The Problem of Comparisons

[midi]

Up until a few months ago, I refused to see my physical and mental limitations. I kept thinking hey, if I just get hired somewhere else, I'll be able to salvage my career and everything will go away. Well, it takes weeks to recover mentally from going to the surgeon, never mind the high stress, high paced life of a professional.

When I see friends and other people I know being successful and leading powerful lives, I compare myself to them, seeing what a failure I've become since the accident. I should be out there, contributing to the community, going to conferences, writing papers etc... all I am doing is struggling to accept my limitations and manage them so I'm functionable.

How do you stop comparing yourself to your old colleagues? How do you accept your limitations? How do you stop feeling like a waste of space? How do you let go of what you once were? How do you let go of the delusion that you're going to get it all back?

 

[Mercy]

Hi, Midi,
I think for me, I have been having to 'reinvent' myself over and over again in a way that accepts my limitations- all of them. I consider myself as handicapped now. I know my limits and abilities within the framework of having survived so many years of horrendous abuse.

I had been an architect in a big city doing community development work and designing shelters for homeless men, women, battered women and their families. Some projects were permanent housing, some were transitional housing. I had graduated at the top of my class and things were going along fine. I was totally amnesiac about my history. It only makes sense to be hypervigilant living in and walking through the slums. Then came the day when i was talking to a heating contractor about lowering the price he had bid. We were talking about the linear feet of heating needed in a bedroom and he made some sexist comment about how the people would provide the rest of the heat, laugh,laugh. I froze.

With in six months, we moved out to the suburbs to a town on the express train line so my husband could get to work.The town had a good public school for my child. It was a big loss and a relief at the same time.

I never worked in my field again. All those years of study and hard work gone, never to come back again.

I am still an artist. I carve marble and cast in bronze. But as soon as I begin to get a little recognition, I hide and stop carving all together for years- even decades at a time.

Now after years of therapy(I almost wrote 'tears of therapy')I am a studio painter. I work alone at home on commisions. Isolation feels so good. I know i'm supposed to overcome all that but I cannot do it now.

As for comparisions, my trauma work has been too devastating to even think about it.

 

[midi]

Mercy,

It's comforting to hear how you've worked to accept and deal with your career losses. It's good to know that you are still an artist. I wonder what your work looks like...

'tears of therapy' sounds about right...

 

[pandora]

A very tough question the same type of question has been going through my thought processes if for not months, actually years.

I have a severe and prolonged disability...yes it is awful and I have had to learn to deal with all the side effects, physical and emotional also dealing with mental health care professionals that do not deverve threir job. As a nurse, I never want to lose my empathy. Then just when i was supposed to go back...I was going to see some staff members and only few and had opted for straight midnights. Then I hurt my back...prognosis...not great. I am trying a new treatment and am praying with everything I was taught in church and out of church....justt praying to a higher anything that this new treatment is going to fix my back.

I get really sad when I see....another nurse that I know, WAS friends with and she has my supervisors job! When I went in for that interview, no joke 2 hours long and they wrote down everything I said.......I dot hired for the position with 10 years experience, the other 7 had 20 years experience. makes me damn mad...I had the perfect job...could work from home, also using a portion of your home as a write off. Then I think I have a nice, low stressful midnight job...BOOM.....now your back is really messup and there is a deadened area.....WONDERFUL!!!!!!!

I am damn pissed and jealous that one of my school mates (through nursing school) just dropped me like a hot potatoe when I lost everything, I did replace it all but I wasnèt good enough for her tthen....She lives in a big beautiful home and landed a great job.

Anotther girl just facebooked me stating she LOVES her new job at hospice. We used to do palliative care together.

Also used to teach in front of 48 people, now.....uuummmm...none, other than my son or I will for sure start to go into a panick attack...the good thing I can breathe myself out much quicker.

So DAMN YES....I AM PISSED AT MY COLLEAGUES FOR DOING A JOB I WAS MEANT TO DO!.........And now with my sons behaviours lately i would probably be fired, along with insomnia, migraines, IBS, vomitting. YEP........I would make SUCH A DEPENDABLE nurse right now.....ha ha ha hah ah

I Just keep thinking...it is all I know there must be something I can do, anything!!!!!!!!!

 

[TLight]

I've lost my career too........after years and years of tremendous work to get there. I've admitted, I can't handle the stress.

Now, I can only do jobs that give me as much isolation as possible. So much to grieve.........Other people just could never even comprehend.

We are indeed incredably strong. That's why I get so pissed when someone says, "Perhaps 'something or other' will make you stronger." RAGE

 

[midi]

It is extremely difficult. Making the transition from doing to recovering is unbelievable. I think of factory workers who spend their lives in and retire and have no assistance making that giant change. We need help going from independent to ruined, not 'fill the void with some distracting crap' philosophy.

