If The Key To Happiness Is Loving Myself Then I Don't Know That I'll Ever Be Happy

[GypsyThatIWas]

I nearly killed myself last Saturday. I felt really alone and no one wanted to talk to me except my abusive ex (and at least their manipulation is attention). I struggle to maintain a self-concept. I struggle to break through this giant plexiglass shield that has always surrounded me. I'm always hungry.

I don't really know if anything I do is real. I'm not really aware of myself at any given point. I understand I should be practicing mindfulness but I can't do that without hating myself. It makes logical sense that I cannot adequately give or receive love with another person until I love myself, but I'm worried I'm not really comfortable with that. I'm like a wire hanger someone bent into a straight line but can't put back into a useful form.

So I contemplated the very few options I had to kill myself and, instead, went to bake things. I baked garlic knots and pizza dough. I messaged this elderly man from my reading group to see if he wanted any dropped off at his house and he invited me out for coffee. We met up with an old professor of mine and we ended up going out to a diner and talking about rock and roll all night. It was fun, if weird.

It was a stopgap measure, because now I just hate myself again. I can't live with a constant need for validation. I wish I knew how to be a whole person but I think I need to live the way I do, hopping from experience to experience, staring at my hands and wondering if the skin on them is real, if the walls of my apartment are mine, if I'm ever going to wake up and not feel blunted and muted.

I practice mindfulness. I go to therapy. I run five miles a day. I still can't love myself, which means everything else that could ever make me happy is void.

 

[Justmehere]

It's awesome what you did to get through that really awful weekend. And I'm so glad you are still here and alive. I'm so sorry you are feeling so crappy.

I actually don't believe that love of self alone is the key to happiness. If it was, then narcissists would be really happy people, and they rarely are happy people.

Also, if we didn't ever need love from others then kids wouldn't die from emotional neglect alone, but they do.

I don't think validation from others alone is the path to happiness either - otherwise celebrities would be happy, and instead so many of them are instead addicted to drugs despite all the praise they get.

PTSD stinks and can bring on some intense depression. I wish is could always be lifted with love of self... but I have found that it usually takes a mix of things. Tends to be a little different for each person.

You are doing a lot of good work! I have done a lot of mindfulness too - it can help me ride the waves of depression or other PTSD symptoms. Are you doing mindfulness meditation? Where somebody focuses on their thoughts and what's happening internally? If so that makes a lot of sense about why it's bringing up a lot of self-hate. It does that for me too. I have found it to be a lot more helpful to focus on external mindfulness. Being connected to the present moment outside of me. Going and having coffee with your friend was a little bit of doing that. It brought you into the present moment with them. Outside of you. I bet in your most joyful moments you were paying attention to this moment now while you were with them. My trauma therapist actually recommend staying away from internally focused mindfulness in the beginning of healing from PTSD, especially when I was feeling numb or down, because it usually make symptoms worse in the beginning. It allows for all those negative thoughts to come up...

To get at actual symptom reduction, I have had to do some trauma work where I actually dive into the past a bit and begin to undo those trauma bonded messages that I am a unlovable person.

Many trauma survivors have negative self talk, because it's what we needed at the moment to survive, and what other people who abused us told us. Those kinds of thoughts developed during trauma are hard to undo, but it is possible. It usually takes a mix of things to get through it.

Does your therapist know how depressed and down you are and how hopeless you're feeling? Are they trained in trauma therapy?

Because you described feeling so numb, you might be experiencing some mild to moderate dissociation. It might be more helpful to seek out a variety of grounding skills. The body can become used to one type of grounding or coping skill, like physical exercise, and it doesn't work as well as it used to work. It help to change them up with different ones. Use the search bar up at the top of the form and search "grounding skills" if that term isn't familliar to you.

Most of all, biz sure to include your therapist in on how much a restaurant going. I need to know that what you're working on right now isn't working well enough. And keep fighting. Things can get better. :hug:

 

[GypsyThatIWas]

Thank you for this--it's very pragmatic yet encouraging. My first therapist (the one before this one) didn't point out the inward mindfulness would hurt more but it did, which is why I told her I was doing it even though I wasn't. She taught me grounding which is helpful sometimes. The thing is I don't really know what I'm reaching for with either of those practices. I don't know what it's like to be present enough to comprehend it as a goal. Telling me to do things to feel more "here" and "now" would be like telling you to imagine you're in a city you never knew existed.

