, simple everyday life. A joy in art and nature. Finally, a connection with people. I must make an effort in establishing a good friendship with selected people, carefully but openly.

It is a difficult life. It is a great challenge. I admit and accept everything is there as it is, including myself.

After all, everything is alright. It was, it will be.

 

[Tinyflame]

Living with, as normal, others' (or my own) mentl illness including, but not necessarily limited to, ptsd, set me up for what I would tolerate. As did, or does, abuse, assault etc.

 

[Tinyflame]

For some reason atm 'edit' is stuck- should say 'mental'- .

But also, I also made other choices others wouldn't necessarily. And I'm different than some people, not bad, not good, Just I know my own level of commitment or caring, my own level of independence, my own 'self', etc.

You are living a life kinder to yourself now @Ms Spock .