Life Panic, Can't Forgive Myself For Messing Up

[Powder]

A damaged sense of future, especially long-term, is a key symptom of PTSD. A theory is that our hippocampus is damaged and actually smaller in volume than it should be. It is related to focus and memory (short term verbal). This is just the beginning.

We also have compromised immune functioning. Stress-induced co-morbid disorders and epigenetic damage that will forever alter the body.

My understanding is that blaming yourself for this is senseless; whether we have PTSD, something else, or nothing traceable, we all have limits in our body, mind, and spirit. We all have to do our best with the cards we're dealt.

I believe you have done that, and are still doing that. You have had a spiritual awakening, that you can do better NOW, and that is a shock to you, making you jump to the conclusion that you should have done this long ago.

That is called REGRET. The Bhuddist way is that there is No Regret as you journey through life. You have been learning and going through this process. Now that you have arrived in this place, it is no better or worse than where you were before. You cannot step into the same river twice.

Total Acceptance of the now, of you as a spiritual being having this life experience for your own spiritual reflection and refinement, and that you are perfect when in spirit, always a light is burning bright, like a candle always on fire with holy, divine light. This is what truly matters and cannot be taken away. I will say, when I feel as you do today, it is when I forget who and what I really am, what we are really here for, and focus on the details as if they are the meaning.

Don't forget who you are. Something good.

Muse

 

[Powder]

Just part of a draft of a poem about the spirit growing up with trauma from early childhood abuse and neglect. Not great, but a work in progress:

I am so glad that

Honesty and Bravery can be adopted by anyone who wants them

that children can grow up

and recognize their inheritance,

not in the freedom from ancestral strife, but by the soul’s rhythmic breathing life into itself.

Child wounding is but a grain of sand

in the streaming eye of the awakened soul

seeing an ocean of divine love

feeling waves of self-acceptance…

One’s soul is not a refuge, not a rickety lifeboat, after all.


Hugging tight the child-self’s knowing memories

I lived in her night terrors a lifetime of mistrusting her troubled gut

Until I came to know that she is as accurate a compass

as the face etched on the moon,

even though you can’t always see it,

As brilliant as the North Star,

If you are wise to find it,

and as silently deadly when ignored

as an iceburg in the subconscious of a Titanic fool

who would refuse to look underneath the surface of things

for what lies there.



Fool though I’ve been,

This soul survived, not as the daughter of incest and neglect, two very sad parents

But as soul knowing itself: “I am finally alone with love!”

Wrapped in its own skin, soul embraces itself

And finds its mate

 

[LaurieJ]

I completely relate to what you are saying. I've been in a fog for the past 11 and a half years. I'm now awake and am also dealing with the fallout. I haven't worked during that time period (except for 2 weeks in retail) and am now looking for work. It is proving impossible. I could go back to being a paralegal but there is a huge problem: I have PTSD now and know I wouldn't be able to handle the fast pace of the job. I'm waiting to hear if I got into graduate school or not but still need to be working. Right now I'm mostly looking for lower end jobs but don't even know if I can handle them. I think and react differently now as well as learning a job differently. I too worry about my future. With the PTSD I have trouble with people so I don't know how I'll be at customer service.

We vary in that I'm not panicking about my future. Maybe it's my faith that everything will turn out alright. I hope that your panic subsides and that you find your way.

 

[JustBe]

Hashi, without totally repeating your first post I just want you to know that I totally relate with what you're saying. I have had this conversation with my therapist many times. I am still struggling with this, while trying to accept myself and move forward.

You are not alone.

 

[JustBe]

Pencil said: "had to do with battling inner things. I could not pay proper attention to the external world. AND the attention I paid the external world was impacted so badly by what was going on inside me."

My experience too...it's like I've been derailed by myself.

 

[ninja]

Hashi: I too, can relate. I like what Barberian said about success: a large part of having/finding success is adjusting and creating the right kinds of goals and expectations. I find myself needing to learn and relearn this over and over and over....!

I stumbled upon this saying by Theodore Roosevelt few days ago: "Comparison is the thief of joy." It really resonated with me. In a world where comparison is so pervasive in its (pseudo)"necessity", we can only strive for personal bests...and that is good enough.

 

[therapybankrupt]

Does anyone relate? Any thoughts or advice?

I totally relate to you Hashi being 55 and well into the diagnosis alone for 10 years. You did the best you new how at the moment through your life. Good for you! I spent my life working relentlessly towards career, education, child rearing, marriage and future. You know what one day it was all gone. It was so scary. I have coasted for the last 10 years. I got what every person who suffers with full blown PSTD and deserves. It is SSDI that you paid into during your capable working years.

I live meagerly. I have managed all my exorbitant mental medical bills, medication, car and a home. I know I will continue paying off debt for a while. I have a roof over my head and food on the table. Many in this world does not have. Do I know what my life is going to turn out like? No! Does it scare the heck out me of course. I dwell on it all the time.

After reading this thread I am going to try and let it go. My fears are eating me alive about my future. Thanks for posting about this subject. I needed to take a good look at it! I am wishing you all peace in thinking about the future. So little is in our control anyway.

tb

 

[Abstract]

"I've been living in a fog until recently, life never seemed very real, and I didn't feel like I existed in it. So I didn't plan for the future or for my career, or took care of health problems properly, I just randomly went from one thing to another, sleepwalking through it all.'
Yes. That is it exactly.

And actually I was not functional at school at all either. Essentially I am undecuated in many respects. I have studied something and do have a skill so I am grateful for that.

