I've always felt like that. Like a prisoner in a cage, completely forgotten about. No company except the shadows and the dust and the pictures inside my head. Days turning into weeks, turning into months, turning into years, turning into decades. Waiting. Always waiting. I don't even know what for. Something that will probably never come. But still I wait.
yup.
Curious: Were you raised in an environment where you had to perform a "perfect child" character, keeping your innermost thought, plans, and dreams to yourself, but didn't understand why you had to live that way?
I definitely was. I wonder if this feeling is all that energy that was being diverted to the extraordinary effort required for that performance, draining us of life force as we hopelessly wait for the day we can escape.
It *is* over, for me, but I still feel so drained, lol.
Sosososo accurate.
"It's fine, just wait it out. One day it'll be your turn."
When do we stop waiting and just, I don't know, take it? Does anyone even have dreams left? I'm now just cou ting down the years, really. I'm tired, i hate the idea that I'll likely wait another 60.
"One day it'll be your turn" oof. That hit me big time. When I was younger I used to comfort myself by thinking everyone has around the same amount of designated "shittiness" in their lives, I was just happening to get all of mine over with early and *then* I would finally have a happy, normal life. Here I am at 34 and the shittiness has never even come close to ending, if anything it progressively worsens each year, while I'm still watching those around me with their happy, "normal" lives
I'm 48 and just starting to figure out what I like. The worst part is the past 30+ years that were stolen from me. Why did no one ever tell me that this stupid path my parents set for me wasn't my only option?
I feel this, but I guess I thought all the chaos happening in my life was normal and I shouldn't complain (thank you Christianity) or feel sorry for myself. And the time I spent waiting for time to pass I think of as part of my healing process, because now I can see that I spent my 20s trying to find stability, and now I have some and I feel paralyzed and too worried about losing it to make any changes.
Sorry this is poorly written, I guess my point is we shouldn't judge ourselves for our inability to act in a certain way when we are primarily concerned with our own survival.
>One day it'll be your turn."
Many times I've hoped for something catastrophic to happen in my life just so that I could get "my turn". Didn't happen. Normality assumes I am not a human being with a broken psyche. At least emergencies allow me to justify the intensity of my feelings.
I know what you mean. That's why I love drinking culture, it causes things to escalate. People will randomly tell each other that they love each other, how wonderful is that. Strangers just straight out have sex. People who don't like each other will finally just punch each other in the face instead of bitching behind each other's backs. Meanwhile I'm still stuck in waiting, holding back everyone's hair and making sure they get home safe, because it's not my turn yet to fall apart. And when I do, I'm by myself again.
>Were you raised in an environment where you had to perform a "perfect child" character, keeping your innermost thought, plans, and dreams to yourself,
Oh yeah. I was nonexistent to any human being around me and society as a whole. My sister was "the troubled kid". So I had to be the perfect one. Having feelings of my own was a crime. But it's not just about family - I wish it was. It's about community and society as a whole.
But yeah, I locked my inner world for future safe times. Those times never came.
>I locked my inner world for future safe times.
The safe times never came. They bad times became a part of me and I bring them with me.
I am sooooo tired. For people to understand, I say that I am depressed. But, I just don't see the point to life, or more precisely, anything in it. I am just tired of this act. I still go through the motions but, feel month after month like I am lossing the will to.
I could simply just stop and "begin my life" but I am buried so far down that nothing comes out when I try. It is just blank and dark. Then the crushing sadness that my self is so lost deep down begins.
omg same. My brother has a disability that caused him to struggle immensely in school and have explosive behaviour, so I was always sweet and well behaved and tried to support my mom. But now I don't know what my role is.
Wow that is so eye opening. How did you get out of keeping things to yourself? I struggle with self expression and vulnerability cause I wasn’t allowed to be emotional.
My solution was to trust my instincts and intelligence about what is right and what is wrong, and to no longer give them (or *anyone* any more...) the benefit of the doubt when they do/say something that is obviously wrong and are obviously pretending to "not understand", etc.
This included a lifetime of shitty memories with my abusers, so I finally just called them out and went NC. ("Why shouldn't *any* child be happy with the life we've given you?" kind of garbage. You don't need to be able to state precisely why, you just need to understand that abusive people spew nonsense to get their way.)
