Please I Need Your Opinions Not Understanding Anything About Life Or Living

[Lostgirlptsd]

Is it just me, or maybe there is something else wrong with me, but does anyone have trouble with understanding life, and what living is about? I have been very ill with anxiety depression and ptsd, and this issue is driving me nuts.

I just can't understand how people are able to keep doing things, like getting up every day, go to their jobs, be able to keep working, in the evenings come home make a dinner, or do something else. I don't understand why people keep doing this all the time, what do they get out of it, or why?

With my ptsd, I have absolutely no emotions, and am just numb all the time, going around like a robot, I'm so sick of it. Maybe this has something to do with my problem above, I don't know. Does anyone else have terrible trouble with what life is about, and what living is about?

 

[LadyZane]

I felt this way for years. Years and years. All of my 20s and some of my 30s. I used to talk to a friend of mine about how everyone else seemed to have received this handbook about how to live life, what to do, why to do it, and how to go about it the right way, and somehow I wasn't around the day they gave the handbook out. I worked as a bartender which had a built-in social activity -- drinking -- and I could slag through activities but I'd look around and be like "Who are all these people who go to work every day, go jogging just to do it, buy all these houses, cook these meals? What do they know that I don't know? Why are they doing this?" Honestly it only changed for me when I got diagnosed with clinical depression and started taking antidepressants. I finally started feeling like a member of the living human race, started realizing there were things I cared about and wanted to do, started understanding how to get better at things and achieve things I cared about. I'm still in therapy for the trauma and sorting through the life of mental health issues and zero familial support, but the meds truly changed my life. I know not everyone loves their experience with them, and I feel as though I was lucky because I found one that was a good fit for me on my first try with just a small dose adjustment -- people I talk to sometimes say they have to go through several before they find one that works and doesn't make them feel weird. But I feel like after 4.5 years with this prescription I'm finally able to process the trauma from a safe-ish place ...

I'm not a doctor, obviously, but what you describe you're experiencing sounds a lot like depression.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I just can't understand how people are able to keep doing things, like getting up every day, go to their jobs, be able to keep working

what do they get out of it, or why?

A roof over my head, air in the summer and heat in the winter, water, electric, food....tv (maybe).

Compartmentalize is what I do and what I have always done. Automatically, to function. I had to and its hard to stop doing it to heal those numbed away "comparments".

With my ptsd, I have absolutely no emotions, and am just numb all the time, going around like a robot, I'm so sick of it. Maybe this has something to do with my problem above, I don't know. Does anyone else have terrible trouble with what life is about, and what living is about?

Numb comes with functioning for me. If I felt it all at once it would crush me. Did it once when blame shifted, and I don't think that was all of it but if I had been fully alone, I wouldn't of hung on past it and would have numbed it again or killed myself. I know that for a fact.

So it's protection.

Do you have a therapist? We go through things slowly so I can take out a "compartment" or something smaller in it, work on it, and not get crushed. It will throw me off a lot but it won't render me fully useless.

Not sure I am answering your question.

What is living about? My opinion? Love. Human connection. Caring about someone more than anything in the world. The beauty around us. The leaves on the trees, the flowers, the bees, nature around us. The beauty in the world. Nature is so beautiful and healing, we must just open up ourselves to receive it. The love that is there for us that we don't even see yet. The unknown of the future. Future is dark until we shine a light on it each day. And taking things day by day. Today may have been a bad one but there is tomorrow.

Sorry, that all sounds stupid. Why keep living? Because you don't know what may be waiting for you there in the future. And because we have others that care for us even if we don't think or know we do.

Sorry if all of that sounded corney.

 

[Lostgirlptsd]

Thank you both for your replies, I appreciate it. Before I became so ill, I worked everyday, was able to function every single day, and had emotions for all of this.

I think because I have no emotions is having a terrible affect on me, and not understanding things, functioning, or to be able to keep going, when most of the time, I have absolutely no mental strength whatsoever.

I know that work is to pay for your life, I did all of this before I became so sick. I can't seem to get back to that, I have no emotional attachment to it, there is nothing there whatsoever in me to do with daily life. Maybe I might be explaining it a bit better this time! It's incredibly difficult for me to try and put all of this into words about all of this, hopefully its better this time!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@Lostgirlptsd, do you have a therapist currently?

 

[Lostgirlptsd]

I have a clinical psychologist who is fantastic, but I can''t afford to see her anymore, as I'm unable to work due to being completely unfunctionable, and also what I said above!

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

Does anyone else have terrible trouble with what life is about, and what living is about?

Yep, definitely. One of my problems is that life has too much uncertainty- too many unanswerable questions. So my therapist challenged me to journal about living a life worth living in a world of uncertainty. In other words what was my purpose for living and how can I handle not knowing (for absolute certainty and not just opinions) the answers to questions such as what is life all about.

I think life is about making the world a better place in whatever way you can. Whether that is just waving to someone on the street, telling someone they're doing a good job, teaching, raising respectful children, picking up trash...anything really.

Now, do I always remember that is my goal? Nope, not at all. I forget. I get pulled under by the depression and overwhelmed by the anxiety of things, but I just keeping holding on for the "better" times when I can remember what my goal is.

 

[Lostgirlptsd]

I was in hospital for 3 months before, and the doctors were excellent, and put me on a huge concoction of medication, which I take every single day, as well as supplements.

 

[Lostgirlptsd]

@JEKBreatheandBelieve above. Maybe 20% of this is about uncertainty of the future, the other 80% is just being really lost, not understanding like anyone else, and have absolutely no emotional attachment to any of this.

I am a good person, and I treat people well, but I never feel any different. Here is an example for you of my oddness - Ok, if I stay in bed all day, and decide to do nothing, I feel absolutely no different from if I were to do a days work, or if I were to do something which would to other people seem enjoyable, like spending time with a friend or something. There is absolutely no difference in me in how I feel, and I get nothing out of any of it, there is no difference if I were to do any of these things on a particular day

 

[Lostgirlptsd]

I have had an abnormal brain scan recently, and am being tested for MS in the new year, so maybe its something to do with MS, or maybe its a part of ptsd for me? I'm just lost on all of this, and wish I could solve this horrible problem for myself, because if I could I think it would help me get back to the land of the living with other human beings

 

[Ladyghosthunter]

All I've ever done is survive. It's hard for me to pinpoint a time when I could feel because I'm in survival mode all of the time. I feel as if I cannot feel because it's robotic the way we have to survive. I'm, at this moment, am not taking care of myself like I should and need to write down a list of things I have to do daily. It's becoming overwhelming.

 

[Lostgirlptsd]

All I've ever done is survive. It's hard for me to pinpoint a time when I could feel because I'...

I was in survival mode for a number of years because of what I was put through. I'm not living at all, just surviving. I don't feel safe out of the house, and being around people. Most of the time I am afraid of people, but other times, I am realy angry at them if I have to be out in public, which I hate. The safest place I feel is my bedroom