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[hank]

Hi, I'm Hank. I have dealt with PTSD for many years and learned that I have the complex variety. I will not commit suicide but I have no will to live. I just wish I were dead because I am no good at life. Does anyone identify with this view of not beign worth anything and not able to cope with life in a joyous way? I grew up thinking all would turn out well. then I got traumatized and I retraumatize. I reach out for help and the professionals all get paid and do not really care. Nobody seems to care what state of mind I am in, it is up to me I am told. Well, * all of this chaos. I just wish I was 6 feet under and nothing I do seems to help. Just a repeat fo another bad hopeless grey day. I am so thoroughly exhausted and have little energy for anything. Not that I have anyone to share it with. I self-isolate and the result is a torment. Why do I do that? Because I have nightmares and I do not trust anyone. Not anymore.

So hello from the dark side.

Hank

[Libby12]

Oh hank, I really feel for you.  Everything thing you describe is exactly how I would have described myself at the end of last year.

However, over the last few months,  I have really started to heal. This has been the result of reading everything I can on the Internet ; reading books like The body keeps the score and the Pete Walker books and reading and posting here.  These resources seemed to set me on a course of wanting to heal from the emotional and physical pain that I had suffered from for, well my whole life really.   I think it all came down to validation - I simply had never had that.

So please,  please get all the help and advice you can.  There are and probably always will be ups and downs,  but there is hope.  I would not have believed it a while ago but things are improving and I truly hope they will for you too.

I look forward to hearing more of your story.

Best wishes,

Libby.

[Three Roses]

Hello, Hank, and welcome to the forum! Your post really does sound familiar altho today I'm having a pretty good day. I'm sorry you're feeling depressed and I hope that by looking into the books, websites, and other info we reference here you'll find some relief. Don't hesitate to ask a specific question if one pops up. Thanks for joining!

[Kizzie]

Hi and a warm welcome to OOTS Hank.   

I've been to the dark side and know only too well that feeling of just wanting the pain to be over with.  I was so tired, exhausted right down to the bone from trying to keep the trauma at bay.  Couldn't do it so I started drinking heavily and that got so bad I finally went to my GP and told her everything.  Fortunately she did and does care and sent me to a psychiatrist and an addictions counselor.  With their help, medication and posting/reading, little by little I lifted out of the darkness.   

Like Libby I too would not have believed there was hope, but there is and so please keep on reading and posting.  The other thing when you have the energy is to see if you can find a therapist who is trained and experienced in dealing with trauma, and preferably Complex PTSD rather than PTSD.  We have some searchable databases here , and some helpful forms/handouts here  for locating a T.

[hank]

Thanks for your welcomes. I am better today, took care of a couple of things hanging over me and got some sleep after I posted. It is so strange and infuriating how fast the change in mood happens, I feel I get whiplashed by my own emotional instincts: feeling good or feeling like crap goes hand in hand with feeling worthy and feeling like a failure. The accumulation of failure makes it tough to feel worthy. Then I just think, take it easy good times come again. The worst aspect of my negative thinking is feeling the good times are delusion and the bad times are the natural state of my affairs. I wonder, is it possible to hold the opposite perspective in mind: the good times are the natural state and the bad times are the way of delusions. How worthy am I I link to the lack of relationships as I am an expert at destroying trust with my flip flops. Here be a little introspection at a better moment. Thanks!

[Traveller]

Hi Hank,
I am sorry you are so depressed. I know from past experience how miserable it is to be so deep in the pit. Don't give up on therapy, but find a therapist who specializes in working with childhood trauma & C-PTSD. It might be helpful if they are trained in EMDR.
Keep reaching out.

[Kizzie]

I am better today, took care of a couple of things hanging over me and got some sleep after I posted.

   Keep on posting, it can help 

[hank]

Today was a good day. I am making solid progress on a personal coding project I have worked on for years. That is a pretty solitary experience, however. I can barely discuss it with anyone, since I am the only person that really knows it and it is rather large. I wish I could discuss it with other folks who had that sort of knowledge, but I cannot. I have worked on it for years, my art and my engineering in solitude, which is the issue I face. I started moving stuff to my new home, just getting started and not looking forward to it, but I got a start which is good. I also got out with my dog and had some small discussion at the coffee shop and my nurse gave me my shot today. So, I was not completely isolating. I didn't feel abused by the world today and that is important, that feeling of not being a victim. Whatever happened to me and it is past, what is key is how I conduct myself with others, today, not yesterday or tomorrow. There are people I truly miss in my life that I have lost due to my outrage. That is what really makes me sad, the beautiful people I have lost contact with. And I know it is my fault they stopped talking to me. I have a extremely hard time accepting this outcome. In fact, those thoughts of loss are what sends me into the dark places of my soul. That's what makes me feel like a victim, yet I must face it was my behavior that caused these rifts. That is a hard pill to swallow in the midst of paying for the consequences. A good day, but a little bummed out.

Thanks for being here!

