When Do You Know?

[Silent one]

I mean every word of that!

 

[Silent one]

Anytime you need to vent, I will listen. I walk in the same shoes as you. I know where you are! Recovery seems impossible and beyond our reach. And I just don't think it's fair that we were victims of horrible abuse yet we are the ones who suffer. My abusers live free! Free from the pain and agony they have caused me.

 

[Snowflake]

Anytime you need to vent, I will listen. I walk in the same shoes as you. I know where you are! Reco...

I am in tears...thank you! It's really hard right now....Mother's Day, spouse, emdr, triggers. I am soooo sad and so alone. I don't know how I am surviving. I wonder what will be the trigger that will push me over the edge. I will not go to a hospital- I am not sick, I am hurting. The hospital will put me over the edge . Again-thank you . This is a hard battle to survive....isn't it? And your right it's not fair.

 

[Silent one]

Yes, you are hurting, me too! I have been to a hospital. There is no relief there. I was not treated with dignity or respect, but someone who needed to be seperated from the population. It really sucked!

 

[joeylittle]

Sorry for venting.... Ban me I don't care.

No apology necessary, and there's nothing you've done to be banned. I feel like I could have written nearly every word in your post. I'm sorry it's such a struggle. Thinking of you.

 

[Mallaky]

When do you know when the fight isn't worth fighting?

There is a question I really like: Why do you fight?
And my own answer to that is: So that I don't have to.

I think there is a lot of hope in that. For the longest time I fought to win, and it nearly killed me. I wanted to beat it all, to stand victorious on a mountaintop yelling "I did it!" and "Screw you, assholes." I wanted to get there alone, I needed it to be righteous. For the longest time I was on a crusade and the goal was the extermination of all the pain and all the trouble that others caused me since my life began. A cleansing of my memories. Be gone evil spirits, I cast you out. Dreams of holy lands and purity.
In the end it nearly killed me. There was no grace in failure. There could not be, because I only played to win. I started to drink heavily, because it made me better at fighting, winning. It improved my focus, made me more me and less PTSD. When drinking I felt stronger and could still dream of normal life.

Failure was not an option. Later then, only when drunk could I still hope. Everything was crumbling away and sober me could see that, but not understand it. Sober me was suicidal. Drunken me was still trying to prove everyone who ever hurt me wrong. Drunken me still believed in that kind of victory.
Then something awful happened. Saved my life. It was after another crazy weekend, and my partner cried and cried and told me how he was done and could not live with me any longer. My first instinct was to fight. To be clever. To prove him wrong. To make him apologize. To win. That had been done to me all my life. It was the only way I could think. But those tears, there were so many. I guess they reminded me of my childhood. Instead of fighting I made my only winning move. I asked him how he felt. It was the one thing that all my childhood and youth I desired more then anything, and which I never got. He told me what I dreaded to hear: That I was stuck and had been for many years.

I believe there are two kinds of artists. Those who dream of standing ovations and rousing applause. And those who dream of looking at their good work.

It was that day that I started to change from one mindset to the other. Because I could no longer escape the fact that what I wanted, what I fought for, was beyond my reach. My dream had become a nightmare. I guess what I want to say, stopping the fight can be a real victory. My whole life I believed that if brute force was not working, it was merely not enough. This turned out to be untrue.

This was about 3 years ago and Im sober a year now. We are still together, and our relationship has become the best thing I have ever known. I am getting help now. Havent smoked a cigarette in 17 months now, from 2 packs a day because without I could not focus.
I needed a long time to accept my new way of life. Sometimes bangs of guilt and feelings of failure pop up, but they become less and less. From time to time my combative mindset still needs reigning in, and after I wonder how I ever managed all those years I lived like that. Then I remember I really didn't.

Like you I had been weary for a long time, which only made me harder. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, they say. What they neglect is, strength is not all there is to life.
Maybe this post has nothing at all to do with you or anyone else.
Maybe, like me, you are fighting the wrong fight?

(I have debated posting this for a long time now. Oh dear, the anxiety! I am very sorry if this post is inappropriate. I tried to express myself fully. Sometimes it works.)

 

[Snowflake]

There is a question I really like: Why do you fight?
And my own answer to that is: So that I don't hav...

I am so glad you did post!!! Thank you-it means so much to me to hear from others - I do understand...it's a new/different way of looking at it. Thanks again!!! Your story means a lot! And congrats to you-I am proud of you-that takes alot of strength and courage to come as far as you have!!!