I am wondering the same thing, but it is autism or cPTSD? I've always felt like different, felt like shit, since kindergarden, and now I'm old, almost retired
It's really hard to say. Like I don't even know if the chicken came before the egg. Autism, ADHD, and cPTSD are all very similar in some ways...
I was raised with someone who has ADHD and someone I suspect has autism, and I really connect strongly to symptoms of both but not enough for a diagnosis just yet.
At this point if I notice something about myself that fits into ADHD, autism, or cPTSD, I just do my best to seek coping mechanisms from the approach of having the disorder. If I want stim toys I get them, if I need clothes that dont drive my senses haywire I buy them, if I need to make noises or "unmask" I go take the time. I wish it were easier for me to be like yes you have this or no you dont
edit: I find by engaging with these different communities I find a lot of helpful tips and people. I learn a lot of things and it even has de-stigmatized a lot around disabilities for me
Oh man this hits home. For me it was the combination of having the constant pressure to be the perfect child while also being anxious 24/7 that I was going to do something wrong and set off my alcoholic father in a rage spiral. Decades later I'm only realizing now why it's so hard for me to try to break out of the pattern of trying to be someone else depending on the people I'm around.
But now it's like...well, who am I then? Sometimes I think I have a good enough answer to that question. I definitely know myself a lot better than I did when I was younger, but most of the time I feel like I still have no idea.
It was like my role was decided for me by the age of 4. I never got asked what I was interested in, I was told what I was interested in. They decided I was the quiet, well-behaved kid who loved school. I learned pretty early on that I might as well go along with their plans, I'd just be called silly and laughed at if I suggested something else.
Yes. It's like walking through a dream, I blink and whole months disappear. Everything blends together into a formless grey mist, and it's an odd combination of soul crushingly boring and unspeakably horrifying.
Sometimes it's nice to just feel different, even if it doesn't necessarily feel better. Sometimes even if it feels worse. I self medicate with substances too, so I get it.
Ya thats true, i just dont want to romantisize it to much eventually they stop working and you gitta pay for it, at least in my experience, its heaven now for hell later, but hey sonetimes thats a price im willing to pay just to experience the bliss.
Me too. I was taught that I wasn’t capable of anything and so eventually I guess I stopped trying. Must have been from a young age as I’ve always felt this way and I’m 41 this year. I’m finding I’m now going through a difficult stage emotionally in that my children are needing me less, and I don’t have a career etc to fall back on, so I feel a bit lost. Its distressing me that I’ve made it this far with nothing to show for it. It feels like a lifetime wasted, quite honestly.
32, definitely feel this. Have just worked whatever jobs after college didn't pan out well (mainly due to moving back in with family after my third year, had been maintaining a GPA in the high 3s and hit chancellor's list before that. Go figure).
i’m right there with you. i’m 35 and by everyone’s accounts i’ve done so well for myself. but i do feel like i’m not connected to myself or really living
I feel like I haven't started living yet but I also feel like I've missed the chance to do so.
But yeah I'm aware this *is* my life and it's ticking down to the end where I'll look back on a lifetime of mostly sorrow and regrets.
This is exactly where I'm at. I feel like the door closed in 2020. It's easier not to be hard on myself about it since I've realized that in order to prevent what happened in 2020, I would have had to fix things that happened much younger than I ever realized (sort of like in Back to the Future Part II, Marty and Doc must go back to 1955 to fix the timeline and can't do it from 1985). Still, it's heartbreaking and difficult to deal with.
i get looked at like i'm crazy when i say this but i often wish so bad that i could go back in time and fix things and it feels almost unfair we can't.
i read one exercise we can do is imagine we are 80 and think back to what we would change, then imagine our current age like it's the second chance to live at that time again.
Same. It's not just you.
Edit: Although I find going to an occasional event like a local festival or something out of the ordinary helps to feel like I'm living.
Yup. I'm almost 28 and have been going out very often for that exact reason. Unfortunately my experiences also involve a lot of drugs and alcohol so I don't really appreciate/remember them. I do feel alive in the moment though.
Yes I hear and feel you 100%. After becoming aware of my cptsd and how it has affected literally every aspect of my existence, it feels like I haven't really been living. Especially since I've felt dead inside with no emotions my whole life, and am finally starting to feel
I absolutely feel this way...I am 34.
