Hello,

I would like to share my story and take a step back to be able to see how my thoughts are shaping my reality. To start out with I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and was diagnosed when I was 17. I moved across the country when I was 18 to restart my life and get away from the life that caused so much pain ( I was molested by my mom’s boyfriend, physically/emotionally abused, and grew up with my parents addicted to heroin and pills etc). I am now 24 and I have come a long way from being in and out of hospitalizations, intensive outpatient therapy, and counseling. I started getting my life back on track and decided to get my degree in Biochemistry, I am 38 credits away from my degree. Over the summer, one of my professors reminded me of my abuser, and all the work I had done to learn how to cope with PTSD fell out the window. I spent most days at home in panic, shame, and fighting the urge to self-harm. I had self-harmed form the ages of 11 to 20 so I was determined not to go back. I sought out counseling from school and barely passed my classes. After the quarter, I went back to visit my family, where all of the memories that haunt me had occurred. I started to self harm again, telling myself it is just this one more time so I can numb myself from the thought that I am one mile away from the man who molested me. It felt like I was playing a role to fulfill my family’s expectations, while they could never acknowledge or say what had happened to me was true. When I was diagnosed at 17, my family told me I was just seeking attention and that nothing ever happened. I can understand the confusion from my family, I was a suicidal straight A student and I always kept a smile on my face even though every night I would self harm. I can validate myself but what is hurting me the most is feeling like I do not belong anywhere, and that no matter how hard I try the memories will haunt me and interrupt my life. It makes me feel hopeless. I started self-harming again today and i just couldn’t stop for hours. It scared me because it felt like I lost control. Another layer to my mind breaking over my own meaning is a break up. I broke up with my SO whom I live with, and shared the longest healthiest relationship with. He is kind, patient, and would never yell at me or shame me and it was something to get used to. It was something to let someone get so close to me. When I started going to a dark place over the summer with PTSD, I didn’t want to bring him down with me. I broke up with him before I left to visit my family. I also took some mind altering substances and felt like I fell in love with someone else from the surge of lust. I was mistaken of what love was, love is a long lasting security and commitment, not the rush of chemicals it feels to meet someone lovely. I wanted to believe in love at first site, and that love was all I needed to feel hopeful. I am starting to think I have addiction to codependency and avoiding negative feelings at all cost. I missed my first day of classes and impulsively selfharmed again. I feel like I am falling down a dark tunnel inside my mind into a deep trance of shame and feeling unworthy. Suicidal thoughts creep in my mind; like I don’t deserve to live. I want to repair my relationship with my SO but I know if he finds out I was with someone else he would hurt and then hate me. External world, I know what to do to chase my dreams and be successful, internally I am destroying myself with regret and shame. I want to love and be loved but I think all the scars of the past and my own negative self-talk is blocking me. I have moved 11 times in the past 5 years, I keep running and my emotions catch up with me eventually. I feel too much or nothing at all. Numb is where I am at now, and I am worried all the good things I have built for myself have been self sabotaged. I am afraid of myself, and I know that awareness is the master of my mind, not my thoughts emotions or memories but I have such a hard time not letting regret and shame define me. I always tell myself life gives you whatever experience you need for the evolution of your consciousness and it makes me feel like my suffering isn’t meaningless, I will grow stronger I hope. And then the other part of my mind says if you could grow stronger you would have already healed and the past wouldn’t haunt you like it does and I get stuck in this argumentative circle in my mind. I tell myself, relationships help you see the parts of yourself that had been hidden in how you love and in how you see yourself but they wont take the pain away. I wish I could learn how to live and not just endure. Learn how to be me without saying sorry. Learn how to love without pushing everyone away, learn how to hope without looking for evidence of future pain. Some days I have a beautiful creative thoughts and I can trust that everything will be ok, and in a split second my flashback or something will send me into a fetal position crying wishing I could just end it all. and it happens so fast that it feels like I have no control, and I want control in my life so badly. I hate feeling/thinking like this because I know it brings the people around me down. It is easier for me to be positive with others in mind than for myself, and thats what keeps me living. I am posting this to hopefully be openminded to other’s insight with coping with deep pain and learning how to build a life where one feels meaning and belonging. I am posting this to convince myself there is a way out of this, I just have to reach out and look harder.