Hello folks

[ALLHAILTHEGLOWCLOUD]

So I'm 22 and I like to read. Got sober recently.  Engaged, best friends with my cat, burger flipper, permanently estranged myself from whole family within last year. Have had CPTSD from early childhood, since the ol' parents are responsible for the kaleidoscopic clusterf*** that is my identity. Was in denial that anything abusive ever happened to me until last April or so.  It all got to be too much though and now I'm in therapy and struggling to find a way to... Like I guess just to exist without crawling out of my skin. I want to live in a way that feels stable, no longer predicated on these fleeting meaningless obsessions I attach too much meaning to just to cope.

I like Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Lebanon Hanover, Schlohmo, Crystal Castles, Pastel Ghost and TRUST. I like to read China Mieville,  Haruki Murakami, Catherynne Valente, HP Lovecraft, and a bunch of other stuff. Don't get me started about books. I do art, and I write a lot. Eventually I hope to get published and the thought of that is something I use to motivate myself. 

I have the constant and persistent feeling that everything I do is the exact wrong thing. I cannot maintain friendships and pretend my isolation is voluntary. My life is a cycle of denial and breaking points.  I'm tired.  I feel deeply bitter about having to sort all this out myself.  The constant effort when my disorder leaves me exhausted, the battle against cognitive distortions when they have been the only thing that makes me feel safe, trying to inhabit a body that feels like it wants to force me out, a fear of intimacy so consuming that I snap at my partner when he tries to be emotionally or physically close. I feel weak. I feel like I'm making excuses for myself.  As Ian Curtis put it, "I'm ashamed of the things I've been put through/I'm ashamed of the person I am." Sometimes I'll have a good week or two, only to fall back into the worst of my symptoms again.  It takes a conflict with my partner to get me on track again.  It's like I have no motivation of my own.

I have a hard time acknowledging all the ways this is ruining my life. I feel so out of control. I can't go to a grocery store without having a panic attack. Sometimes I'm rude to customers at work because I get triggered and there's no time for me to calm down. I know I need to do the work and be kind to myself but I am so afraid that it won't be "worth it." I cannot describe how deeply bitter I am about everything. All of this. And how conflicted I am. So much of what I do is self damaging and I don't know how to stop.

When I started therapy about 6 months ago I was clinging to the idea that I could be "healed" quickly. That my suffering would end very soon. I have made a lot of progress for such a short time, but the impossible goals I had at the beginning will not happen on my timeline. I needed to believe in therapy as a magic bullet or I don't know what I would have had to cling to. But really I was just putting it on a pedestal like I always do in a desperate attempt to give myself hope in the face of suicidal ideation. Let me reiterate that therapy has been enormously good for me, and I'm in a better place because of it. But a therapist can't "fix" me anymore than religion, a partner or substance use could. I still have to do it myself and I feel like the least qualified person in the world to do that. I feel like things just get harder and harder and I wish they would just let up. I know I create many of my own problems and I also don't have a lot of awareness around when I'm doing that or how to stop. I can identify a problem, but then it just leads into another and another and another, and then I see that to solve one of them I'd need Is to solve a whole chain of things that often ends right back where it started. I know that I want a life where I can enjoy and appreciate what I have, and where I feel calm more and genuinely experience pleasure. Where I'm not moderately agoraphobia and inconsistent to my partner. I think eventually I can have that, but I'm so scared of what stands in between me and that future. I am so discouraged and so tired. I am here because yet again I have stumbled upon a breaking point. I hope to use this site to remember I am not alone and to lend an ear to others. I also hope to learn from other people who are farther along on this difficult path we did not choose.

[sanmagic7]

hey, glowcloud, and welcome.  very glad you made it here.

i get the wanting this to be done NOW, wanting someone else to wave a magic wand and fix it for me, being so tired of it all that i'm ready to drop.   i give you a lot of credit for coming out of denial, for getting sober, for getting help with all this, and for reaching out for support.  you have a warrior spirit that won't let you down.

i believe there is a future after this, that the symptoms will become manageable, and a light is at the end of this tunnel.  i've made so much progress being part of this forum, i can only give thanks that it's here.  the people are wonderful, caring and generous.  i hope you find some relief soon.  you so deserve it. 

