Spiritually And Creatively Bereft - Related To Trauma Work?

[marylouise]

I've always had a strong sense of a spiritual connection with the universe. I also have always felt the need to express myself creatively. When I was a teenager and things were at their worst, I felt I wrote "in a vacuum", but I still wrote. I was driven to connect with something larger than myself - creatively with other people, spiritually with a Higher Power.

I can't feel that now. Though I feel its absence. I'm 42 years old, and suddenly that feeling of meaning and connectedness is gone. It scares me. Was it all just a defense mechanism against the horrors of my life? Not that I'm depressed. I'm going through my life, and things are basically fine. Except that the strong sense of meaning and connectedness it always had is gone.

I have been getting in touch with and processing a particularly horrific event for the past few years. Once I started, the ability to write and create went away. As I've continued, my sense of a Higher Power has gone away. The event was bad enough that I remember a feeling of giving up afterwards. I stopped trying to make my life better and walked through it like a zombie. Am I experiencing what I was feeling then? Or, is this how normal people feel (who tell me they don't "feel" God? Is this recovery?

I've also gone through a difficult physical illness over the past four years. Could that have contributed? But I'm better now (mostly).

I'd appreciate any ideas anyone has. I've been grateful to discover this forum. I feel that I could only bring this up seriously with people who have experience, overcome, and now (sometimes) struggle with similarly difficult experiences.

 

[shimmerz]

@marylouise I too am going through a similar phase. I am not quite certain what is bringing it up. My determination to 'beat this thing' has gone, my passion has seemingly left me, my drive to go out has left. I wish I knew what is the root of this. I too am very spiritual. I believe in the oneness of the Universe and its magic. I am having a very difficult time even attaching to that these days although I am reminded through my friends to keep up my practices. I just can't seem to get out of this funk. It feels like a depression although I don't fall into that category historically. To me it is like a vicious circle - the more I try to feel inspired the less I am.

This is not a very uplifting post for you I am sure and am sorry for that, I just wanted you to know that you are not alone.

 

[Go Hungry]

I feel the same. There was once a time when I felt a profound connection to the cosmos and the gods and well, Everything. I don't anymore. I used to write poetry and practice magic and tell stories and it all meant something. I could write and write and write. Everything meant something.

Then it stopped. I'm not sure if it's just because I got older, or because I went on the bipolar meds. But the fire in my life was extinguished. And I have no idea what to do about it. I sometimes even wonder who I am, because it was such an important part of my life, and then it just... It was driven out. People pulled it out, stomped on it.

I'm definitely not the person I was when I was younger, and it just hurts. Now life is just about getting through another day. There the world has no meaning, it all just comes down to blood and dirt at the end of the day.

I wish I had me back.

 

[Meadowsweet]

I don't think it is uncommon for people to lose that feeling of connection when the emotions are very strong. It's not uncommon for people to lose interest in people or things they've previously taken pleasure in either.

but when the emotional turmoil is quieter, the connections that mean something to us in life are there, and feel like they never left.

 

[franciemarnie]

When I burned out, the way I looked at everything and everyone including God changed or disintegrated. I missed that God connection, and began reading about fifty memoirs of people who had once had faith and then gone thru trauma to see how they came out of it intact. I figured if someone came out of the Holocaust with a spiritual life, I wanted to know their secret. That lead to all sorts of other books like on the Dark Night of the Soul and the history of the world and the history of religion and so on.

I became so interested in these subjects that within a year, I felt vitality again and a visceral connection with life and I became open to experiencing a Higher Power different than the one I had once connected with. I mean, I had accepted someone else's definition of God once upon a time and it no longer rang true from my experience. So I started fresh.

I think it is normal to feel as you do. It is awful to go thru but I believe it could be making way for a new view of the world and relationship with the world and God.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I always had a sense of the Creator present in my life although my dad was a atheist and my mom a guilt ridden hocus pocus superstitious non practicing Catholic.

When I was spiritually abused by a very toxic church and all that I experienced I had a great connection to the Creator and learned so much through study.

When I was isolated and alone taking care of my severely dementia husband I lost the sense that the Creator of the universe entirely. So I went through three years alone and berefit because the spiritual means so much to me.

After my husband died, and I moved in with my daughter and two granddaughters I have the presence of the Creator back in my life again only I feel real joy now and I never felt felt real joy before. It really means so much to me and I so appreciate the presence.

I think because I was so alone and dealing with such a impossible situation, I was so burnt out and so exhausted that no way could the presence get through to me, I was in that much of a dark and confusing time. The husband I once loved so much and he loved me was gone and replaced by a negative stranger who was always falsely accusing me of insane things, was gone forever and it broke my heart.

When surrounded by love and the positive, my spirits began to lift and reconnection happened and I was getting insights again. I thought I lost that vitality forever. But this is my experience and if it does not apply please toss it.