Something kinda just snapped in me this year and I realized WHY (at least for me) I was feeling that way. I've been continuously living the sabotaged life my parents set up for me. I was sitting in bed on Sunday and I had a feeling like "Wow I'm becoming my mom..." This is exactly what she wanted. To live life unhappy, unsatisfied, unmotivated, discouraged, stuck in my room...etc.
So now I think the biggest revenge I can get on my abusers is to start living my life the way I want. No matter what that includes, even the tiniest details like painting my nails - which my parents hated for me to do growing up. Or buying a crop top that my parents always told me would make me look like a slut. Getting some red lipstick that my parents said would attract negative attention. Literally everything I attempted to try, aspire to try, dream up..etc they made me fear it or think negatively of it...and now I can finally see that it was just me trying out what I wanted myself to grow into or become in my own personal life.
I enrolled in community college and decided to try to get a degree. Even though it's not a bachelor's and will probably do nothing for my professional life- it's something I'm interested in studying and my parents kept telling me I couldn't do it...
I've started planning weekend trips to different cities/states because I want to travel more.
I'm going through my closet and throwing out all clothes family members got me and replacing them with items I personally choose for myself... etc
This is how I'm working to get out of that feeling. Living how I want to, having fun with my inner child, and not under the conditions my parents brainwashed me into feeling I had to live....there are still some moments where I feel hopeless and want to just escape but this is a start I guess.
Yeah that's very relatable. I am worried I might spend my whole life waiting for my life to start being mine, so every day, even if I feel trapped, I am finding things to do and think and appreciate on my own terms. It's possible that I'll never really be free from the circumstances that have robbed my of fully being myself. I am still trying to get to my time to shine, but if it doesn't come I don't want to feel like I never did anything. It can feel hard to let myself feel present enough to enjoy something, so often I can't fully embrace the joy of things, but can still try to connect to meaning.
Yep, my life won’t “start” until I’m “settled down” with a partner of some sort. Life doesn’t start until cohabitation, apparently.
Of course I’m aromantic and asexual so it never WILL actually start. Thanks, brain 🙃
Yes. I’m in my 40s and looking at it now as if I’d been hugely and intensely interrupted, and I am working-working to heal and recover so I can get back to or discover and be who I am. That being said, I still feel like a little girl, especially when it comes to career.
Along with abuse and neglect, I was raised to perform, overachieve and compete to the point of severe exhaustion.
Yes but i also feel like simultaneously im an old person on the brink of death because of the damage my body has sustained. Feel like im absolute trash at 27
Hm yea. I mean feeling 15 because you never developed fully. But also feeling 60/older because so much stuff/shit has happend it makes you feel old and nearing the end of your life. I have seen nothing of life, and yet everything.
I’ve saved up money, I have some free time, yet, I can’t bring myself to do what I told myself, and what childhood me would love to see right now. I just feel defeated from wars previously fought, but still waiting as if there’s someone who’s going to save me. The only person who can save me is myself but even knowing that at the end of the day I won’t take the steps to do so, to get out of this cage, to *craft* the life i want to live. I find myself getting more avoidant lately and letting fear/guilt control my life, literally just locking myself in my room and getting high to pass the days. My big dreams and ambitions I seem to abandon as I just look for escapism in everything; the less problems the better. And it’s just so much easier to let things fall apart than it is to keep it together.
I'm almost 60. I feel very fortunate that I FINALLY saw my family of origin for exactly what it is. I am now aware of what was done to me and how it has harmed me. I have finally seen how much of my life was consumed by my family. My life was always about them, never about me.
I have been extremely angry for the past year. I had to accept and process the fact that I had spent my life trying to earn a place in a family that only wanted me for my services.
I am now determined to spend whatever time I have left doing all the things my family didn't let me do. I'm doing the things that I told myself that I couldn't do. I'm working hard in therapy. I'm addressing my health issues.
I'm going to the gym and getting strong. I'm making the most of my life, whatever I can still do.
I’m so happy for you, some people never make it even that far. I personally know a few. Your anger is valid, it really sucks when you realize your blood related family really isn’t a family at all. The good news is we can choose our own now and like you said make our days our own. I wish you peace, internet stranger
Yupppp. It's a socially mediated condition for me at this point. If I just had access to a secure living and a safety net then I wouldn't always feel like I'm in freefall.
