I Just Can't Cope

[Deleted member 12723]

If I weren't so pissed off I wouldn't be able to get out of bed at all.

I think your rightous anger is so very healthy for you at this time especially. But underneath is all of the hurt.

So glad you get a break today, enjoy.:hug:

 

[Kintsugi]

But underneath is all of the hurt

My T always says anger never stands alone as an emotion; there's always something feeding it underneath. I suppose that's true.

 

[Suzetig]

I get that feeling of "I can't let any of the balls drop right now". Whether it's out of obligation to others, concern about keeping up appearances or avoiding the crash that will come until you've got time and space to fall apart - I've been there over and over again. Coupled with the feeling that you actually can't go one it's a nightmare.

What I've found works is carving out little bits of care until I can do it properly. Reading a chapter of a book for pleasure (or looking at it blankly), drinking a really nice coffee, digging in the garden - whatever but do enough of it to keep you from falling apart. Sleep whenever you can, request extensions to work at uni - whatever you know helps.

And keep coming here. I'm sorry you're hurting, I wish it was different for you.

 

[scout86]

Yesterday, I finally listened to the 20 saved messages on my phone that I've been avoiding for the past month. And I have to return phone calls to earn a living. So there's a lot there I can relate to. Sometimes cancelling IS harder than showing up. (But returning phone calls trumps everything!)

What I finally did, the other day, was 'do one thing you've been avoiding', and then I made sure I allowed myself to feel relieved for doing it, rather than beating myself up for not doing it earlier, or better, or what ever. You don't seem to be avoiding anything. Maybe make sure you give yourself abundant credit for showing up? Because it seems to me that it's easy to show up, then think something along lines of "it shouldn't have been that hard, it's all my fault."

One step at a time and tick things off as they're done? I sure hope you feel free to keep venting, if it helps. I feel pretty safe saying there's a bunch here who don't mind listening because we'd do anything we can to help.

 

[Lionheart]

Hey @Simply Simon ,

I am sorry that you are hurting!!! I never realized that being adopted came with such issues and I am truly sorry for your pain, anger, and whatever other discomfort you may have.

I apologize for not having smart words to say to you. I want to help but don't really know how. It's just that you've been a good friend to me and I couldn't go without trying to reach out to you.

Deep down I think that you know best what you need to do or to not do....What I do, is to get somewhere quiet and stop my mind from thinking (not always easy) and just get still for awhile and do nothing or do something easy and comforting... like sing the blues...it sounds simple but it helps, sometimes I feel better right away, and sometimes I'll end up crying my heart out and before I will have peace.

Anyways, I hope things get better for you, you seem like a really cool person to me and I wish you all the best!!!

Lionheart

 

[Kintsugi]

All right. Yesterday, two professors cancelled on me, so I skipped my night class. Maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should have just gone. I could have probably gotten away with remaining silent for once, though it is a very small class, and I didn't read the book, because who the f*ck reads 1000 pages about f*cking marriage arrangements? But anyway. If I miss another night class, my grade will suffer, but it feels like an absence well-spent. I emailed my professor this morning to apologize and ask if I'd missed any announcements concerning our assignments. I finished my homework, due tomorrow morning. Blissfully, I don't have to go to work tomorrow.

I think I've decided that I'll go see my family next week and pretend I'm a sleeper spy who has only just been tapped by her superiors, awakened from her slumber as a planted daughter. My mission is simply to act as if everything is completely normal, even though I now remember my secret status.

I want to curl up and die. I'm not just having ideation; I'm having that bizarre feeling where it feels like I literally do not have a future, that I will vanish imminently, and nothing matters because of this. The only thing I can hold onto is investing myself in my final projects for school. This whole adoption thing has given me perfect fodder for my projects. I can continue to research obsessively and channel it into my assignments.

