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Scared, can’t stop emotionally harming myself

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Strangelongtrip

MyPTSD Pro
I feel really bad I’m not active here as much but I don’t have time really and I’m just really struggling. So I haven’t dated since April. I posted on here about someone I thought was like...amazing, the be all end all, but ended up being manipulative and I also couldn’t handle her silence. I needed to work on myself too, and I have, and that’s why I’m particularly frustrated.

I’ve been friends with this woman since we were 14, so 7 years now. We would fade in and out of talking to each other but reconnected when I moved back home last year and have been hanging out a lot. I felt back in maybe May that she might have a crush on me but she had never come out to anyone and only had dated men (but never been in a relationship/intimacy). I could just tell, it’s that look you get. We went to Pride together, we always have a good time, and slowly she’d pepper in thinking women were attractive etc. Eventually she came out to me as attracted to women but she hasn’t told anyone and her family is super homophobic. She also told me she struggles with depression which I also don’t think she’s really told anyone because when she talked about it she said she thought she felt crazy when she described what she was experiencing and I was like yep, I know exactly what you’re talking about.

She’s also done things that seem like flirting with me, “accidentally” touching me and not moving, giving me cute compliments, etc. I really like her, I have a crush on her. She’s genuinely kind, caring, loving, really funny, and really wants to make a difference in the world. She’s open minded and we have similar interests. And I just feel really good around her, like she’s said the same thing that it’s just nice being around each other and we could literally do nothing but extend our time hours because we’re talking the whole time. One day we planned to go out for 2 hours and ended up spending the whole day together and the next day too.

We hung out yesterday and I think I expected something to happen but it didn’t and I had a complete breakdown when she left. I cried myself to sleep and I sobbed this morning. It wasn’t even that nothing happened. I feel really strongly about her being comfortable if anything did, which is part of the reason I won’t make a move. I don’t really know how because no ones ever really made me comfortable when making a move, but that may be because I’m really gay and kept trying to date men. I’m terrified of that, and I also feel deceitful and horrible for liking her and not telling her but inviting her to all of this stuff. Like I’m lying.

Last time I liked a friend was 2016. It was horrific. I don’t know if I had genuine feelings or fabricated feelings to mask my sexuality but I believed them at the time. He was 50/50 an asshole and an amazing person and he slept with my best friend who knew I loved him and I told him my feelings over text and told him I was angry at how he’d treated me and it was so dumb. I realized I don’t even like him as a person, he was sexist and predatory and disgusting, but now I’m terrified I’m going to hurt her because of the way I handled my lash friend I liked, and that I’ll lose her because of it. It’s not like I couldn’t be friends with her if she didn’t have feelings for me but I don’t know how she feels.

I can’t stop emotionally self harming over this either. I’m 9 months clean of cutting the longest I’ve gone since I started when I was 15 and I don’t want to relapse. I sit and think horrible things about myself, that I’m disgusting, that I deserve to feel this way because I’m gross for liking my friend and I hate myself because of it. I have a sh*t ton of internalized homophobia and I have panic attacks often with her or before or after I hang out with her. I don’t even know if this is related to PTSD but it feels like it because the symptoms are worse? I don’t know. I’ve been so depressed lately too.

Edit: I also feel like I don’t deserve someone I actually like because of my baggage and mental illness. I feel like I would screw her up and make her sad because I’m messed up. My two actual relationships both called me a burden and too much work and I don’t want to subject anyone to that anymore.
 
hi Strangelongtrip,
All I want to say is you sound like you are going through really rough moments and I truly hope you find that inner child who already made you survive all that and more in the past. Hope you are here again and tell us you find yourself again. I feel you pain and I am sorry you are hurting.
 
One thing I’m trying to accept is that people can determine their own limits and can make their own decisions about whether or not they want to be in a relationship with me. Being open and honest with someone about who you are and where you are in life means that you’re giving them the knowledge to determine whether or not they want to be in a relationship with you. The right person will see your flaws but your flaws won’t deter them from having you in their life because that’s what true love is, accepting someone for their whole self, the good, the bad, and everything in between. Someone who truly loves you won’t see you as a burden. They will accept that you have your struggles and won’t judge you for them. :hug:
 
@EveHarrington i wish I could believe that was true. My parents told me I was a burden since I was a teenager, and everyone I’ve ever dated has said the same thing. I try to be smaller and take up less space and less emotional effort so I’m not a burden but I still am.
 
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