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What will my life be now?

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Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 184 total)
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  • #324867
    Nichole
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    It has been a while.

    I have had horrible times with my anxiety and attacks. I am currently numb (physically and  emotionally) and disconnected. According to a professional I am dissociated and depersonalized? I did go to a psychiatrist and am on 3 meds. Not sleeping and no contact with family. Sometimes I cannot believe this is my life. I get abuse amnesia sometimes and forget the things my family put me through and always conjour up a reason to go back in my head but I never do it. My anxiety makes me feel dreadful. I have not enjoyed the things I usually do although today I felt a little better and made breakfast and am going to take a well deserved bath.

    #324879
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Nichole:

    Welcome back, good to read from you!

    I am guessing those 3 meds were prescribed to you recently; you just started taking those? If so, they may be working for you already! Because today, you “felt a little better and made breakfast and am going to  take a well deserved bath”!

    I do hope that one day soon, you will no longer be in this limbo in between your past and your future, but actually move toward a better life. That will be so exciting!

    anita

    #325529
    Nichole
    Participant

    Me too Anita, I am still in Limbo as the affects of this ongoing constant anxiety have caused me to be numb. I cannot feel anything and feel so disconnected from myself. It is such a confusing feeling. It is like my brain keeps trying to figure out what just happened in the last 6 months. I rather just feel the feelings but my brain and nervous system are  doing what they do best and protecting me.

    #325599
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Nichole:

    Is it safe to say that the EMDR therapy has produced zero healing for you?

    And the three recently prescribed psych meds, how are they working for you?

    You’ve been in limbo  for a long, long time. I think that you’ve been in limbo since you were a girl living at home. I think that like so many of us, you are still living in that same home of your childhood where you lost an important part of yourself- that easy access to your heart. So many of us lose that.

    anita

    #325701
    Nichole
    Participant

    Anita

    I have not been doing EMDR. I actually want to. I heard it is great and has resulted in helping many with ptsd and cptsd. I did one round months ago and never had that flashback again. However, I have soo many flashbacks. I may need to do 400 rounds.

    I don’t feel the meds doing anything. My anxiety is at a max resulting in numbess. No tears or feelings and also restless legs. I can feel the stress hormones in my body and like tight rubberbands around my head. I am also so confused. My short term memory and goals have been affected.

    Yes I have been in limbo for so long. I truly wish I would have made the decision to go to Florida back when this all started when I still felt like myself. There has been so much stress and I cannot seem to rid myself of it. My head has intrusive thoughts all day long which make me feel worthless and like garbage.

    I did lose that access, do you think I will have it back??

    Do you have it back?

     

    #325707
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Nichole:

    I sure hope you feel better soon, Nichole.

    “I did one round months go and never had that flashback again. However, I have soo many flashbacks. I may need to do 400 rounds”.

    If you have the time, if you want to answer (you don’t have to, it’s okay with me if you don’t)-

    1. What was “that flashback” that you never had again after the first round?

    2. Can you give me examples of those “soo many flashbacks”?

    anita

     

    #325847
    Nichole
    Participant

    Thanks Anita,

    The flashback was my brothers face the night I left that horrific meeting. He had an evil smirk when I left and it left me scared. And examples would be. My mom in her coffin, my aunt while she was dying and more so my childhood. The sexual abuse always! Very visual flashbacks that are unpleasant. Times I was hurt. My brain is doing an amazing job  and giving me all of my bad memories and no good ones. It is horrible. It is 24/7 unless I keep entirely busy or talk to myself which is what I do.  I can hardly focus.

    #325869
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Nichole:

    I am so very sorry that you are suffering these flashbacks, and that you have been suffering severe anxiety for so long.

    Do you still see your younger brother from time to  time (and his girlfriend), your older brother (and his partner), nieces, nephews… your father, the grandmother you like?

    anita

    #325871
    Nichole
    Participant

    No I haven’t seen anyone and that is when this got worse. I’m tempted to reach out to anyone. I feel so scared. I’m alone on all these meds and these thoughts. It’s been horrible.