[AphoticAtramentous]

I'm happy to hear your day has been rather productive, Hank. ^^
And if you want, you can share about your coding project here if you'd like. I'd be interested to know what it's about, I've done a little bit of programming myself in the past.
I know how you feel though in regards to losing contact with people. There have been so many genuinely good people that I've lost because of my actions and behaviour and it sucks but I reassure myself that what's happened has happened and I can only try and work and improve on these things so it doesn't happen again, or at least happens less.

[hank]

I just spoke to my mom, my FOO, and it did not go well. Perhaps I do take too much of a victim mentality, but I am tired of being accused of having mental illness then her throwing expectations upon me to act as if I did not. It is all my fault, a result of my bad decisions, sure. She fails to understand that I do not trust this system of ours and I am exposed, gravely, by my situation. Whenever I claim that I am being unfairly or unrighteously treated, she provides examples of my poor decisions due to my mistrust. Where's the love? She ALWAYS criticizes me. I am always wrong.

You asked about my coding project. I am hesitant to go full bore about it. This forum is regarding mental illnesses, yet this coding project and my dog are the two bright spots in my life, so perhaps it is appropriate to discuss a little. I am trying to build a cross-language platform for secure interactions, focused on  creating a donation network, sort of like ebay/craigslist, but donations with a flowback of credit for allowing donators for receive donations based upon their contributions. In this fashion I want to engage companies to participate to reduce their costs as they receive donations.  This is the high-level plan: http://jmp.sh/qVXc099. The day-to-day is building ASN1 encoding in Java to get a bit-compatible encrypted bridge between a Smalltalk environment called Squeak, and Java working at the bottom layer. Here is the spec: http://jmp.sh/Ge5Nm73. Here is the Java code: https://github.com/ZiroZimbarra/callistohouse. I wrote every single line of it, so a real effort. I am a bit of a fanatic about what I am doing, waiting for something to swing my way in support or shared effort. Sadly, I am still solo. You know what I mean?

Thanks for your interest.

[hank]

I got nobody to talk to. I try to talk to my mom, but she blames me for everything, thinking the rest of the world is trustworthy? * that. I don't trust anybody. That's my problem. But I am delusional to think I will gain comfort and healthy support in talking with my FOO. They started it, in the first place. Who is misguided? The blind leading the blind,. she values money and not relationships. Yet I am the one who is alone. So I guess it really is all my fault. Hurumph.

[hank]

I think I just got ASN1 working sufficiently in Java to start de/encoding my frame headers and that would bring connection between Squeak and Java. Check out squeak and scratch! 

http://squeak.org
https://scratch.mit.edu/

[AphoticAtramentous]

You asked about my coding project. I am hesitant to go full bore about it. This forum is regarding mental illnesses, yet this coding project and my dog are the two bright spots in my life

I dunno, I like asking people about their hobbies and what matters most to them. It's interesting seeing how much dedication some people put into their works and projects and I love seeing it.
But wow, you really are into it! This is really amazing, so much planning and work! Wow. A lot of good stuff here definitely, I hope you will continue with it. And I hope you will find some help with it soon! It can definitely be useful having more than one person working on this kind of stuff, as long as you've got comments in your code of course.

I got nobody to talk to.

If it helps, you've got us you can talk to. ^^

[hank]

You asked about my coding project. I am hesitant to go full bore about it. This forum is regarding mental illnesses, yet this coding project and my dog are the two bright spots in my life

I dunno, I like asking people about their hobbies and what matters most to them. It's interesting seeing how much dedication some people put into their works and projects and I love seeing it.
But wow, you really are into it! This is really amazing, so much planning and work! Wow. A lot of good stuff here definitely, I hope you will continue with it. And I hope you will find some help with it soon! It can definitely be useful having more than one person working on this kind of stuff,

Thanks! It is refreshing that someone sees the effort I have put into all of this. I have hopes of crowd funded or innovation funded financial help to hire help, if open-source help is not forthcoming. Given the protocol spec, versions in C# and Objective-C could be had, but not by me. I focus on Squeak to Java and a key aspect is ASN1 encoding of the Choice type, as well as SAX parsing ASN1 for callback into my scope.

as long as you've got comments in your code of course.

Um, well, no. Or perhaps one single comment. My approach, informed from my deep background in Smalltalk, is that any complex piece of software needs to be observed and investigated deeply, to get properly oriented. Comments may help some but the right habit is to have explanatory code, that documents itself. With comments or not, the point is that deep observation of how the code transforms is needed. The best is to set a breakpoint in the test, and in deeper callbacks, and follow the code in a debugger.

So, no, no code comments.

I got nobody to talk to.

If it helps, you've got us you can talk to. ^^

Thank you, it does help, as long as I can keep control in what I have to say.

[Quiet]

Welcome, hank!  I'm glad you're here, and sorry you had the unfortunate circumstances that led you to need to be here.  I'm sorry that no one seems to care.  I, too, feel very much dead inside some days.  Joy does not come easy to me, and when it does, it's fleeting or "restrained."

I wanted to you tell you that you write amazing code!  I'm not a great Java programmer, but I am also a programmer and database person, and I know talent when I see it.  I've created a thread under Creative Expressions -> Other called Joy of Coding.  Please keep us up to date on your project!