Ecdysis
Sponsor
Life is just so hard atm... and has been for so long... It's just miserable and I'm barely coping and it's such a struggle to get through each day.
One thing that I hate is that there's so little validation because I keep my PTSD and trauma secret from nearly everyone.
So it just feels like everybody's saying "suck it up".
It's such a struggle to get some stuff done each day but instead of any validation of how hard it is, it feels like people say "Is that all? Why didn't you do more?"
For example, I'm working part-time at a menial job but it's all I can manage right now and I feel like people are like "You should be able to work full-time" when in actual fact, given how bad my health is right now, I should be on Disability, but I go to my part-time job because I think I'll go nuts otherwise and my financial situation is already bad and I'm scared of how much worse it would be without that job.
I think the lack of validation is also internal... I went through a whole childhood of abuse and trauma and obviously got zero validation there - it was all "suck it up" and "I'll give you something to cry about"... So I've learned that I'm supposed to be able to endure miserable situations and just keep coping and not complain and that I'm a lazy, useless piece of sh*t if I don't cope with it.
Ugh...
I'm also really conflicted about my life in general atm... Not just about day to day achievements, or the lack thereof, but also generally.
I've always tended to compare my life to that of people without major childhood trauma and have felt envious of their successes and felt like I wasn't able to measure up.
I really struggle to *realistically* assess my life given that there was major childhood trauma.
If I try to view it that way, then I have achieved a lot: I've not killed myself, even tho I was sure I'd be dead by this age. I've managed to scrape by homelessness - it's been a tight scrape a few times, but so far, I've avoided it. I've managed to avoid drugs/ alcohol/ addiction. I've mostly managed to avoid abusive relationships. I've managed to get vocational training so that I have an official job title. I've mostly managed to stay out of debt. This next one is going to sound weird, but it is an achievement that I take seriously - I've managed to not have children - and hence not to pass on the generational trauma in our family. I've managed to seek and do helpful therapy. I managed to go no-contact with my family of origin. I managed to get by without a family support network. I managed moving to another country. I'm not great at managing my finances in some ways, but I've always managed to have food at home, even at the end of the month. I've not been in jail and not been in a psych ward against my will.
I know that all of these things are real achievements, but the way I view my life is: that should be the BARE minimum - I should have achieved so much more. It feels like those things are "basically nothing".
I don't know how to cut myself some slack and to think that that's acutally a pretty huge result for someone who had so much childhood trauma and who was suicidal and had raging PTSD when she left home at 18 and tried to work out how to build some kind of life for herself.
As a child, I remember always pretending "everything was fine" so that no one would know about the trauma and abuse at home. For one thing, my parents absolutely demanded that we never let on to others, how bad things were. And I think I tried to instinctively keep it a secret as a child too. And then, as an adult, I'd try to keep my PTSD a secret too, mostly, because of the stigma attached to mental health issues, especially back then - it was much more intense back then than it is now.
So this whole secrecy thing of "it never happened - there was no trauma" is so pervasive in my brain that that's how I judge my life and my achievements - officially there "was no trauma" so why haven't I achieved more?
I don't know how to turn that around in my head... How to keep it a secret from almost everyone but to validate and accept internally that it happened and therefore my life will never be a life without major childhood trauma. I don't know how to get my brain to both have it be "a secret" and to validate it at the same time. It's too confusing.
Edit to add: I also don't know how to set new, realistic (PTSD) goals that actually seem like goals and that don't just seem depressing. Like "keep avoiding homelessness" and "keep working part-time" and "keep managing my finances well enough to have food in the house"... I dunno... those things seem soooo uninspirational to me. (It's hard tho, with depression being this bad atm, everything feels like sh*t anyway.)
One thing that I hate is that there's so little validation because I keep my PTSD and trauma secret from nearly everyone.
So it just feels like everybody's saying "suck it up".
It's such a struggle to get some stuff done each day but instead of any validation of how hard it is, it feels like people say "Is that all? Why didn't you do more?"
For example, I'm working part-time at a menial job but it's all I can manage right now and I feel like people are like "You should be able to work full-time" when in actual fact, given how bad my health is right now, I should be on Disability, but I go to my part-time job because I think I'll go nuts otherwise and my financial situation is already bad and I'm scared of how much worse it would be without that job.
I think the lack of validation is also internal... I went through a whole childhood of abuse and trauma and obviously got zero validation there - it was all "suck it up" and "I'll give you something to cry about"... So I've learned that I'm supposed to be able to endure miserable situations and just keep coping and not complain and that I'm a lazy, useless piece of sh*t if I don't cope with it.
Ugh...
I'm also really conflicted about my life in general atm... Not just about day to day achievements, or the lack thereof, but also generally.
I've always tended to compare my life to that of people without major childhood trauma and have felt envious of their successes and felt like I wasn't able to measure up.
I really struggle to *realistically* assess my life given that there was major childhood trauma.
If I try to view it that way, then I have achieved a lot: I've not killed myself, even tho I was sure I'd be dead by this age. I've managed to scrape by homelessness - it's been a tight scrape a few times, but so far, I've avoided it. I've managed to avoid drugs/ alcohol/ addiction. I've mostly managed to avoid abusive relationships. I've managed to get vocational training so that I have an official job title. I've mostly managed to stay out of debt. This next one is going to sound weird, but it is an achievement that I take seriously - I've managed to not have children - and hence not to pass on the generational trauma in our family. I've managed to seek and do helpful therapy. I managed to go no-contact with my family of origin. I managed to get by without a family support network. I managed moving to another country. I'm not great at managing my finances in some ways, but I've always managed to have food at home, even at the end of the month. I've not been in jail and not been in a psych ward against my will.
I know that all of these things are real achievements, but the way I view my life is: that should be the BARE minimum - I should have achieved so much more. It feels like those things are "basically nothing".
I don't know how to cut myself some slack and to think that that's acutally a pretty huge result for someone who had so much childhood trauma and who was suicidal and had raging PTSD when she left home at 18 and tried to work out how to build some kind of life for herself.
As a child, I remember always pretending "everything was fine" so that no one would know about the trauma and abuse at home. For one thing, my parents absolutely demanded that we never let on to others, how bad things were. And I think I tried to instinctively keep it a secret as a child too. And then, as an adult, I'd try to keep my PTSD a secret too, mostly, because of the stigma attached to mental health issues, especially back then - it was much more intense back then than it is now.
So this whole secrecy thing of "it never happened - there was no trauma" is so pervasive in my brain that that's how I judge my life and my achievements - officially there "was no trauma" so why haven't I achieved more?
I don't know how to turn that around in my head... How to keep it a secret from almost everyone but to validate and accept internally that it happened and therefore my life will never be a life without major childhood trauma. I don't know how to get my brain to both have it be "a secret" and to validate it at the same time. It's too confusing.
Edit to add: I also don't know how to set new, realistic (PTSD) goals that actually seem like goals and that don't just seem depressing. Like "keep avoiding homelessness" and "keep working part-time" and "keep managing my finances well enough to have food in the house"... I dunno... those things seem soooo uninspirational to me. (It's hard tho, with depression being this bad atm, everything feels like sh*t anyway.)
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