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

[Changing4Best]

My therapist told me that I am a "high functioning" person who has mental illness. She said that, even though I had recently been homeless for 2 and a half or so years. She said that even though I live on funds from Social Security, a government program that takes care of the disabled and elderly, not necessarily in that order. How she could deem me as "high functioning" is beyond me, now that I look at it. I have never been able to hold a job for more than about 4 months without going off the deep end and either having someone fill in for me, or being fired. That was when I did work, which was not often.

When I was married, if I could not get it together to cook supper, I would tell my husband that we were going out to eat. He did not really seem to mind, as I was not a great cook.

Keeping house was beyond me and still is.

On top of PTSD I am also Bipolar and have Lyme Disease, so maybe the "extras" have something to do with my inability to handle life.

On the other hand, I am living a much more sane life now that I am properly medicated and go to the Senior Center most weekdays to socialize and get out of the house. I have made some friends there and it is a very welcoming place. I can say that last about my church too, thankfully. So I can do somethings like lead a meeting at church for an hour once a year, or lead an Overeaters Anonymous meeting for an hour once a month or so. I can hold it together for that long, thank God. However, that is after a dozen or more years of therapy and a lot of understanding from some folks who I have confided in about my mental illness.

I think my husband understood that there was something wrong with me, even though I had not been diagnosed back then when we were married. Actually, once I was diagnosed, I never told him. I did not want to burden him with it, as he was in a nursing home by that time, having suffered a major stroke. He was in a wheelchair and was an insulin dependent Diabetic. I knew it would upset him, and he would not even really understand it, as he was suffering from Dementia.

I just went to visit him and try to cheer him up as much as possible. At least he always recognized me and was happy to see me....

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@SheilaKathy, I think "high functioning" is a very over rated word. I work. Always have. But it's all I do. I keep to myself at work and I go straight there and straight home. Lock myself away in my house, lucky if I can get out to a store and when I do I run, literally, run through it. Ok, it's more of very fast walking but still, I never stop to look at anything that is not on my list, if I can even get everything on my list. I usually make smaller lists for that reason.

But that's it, work, a store here and there if I am lucky, and locked and closed into my home. My curtians stay closed. It's like I am a vampire.

I am trying to train my dog to be my service dog so I can actually go to a store and stay there longer then 5 mins. Maybe slow down. Go to a mall, a park, a movie theater. Any place besides work, a run through a store here and there and home.

The only time I can is if my dad or step mom go with me and even then its hard but I can do it. They just won't go with me.

I also have no friends. I know no one here and have been in this area for over 8 years. I do not allow people to talk to me. I ooze "go away" from every pore.

That is considered high functioning by many (including my therapist) because I work, though I am technically, by definition, agoraphobic (though not been diagnosed with that):

Agoraphobia - Mayo Clinic

So I just throw away that term as there is no possible way to know if someone is "high functioning" by being able to work or not. Functioning in the world is way more then just working or not.

/tanget

 

[DharmaGirl]

I hate the phrase "high functioning". I was, until I wasn't, now I can't work and I have a hard time going anywhere. I trained my dog to be a service dog and she gave me a life for awhile. Now she is elderly and even though she would still do it, I retired her.I do have a real life friend, not counting my mom and son, whom I love very much, but it is hard to do anything at all.

 

[HealinginHisWings]

Hi, I am new to this support site, no therapy except my own at this time. I am a Christian girl, without God, I too would feel like you said, as I do think about routine as pointless to a degree in the way we live. I have children, so for me that is also what keeps me focused on positive living and fighting my PTSD symptoms. Anxiety can take many forms, fears arise because we need an answer to them, a resolution. That is what has helped me work through them, as I still am doing. It takes time. For me, I know I am God's daughter, and there is a plan for my life, greater than daily tasks. I don't know how other's live without God, and I mean this kindly, I truly do not understand life without God. So, I send you love, hope and peace, and said a prayer for you. It takes time to heal, sometimes it is step by step. Waking up, eating, living, working, relaxing, remembering beauty around you (a dandelion flower growing in the crack of a sidewalk, a butterfly, a bird, the sky). And it is ok to smile even in depression. It is ok to cry. It is ok to panic, and pat yourself on the back when you have made even the slightest healing, when you faced any anxiety and got through it.

