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Thanks for your reply, Kizzie, and I'm so glad my mega-post was stimulating and somewhat helpful to someone. Thanks for sharing your thoughts back. Your F2F group sounds like it's going to be a good one, I'm glad and personally inspired to hear you planning it 

Thank you so much for all your replies. They were indeed very helpful, and made me feel less alone on this otherwise lonely night.

Woodsgnome, I appreciated this: "I'm no longer sure it's even about consciously giving up, but mostly allowing myself the freedom to see, wonder, and hope against hope that there might be more surprises in store that could lead to something that will truly help. Giving up is more my nature, but even there I've been surprised in the past, in good ways close to shocking me."

It reminded me that I too have experienced what is actually a significant increase in self-acceptance; in my ability to be present and wonder, and investigate curiously rather than accusingly/punitively; and in my ability to remember that things do change and are changing, and that I can and have been surprised in the past and may be again. And these are HUGE things for me! Thank you for reminding me! My old brain patterns, and lack of recognition from the world at large, cause me to forget how much progress I have made and am making.

Notalone, thank you for listening and being there. 

Sanmagic7, I appreciated your share and it reminded me that just the other night, I was rereading a favorite novel in which the heroine makes a drastic move to a new place with few resources, and things work out unexpectedly; and that that pleasantly surprised (as I'd forgotten that part of the story) and comforted me. 

And saylor, I relate to what you shared, and appreciate the information you offered as well; that is something for me to look into, it is a pattern I have. And I do often feel the way you described/related

What all of these responses are helping me remember of my own experience, is that it's not all the time, and much less than it used to be. That's a relative measure, but still—I have a kind of amnesia when things are hard, and everything goes to black; I tend to forget the small (also HUGE!) and important things that are distinctly not the blackness. Because it did used to be like all the time. And it's not now. Thank you all for helping me restore balance and perspective during this hard time.

I wanted to add that I already feel better and more hopeful, just having had a place to tell the truth. I hope it will be helpful, and not harmful, for others.

Hello everyone,

I'm new to this and not sure I'm doing it right. I tend to write a lot. I'll try to keep this somewhat brief (that didn't work out  ).

I just upended my life—or what little, unstable life I had begun to establish in a new place, where after a few months it wasn't working out—and impulsively drove across the country to start again somewhere else, in a climate where I hoped my physical illness would be better supported. But part of that move also had to do with things falling apart in the 12-step group I'd begun attending in that other town, and the job I'd started there. Truly, though, I was unable to find safe housing for my environmental condition and had ended up living in my car, so it felt like there was little left to lose in relocating.

So now I'm on the road (and on the run) again, and feel I've lost the support and understanding of two close allies, on whose support and friendship I had been relying. And now I'm having suicide ideation again. I don't think it's anything serious—I've never been willing or able to actually hurt myself, and don't believe that (serious ideation) is a feature of my particular disorder. But it definitely feels like life doesn't work for me: I'm exhausted, depleted, in pain, and without connections or prospects. I'm heading today to a new town where I don't know anyone, don't have a job or place to stay, and now, with the recent loss of these two allies, feel quite hopeless and discouraged about making a new start. I had been hopeful, but now it feels like I'm just back in the same old place. 

And this is what I'm struggling with most of all—I've made such an extraordinary effort over my lifetime to get well. I've devoted all my energy and resources to it. Since I was 18 and even before, I examined and tried to improve myself, threw myself into therapy, tried different modalities including DBT and somatic therapy and group therapy, lived at a residential Zen center and tried unsuccessfully to maintain a personal practice after that, looked for community living situations, addressed my addiction tendencies with 12-step, worked very hard on my friendships, etc., etc. Some things have been much harder for me to do than others—like exercise, or any kind of formal practice that I have to self-motivate for (other than journaling). But I have pushed myself to the full extent of my capacity.

And here I am; 37, starting over again, alone, in struggle. I'm so tired. There seem so few resources, so little understanding, for people like us. It does seem like it's getting better out there—I found a book on cptsd, the first description of a disorder that properly fits me and encompasses my life experience, and I've found this forum. But I am so tired. I don't want to fight anymore. I honestly don't know how I keep going. I've had to largely cut off family connections due to their harm and unhelpfulness, and so I really have nothing right now. And this is what I'm left with—after a lifetime of heroic effort, which others can only struggle to see.

I need help and care and it's not there. I want to give up, but there's no real way to do that (as I am not actually suicidal; though—trigger warning—I honestly sometimes wish that I was; wish that I could leave this life). So what to do?

I pray to God (my stand-in word for the universe/cosmos/force of compassion and wisdom). That is something. I've been trying to practice more self-compassion. That is something also.

What do you all do? Does anyone relate to this?   

Dear brightlight,

I'm appreciative of this topic and your sharing what you have. I came looking for resonance, shared experience and a sense of connection, and you've helped give it to me. I really identify with what you've shared, and heartily agree that our world needs better understanding and better support for people with our disorder.

I told a friend recently that after seeing the movie Rainman, I wished so badly that there was an institution for me like the one that Raymond (the autistic character) lives in, where people understood my limitations and needs, knew how to and could care for me, and could explain it to other people—could defend and protect me, in a way.