Pandora, I get sad too. Man. I feel empty. That was me! That could have been me! Things happen for a reason isn't enough consolation.

TLight, I can only work in isolation too. I thought it was just because I'm too scarred.

Rage against the machine? It isn't a cliche.

 

[redtriskell]

Why compare yourself to people who (probably) did not remotely have your experience? Ask yourself how well you think THEY would do if they had to deal with life and ALL your symptoms. Just because our scars frequently are invisible, people don't take them as seriously. Well, what the hell do they know about it? Have they ever been raped repeatedly/survived a house fire that killed the rest of their family/ almost died in an accident/ lived through years of physical abuse/whatever? Once they have experienced something similar- then, and only then, do they get to have an opinion. I hear ya'll's frustration and anger, but I regard the fact that I am alive and (mostly) sane without a drug/alcohol problem as an unqualified, absolute success. I could give a shit that from the outside I could be (and am, sometimes) considered a failure. The kinds of people who want to judge me a failure are welcome to do so. They don't know me- they have no idea that by the time I was 12 years old, I had been through things that would've killed or maimed most adults. Who cares what the ignorant think? You are not a failure if you had to leave your career. It requires incredible courage to acknowledge your difficulties and face them instead of pretending they don't exist. Every one of you is brave. Your life is not a failure. red

 

[Mercy]

I agree with red. Comparisons don't prove anything and can do us harm, as if we are not 'good' enough somehow, not an equal part of the human race.

Career comparisons , I think, are part of the pain from the trauma. At that moment, we were essentially alone with the perp and helpless; even emts and nurses have a tight focus on what traumatized them. So maybe career envy and deep disappointments need to be grieved but also really need to be looked at in the light of our traumas. Sorry, I guess I'm still too afraid to have to feel and deal with any anger so far.

Trauma comparisons also aren't good for us. Each person's pain is more than enough for them. Sure, some of us had it different - maybe even different levels of trauma experiences. So what. We are all hurt. I am still terrified of being alone with a strange man. Grown women get raped too. For me, not good enough, worthless, garbage, got what I deserved, was born to be a little whore, etc are things that came up in therapy. I have had to recognize and take them apart one by one. I work at seeing them as lies but that's really hard for me. Isolation keeps me feeling more safe and I get fewer panic attacks.

 

[Grama-Herc]

Midi

Without getting on my soap box and going places I probably shouldn't, I feel I must answer your question.

For years I felt like a waste of good air space, just like you do. I questioned why I was even born. Seemed to me that everyone EXCEPT me had purpose or reason for being alive.

After therapy and a really good break down, I came to several conclusions.

1. The reason for my mere existence could have already occurred without my even noticing.

2. I have never felt so "right" in the place where I am now. It is a good feeling so I am not going to worry about why I'm here anymore.

3. This one is more of a feeling than a conclusion, but I just quit thinking about all that "other people" crap. So every once in a while I realize "Oh good lord, it has been 11 years since I had to go to work. I must say, that feels REALLY GOOD when it happens.

I use to always compare myself to others and wonder why "I" could not have the nice house, the loving husband. I use to wonder why hurt and pain always happened to me and not others. Then 1 day I discovered that the "others" had the same thoughts and problems as I did and sometimes even worse worse issues.

4. I finally said "screw it" I am not OK but I am alright. I've been this way ever since and actually enjoy I could give a shit attitude.

 

[midi]

Maybe the comparison is pat of the PTSD process? Accepting and moving through it? I agree that comparisons are harmful. I think sometimes I still refuse to believe my situation. Denial. I do feel better in this place - I don't get so sick or angry all the time or having spontaneous rages throughout the day. Maybe seeing everybody else as the grass is greener is part of the continuation of self-inflicted torture. Maybe thinking about other people is a distraction and completely pointless! I guess I have a long way to go in accepting where I'm at.

Wow! You guys have some great insights! I'm grateful for your responses!

 

[Seeking_Nirvana]

I used to compare myself all of the time too. I've learned to stop doing that and have been doing a good job with a few set backs along the line.

When someone judges me based on my limitations I just think that I'm not going to worry about what they think of me, but maybe they should worry about what I think of them since they are doing the judging. Especially if they were not abused, raped, beaten, neglected, disowned, seen the depths of hell, no actually lived there for awhile and then walking in on their father's mangled body that laid in 80 degree heat for two days.

I'm stronger than most people I know, but in a different way. I think to myself if they went through what I went through I doubt they would even be standing there judging, but would be locked up some where. So I have a lot to be proud of IMO.

Tammy

 

[midi]

I don't understand why some people need to have actually experienced what we've gone through in order to accept or acknowledge it.

Aye, Tammy, we've got our own strengths!