Evening sadness

[greendreamdays]

I'm filled with a deep sense of sadness especially in the evenings. It hasn't been as bad lately, it had actually lightened up over the past few months that I have started taking classes again. I like what I'm learning and I'm doing really well even if it is often stressful. It gives me a sense of purpose and something to look forward to. But over the past couple of weeks it has really been hitting me hard. I feel like I'm deeply grieving something, but nobody has died. I can't understand it. I used to feel like this all the time then things gradually got better, now it feels worse. I've been having thoughts I haven't had since I last attempted suicide a few years ago.

I recently discovered I have OCD and OCPD and the more l learn about them the more I understand myself, it's filling in many holes. I am constantly amazed at how I made it this far in life honestly with everything else. In my head I really downplay the role of trauma, I think that it wasn't really that bad and I'm pretty resilient. But when I'm in front of a therapist I can't talk about it. It's just too much, too overwhelming, too real. I shut down, then divert the conversation somewhere safer. I went to my last therapist with the sole purpose of processing my trauma with her and I couldn't do it. I go on other mental health platforms and think these kids haven't had it nearly as hard as me. I know I shouldn't make comparisons. But then I come on here and I realize that my problems aren't as bad as I thought they were considering the level of suffering I read in many of these posts.

But then I sit down to write these posts and I realize that I'm talking like everyone else, and maybe it really was as bad as I thought it was.

I feel disconnected from everybody all the time. I want to feel connected, but I can't or I don't. It's rarely ever safe enough for me to feel like I can go there. Sometimes I think it's me, then I hang out with other people and think maybe it's other people. It's probably a mix of both but I stopped taking risks in relationships including platonic ones. I haven't dated in years.

I've seen therapists on and off for the past billion years it feels like. But I'm taking a break from therapy right now. It hasn't been helping me reach my goals. I don't feel seen in therapy. I don't feel seen almost anywhere. I want so desperately to feel seen, to be seen for who I really am without hiding, without feeling self conscious or obsessively trying to control what other people think of me so I have a perfect image. I feel like if people really could see me they would be afraid of me because of all of the pain I have suffered. Except I can't understand why I have been suffering and why I have been through so much pain. I know it's not random but it doesn't make sense. I've tried all my life to figure it out, fix it, heal it, integrate it, discover it, what have you.

I don't understand this obsessive anxiety that is the underpinning of my very identity. I don't understand why I am feel like I'm in emotional pain so frequently. I don't understand this deep grief. I have spent my whole entire life since i was a child trying to figure out what it all means. I have processed so much in my life it is amazing to me. Yet my life is still not tolerable and things need to change and I know I'm the only one with the power to do it.

This feels like a journal entry I've written a million times. Since I was in high school and started journaling regularly, I would write these same things--I have to much anxiety, too much depression, too many emotions, too much pain, too much sadness, I need a better hold on my emotions, and try to understand the messages my emotions are telling me. And then I remember that there's abuse that happened that I can't remember much of. I tell myself it's not a big deal and maybe it didn't even really happen, but a part of me knows it happened and refuses to let me believe that I'm making it up. It feels like someone else's hands writing this but I know there was molestation, I know it was my ex-stepdad. But I know there was a whole lot of other emotional abuse by my stepmom too. I've gone over it a million times in my head and still I am left with this pain. And even though I am an adult I think I have an attachment disorder because I feel painfully disconnected from people all the time and I desperately want closer relationships, I have wanted that my whole life, and sometimes I have been able to have it but only temporarily and things always fall apart. And it's often excruciating.

I have better self esteem than i used to, I know there are things I can be confident and assertive about. But there are many things that I'm not confident about and I just don't know how to explain that when I'm in class with my classmates I feel like I'm made of ice and if anyone ever really looked deeply into me to try to understand me the way I have always wanted to be understood I know that I would cry the kind of cry that would make it feel as if I would never stop. I truly feel I can understand so many people, people who have difficulty making themselves heard, who doubt themselves too much, and feel invisible things that nobody else notices. But I feel like no one has been that person for me in my life. And I can't count on them ever being there. I have to just continue taking care of myself. No one will rescue me. Except doing that really really hurts, and it's lonely. It has been my whole life. But it's what I know I can do without risking a relationship blowing up in my face in case I ever get too close. I never get close to people anymore. It sounds like a cliche but it's true and I wish it wasn't. It never feels safe enough. And I know I probably could take more risks but I don't know if I could handle it if things turn out like I think they will.

I want to change my life again and again and again like when I was in treatment and heal so much that I am unrecognizable to even myself. I need that even though it terrifies me and maybe I'm not ready. I keep trying to understand this pain and sadness but it just keeps going and I don't know why. I feel like nobody understands me.

I want someone who has been through the things I have been through to tell me that things will be okay, that they healed and now they are thriving, and things will get better. And even if that doesn't happen I at least want to be that person for someone someday. It feels a bit like a pipedream. I've come a long way from where I was, but tonight I feel like I haven't gone far at all and I could easily land myself back in the hospital for the same reasons as last time.

