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Deleted member 18673
I have started going to a therapist again recently in effort to overcome my depression and anxiety and deal with the traumas of my childhood.
I survived a horrifically abusive childhood. We were starved, tortured, deprived of school and medical care, and largely kept away from society. After several failed escape attempts, I finally managed to escape in 2009 and rescued my two younger brothers along with me. This December will mark four years of freedom. But I still struggle with depression, anxiety/panic, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
I've begun seeing a new therapist since my old one moved to a different city. My old therapist was very well versed in Zen and Middle-Path Buddhism, and we concentrated most of my therapy on acceptance and finding the middle path. I concentrated on the understanding of the primal animal nature of man, and understanding that whatever drove my mother to do the things she did – whether it was sociopathy or mental illness – that whatever was wired differently about her neurobiology was out of her own control and she could only do that which was in her nature – even if it was cruel. The same as wolves kill and mosquitoes spread malaria and tsunamis destroy coastlines, I viewed her as a force of nature which was neither good nor evil. She was not something to be hated, but accepted as a part of what is. I based all my work with my old therapist in letting go of negative emotion and accepting my past and present exactly as they were.
My new therapist seems more grounded in traditional therapy and believes I need to feel and express all my emotions – anger, grief, etc in order to move forward. She says it doesn't matter what my mother 's psychological problems were, that what she did was still wrong and I have every right to be angry. She wants me to write an angry letter to my mother (but not send it, of course). She feels as though trying to deny or rationalize away emotions is harmful to my recovery. Spent that day being angry – which really ended up with me being hurt that neither of my parents loved me, and feeling grief at being cheated out of the past and present I feel I should have had.
I feel that with a normal family I would have had better education, would have already graduated college or university, and would already have a career. I feel that I wouldn't have all the problems I do. That I would be so much further in life. As of right now, I have been in and out hospitals and in and out of jobs because of depression, panic attacks, self-harm, eating disorders, substance abuse which all stem from post traumatic stress disorder.
Every time I have been doing well – have been holding down a job, have been ready to live on my own in a big city – I've relapsed and lost everything: had to quit work, be hospitalized, and move back in with my brothers.
I take stock of my life at this moment and this is what I see: I am 26 years old and I sleep on my brother's couch. I have no bed and no room of my own. I work at a fastfood restaurant, proverbially 'flipping burgers' and barely earn enough money to get by. I have no post-secondary education, no career, and neither the money nor the motivation to make any of my dreams come true – I no longer believe they will come true no matter what I do; I feel like I will never escape this cycle of suffering and that life will always hold me back and beat me down; I feel like I have been damned since the moment I was born. I am angry at my mother for all this, angry at life, angry at all the people who never rescued us or never realized anything was wrong, angry even at all the people around me who have been through less suffering than I have. I feel full of rage and bitterness and grief and disappointed and most of all I feel cheated.
This is not a zen way of viewing the world. I want to let go of my anger and hurt and trauma. I want to accept everything that was and is, and I want to stop viewing my future with such doom and negativity and self-defeating rhetoric. I feel like this should be done by logically and rationally finding the philosophical reasons why I should not be angry, etc.
But maybe zen is to accept all these feelings and allow them to be there? Should I be striving to rid myself of them or striving to feel them? I am very confused as to which path to take.
I survived a horrifically abusive childhood. We were starved, tortured, deprived of school and medical care, and largely kept away from society. After several failed escape attempts, I finally managed to escape in 2009 and rescued my two younger brothers along with me. This December will mark four years of freedom. But I still struggle with depression, anxiety/panic, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
I've begun seeing a new therapist since my old one moved to a different city. My old therapist was very well versed in Zen and Middle-Path Buddhism, and we concentrated most of my therapy on acceptance and finding the middle path. I concentrated on the understanding of the primal animal nature of man, and understanding that whatever drove my mother to do the things she did – whether it was sociopathy or mental illness – that whatever was wired differently about her neurobiology was out of her own control and she could only do that which was in her nature – even if it was cruel. The same as wolves kill and mosquitoes spread malaria and tsunamis destroy coastlines, I viewed her as a force of nature which was neither good nor evil. She was not something to be hated, but accepted as a part of what is. I based all my work with my old therapist in letting go of negative emotion and accepting my past and present exactly as they were.
My new therapist seems more grounded in traditional therapy and believes I need to feel and express all my emotions – anger, grief, etc in order to move forward. She says it doesn't matter what my mother 's psychological problems were, that what she did was still wrong and I have every right to be angry. She wants me to write an angry letter to my mother (but not send it, of course). She feels as though trying to deny or rationalize away emotions is harmful to my recovery. Spent that day being angry – which really ended up with me being hurt that neither of my parents loved me, and feeling grief at being cheated out of the past and present I feel I should have had.
I feel that with a normal family I would have had better education, would have already graduated college or university, and would already have a career. I feel that I wouldn't have all the problems I do. That I would be so much further in life. As of right now, I have been in and out hospitals and in and out of jobs because of depression, panic attacks, self-harm, eating disorders, substance abuse which all stem from post traumatic stress disorder.
Every time I have been doing well – have been holding down a job, have been ready to live on my own in a big city – I've relapsed and lost everything: had to quit work, be hospitalized, and move back in with my brothers.
I take stock of my life at this moment and this is what I see: I am 26 years old and I sleep on my brother's couch. I have no bed and no room of my own. I work at a fastfood restaurant, proverbially 'flipping burgers' and barely earn enough money to get by. I have no post-secondary education, no career, and neither the money nor the motivation to make any of my dreams come true – I no longer believe they will come true no matter what I do; I feel like I will never escape this cycle of suffering and that life will always hold me back and beat me down; I feel like I have been damned since the moment I was born. I am angry at my mother for all this, angry at life, angry at all the people who never rescued us or never realized anything was wrong, angry even at all the people around me who have been through less suffering than I have. I feel full of rage and bitterness and grief and disappointed and most of all I feel cheated.
This is not a zen way of viewing the world. I want to let go of my anger and hurt and trauma. I want to accept everything that was and is, and I want to stop viewing my future with such doom and negativity and self-defeating rhetoric. I feel like this should be done by logically and rationally finding the philosophical reasons why I should not be angry, etc.
But maybe zen is to accept all these feelings and allow them to be there? Should I be striving to rid myself of them or striving to feel them? I am very confused as to which path to take.
