stuck in a loop

[asdis]

We're trying. Really, really trying. We're doing our best to care for our physical health and basic needs. We're doing our best to keep a recovery mindset and not be discouraged by things. Every new/old symptom that pops up we just keep moving. Try to cope, or at least try not to dissociate endlessly. But there are never any real breaks. No one knows how to help us.

We're stuck in a loop where taking care of anything results in a flare up of some kind. Doing good with our basic needs? Pain flare. Got our pain to a tolerable level? Anxiety flare. Try to focus on the big issues? All the little issues become a thousand times louder. Find something to eat that we actually want? Eat it so much we stop enjoying it. Doing okay with not thinking too much about foods we want but can't eat? Bombarded by ads for them. Finally starting to understand what hunger feels like? Anything with nutritional value that we can eat makes us not want to eat. Managed to clean organize the house to a reasonable place? It only lasts as long as our body can keep up with doing it daily.

We stopped seeing our dietician and one of our therapists in early december because every session became "I know you're trying. I know it sucks. But you have to be patient. You have to keep trying. Maybe if you buy a million gadgets and overpriced 'allergy-friendly' foods you'll pavlov yourself into doing better. Maybe if you eat this thing you hate enough you'll start to like it. Maybe if you stop worrying about money you'll eat better. I know you're worried about not being able to afford the safe stuff, but have you tried buying it anyway? Maybe, maybe, maybe. You should track your meals, or your macros, or take pictures of what you eat. I know those things are triggering but have you considered doing them? Maybe if you move even when your back/leg gives out you'll get used to it."

We've been in this cycle for so long. No one stops to consider how it feels for us to not only be in it but to be asking for help with it. No one seems to consider the fact that simply being allergic to something doesn't stop us from still enjoying it, and no one seems to consider how much harder trying to recover from disordered eating is while being allergic to over half the food we enjoy. How much harder recovery is when our allergens cut out food groups and entire cuisines. Our main therapist does to an extent, but we don't talk about it much with her because she doesn't treat disordered eating.

We're trying a new dietician. We booked another session with our other therapist. We start pain management soon. We're doing everything we can to keep going and to keep getting better. We just don't know what to do or say at this point. Everyone goes down the same list of ideas/solutions for us. Everyone gets stumped by the way our issues interact with each other. No one seems to have anything new to say or suggest. "I'm trying" is always met with "try harder" but we can't. Whether it's allergies or pain everything that we love is being slowly stripped away. We've been watching it happen for the last 16 years. We've been stuck in this loop for so long. We're still trying. It's just getting harder.

[Blueberry]

We're doing everything we can to keep going and to keep getting better. We just don't know what to do or say at this point. Everyone goes down the same list of ideas/solutions for us. Everyone gets stumped by the way our issues interact with each other. No one seems to have anything new to say or suggest. "I'm trying" is always met with "try harder" but we can't. Whether it's allergies or pain everything that we love is being slowly stripped away. We've been watching it happen for the last 16 years. We've been stuck in this loop for so long. We're still trying. It's just getting harder.

That sounds so hard! I'm sorry. I kind of get it too, because I've been working on my own stuff for ages and some things are getting worse, but otoh I do see and feel progress. If you don't really, then that's got to be really difficult    

I think it's kinda normal in cptsd for issues to all interact with each other. So I'm sorry if none of your medical / therapeutic people understand that.

I don't think I've been told for a long, long time to "try harder", except by my own Inner Critic. But not by professionals, so I'm sorry you've been told that. Usually with cptsd we're trying really hard anyway, so what's the use of suggesting we do even more?

I'm wondering if you would be helped by any of these https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?board=272.0 ? They're free and you can watch as much or as little as you like. Often when I feel stuck, this kind of thing is useful. They give me a tiny bit of hope and maybe some impetus to do a tiny bit of something helpful/constructive for myself. Sometimes a listening includes a 5 minute exercise which I find can settle down my anxiety a little bit. I learned in inpatient trauma-informed therapy that focussing your mind on 'something else' other than rumination or anxiety or stress for just 5 minutes can help.

If none of the above sounds useful, please just ignore it.

[Kizzie]

Asdis, these are just my thoughts of course but I remembered feeling similarly some time back in recovery and thought I'd share about what helped me. I remember I started to see a lot of books and articles about being self-compassionate as I was working really hard on recovering and that sort of grabbed me for some reason. I took what I was reading to heart and for me that meant slowing down and not doing so much, about trying less hard rather than more hard, and of being less perfectionistic and accepting that I am human. So many of us have such a bossy Inner Critic that we don't even think to tell it to shush, to question what it is telling us, and to move toward a more compassionate loving self that the IC blots out.

I don't know if this will resonate with you but I hope some of it does and you can step outside that endless loop.