Anita

it is 3am I have been crying alone for the past 3-4 hours. My pain is telling me today that I want to be wanted. I don’t feel wanted. I wonder if there are people in my life who do want me to be around them and enjoy my company, I think there has to be people who want me around, but I don’t feel it. I feel alone, deeply alone with no forseable end to the pain. I don’t know what to do right now I can’t stop crying, I have been sick for the past week and isolated except for today. I feel physically better today but emotionally awful. I want to feel hope so badly. I don’t even want a guarantee that I will be loved I just want hope and I don’t know how to give it to myself. I give love to others as my job and they tell me they feel it. But I can’t feel love, I feel broken and lost. I haven’t been able to see my therapist because I’ve been sick and work, and I can’t see him till next Thursday. I’ll survive but the pain is surfacing more and more since I’ve given up smoking, trying to date, and drinking. There’s no relief.

also I’ve thought about your last post and the part of empathy abuse. It is clear to me my parents are a lost cause, I’m at my sister’s for Christmas and my mom basically plays this “no one can ever understand or possibly be in more pain than I am” thing whenever she talks and it annoys the hell out of me, I see it clearer every time I talk to her and I hesitate every time I say “I love you” because I feel like I’m lying. Our dad didn’t even text or call me or sister today. Not that I expected him to anyway.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 12 months ago by noname.

Anita

I had a chance to read back through some of what you wrote to me recently.

I’ve finally reached the point where I feel no contact with my parents is here. Aside from thanksgiving & Christmas, I don’t see me having a relationship outside of that with either of them. I know you will frown on me keeping even that small amount of contact at all but I have to see my sister and cousins when possible. I have slowly been inching towards this outcome over the past couple years but I see it clearly now, especially noting how triggered I become around my mom especially, and how selfish she is general.

i went to see my therapist today. It’s odd because where I see chaos and failure in my self & life, he sees opportunities for growth. I’m glad I have the both of you holding out hope for me when I’m depleted, and the guidance being offered here. He sees me quitting my job at the inpatient unit as a good thing for my growth, noting how I’m making room for things that align with my true self rather than living a life that is not congruent with who I am. Looking at my decision through this perspective is helpful, and puts me at ease a little bit knowing I’m following my inner wisdom and guidance despite how uncomfortable and painful that may be. I’m not afraid. If I was afraid I would’ve never quit my job as a social worker and went back to school, if I were afraid I would’ve stayed at this job and been bitter about life. Sometimes I think I’m making things harder on myself but in reality it may be that I’m too stubborn or courageous to get pushed around and have my spirit crushed on a daily basis in exchange for a paycheck. For some reason I refuse to give up searching for answers to how I can live my life in congruence with my authentic self.

Where I’m getting stuck with how to live in congruence with my authentic self is actually knowing who that is. In a lot of ways this is the battle I’m currently in the midst of. I don’t know who I am or my purpose  in a poetic sense, not in a scientific rational kind of way. All I really know is that when something is out of alignment in my life in regards to my purpose or authentic self that it is painful, and stirs up my childhood patterns of being which I’m still coping with, and you addressed in the post about IFS and the Exiles.

One of my favorite books of all time “man’s search for meaning” by Viktor Frankl addresses how suffering ceases to be suffering once it is given meaning. There is nothing worse than suffering without a reason, which is where I feel I’m at right now. My therapist would probably say I’m yet to find that reason or purpose yet but that there is one. The times in my life where I felt purposeful in my suffering were so much more gratifying than what I’m going through now. At the same time I see where some of my suffering in the past which at the time seemingly had no meaning was given meaning as soon as I began to help others with their own suffering, it’s what makes me a good therapist, because I have suffered.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by noname.

Anita

I have not heard of CPTSD but there’s no doubt I would have met the diagnosis for PTSD at one point or another in my life. In my opinion most “mental illnesses” are trauma responses and attempts for the human to achieve homeostasis in the midst of chaos.

Much of the therapy I have done has been centered around trauma, lots of CBT, and IFS (internal family systems) type work. Paying attention to my thoughts, identity trauma responses, labeling and working with wounded parts of my psyche (inner child, inner critic, wounded child, etc). I have been contemplating EMDR lately but don’t feel it will actually do me any good since I’m not experiencing severe trauma responses, and I have worked on a lot of my negative cognitions and core beliefs to the point where I can be rational with them.

i feel I am in most need of something for my soul , I don’t even have the words for it or can describe what I mean by that. I guess the closest thing I can think of is to feel connected with the universe and not so alienated.

Anita

My therapist brought up my age in our session this past week, he said part of the reason i’m receiving positive feedback as a therapist is because i’ve suffered deeply and worked hard with my healing, so i recognize and understand the suffering of others, and it shows with my ability to connect with my clients. Sometimes I look at other people around my age and notice most have not even begun the work of healing themselves, and some never will.

This morning i’m struggling with hope for the future. I consider myself to be pretty good at accomplishing goals when i know what they are, i’ve always figured out how to get things done. The problem i’m running into right now is i don’t have any goals except to somehow feel better, which is vague. I don’t know what to do right now. I think a big part of the problem is not knowing what i want either, I don’t know where to go in my life because i don’t know where i want to go. It feels like all my passion and love for life is gone that usually informs my life direction and desires. Right now i have no direction, i feel like even if i did get the things i think i desire (girlfriend & close friends, community) that i would still be lost in where i’m going with them. I feel like my life is meaningless and i’m just waiting to die.

