I have a hard time trusting people (shocker) and when it feels especially difficult I notice crappy things like cigarettes feel like my best friend or only source of comfort or support I can really rely on. I've done this with alcohol and an eating disorder too. In recent years I've been bitching about chronic pain. While it seems I have no control over that, it showed up after I gave up these other vices and lately I've been a little willing to admit that it's a sort of friend too. The only way I can make sense of having such f*cked up "friends" is that these are things that help me feel in control of some indescribable overwhelm. They subdue my feelings. It's like the sort of self-regulation my body never learned within an early human relationship I suppose and I don't know how to get on a normal track like other people, where I have some sort of faith in others and also some other sort of internally working chill-out system.
I've been working with a therapist that I've really wanted to trust and mostly feel very good about...also the form of therapy seems like a good fit. New insurance won't cover it and my therapist hasn't really answered questions about continuance or trying to go less but pay on my own. I think she's sick of me or thinks I can't get any more better (call it projection but it's all I can do to make sense of things). So it feels like another attempt at normalizing and trusting that is just going to arbitrarily stop and disappear because I'm just a piece of shit like always.
I have had a few good friends, but they were alcoholics who randomly disappeared, and a really good and kind friend who simply hated his job and had to move. I remind myself of these friendships sometimes. But even with those friends, I never told them when I was struggling or knew how to ask for support. We just talked about shared interests and I started isolating or making excuses to avoid friends when I wasn't doing well. But even with these friendships, they are so few and far between that I don't dare risk relationships anymore. And what would make me think that after all these years and decades that I can somehow fundamentally change? Something is broken and I can't fix it. I'm trying to be more okay on my own (not working but I'm not totally giving up either, which was my old pattern...overdose).
I don't want to start therapy over. I felt like I could actually share how terrible I felt with my therapist and try to ask for help sometimes. And now that will just end. I don't know what to do. I will see someone about pain, get a few tips I hope, and quit within a few sessions because I really want to crawl deep back into my shell. I feel so stupid for starting therapy and taking myself seriously. I sound like a whiny baby right now but I mean it. I feel like a fool. I'm pulling a curtain over myself. It feels safer to rely on f*cked up connections to myself, like my pain. It somehow protects me when nothing else does. I quit drinking and I quit starving, so that's good. I go for walks and do things that help the pain not get worse. But I have to admit that it feels like an internally-working friend...someone who knows about me, even understands how I experience life, is somewhat consistent and steady these days, subdues bigger feelings I can't manage, and cares to protect me. It makes things hard but in a messed up way, it also makes daily life possible for now.
I don't post in "relationships" much because I don't have any that feel real, but hope this is fine here. I do feel these things like cigarettes, anorexia, pain as being like relationships or friends. I know that's not real either but I'm trying to maintain some awareness of how it goes. I'm stressed out and feel like I'm trapped again. Any connection to myself helps me keep a "self". I know we need our own "self" to function in relationships and I'm just too shaky too much of the time.
I've been working with a therapist that I've really wanted to trust and mostly feel very good about...also the form of therapy seems like a good fit. New insurance won't cover it and my therapist hasn't really answered questions about continuance or trying to go less but pay on my own. I think she's sick of me or thinks I can't get any more better (call it projection but it's all I can do to make sense of things). So it feels like another attempt at normalizing and trusting that is just going to arbitrarily stop and disappear because I'm just a piece of shit like always.
I have had a few good friends, but they were alcoholics who randomly disappeared, and a really good and kind friend who simply hated his job and had to move. I remind myself of these friendships sometimes. But even with those friends, I never told them when I was struggling or knew how to ask for support. We just talked about shared interests and I started isolating or making excuses to avoid friends when I wasn't doing well. But even with these friendships, they are so few and far between that I don't dare risk relationships anymore. And what would make me think that after all these years and decades that I can somehow fundamentally change? Something is broken and I can't fix it. I'm trying to be more okay on my own (not working but I'm not totally giving up either, which was my old pattern...overdose).
I don't want to start therapy over. I felt like I could actually share how terrible I felt with my therapist and try to ask for help sometimes. And now that will just end. I don't know what to do. I will see someone about pain, get a few tips I hope, and quit within a few sessions because I really want to crawl deep back into my shell. I feel so stupid for starting therapy and taking myself seriously. I sound like a whiny baby right now but I mean it. I feel like a fool. I'm pulling a curtain over myself. It feels safer to rely on f*cked up connections to myself, like my pain. It somehow protects me when nothing else does. I quit drinking and I quit starving, so that's good. I go for walks and do things that help the pain not get worse. But I have to admit that it feels like an internally-working friend...someone who knows about me, even understands how I experience life, is somewhat consistent and steady these days, subdues bigger feelings I can't manage, and cares to protect me. It makes things hard but in a messed up way, it also makes daily life possible for now.
I don't post in "relationships" much because I don't have any that feel real, but hope this is fine here. I do feel these things like cigarettes, anorexia, pain as being like relationships or friends. I know that's not real either but I'm trying to maintain some awareness of how it goes. I'm stressed out and feel like I'm trapped again. Any connection to myself helps me keep a "self". I know we need our own "self" to function in relationships and I'm just too shaky too much of the time.
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