When I started "awakening" a few years ago I struggled so much with this. I am in a much better place with it now. Much more acceptance than before. And I am very lucky as I recently worked very hard on finding an alternative environement in which to make a living and managed to do that. It is still very hard and I am barely functioning but it is better than the alternative. And I have started to accept all the sides of me that will never have their potential explored.

But I am lucky as I am married. It is a bizaar situation at best and calling it a marriage feels dishonest but there is an aspect of finacial help that comes with it. In the past I have been in a very bad place, earning very little and supporting us both for many years. At that point I felt even more as you do now.


At present the accumulated physical damage from my mental health past is catching up with me and I don't have the finaces to deal with that alone let alone the mental health help I need. And doing anything about any of these results in me falling apart which means I can work less and earn less.
Not sure where it will end.

Really if you could see this clearly you would see that you are incredibly successful and talented. Managing to do anything at all whilst dealing with all the PTSD and related cr*p is - impressive. But I understand what you are saying and do it too.

The little things are such a struggle and I see those around me just breezing through.

I understand the fear of the present and future and the reality they bring.

When I get a chance I will write an answer to your thread about ending therapy and finances.

Its so sad that we judge ourselves as it makes everything much worse.

 

[SweetPeaandSunBird]

Its so sad that we judge ourselves as it makes everything much worse.

So true.

Just becoming self-aware is a triumph that even folks without PTSD sometimes don't manage.

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

I relate strongly even though I'm only 23. I have never been able to hold down a job or means of further education for more than a month or too. People look at me and they don't realise that it's not through lack of trying. My neighbour thinks I should do a degree in computing or technology to help people because I helped them very much and with ease - but if I started I'd drop out - not because I want to, but because I struggle too much.

Even I feel like I've not done enough and am not doing enough - especially when I get letters through from the government on suggestions for a pension when I have practically no money now. I feel like realistically I should be able to get and hold down a job or some basic means of an attempt at living life but it never works.

Most recently I was up visiting a friend and was so inspired by my time there I told him that I wanted to come back and start studying with my new found focus, to try and start life again and he told me something very wise and not as discouraging as you might think. He said "Don't. Just go home and be inspired. I don't think you should throw yourself into something. Just take your inspiration and sit with it, let it heal you and continue on doing as you are."

You know what he's right, for me, if I had started something I would have given up through stress in a very short time. I know now that I need to focus on healing inside and out and if life doesn't turn out the way I think it should it doesn't matter, because I will have lived it the way I can and maybe in time I will have the strength to start something. If I don't who's normal anyway, if I/you don't fit what's socially acceptable who cares, we survived life and kept going against the odds and maybe our life reflects our struggles but its simple and honest. Only do what you can and only be who you are.

xx

 

[Hashi]

Wow. Thank you for all your responses. So much understanding, and I'm sorry that this seems to be a common theme.

There's a lot of wisdom in what people have said here. Not just in the thinking, but also the doing, the fact that people are practising wiser and more accepting ways of living, or reaching out for that.

It's very true about acceptance and compassion. I've been making some progress with acceptance, and need to continue with this. Compassion is an incredibly hard thing for me. It's helpful to think of it not as something to be attained for once and for all, but as something I need to keep applying. I'm reading these responses thinking, everyone here is far from stupid or deserving of blame. I need to stop thinking of myself that way. I agree that judging myself does nothing except make things worse.

It's not about keeping up with the Jones's, it’s about managing, but there’s definitely something about comparison. This is as unhelpful as judging, but I do it a lot. For example, I have a massive feeling of inferiority about the area where my therapist lives. If the area where I live is ever in the news, it's for street crime. If her area's ever in the news, it's because another celebrity has bought a house there. Every week that I go there I see it as other people's financial security and attainment. The tube station I get out at might as well be called "Failure and Resentment", because that's where I'm alighting when I think this way.

I need to find a way to let go of the comparison, because all it does is disempower me and stop me from focussing on what I do have, and what I can do.

Muse, your poem is so beautiful. It resonates with me. Also what you said about regret.

Reading several replies, I've been thinking about something I've heard, that the choices we make aren't the most important thing. What's important is the reasons for our choices. Up to now, I've been choosing from a place of fear, denial and disconnection, and that's how it was and I can't change that past. Going forward, if I think I now have to get every decision and action right, I'm only going to scare myself even more. I think it's better for me to focus on making choices thoughtfully and responsibly, from a place of connection and being aligned with my values. Then I have to trust that I'll be doing the best I can for myself.

I'm also thinking about the balance of practical and emotional. I do need a practical plan to reduce my anxiety. (Max, I hope you won't be offended if I don't take up your suggestion of trading in derivatives. ;) I've risked too much already!) I've been feeling overwhelmed by the "rest of my life" thinking, and I've decided that what's within my capabilities at the moment is to have a plan for the next four months. That's a key time period regarding income and living arrangements. So I'm working on that first.

I literally felt like I suddenly and completely woke up with regard to practical life. It was a single thing my therapist asked me at our last session before taking a break, what my reasons were for one of the things I was intending to do. She was only meaning to clarify that for her understanding, not to make me think about it. That innocent question somehow made all the fog fall away and I saw very clearly that they weren't good reasons, and then I suddenly started seeing everything. It's been a shock. Thank you everyone for sharing here and giving such good advice, kind words and encouragement.

 

[ms spock]

Hashi,

I am in the same situation. I am just waking up as well. I have no savings or pension.

I feel bad about my self as well.