[rosemarie]

Hey there,

Just wanted to say welcome and you're not alone. You helped me remember the beginning of my own journey which was when I was about your same age. Congratulations on extricating yourself from your family of origin, that is a HUGE step and I really admire your courage, also the courage it took to face your substance use and the underlying shame/trauma that drives it. You sound like an incredibly resilient young person. I see already that you are self-aware, intuitive, motivated, super creative and a very talented writer as well (just from your post). I would say hold on to that dream, and use it to propel you through the worst of times. I know how easy it is to get stuck in the self doubt that was drilled into us as children. I'm working on overcoming this barrier myself right now in order to move out of my fear of success and realize my dreams. I really feel that this is possible but can be challenging, because it means facing, unravelling, and weeding out those thoughts and feelings we learned from trauma and taking back our power in the now, regardless of who put them in our head. I kind of had a revelation about how I get stuck in blaming my abusers for what's going on with me now. While it is super important in the healing process to put the blame back where it belongs and stop internalizing it, I find myself getting stuck on being damaged goods because of what they did. I find I have to now make a leap and take responsibility for my life in a way that I just really hadn't realized before. But this takes times and patience and it's certainly not perfect. Sometimes its the old two steps forward, one step back cha-cha.

I can relate to the isolation, the agoraphobia, anxiety, the fear of intimacy, the issues with trust in relationships, the impatience with wanting to hurry up and be 'healed' already. One thing that helped me was a sort of meditation practice I did that showed me no matter how fragmented my mind and body felt, no one could actually take away my wholeness as a being. It feels like they could and that's what we are trained to believe for abuse and oppression to continue, but it just ain't true. So I just want to say I think your inspiring and courageous and you are whole because wholeness is inherent to our being. And that you deserve to feel well and balanced and can achieve your dreams. 

[ALLHAILTHEGLOWCLOUD]

Thanks for your reply, sanmagic- and thank you for the encouragement.  I really needed that today and appreciate the reminder that there IS a way out of this, and that I am capable of finding a safe route through 

rosemarie, thank you for sharing some of your own experiences.  I don't know anyone irl who has gone through this, and so especially the fact that you began your journey around my age was heartening.  I really appreciate the validation- and I think your revelation around the complexities of putting blame where it belongs [with the abuser] in the past vs. being personally accountable in the present is relevant for me as well.  It's a muscle that needs exercise, at least for me.  I think meditation and finding the wholeness behind/within that fragmentation would be really valuable to try.  I feel like every time I am able to get in touch with that "wise self" in therapy I come away feeling more motivated to live in the moment and treat myself and others with kindness, but sometimes I get overwhelmed by the emotions I need to go through to get there and start to panic/avoid it the same way I do the grocery store.  Patience and practice are key.  I am going to start doing a nidra yoga class pretty soon though- I just found out about its success treating PTSD, and it sounds pretty promising. 

I think that what you said about accountability ties in with self doubt- for me at least it is really hard to be critical of myself without going into full-blown self-loathing mode.  It's very much all or nothing, and so for me it's hard to understand the degree to which I've messed up and how to course-correct.  But I hope that the growth you've been working for around accountability and its nuances will help you greatly in understanding how to take responsibility not only for areas that need work but also for the ways in which you already are successful and all the potential you have to achieve in other ways. 

[bring em all in]

glowcloud- I can so relate to what you wrote- I could have written nearly all of it myself!!!

Welcome to the Community!

[Kizzie]

Hi and a very warm welcome to OOTS Cloud     

Your post really took me back about two and a half years ago when I started to recover and was feeling sheer exhaustion and discouragement at the enormity of trying to move out of that dark place.  I hung onto every shred of hope in what I read about recovery.

I can remember in the midst of several big emotional flashbacks, rocking back and forth and telling myself over and over that they would pass. They did and over time as I went to therapy, posted here, read ..... they became less frequent and less intense to the point where I don't trigger much and I have room for positive things finally. 

I eventually, grudgingly acknowledged that recovery required me to take small steps; I really wanted to rip the bandaid off and just get on with a better life already!  As I came to see though, I had layers of trauma that I needed to peel back in a slow and self-compassionate way so as not to be overwhelmed by it all.  I rest a lot more now, I keep stress and triggers as low as I can in my life, and I keep at it (recovery).  Just my thoughts for what they are worth 

Glad you found your way here and I hope posting and reading here is helpful for you.   

[ALLHAILTHEGLOWCLOUD]

Kizzie, thanks for your input. It is always super encouraging for me to hear from people who have been doing this a little longer, so to speak! It's awesome that you've achieved the degree of recovery you have, and I know someday I will reach a point in my life where I have more stability and room to focus on the good things.

I think in taking ownership of the strength I have now that I could not have had as a child, I have also been hoping that strength can somehow just negate the past. Even though that just ain't how this works! I get frustrated with baby steps but it seems like you and so many others here have moved deceptively quickly by allowing time to slow down.  Have a good day 

[Kizzie]

Hard to be patient I know but those little steps do add up