I hope I do convey how impenetrably sad I feel to my therapist. They want me on a medication n but the psychiatrist they work with is on a waitlist. I might need to try another doctor for that because even now I feel really full of grief. I cry more nights than I don't. Thank you for responding.

 

[jademegan]

Based on the fact you managed to get through the weekend by keeping busy you are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for! Hang in there and remember YOU ARE NOT ALONE! take care xox

 

[EveHarrington]

It's awesome what you did to get through that really awful weekend. And I'm so glad you are still he...

Actually every narcissist I've ever known has hated themselves or felt woefully inadequate underneath it all. Narcissism was an extreme reaction to the self loathing.

 

[EveHarrington]

Can I ask how long you've been in treatment? Sometimes it can take years for things to change.

 

[GypsyThatIWas]

1.5 years. switched therapists last summer.

 

[amosmorris]

First of all: you have a perfect screen name...we all know Stevie has been through some darkness. ;)
I just listened to "Gypsy" in your honor--I hope the song gives you a few minutes of breather too.

These words really struck me from your post: "hopping from experience to experience, staring at my hands and wondering if the skin on them is real, if the walls of my apartment are mine, if I'm ever going to wake up and not feel blunted and muted." I know what this feels like. It's a bad place to be. I find myself staring at myself in the mirror sometimes, too, in a similar vein--wanting to find what's there, kind of desperately I think.

At my most "aware" moments, I am reminded of my therapist's advice that we need to bring this pain into the therapy room. The bad feelings, she tells me, will pass if I practice my breathing (those grounding techniques) and wait them out, and then we will deal with them when we are together again. In the meantime, what you did/do is exactly the best that we can do: "things" or "activities" or, as you say, "experiences." The sadness doesn't seem to just go away (certainly mine hasn't) but when I don't look so far down the road and try instead to get through this moment or that moment, or be still until my heart stops racing so much...well, that I can usually do. It's frustrating and hard, but it's a way of moving forward in small increments since leaps and bounds is not an option.

I hope that helps. For what it's worth, your writing above was so powerful--really resonated. Sending good.

 

[EveHarrington]

So maybe you're just near the beginning of treatment? I know that sounds weird to say. It can take years of healing before we value ourselves.

 

[Friday]

I don't know that I've ever loved myself. But I do know I've been happy. And have loved others down to my fingertips, and to the stars and back, again. And have hated myself without that being my central focus, it's just a thing, like hair color, and my life goes on around me, and with me as a part of it.

When other people tell me I "have" to do something? I generally just sit back and smile to myself. Nah. I might could do that something. But there's more ways than just one. Their way might be easier than my way, but I've never exactly specialized in easy. In either course, if I want something badly enough? I'll get there. Eventually. Even if it's the long way round.

 

[amosmorris]

I don't know that I've ever loved myself. But I do know I've been happy. And have loved others down to m...

So lovely, @Friday...thank you for this.

 

[Lola Nocheprieta]

Hi, @GypsyThatIWas. I'm sorry you are struggling with so many things. It sounds like you experience both types of dissociation: depersonalization (when you don't feel real) and derealization (when nothing else feels real), as well as general numbness or blunting of feeling. That is actually really painful :( and sometimes downright unbearable:sorry:. It's good that you already have some grounding skills, and that you are finding support here. Living with dissociation sucks, I know. But look how you managed things! You got out into the world! :tup:You engaged and that got you through the very worst of it into the next moment and the next moment and the next moment when you could reach out to all of us here.

You don't have to wait to love yourself to live a life worth living. And I don't believe those Hallmark cards that say you have to be able to love yourself in order to love another person or to be happy. I'm with @Friday and the others on this one ... I'm often consumed with self-loathing and yet I have many people whom I love dearly, and I have experienced periods of great happiness and contentment.

However, when you're up to your eyeballs in the very thick molasses/drying cement/quicksand of a major depressive episode, shit, just getting out of bed for a little while is a major accomplishment. I'm pretty impressed by what you managed to accomplish, actually; I think you're pretty badass for participating in your own life even when you question the purpose or utility of doing so. That makes you a fierce warrior in my book. :mad:

Keep on reaching out, Gypsy. Hugs if you accept them :hug:, some early Halloween candy if not. Or both!