I want to know that things will get better and I can live a good and full life and that I can dream and look forward to things and that relationships can feel safe and someday I will not have to worry about being able to afford the most basic life expenses. I have not met many people who have gone through these things and are not frequently struggling. I don't want to struggle like this forever, but I feel like I'm just treading water, and so is everyone else, so how can anyone ever be saved? How do I rescue myself again? I know I've done it a thousand times and I'll do it a thousand more, but just once I want someone to save me. But I don't think they will but it doesn't stop me from wanting it so much that it hurts.

[Progress]

greendreamdays,

You are heard. I understand every single thing you wrote. I could have practically written it myself, because I’ve been through the same experience of overwhelming feelings and thoughts.

I believe you are protecting yourself in every way possible from the pain, such as:

Maybe it didn’t happen; maybe it did happen but it wasn’t that bad; I can’t talk about it because that will make it real; I divert the conversation to something safer; i am grieving something but I don’t know what; people aren’t safe enough for me to make connections with them; I am hiding my true self from people because they would be scared of me if they saw how much pain I have; I tried my whole life to understand and control my pain, but I still can’t understand it; I know who my abusers were but it feels like someone else is saying that; if I let anyone see the real true me with my true pain, I am afraid I would cry and never be able to stop.

Everything sounds like you are protecting yourself from the deep primal pain of your abuse. Of course you are, because you were severely abused. I believe you. And it is normal and right to protect yourself from the pain. I protected myself from the pain so much that I remembered nothing about my abuse until my forties. My sibling doesn’t remember childhood at all, up until high school! We protect ourselves as best we can from the profound pain.

But then, in order to carry on as thriving adults, and in order to truly heal, we actually have to touch the pain. You have to go to that place where you are so afraid to go. Even if only for a second. You can do it with a therapist you really trust, or you can do it in safety of your own home. And then you feel a bit of relief. And then it’s time to touch the pain again. Gradually you increase your window of tolerance to the real true deep pain.

Many folks on this site say “you have to go through it”. It’s the only way. You can understand the pain academically and logically as much as you want (it does help certain things), but it is no substitute for finding the courage to go THROUGH IT, to touch it, to feel it. And if you cry from the depths of your soul, I promise, it doesn’t last forever. It is good to cry.

Watercolor’s t told her to touch the mountain, just touch it, and then pull back. You can’t tackle it all at once. I imagine climbing the mountain with a broken ankle. Just move a little bit higher every time you face the pain.

Yes, you can recover. Yes, you can thrive. Yes, you can have relationships. We were dealt a crummy hand. And thriving takes more work and courage from people like us, who live with this kind of agony. If we were all in a swim race, our lanes have a massive current against us, so we have to swim harder than other people in order to thrive. But we can do it! We choose to be strong and courageous. We choose to survive and thrive! I have a job and a relationship and children and friends and a community. I am honest with them when I am struggling. They don’t know all the details. And it is okay. It really is okay. I do the best I can, and that is all I can do.

I hope you have some relief from the sadness today.

Progress

[greendreamdays]

Thank you for seeing me, Progress. I think you are right. I have been protecting myself from the pain. It just seems so unbearable, so overwhelming, I can't believe that there is anything I have gone through that would make me feel anything like that. But I guess I did? It's hard for me to understand by myself, but when you say it I believe it. Thank you. I will work on this.

[Progress]

Hi greendreamdays,
Im so glad you want to move forward in your recovery. I just hope I didn’t overstep. I can’t really be the definitive answer about your abuse. I’m sorry if I jumped in and declared something that only you can declare.

I just saw what you wrote, and I heard you.

I’m hoping I re-wrote what you said in your own words, and maybe I put it together in a different way so that you can see it as possibly (probably?) a sign of pain from something very significant. I guess Im glad that it is actually your own words, it’s the things that you said that might help you to be open to the possibility that there was abuse in your past that you’ve been protecting yourself from. Only your journey can tell you. But you sound like you are ready to take that courageous step and find out.

If I overstepped, which I think I did, I am sorry. Your journey and your truth and your power are the most important things. I will say that your own words do reflect a heck of a lot of the ways I have tried to protect myself from the pain of my past. But it’s really not my place to make a judgment call, no matter how much I might think your symptoms point towards abuse.

So I am sorry about that. And at the same time, cheers to your courage!!!

Progress

[greendreamdays]

No you didn't overstep at all!! Please don't think that you did. I think people are so afraid to overstep around me sometimes that they never step at all and I don't get the feedback that I'm desperately wanting/needing! What you said is exactly what I needed to hear, thank you. I really appreciated your comment. I have been thinking about it all day. You have said what nobody else has said to me and I respect that immensely.

[Progress]

Phewf! I feel that way too!
The first time I went into the hospital I didn’t know what the heck was happening and I wish they had been more forthcoming about it all!

They just wanted me to learn grounding techniques but I didn’t really know why I wasn’t grounded or what the heck was even happening. And they kept asking, do you lose time? And I was like what the heck are you really talking about?

Thanks, greendreamdays,

Progress