I’m also having an incredibly difficult time relaxing and have nearly lost all my creativity. I had nothing to do this weekend, and no responsibilities to take care of, no one to see, in the past i would work on art or music, but i haven’t been able to relax my mind enough to even get started on anything, then i wondered what’s the point of creating anything if no one will ever see it but me? I’m experiencing no enjoyment whatsoever right now, i read over jounral entries from the past year, and 95% of my entries say the same damn thing, that i’m hopeless, tired, and lonely. looking back over the past 10 years it’s all really been the same story. 10 years ago i was getting ready to graduated high school, had just attempted suicide, started cutting, and smoking weed regularly, and had met my first girlfriend. Here i am 10 years later and i feel like a complete failure, ive failed to quit harming myself, and ive failed at relationships. I may be a successful person by societal standards for living independently, being educated, and having a career, but none of my achievements do anything for my soul.

Anita

I’ve thought about your response this week and I do see your point and seeking a rush has definitely been a theme in my life. I fit the definition of a thrill seeker in most ways though I never considered myself to be an emotional thrill seeker but I do see how that has applied to my romantic relationships especially after my first relationship. Since my first relationship none have lasted more than a few months at most, and i’ve rushed into sex way too fast usually after the first or second contact. Most notably when reflecting on the thrill seeking is the type of woman I end up being most attracted to is the type that plays emotional games, is unsure of what she wants, and is probably traumatized and hasn’t processed through it, basically the roller coaster ride you describe.

Outside of relationships my thrill seeking is mostly physically challenging and risky activities like skateboarding, mountain biking, running, and racing cars. What attracts me to those activities is that I feel fully alive when i’m doing them, I love the feeling of facing fear and challenging my senses. I’m beginning to see the parallels between those activities and my relationships with women which since my first girlfriend have been filled with ambivalent attachments, emotional games, and sex too soon.

There is a part of me who is aware of these thrill seeking behaviors in others relationships but they are more difficult for me to see in myself. With this most recent woman I figured out after i set the boundary with her of being exclusive the first time and she kept texting me but wouldn’t give me straightforward answers to my questions about how she felt that she was seeking drama and liked to play games because it probably gave her the thrill she was looking for. I recognized that easily in her but could not recognize my own self-sabotaging behaviors that serve to pull on the heart strings of the other person and try to draw them into co-dependence. I’m quite disappointed in myself for this.

It has been a very difficult week for me, I’ve missed two days of work this week, and i feel terribly unmotivated. I wouldn’t say i’m depressed really because i feel the sadness and despair fully, i’m not numb to it. Rather I believe i’m overwhelmed by hopelessness and loneliness. This feeling of hopelessness leads to a lot of thoughts of death. Not saying i want to die, i know this is isn’t the place for that kind of talk but i think it’s important to note that i have these thoughts on a daily basis though i’m not attached to them as i used to be when i would physically self harm. When i have thoughts of death now i see them as an indication that i’m in pain and don’t want to be. The truth is i don’t want to die, i want to live, just not how i’m living right now. Not staring into this lonely void.

Anita

That rush I would probably identify as feeling loved and accepted. That is what i’m looking for more than a relationship with a woman. I like to refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of  needs a lot when working with clients and reflecting on my own life. On his hierarchy he has physical needs>safety needs>Love & belonging>esteem>self actualization. Looking at my statement through this lens that feeling of love and belonging brings me confidence (esteem) about myself, and it makes sense. Historically my main problem has been choosing safety out of fear (i.e. self harm behaviors, social withdrawal, weed, etc.) not allowing myself to keep reaching out for love and belonging.

If i’m in my right mature adult state of being I know that a woman will not fully fill my need for love & belonging. I have been strongly influenced subconsciously by romanticism in our culture which wrongly says “you find your person, you’ve found everlasting happiness” obviously a dangerous idea to put all my eggs one basket. However that’s what i do, i’m attached to this idea that if i find the right woman all my pain will be resolved and ill be healed. In reality i need a village, a community of people to connect with on a vulnerable level to fulfill my love/belonging need. The times when I have been involved in a group of some kind have been the times when i felt at my best whether it be a good therapy group, a workout group, or good coworkers/friends. I’m desperately missing community right now and i’m exhausted with the amount of work it takes to restart and maintain that community. This problem i see as much bigger than m individual psyche, i see it as a western society issue, one that i’m dedicating my life’s work as a therapist to address. I like how you advised me to cry in front of someone to connect, this is very much missing in my life, i have a roommate who is also a therapist but she gets caught up in trying to fix me when she sees me sad, when all i really need her to do is listen and see me. When people try to fix me it makes me feel even worse about how i’m feeling as if not only do i feel terrible but now i’m a problem for you too.

Anita

i still see my hopelessness as a defense mechanism because having hope leads to disappointment, so my learned baseline has become disappointed in advanced, making me pessimistic about relationships.

I do agree that reaching out as a child was where I learned to be hopeless to begin with, and what you said about loving and not being reciprocated presently is true. I just don’t know what to look for apparently?

Anita

As always you are spot on, I did feel a rush and a panic when I was with her. I wanted us to be committed to eachother as soon as possible so that I could have an attachment and feel safe about it. This is a lot to ask of someone you just met a couple months ago.

I hope to slow down in the future, I was conscious of wanting to take things slow with her at first then slipped into my child like emotional mind as we’ve laid here. I really want to reach out to her again but I feel ashamed if I do, I really want someone to tell me that’s a bad idea. I already told her not to contact me. I’m just missing her so much right now, but I feel like even if we did decide to keep seeing eachother I would be incredibly anxious all the time.

Im having trouble being with this longing for connection, it really wants to be taken care of somehow and I’m lost right now on how to get that need met. I’m exhausted