    #325873
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Nichole:

    Then reach out to someone, one person in your family with whom you are not angry, or the least angry, someone who will listen, maybe that grandmother you told me about. Will you do that?

    anita

    #326047
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Nichole:

    I want to let you know that I am preparing quotes from your posts by month and year, starting August 2018, in hope that if you choose to read it, it may give you some clarity. It will be ready tomorrow. I hope your day is okay. I know you don’t like Chicago winter. Here on the west coast, it is gray and foggy so far, and it is almost 3 pm. The sun is nowhere to be seen and a low cloud is omnipresent. Strange, feels like it will be evening soon, and it hasn’t been morning yet.

    anita

    #326179
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Nichole:

    August 2018 you shared that you moved from Chicago to Florida a few years back, having been in a 4.5 year relationship (3 years living together) with a man in Florida (he was and is 100% blind). In about July that year, you found out he was chatting with other women online, maybe met one in person.  You then were “very verbally abusive.. even physical” with him, and you gathered all your belongings  into your car and “left back home to Chicago”. Back in Chicago, you wrote about your sister in law who lives in Arizona with one of your two brothers, the older one: “I am so over taking her condescending attitude”.

    November 2018: you shared that your mother recently passed away. You were living with your younger brother, his daughter (your niece) and your father in the tiny apartment where your mother used to live. You shared that both your parents were addicted to drugs, that your father was recently clean for the first time in your life, that you grew up poor, neglected, and that you suffered sexual abuse by your older brother (the one living in Arizona) from the time you were 5 to 13. You wrote that you didn’t want to live there, that you hate the Chicago winter, and that you still carry resentment for your mother who neglected you and your brothers while addicted to drugs, and when she sobered up, she still neglected you and your two brothers  when “she met a man and that became her life. I always felt that drugs came first than a man came first”, you wrote.

    December 2018: you wrote that you go “up and down” with your emotions, “one day I am confident that I got it and the next few days I am down and out and then I have to start over”.

    January 2019: you moved from that tiny apartment to your aunt’s house December 31 of 2018. You wrote that you feel “very lonely. All the things I was complaining about I miss.. I miss my brother and even my father”. You shared that you’ve been “functioning pretty well” in spite of feeling down and lonely. “I have learned to go on despite my feelings”. Again, you wrote how your moods fluctuate: “I was doing ok for a few days. Living life just fine, figuring things out and then BAM. Last couple of days filled with fear”.

    You wrote that your aunt is driving you crazy, “She calls me in the morning on her way to work,  on her lunch, when she gets off work.. She is a little passive aggressive and controlling”. You had two nights when you felt great, “I had so much peace to just sit and think about all that has happened to me. I am still sad, and hurt, and anxious but am ambitious for the future”.

    February 2019: you wrote about having a “Bad bad day”. “Sometimes I feel I may be bi polar or have something wrong with my fluctuations of mood.. the up and downs are draining”. You later wrote: “moving with my aunt was a terrible decision. I hate it now”. During that month you flew to Arizona with your younger brother to visit your older brother, his wife, four year old son (your nephew). At first it was good, but soon, it wasn’t: “This was the worst idea at the worst time”, you wrote. “I am so  disgusted by my younger brother.. and the way he has treated me this trip. He has been so passive aggressive and cruel to me”. You felt “dead and empty.. like I need to go to the ER with these chest pains and stress”.

    Back in Chicago, you were “confused.. struggling with living with my aunt”. Your job was based in Florida and you were working from your aunt’s home, about to start a second job. Your plan was to qualify for a small mortgage for a condo in Florida.

    March 2019: you were working two jobs, your Mind has been all over the place”, but at  one point you had a “decent couple of days.. feeling decent.. trying not to let things bother me and move forward”.

