Hi everyone. I hope everybody is coping well today. I’m brand-new to SANE and to this forum. Certainly, no stranger to mental health struggles though! it’s really hard to encapsulate anyone’s experience in a welcome chat, but I’ll try and express what’s going on with me in hopefully not too long an explanation.
i’m nearing 40. I come from what I would call a cult like family with a malignant narcissist father Who took the wheel for Way too many years. Everyone of my close members of my family, In my mind, are gone forever. Others have become narcissists and others disassociate from reality entirely. The only person that has to not just acknowledge it, but work on it and feel it and deal with it, and not have it acknowledged by anybody else.. is me. I’ve cut my father off entirely now. Even in my heart, I do have an eventual Killswitch and it took 38 years with him but he’s dead to me. I only just realised today I spent so many years on that that I’ve got mum to deal with now and that seems really overwhelming because she’s a victim but she’s also extremely dismissive of me and my experience because that would mean she would have to face it and her part in enabling… And she enabled a bit too bloody well!
I’ve had drug addiction issues for years, since I was 15 years old, self-medicating with my trauma. I got introduced to drugs by a 30-year-old man, who began shooting me up with them, and my folks let me move in with this person!?? Where were they?
I wasted years of my life, working in the family business, and for nothing, just to be thrown out to the side when a male came back, because of course my father is an absolute misogynistic woman hater… in a venomous way. He wonders why I’m such a feminist and angry all the time. Amazing insight. 🤦♀️
I used to be full blown codependent, but now I can definitely be alone, but I still have anxious attachment issues. I did narcissist, and even a psychopath was just horrible people until I finally learnt to be attracted to nice people. But unfortunately I’m still attracting avoidants.
My latest relationship blew up recently, and I’m once again having to start over and the thing is… I’m in eternal optimist. I’ve always believed in myself, I’ve always believed that I could get well, but I’m starting to notice things in my body now and The body does keep the score. It doesn’t matter how much I intellectually understand these things, I’ve now hit a wall and I need to physically get them out of my body.
Being the forgotten child, and a people pleaser… not only is there, not even much history medically about me, like I’m walking around carrying the most insane stories and experiences in my body and I feel like I’m just doing it alone so often . I have been extremely high functioning and professional for years whilst being a drug addict, and dealing with- sometimes absolutely no emotional regulation whatsoever. I internalised it.
I had a dog for 15 years, and he absolutely saved my life. he is my greatest teacher so far. He’s the only soul that taught me that I am worthy of love, simply just for being… it was the greatest gift. He passed away a couple of years ago 💔
I thought after he passed that I would not make the same mistakes again because, he lives in me now… so how can I not love myself? I can’t do his memory a disservice like that.
But I then did make the same mistakes. Not as intensely or for as long…but still the same bloody mistakes! Unfortunately what I have really come to learn is that it doesn’t matter what I know, my nervous system is still throwing me into fight mode, which is always my trigger mode. I recognise all the signs at the beginning, but then once I let a couple of boundary slip, again, I fall right down the Rabbit hole of losing myself and all self esteem.. and then my relationships fail. I feel worthless again, and I start using drugs to cope.
One thing I’ve decided is that I’m going to be absolutely alone for a minimum of two years and I just want to focus on myself because I just really want to get to the next stage but I’m just hitting a wall now. I’m hoping to find out how to get past it here on sane. I always have no issues with helping other people. I could do that all day every day, but when it comes to getting help for myself, I minimise every time. I need a push, because I just can’t keep doing this alone.
i’m really sad today because I only just realised that I worked so many years on the Dad trauma and stopping that, that I kind of completely missed my mother healing and she has an insane personal thing happening right now, and I just can’t emotionally hold her any more. I just don’t have the capacity.
But I think I’ve been so mean to her 😔 I’ve been so angry at her for just not thinking about us… but I think I need to stop being mean to her in order to be nice to myself, I don’t know. I’m just really sad. Feeling lonely.
I am an eternal optimist, but damn… It’s still so easy for me to get it so wrong, again? Now I need to again stop self-medicating, start fresh alone, and hopefully level up again.
CPTSD, no doubt a substance abuse disorder, a mood disorder, anxiety so high that it actually fuels me in a way that allows me to be extremely productive, but I’m pretty sure all that’s very stressful on my body.
so I’ll keep on going what else can I do… But I’m just so tired, you know? I’m so so tired 😔
If you were able to actually pay attention for all of that, thank you. You are a saint.
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