It fits perfectly well. For nineteenth century British novels, Jane Eyre as an Adoptee: 19th Century Orphans and the Culture of 'Poor Relations.' For Women in Literature: Girl Studies, either a project about China's exportation of its daughters and the fraught national status therein or an expose on 20th Century domestic adoption practices, with its maternity wards and disproportionate demand for girls. For my independent study, exploring Anzaldua's mestiza--"torn between ways--Du Bois's double-consciousness, Lorde's concept of biomythography, and the confluence of these things in "hyphenated American" fiction writers endlessly digging into their double identities.

Why not. I plod through my days unable to tear myself away from these thoughts and questions. The thing that moves me from moment to moment is endlessly desiring to know more, to understand the grief felt by everyone in this system. My culture is neither the one I was raised in nor the one I was torn from. What I inherited was the status of those who have been given away. The more I dig, the more I realize that my real legacy, my real culture, is seated in the experience of others who experienced the same fate. My culture is the culture of adoptees, those who are neither here nor there throughout their lives, bilingual interlopers without a native tongue. The idea of this brings me some sense of peace, like I don't have to constantly thrash around trying to find where I fit, because I fit where I am--between worlds--and so does every other adoptee. We aren't the center of the vendiagram. We skate on its every edge. I feel so alone. I am alone. And yet I'm not.

 

[Suzetig]

You're not alone, I'm glad you know that. It's understandable that seeing yourself in the literature you're studying would bring up questions and feelings - go gently with yourself and accept that some of your study might spark thoughts that are hard or trigger you into a trauma response. Good, bad or ugly it's all learning and growth. But it's hard too..,

 

[Kintsugi]

accept that some of your study might spark thoughts that are hard or trigger you into a trauma response.

I can't help myself. Delving forever deeper into my research is the only thing I think about aside from suicide. It's like when all I could write about was my trauma. I wrote my thesis as a memoir about family violence and incestual abuse. It nearly killed me, but I couldn't focus on anything else.

 

[scout86]

The thing about not belonging anywhere is, you're equally at home everywhere.

About those classes. Are you on record as being eligible for any kind of accommodation? I honestly can't remember. If you are, maybe now is a good time to cash in on that. That's something I never tried. And,I know I'd have had a problem doing it, even if it had been an option. But, thinking back, if probably be better off now if I'd been aware of, and used, the resources available.

I LOVE your plan for the visit! (Kind of wish I'd thought of it myself.)

 

[The Albatross]

"The only thing I can hold onto is investing myself in my final projects for school. This whole adoption thing has given me perfect fodder for my projects. I can continue to research obsessively and channel it into my assignments." Cha ching gal, get to it. Nothing wrong with a proactive task that has the likelihood of a good pay off for investment/coping to hang on to, eh?

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

:hug: Simply Simon :hug:
I don't have any "magical" words, or special insight, but I DO KNOW that you are VERY special, and VERY LOVED and supported here! :hug:
You are SOOO NOT ALONE! You have your own fan club here!
Love, hugs, and prayers!

 

[Kintsugi]

I seem to be getting better as I work through these new emotions, but these waves of hopelessness just lap against me throughout the day. I'm fine one minute, reminded of everything that is really going right for me, and the next minute I feel like I'm going to dissolve. I think it's mostly derealization mixing with the strong emotions. I feel like everything floats, time stops, and I get a little light headed, feeling like all of the atoms in the room are drifting gently upward like fireflies.

This happened to me while I was speaking in class a couple of days ago. It was surreal. My mouth kept moving, tongue elocuting what I'd thought to say, but all I could think about was the dizzying sensation of everything in the room drifting around strangely. It was over just as suddenly as it started, after only a couple of minutes, and no one seemed to notice the abrupt lightness I perceived around everything. I'm pretty talented at not letting onto such things. I've had a lot of auditory hallucinations this year, and I'm very good at concealing them. One night, last year, I was listening to my co-worker, and every time she spoke, music rose out of nowhere to drown her out. I leaned in a little, knowing she didn't hear it, and just sort of struggled through some vague responses, trying to catch what it was she was telling me.

Ah, f*cking PTSD. :rolleyes: