sun seeker
Diamond Member
I feel like I am losing the ability to think of what to do to help myself anymore. It's been a lifetime of the same sorts of symptoms and there really hasn't been anything that helps very much but it's just the act of trying something that keeps me going. Now I'm feeling like "what's the use, it won't help anyway." I have a few good friends I can talk to, but even so I don't want to turn them off by being so down all the time. I've lost friends by being "too negative".
I can't find a good therapist I can afford, and I desperately need one. Not just someone to talk to but someone who will stick with me to work through the ugly stuff. My family has pretty much fallen to pieces and I can't even begin to face the grief over that. Things that would seem simple to most people are complicated either by circumstances or my own weird fears. My health has gotten worse, and now my work situation too. I already didn't have enough work but recently found out one of my clients (I help old or disabled people) is going away for a few months, and my hours were cut on another, so when I do the math, unless something else comes up I will be making about enough to cover my rent and utilities, and nothing else. Which, again unless something else comes up, means asking my mother for help, which makes it so hard to be anything other than a victim around her, a situation I have been trying so hard to change. I keep trying to think of something else I can do and coming up blank. The fear around the issue is blinding. I hate being poor. I keep thinking back to decisions I could have made differently, could I have gotten a better education, stuck with other jobs... but no, that would have required a sense of self worth that I have never had, it would have required not suffering from constant depression and PTSD, it would have required not suffering from this insomnia that prevents me working full time or at all in the mornings. Anyway the point is what can I do now, and I don't know what I can do now. There is a lot that I am either physically or emotionally not able to do, and that doesn't leave much. The process of finding something is so terrifying for me. I know it's not easy for anyone, but I don't think it's supposed to be this hard. It's a terror that immobilizes me, makes me feel like I'm dying, fighting for my life and can't breathe. Raw panic. Very few people understand that. For a while I was seeing an employment counselor and made some progress towards applying for a grant before she left her job and simultaneously the school I was applying to refused me, and I haven't picked up that thread again but anyway I wasn't sure it was a direction I wanted to go. It was more like I felt like I had to make a decision or she would get impatient with me so I let her push me into the first thing that kind of sort of made sense. Actually when I first went to the employment agency and gave them a list of my assets and another of all the things getting in my way, they strongly suggested I should be on disability. There are complicated reasons why that doesn't work, which I explained to them. Then they said I needed counseling before coming back. Ah yes, the blithe solution to everything. Yes, I do need that, and in an ideal world I'd have it and have whatever time it takes to solve my problems without worrying about how to eat or pay the rent, but I don't.
To top it all off, this pain in my hip has lately become chronic despite the exercises the physio gave me. I've had flareups a few times where I am in severe pain for about a week, but it goes away with rest. Lately though there is a low-grade ache and stiffness and a sort of clicking feeling. I'm so afraid it's arthritis, which would have to mean a change in job... to what?? and a change in lifestyle, because I live on a large piece of land and enjoy gardening, and heat with wood, which requires chopping and carrying. It's like... there is already so little I felt was "me" and what little there is, is being stripped away. Obviously I should go to a doctor. X-rays and blood tests would be a place to begin. I'm afraid of doctors. Pounding heart, ringing in my ears scared. Not sure why unless it's just my fear of all authority figures.
There's just been too much that's fallen apart and I can't cope anymore. I could handle one or two of the major stressors at a time, but all of them together are breaking me. It's hard to describe how it feels. Life is surreal. I go between convulsive fits of sobbing and being numb and so detached from everything that it feels like it's happening to someone else. A year and a half ago I started having memories of sexual abuse, but then the rest of my life fell apart one thing after another and most of the time I don't even feel able to think about that. There is so much help I need and I don't know how to get it. Even deciding what to do feels beyond me. I just want to hibernate and have it all go away, but the world keeps turning and the rent keeps coming due and the wood needs to be chopped and the groceries bought, relentlessly. Last winter was hard financially and I relied on the food bank a lot, and while I'm grateful that it's there, my digestion has also fallen apart and there are a lot of cheaper kinds of food I can't eat anymore. I do have a little saved so there is a little breathing room, but I'm going to have to do something and I can't think.
Thank you for listening. I'm not sure if there's any advice anyone can give me, but I needed to get it out.
I can't find a good therapist I can afford, and I desperately need one. Not just someone to talk to but someone who will stick with me to work through the ugly stuff. My family has pretty much fallen to pieces and I can't even begin to face the grief over that. Things that would seem simple to most people are complicated either by circumstances or my own weird fears. My health has gotten worse, and now my work situation too. I already didn't have enough work but recently found out one of my clients (I help old or disabled people) is going away for a few months, and my hours were cut on another, so when I do the math, unless something else comes up I will be making about enough to cover my rent and utilities, and nothing else. Which, again unless something else comes up, means asking my mother for help, which makes it so hard to be anything other than a victim around her, a situation I have been trying so hard to change. I keep trying to think of something else I can do and coming up blank. The fear around the issue is blinding. I hate being poor. I keep thinking back to decisions I could have made differently, could I have gotten a better education, stuck with other jobs... but no, that would have required a sense of self worth that I have never had, it would have required not suffering from constant depression and PTSD, it would have required not suffering from this insomnia that prevents me working full time or at all in the mornings. Anyway the point is what can I do now, and I don't know what I can do now. There is a lot that I am either physically or emotionally not able to do, and that doesn't leave much. The process of finding something is so terrifying for me. I know it's not easy for anyone, but I don't think it's supposed to be this hard. It's a terror that immobilizes me, makes me feel like I'm dying, fighting for my life and can't breathe. Raw panic. Very few people understand that. For a while I was seeing an employment counselor and made some progress towards applying for a grant before she left her job and simultaneously the school I was applying to refused me, and I haven't picked up that thread again but anyway I wasn't sure it was a direction I wanted to go. It was more like I felt like I had to make a decision or she would get impatient with me so I let her push me into the first thing that kind of sort of made sense. Actually when I first went to the employment agency and gave them a list of my assets and another of all the things getting in my way, they strongly suggested I should be on disability. There are complicated reasons why that doesn't work, which I explained to them. Then they said I needed counseling before coming back. Ah yes, the blithe solution to everything. Yes, I do need that, and in an ideal world I'd have it and have whatever time it takes to solve my problems without worrying about how to eat or pay the rent, but I don't.
To top it all off, this pain in my hip has lately become chronic despite the exercises the physio gave me. I've had flareups a few times where I am in severe pain for about a week, but it goes away with rest. Lately though there is a low-grade ache and stiffness and a sort of clicking feeling. I'm so afraid it's arthritis, which would have to mean a change in job... to what?? and a change in lifestyle, because I live on a large piece of land and enjoy gardening, and heat with wood, which requires chopping and carrying. It's like... there is already so little I felt was "me" and what little there is, is being stripped away. Obviously I should go to a doctor. X-rays and blood tests would be a place to begin. I'm afraid of doctors. Pounding heart, ringing in my ears scared. Not sure why unless it's just my fear of all authority figures.
There's just been too much that's fallen apart and I can't cope anymore. I could handle one or two of the major stressors at a time, but all of them together are breaking me. It's hard to describe how it feels. Life is surreal. I go between convulsive fits of sobbing and being numb and so detached from everything that it feels like it's happening to someone else. A year and a half ago I started having memories of sexual abuse, but then the rest of my life fell apart one thing after another and most of the time I don't even feel able to think about that. There is so much help I need and I don't know how to get it. Even deciding what to do feels beyond me. I just want to hibernate and have it all go away, but the world keeps turning and the rent keeps coming due and the wood needs to be chopped and the groceries bought, relentlessly. Last winter was hard financially and I relied on the food bank a lot, and while I'm grateful that it's there, my digestion has also fallen apart and there are a lot of cheaper kinds of food I can't eat anymore. I do have a little saved so there is a little breathing room, but I'm going to have to do something and I can't think.
Thank you for listening. I'm not sure if there's any advice anyone can give me, but I needed to get it out.