    April 2019: you were working three jobs and saving. You were up to $7,500 in savings. You felt “up and down but am happy with myself because I have been strong and staying on track regardless. I have been so consistent. I am proud of myself… I have been working really hard. I have been trying my best to stay focused on me and my goals”.

    May 2019: “Living with my aunt has been hitting the fan lately. She is so passive aggressive and manipulative”. You were thinking of moving out and you looked for a room to rent in a house with four women. It was going to cost you $250 more than you were paying your aunt, but “my peace is more important”, you wrote.

    “I am confused… Everywhere I go I seem to be getting the same passive aggressive response. Could this be normal? I am sick of the passive aggression. I feel like the more happy I am the more someone wants to bring me down… I will be with 4 women and what if they start with the passive aggression”. You gave an examples of your aunt’s passive aggressive behavior: she “acted as if she care and then asks me if I lost my job.. I think she wants me to lose my job because she hates that I work from home. She bangs anything she can in the morning to make sure I am up as early as her”.

    “I am so ready to get out!” of your aunt’s home, you wrote. Later you wrote: “my aunt.. continues with her aggression”. Later on another aunt of yours died. “The wake was literally a hell!” you wrote. In that wake your living aunt “smeared me to my entire family. I was chewed up and spit  back out”. In that meeting where you wrote that you were smeared , you told your older brother “that he is controlling and manipulating”, you told your younger brother that “he is in toxic relationship and abandoned me when I  needed him”,  you “lashed out.. then got up and said I couldn’t take it any more and left the house.. Didn’t attend burial”

    Following that meeting, you wrote: “I feel like I cannot spend one more night here with my aunt!.. I need separation from these soul sucking creatures… my entire family has turned on me and wanted to bring me down”. During this month you left your second job and “spent tons on hotels” while still living with your aunt. Eventually, you rented a room for a month, got your stuff out of your aunt’s house and left.

    June 2019: living in a rented room, you felt depressed, “empty and longing for my family”, and your insomnia started. “I miss.. my aunt’s place. I’m confined to a room.. I’m emotionally exhausted and sleep deprived.. I want family to save me but I don’t want to run back to them like I am wrong!”. Your older brother sent you a message: “I don’t know what it is that you are going through but I am here for you no matter what.. I want to do whatever it takes to work on our relationship”. Your younger brother’s message was: “just wanted to tell I love you and miss you. You still got family here for you”. You felt confused by these messages and found them “very invalidating to have them do this! I had my head on straight yesterday and now I am in doubt again!”.

    You visited your two grandmothers, “to give them a chance”, “confronted one grandma”, she told you that she loves you and you found it “So invalidating. I am so lost at this point.. SO depressing”. “I do not know how to separate abuse from someone just being themselves”, you wrote later.

    You wrote about your anxiety: “I have high anxiety with bouts of numbness… heart palpitations, throat tightening and a migraine with stomach pain and tension.. flashbacks”.

    July 2019: you left that rented room, “here I am car full of belongings and food that will melt and oddly feeling ok about this situation”, back to “hotels and Airbnb”, looking for an apartment, “my money is dwindling”. You found an apartment that would be available to you on the first of August, you signed a lease there. Still insomniac, you went to a psychiatrist and got more sleeping pills, “still no sleep”.

    September 2019: you were in your new apartment, “used up my savings on furnishing and all”, “emotions are still a roller coaster and my mind is still racing… confused about life”.

    October 2019: you complained about “nightmares, anxiety attacks often and flashbacks sometimes all day long… since I left my aunt’s place I have been only surviving.. I spent over 8 thousands in 5 months surviving.. I have spent thousand of dollars and many, many hours in different kinds of therapy for it to only get worse? That is so upsetting!!!”

    November 2019: You complained about “anxiety and attacks. I am currently numb.. and disconnected… am on 3 meds. Not sleeping and no contact with family”.

