Survival conditioning

[ILoveLife]

For most my life I lived on the survive or die paradigm. Rape or death. Homelessness. Child abuse. Etc.

Now I need to live life, go out and make friends, not be afraid of a simple walk in the park, not be afraid of therapy.. Everything that implies living and moving forward really.

Side effect of this is the feeling there's no point because I can die at any minute.
I'm always ready for that option, always afraid of the alternative.

Anyone relate?
I've been exposing myself to actual living and actually making progress, so that's good. The feeling is still there as strong as ever though.

 

[Ronin]

I treat everything I want done as a mission.

Gazillion issues with things that are not actual not registering as one, depression overtaking every sort of determination, or asking the darned For who, anyway? question, because I do not rate that attention in my book.

The best I can circumvent these is with humor. It is a dare: I might luck out, or kick the bucket, or luck out before I kick the bucket, so it is still a win win thing, I get done both things I want to: live and not live in this.

The in between surviving just pisses me off, makes me sad, and steals my thinking spoons.

 

[Freida]

I totally get that -- and 20 years in 911 made it even worse. Every day people died. A lot. Fast. And mostly unexpected. oh the drama.
I read somewhere that one of the fun filled parts of ptsd is a "shortened lifespan view". Meaning they don't think they are going to live much longer -- and that really connected with me. I'm always surprised that I make it to my next birthday.

I'm not sure if its healthy but I figure whatever -- go enjoy life. If you die you die. If you don't die you have fun. I admit it has made me take a few more chances than I should along the way but hey - I'm still here. It does make it really hard to plan for the future because I don't think I have one. Then I have to stop and make myself focus on reality of "what if I do live?".