She seemed to understand, and she has worked hard to understand what it is like for me, but now I am in a very difficult life situation, feel that she is not being appropriately concerned or caring, am angry, and have pushed her away, along with another friend who has been a recent ally. Not to mention the hardship of encountering new social situations and making new friends. I've been feeling quite defeated lately (I think I will write a separate post about this).

But I really related to the parts about feeling tired and having suicide ideation. In a book I've been reading about cptsd, the author discusses suicide ideation as a feature of the disorder, part of emotional flashbacks from childhood, but I think what is perhaps underestimated is the effect of struggling to live in an unfriendly and misunderstanding world—how difficult it is to struggle day after day, and have people assume you're the same as them, and then react with disappointment and judgment or alienation when you're not.

Anyway, I suppose you may want and need encouragement, and I'm not in the best place to offer it, outside of solidarity. I think what you are doing is very brave, and that self-compassion is a wonderful practice. I wish the world had better resources for people like us.

P.S. I like your screen name.

Part II

(I'm sorry for writing a lot, and I'll defer to the moderators; this is my first post and I guess I had a lot to share)

Sometimes I feel I've spent my whole life fighting people on the question of what I'm capable of, how I'm like everyone else—that it's a willful fantasy of mine that I'm limited—and how little I must be trying for my life to then be what it is. And every time someone suggests something like that, they think they're the first person who has.

And sometimes I feel other people should be able to get that, understand my experience and their own blind spots and limitations. Sometimes I feel that, as they have accused me of being, they are willfully ignorant, stubborn, antisocial, and making things difficult when they don't need to be 😆

But I'm finally beginning to build that understanding and care inside of myself, able to give it to myself—and that is huge. I'm  also lucky to have a couple of close friends, though not near me geographically, who understand and accept me quite well.

It's just that—I'm still lonely. And I think it's tricky. Because it's not just my disorder fooling me; it is true that people generally don't know how to care for my particular (and real) differences, even when I try to teach them. The same way people used to (and still do) unskillfully and sometimes forcefully engage with autistic people.

I do continue to find beauty, hope and faith in the world, in myself, and in others. If I often feel like an emotional Helen Keller, it's promising that I'm learning to be my own Anne Sullivan. And I hope this journey will make me more tolerant of others and bring me into closer contact with community; good enough, safe, imperfect, fruitful. I had a residential community experience once before that was a revelation and salvation. It gives me hope I can find that again, or elements of it.

Thank you so much for all your shares.

I really appreciate this thread. I just discovered this forum, after beginning to read Pete Walker's book, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, and I deal a lot with this particular issue. Like some of the other respondents, I'm lonely as I write this; sitting in my car outside a McDonald's in a surprisingly beautiful place, using the WiFi, not quite able to choose any of the activities that would put me in contact with other people today, but also feeling the keen edge of loneliness and wishing I were feeling the warm surround of (safe) human connection.

Like one of the other respondents, I'm a member of a 12-step addiction fellowship, and I too struggle to feel a sense of belonging there. I came into the fellowship with the expectation—based on what I thought was a promise—of a safe space to share my feelings and experiences and be met with acceptance and compassion. I find that's rarely the case. When I share what's happening with me in meetings, the people who share after me often share at me, rather than speaking about their own experience. The sharing-at entails passively forceful encouragements for me to feel differently, or find a way to be or act different, or suggestions that I needn't feel that way or have that experience to begin with. That's disappointing and upsetting for me, and at times intensely angering. I guess I so need and long for the medicine of acceptance that it's at times intolerable to be offered what feels like poison instead.

I say poison, even though I believe the people in the fellowship are truly well meaning, because in my many years of experience with this disorder, I've learned that when I do meet true acceptance, it's remarkably healing and does for me all the things that folks who try to offer me consternation/advice mean to do for me but don't. For instance, the people sharing at me—and anyone else who attempts to nudge, pull or stretch me into a different place emotionally and functionally—are trying to get me to a place where I'm more stable and self-sufficient, and can do the things they can:

-not experience so much pain and overwhelm
-socialize normally
-hold down a long-term job without strain
-dress with more care
-not have so many conflicts with other people
-speak and act confidently and decisively
-etc., etc.

But when people attempt to nudge, pull or stretch me, the opposite effect is achieved. I tend to feel alienated and blamed, and sink into a kind of helpless internal shame and isolation. When someone can just sit with me and accept me, however, I'm suddenly capable of all the aforementioned things. It's almost miraculous—and because it took me so long to find anyone who could sit with and accept me, and for me to develop the capability to receive and respond to that, I didn't know it was possible. But now I know that even a drop of such acceptance can result in a huge change, not just emotional but physiological.

This is all to say that this feels like a complex issue, because it's not so simple as "I suck" or "Other people suck." (That's a binary I used to swing between, and still do sometimes.) Now I know that, on the one hand, I've done an incredible job with what I was given in this lifetime, and have rich experience and gifts to offer the world, and on the other hand, other people are also doing the best they can, even when they fail to understand or meet me. I finally realized that I'm not the same as most other people and the things that make sense and work for them truly don't for me; and they can't always be expected to understand that.