    December 2019: You complained about “this ongoing constant anxiety”, feeling numb, disconnected from yourself, “like my brain keeps trying to figure out what just happened in the last 6 months”. You wrote: “I don’t feel the meds doing anything. My anxiety is at a max”.

    My input today, Dec 5, 2019 (I will make it short, simple and direct): you had a very difficult childhood and so did your two brothers. As a result the three of you have greatly suffered. Your older brother sexually abused you for eight years, which greatly added to your suffering, eight years of sexual abuse that were swept under the carpet to this very day. As a result of the severe neglect and abuse that you suffered, you got to a place where you frequently feel abused anywhere, anytime by anyone. Even when you are not abused at all. You can’t tell the difference.

    For example, when your aunt was making a rackets in the mornings, preparing to leave for work, it doesn’t mean that she was passive aggressive against you. I means she was in a hurry and was loud- it does not mean that she was not being loud on purpose so to wake you up.

    When you were crying and she asked you if you lost your job, it doesn’t mean that she was trying to tell you that she wants you to not work from her home anymore. Maybe she really was concerned about you crying and she wondered if you were crying because you lost your job.

    When your younger brother smiled during that meeting, the wake or after the wake, it doesn’t mean it was an “evil smirk”. It may very well be that he was very uncomfortable and it was one of those I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening kind of a smile.

    And when one of your grandmother told you that she loves you, you thought that meant she invalidated you.

    In other words, you see insincerity, evil, abuse and  passive-aggressiveness everywhere, and often it is not really there.

    And then, because you feel abused and attacked by anyone, anywhere, anytime, you kind of.. defend yourself with anyone, anywhere, anytime.. but because you were not really attacked, your defense really is.. attack. In other words, what is really happening is you attacking people left and right.

    You get confused a lot, not knowing what is happening.

    You suffer from anxiety and extreme fluctuations of moods, although ever since you left your aunt, the dominant mood is anxiety, numbness and depression. You were getting better (having good moments or good days in between the anxiety and depression) March this year while living in your aunt’s home, and your best time (more good moments or days in between anxiety and depression) was April this year. From May on, it has been a downhill slope.

    I suggested to  you many times to see a responsible psychiatrist and follow his or her instructions. But you have gone on and off of various drugs, not giving anything a chance to work. I think that you need to give a psychiatrist a chance so to stabilize your moods, and at one point attend cognitive behavioral therapy so to learn how to accurately evaluate people and situations,  so to determine where there is abuse and where there is none. And to control your own aggressive, lashing out behavior against other people.

    This does not mean I am on your older brother’s side, the one who sexually abused you for eight years- he has a whole lot to answer to, he owes you a whole lot of restitution. I don’t mean that your aunt is a good woman, and I don’t mean that you felt abused by every person in your life (I assume you haven’t felt abused by your niece and nephew, for example). What I am saying is that you are lashing out at people when they are not disrespecting you or abusing you, and you otherwise misinterpret people’s words and gestures, seeing invalidation in what may be sincere concern and affection toward you.

    anita

     

    #329347
    Nichole
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

     

    Merry Christmas Eve!

    Wow it is sort of hard reading all of these months of traumatic events and feelings. I have truly been through so much in the last year and a half. I am currently sticking to a medication. It feels like things are worse. I function worse and my self hate and flashbacks are worse. I hear it can get worse before better so I am sticking it out although so hard. It has been 1 month on new meds. I have a follow up next week.

