Feels like I'm at a dead end.

[bigblacktanglyball]

Hi, everyone.

I'm not a very functional adult. I'm in my thirties, have a much-belated bachelor's degree but have never had a job, am on disability, live with my uncle, have no offline friends, and am grossly overweight. It feels like I'm probably going to be stuck this way until I'm eventually forced onto the streets.

I have CPTSD and possibly autism. Over the past year I've been coming to terms with the reality that I went through more child abuse than I ever wanted to admit to myself. One thing very early on, that I won't yet mention the nature of to avoid needing a trigger warning, but that was very obviously identifiable as child abuse--but that I have no conscious memory of. Recurring nightmares, as well as vocal, motor, cognitive, and emotional intrusions. And fairly clear conscious memory of reporting it the morning after it happened. (Or the morning after one of the times it happened. Still not even sure whether it happened more than once, some things have resurfaced that suggest maybe, but it feels so impossible to believe.) But no conscious memory of the incident(s) itself. And a few things that were harder to identify as child abuse, and that I'm not sure they really even were, but for whatever reason they affected me as if they were: namely, harsh scolding, and bullying at school.

I've already talked way too much about what I believe happened to me, in other venues. I've already tried way too hard to see way too far, like Icarus flying too close to the sun. It makes me feel like an attention-seeker. <- me constantly. Especially when I'm not even sure if it really did happen. I've spent my life driving myself up the wall about whether or not. Letting unintentional symbolism about it leak into everything I ever did. Hating my body, hating everything I do and say, being afraid of everyone and unable to form connections. And being frustrated with how self-absorbed and self-obsessed I am, like some part of me thinks I'm just so great even though there's basically nothing great about me at all. And it always feels like no one believes me. Even when they do. No matter how much people say they believe me, I remain convinced they don't, and, moreover, convinced they shouldn't. I still halfway don't even believe myself. I've been so deep in denial all this time that I used to jealously wish I'd been through what I literally had been through, that was how convinced I was that I hadn't. Why be jealous over wanting to have it worse? How does that make any sense? Couldn't tell ya.

In any case, what else am I supposed to do but keep digging? I don't know where to go from here, how to get out of this. It feels like nothing and no one can fix me. Not when I'm too afraid of the world to engage with it. I barely even leave my room. I'm in the process of selling my car. I've been in therapy on and off almost my whole life, and it's helped, but it's never helped enough, not once, because everyone either A) didn't believe me, B) believed me but didn't believe it could still matter this long after the fact and thought I should just get over it, or C) believed me, believed it mattered, and therefore, refused to continue seeing me.

[TheBigBlue]

Hi bigblacktanglyball!   

How about I tell you that quite a few of the things you wrote, I could have written myself?

And that I believe you. You don't have to convince me that your suffering is real, or that experiences from childhood can still affect us profoundly decades later (I am 58 - some of my trauma is more than half a century old and still hurts badly). And you certainly don't have to remember every detail, or have all the answers, for your pain to deserve attention and care.

I also find it heartbreaking that you have had therapists who walked away when you needed help. I don't understand how a trauma-informed therapist could recognize the depth of someone's suffering and then simply leave them without appropriate support.

I have had my own share of healthcare trauma, but I was fortunate enough to eventually find safety in therapy. Not sunshine and rainbows, by any stretch! Sometimes it feels like three steps backward for every step forward, and sometimes things get worse before they get better. But I do feel that I'm gradually moving in the right direction.

So I really hope you won't give up on finding a therapist who understands complex trauma and with whom you can build that sense of safety. You deserve someone who can sit with the uncertainty, the pain, and the confusion without dismissing you or making you feel like you are too much.

And for what it's worth, I didn't read your post as attention-seeking or self-obsessed. I read it as someone who has been hurting for a very long time and is desperately trying to make sense of why.

I'm glad you shared this with us.   

[Kizzie]

Hi BigBlack and a warm welcome to Out of the Storm 

I'm with BigBlue, when I read your post all I thought was this person is really hurting and part of helping reduce that feeling hopefully is finding somewhere to be believed, validated and supported. We do get it here so I hope you'll find it a safe enough space where you can work on recovery alongside so many others doing the same thing.

I like a book by Dr. Christine Courtois titled "It's Not You, It's What Happened to You." I have held that sentiment close to my heart for a very long time and turn to it often as a reminder that I was harmed, traumatically injured by my perpetrators and my symptoms are a response to that. My symptoms do not mean I am weak or crazy or any of the negative things I tell myself about myself, I am simply in survival mode. It also reminds me that to recover I need to hold my abusers accountable rather than attack myself. Like so many survivors I had the great misfortune to be abused due to no fault of my own.

I hope this resonates on some level for you 

Kizzie