Anita

Right, that relationship was overwhelming proof that idea of finding “the one” is not a solution to my or anyone’s problems. My issue is that I can be lazy and stubborn by placing my well being in someone else’s hands. It’s easier than facing up and doing it myself.

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

Thank you once again for your reply and the thoughtful work you put in for me and all the others who use this forum.

“Your solution to this full emotional experience of despair is to experience the opposite, fully alive, a 180 degrees switch. This solution has not worked for you because following feeling fully alive for very short period of times, you feel fully hopeless a whole lot of the time. You are stuck in a roller coaster ride of long-lasting terrible lows and short thrilling highs.” 

I never considered my behavior in this context, for some reason this brought to mind when i was struggling with cutting. I would cut when i felt dead, i remember telling someone once cutting reminded me i was alive, it was definitely a rush that a lot of people didn’t understand, looking at it through a brain chemistry perspective it also makes sense as it was my way of feeling good (dopamine) before i had access to weed.

“it will take a re-training of your  brain, training your brain to avoid thrill seeking behaviors, enduring the lack of those fully alive highs, enduring the low for a long time while paying closer attention to the lesser joyful experiences of life and over time, finding contentment and pleasure in them”

This is the solution i seem to be avoiding yet i know in my heart is way. I told myself and some friends that the next woman i met i would wait at least a month before having sex. Did i do that? No, i waited all of 3 days. It seems the old saying “true love waits” is not complete bullshit. I have got to start being more disciplined and relaxed, such as implementing a mindfulness exercise into my life as you suggested. I already meditated about 15-20min daily but clearly this needs to be increased to help me recognize and resist impulsive behaviors. I tell people all the time in therapy that one cannot truly experience all the joy’s of life if their mind is not at peace, i know this because my mind is not at peace, not even close right now. I know what that peace feels like though, i have been there before not for long, but i have been there where witnessing a sunset is all i needed to be content for the day. I need to get back that peace so i stop chasing cheap thrills.

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

Thank you for the reply.

The way you explained that really makes a lot of sense to me, because I’ve always thought of myself as a “project” type of person. Someone who finds (or creates) a problem and solves it, then moves on to the next problem. Looking at where that pattern started was certainly my childhood, subconsciously trying to solve my household dysfunction over and over again, To feel better.

it feels strange to not be in survival mode, I have grown accustomed to being in crisis and I’m sure my traumatized brain is always in fight or flight mode. I thought of this when I was struggling to relax and be creative the other night, cognitively I knew I had every right to relax and have some fun, but it was if my body was saying no telling me that I might be missing something if i relax too much.

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.