I do these things and I know there is more to my life than routine. God bless. I hope my own learning can help you too. Remember we put on one shoe at a time, one step at a time. Smile in each step and know you are not alone.

 

[HealinginHisWings]

@SheilaKathy, I think "high functioning" is a very over rated word. I wor...

Sounds like you don't like crowds, social anxiety. I fight this all the time too. That is the key word, fight, a good fight is worth fighting. I go to the store when it is not crowded in the morning if possible, this helps. Also, it helps me to figure out what is going on with me making me feel anxious? I often self help myself, I find that I don't run away as fast this way. It takes time, and some days are easier than others. Also, let the sun shine in! It's good for depression. And find nice places to go that have less crowds. Hope this helps?

 

[ForgotToLive]

I will tell you my experience with numbly going through the motions, just counting the minutes until life was finally over with. Then later on in almost the same circumstances actually being able to feel joy... Bear with me. Maybe it will help.

I was halfway down a bunnyslope snowboarding with my family and friends on our annual new years trip 2015/2016, stressed out at having to expose my true self. Being exposed (I like to seclude most days) of how I was terrified of the ski lift (I'm a major control freak), how I was unable to improve (can't relax), unable to trust the instructors, unable to progress like everyone else... and simply hating every single millisecond of it all and especially of feeling so exposed... when all at once it occurred to me (this was day 3) that THESE THOUGHTS AND FEELING were exactly how I experienced life... while others around me had paid hundreds if not thousands of dollars because snowboarding brings them so much joy... I had paid the same but all I HAD ANY EXPECTATIONS of doing was to go through the motions dreading every second of it and *pretending* to fit in to the "fun" all the while knowing damn well that I am some kind of anxiety-ridden robot freak only able to alternate my focus between hoping my husband and kids don't die, or on me just holding it together long enough to survivie THIS torture for the sheer reward of getting onto surviving the NEXT torture (and so on) that living each day requires... Every single cell in my body was just despirately counting the moments until it was all over and I could go home, and hopefully doing so before I had some horrifying episode of bursting into tears and humiliating myself... for no apparent reason.

AND I REALIZED THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I LIVE LIFE... just getting through it striving for as little pain and humiliation as is humanly possible, patiently waiting for it all to just go away so I could at least find some relief.

I sat in the snow and ALL AT ONCE the realization hit me that I never ever had to pretend again! That THIS actually could be my last run ever! It was hugely liberating to just stop pretending I was feeling what normal people probably felt. For me, it was really powerful to let go of the pretense and just be resolved to "coming out" and facing the humiliation and disgrace (of not being a fun/"normal" role-model type mom) and ADMIT I was not able to enjoy things which existed for NO other reason than to be fun...

As a result this year, 2016/2017 our family and my friend's family went snowboarding somewhere else... And at the last moment I decided that even though I had bit the bullet and successfully lowered everyone's expectations of me, (saying i was going to stay in the cabin the whole time), I decided I would try a fresh start but with no pressure to pretend. And the first thing I did was I took a lesson and knowing it was okay to hate it, okay to fail, okay to make a fool of myself, okay to even cry... I actually relaxed and finally began doing S-turns and I ACTUALLY experienced fun!!!!

I'm guessing this is a really long and dumb sounding post... but I don't know... being able to feel joy and to have fun like other normal people is just a huge thing. It makes living so much less of a chore at least during those moments you're lost in it. I'm still trying to process and map that over to other things in my life. I just want to figure out how to get out of my own way more often.

 

[Muted]

That's awesome @ForgotToLive , it sounds like you've learned a lot about yourself. I have a hard time having fun, but I can relate to just feeling pressure and expectations from everyone can keep you from being able to have the freedom to have fun.

My Mom used to always say, "your not free to say yes unless your free to say no".

Thanks for the insightful post.

 

[EmmaOwl]

Apparently, the answer is 42. ;)

(humour)

It depresses me just a little bit that I understand this. :P

 

[EmmaOwl]

Is it just me, or maybe there is something else wrong with me, but does anyone have trouble with u...

me too. I have no kids and no religious belief.
only thing that keeps me on, I think, is my parents want to see me happy and so it seems I go by that