    I partially agree with your comments on seeing abuse everywhere. I was definitely paranoid of abuse after learning I was brainwashed in my relationship. This is true and it is a horrible feeling. But all of my life I have been skeptical. I have never trusted after the things I have been through. But with my family, meaning my brothers and aunt and even some cousins these comments and actions were purposely done. For instance my aunt making noise. I know this was her intention because I have seen her do this behavior in the past to others. Which I should have listened to my gut and even you when you told me I should get away. I stayed very long in abuse with my family. Actual emotional abuse. My brother smirked that night because getting a reaction from me was his intention. He thought after that night he would trigger me to being my old self. Which in a sense it did (hence all of my anxiety and running back to my family) He hit a wound that night so bad, I have felt in 6 months my young self re emerge. I have the physical pains I have felt all of my life and the emotional pain come in so hard to the extent I understand why people commit suicide and turn to drugs or men. Because I am so aware of it it has been dreadful. I literally feel like a worthless human being and my body feels like it is throwing up inside of me. My head feels like the actual nerves that run through it are on fire. I honestly would not wish this experience on anyone. I am in CBT therapy but I don’t feel understood so am looking else where. Not being validated is very difficult. I was abused emotionally, I was gas lit by my family. I just read an article here on Tiny Buddha on family narcissism. And scapegoating. I have been a scapegoat all of my life. If you are not informed on this you should look it up. I know we have disagreed in the past but this is really happening. The elders in my family scapegoat people in to being their slaves practically. I have been one my whole life believing it was my first priority to take care of family and leave myself to shit so to speak. And that is why when I started taking care of me and saying no I received an enormous lash back which came in the form of emotional bullying. I was not doing anything wrong so they chose to make me feel like I was wrong. And they get away with this because in those moments of actual abuse I dissociated and am unable to defend myself because it takes me back to a time to when I had no voice, it was taken from me. I now see this. I believe all of these horrific flashback and replaying of events are my brains way of processioning them because I zoned out. I am experiencing extreme rage. For all of the times I suppressed my emotions because of these cruel people. It is not their fault because I should be assertive but I can not use tools I do not have and there are cruel people in this world who can sense this and will manipulate you to make themselves feel better. It is sick and part of the reason I experience pure fright these days because I have had a lifetime of not only physical, sexual abuse but emotional from family and then a man who did the same to me. Going forward learning where the abuse is is a priority for me. It will be difficult for me to trust. Because all of my life I was guarded and chose to let my guard down for the months I was with family when trying to heal from my relationship and they shoved me back in my shell. Yes I do believe this was intentional. My cousins made comments like, do you think your special? We all get used. We all get a turn. We all need support and do not get it. I was smeared. I was gossiped about. I was made to feel completely uncomfortable around my family for NO reason other than being me and healing. It is so sick. I am so upset over this. It is painful. I do not wish to hold on to this but it is holding on to me and my body. Do you understand that from a trauma standpoint?

     

    #329413
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Nichole:

    Merry Christmas to you, Nichole!

    You wrote about your family members: “these cruel people. It is not their fault because I should be assertive”-

    – I don’t understand what you mean by it, do you mean that it is not your brothers’ fault, nor is it your aunt’s fault, or your cousins’ fault that they all purposefully and intentionally hurt you?

    (“my brothers and aunt and even some cousins these comments and actions were purposefully done. For instance my aunt making noise. I know this was her intention.. My brother smirked that night because getting a reaction from me was his intention“)

    * I am glad you are following up on your medications, if the current med combination doesn’t work, I hope the doctor will adjust figure out what will work for you.

    Also, I don’t know the intentions of your family members in this or that incident, and you may very well be correct about their bad intentions toward you in any or all of the incidents.

    After you answer my question, in your next post to me, can you restate your question to me, it is not clear to me as is.

    anita

    #329503
    Nichole
    Participant

    Hi Anita

    That is an interesting question. I guess I did mean it that way. That it is not their fault. Which is what I am struggling with..self blame.

    I guess my question was if you understood from a trauma standpoint, meaning PTSD symptoms of the past holding on to us through our body and mind versus us wanting to hold onto the past. Like my flashbacks and nightmares and horrible anxiety with a mean inner critic. It is all old behavior but back in full affect since recent events with family. It seems uncontrollable at times.

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