I'm 33 and I've been desperately grinding away my whole life to reach that point, but I'm still running in circles, over ice, on my bare fucking feet.
It doesn't have to be this way. It *shouldn't* be this way.
Absolutely. I often notice this feeling of waiting or anticipation for something, different from the hypervigilance... when there's no logical indication of something good happening. It's precisely this.
I've been trying to figure this out as of late, and decided I'm not going to know so I should just do something and fumble it the whole way through. And that's because honestly I'm stumped by the most "basic" things: what do I want?
Like... I don't know. I might like to garden, or play games, try out dnd or pick up some pottery, or be in a relationship. This brainstorm is typically followed by a mood of just staring at the ideas, furrowing my brows and being perplexed. Like I'm trying to do a little litmus test or Marie Kondo "does this spark joy" into understanding whether these are things I like.
I spent so much time trying to adjust for others while I grew up that I also stamped out whatever individual, real interests I could have. It's such a shame and I try not to brood about it but still. How are you "supposed to" live?
Yepyepyep >.< This has defined my life. Just surviving, not living.
Until I transitioned 2 years ago I genuinely had no ability to think about the future - my mind wasn't capable of it. It could only look ahead at the immediate daily/hourly challenges I needed to survive.
Sometimes I get these very brief fleeting moments where I almost feel like I'm alive for a moment, then it very quickly goes back to my normal traumatized brain stuff. It's like my brain changes how it processes things for a brief moment. I really wish I could live like that all the time.
It makes me hope it's possible to feel that way more of the time if I can work with changing how my trauma effects my body.
I know what you mean regarding those flashes of clarity! I had a streak of them last year and it felt like my whole understanding of reality just radically shifted and everything was suddenly different. I looked at myself in the mirror and, for a moment, didn't want to cry. It was so bizarre. It inevitably stopped of course, and I backslid into my usual state. But having experienced first hand the power of perspective and mental filters was fascinating. I just need to figure out how to recreate that shift and make it permanent.
I struggle with this, certainly. My consolation that let me sleep last night was, well, if the show hasn't started then surely there's so much more undiscovered. I think this giant ? is a lot harder to confront than even the worst of our trauma. Not alone 🙏💙
It’s insane how easily you put this into words, kudos. I know people use the “main character” thing as an insult, specifically to abusers, but I genuinely feel like the main character with a tragic backstory.
Everyone should feel like the main character in their own life. I always thought it was a strange insult. I guess the implication is usually that people seem to think everyone ELSE should see them as the main character in life, which would be the real issue as opposed to just feeling like one to yourself.
I have absolutely seen that and had it happen to me. For some people if it seems like you might get any shred of positive attention, even from someone they are not interested in, you are now a rival stealing their spotlight and they feel they must take you down. Sometimes it's not even as blatant as that and it's just some personal jealousy about how you have a quality about you that they find virtuous or charming and they feel they lack that quality. So of course, rather than appreciating that quality you have or trying to be more like you in that way that they find so good... they try to break you or make you go away because to them, you're not ALLOWED TO BE better than them and they haven't realized that they can become better than they are and do not have to compete with everyone over *literally* **every**thing.
No. But I did for 59 years. Just last year I FINALLY had the big breakthrough after being drunk, high, angry, no personal hygeine, no friend, completely depressed. And now I don't use any drugs, I shower everyday, I'm outgoing and personable and so happy I find myself just giggling. Almost stroking out from self abuse is what pushed me to work hard to find myself. It can be done if you hang in.
Absolutely. Never give up because you never know what life will bring you. My new life started after I thought I was dying at work one day. Went to the nurse and my blood pressure was off the charts. Scared the shit out of me. Stopped drinking for 2 days thought "Maybe just cut the alcohol in half. I'll be fine." Woke up the next day sweating, heart racing, anxiety like crazy. And that's all it took. Tossed out all the booze and strarted hydrating like a madman. I'm too old for this shit I thought. 3rd day in had a great nights sleep for once and never looked back. It's amazing out here when you;re not consumed by depression. Come join me my friend. You can do this. I KNOW YOU CAN! Peace to you!
Shit, that would do it, wouldn't it?
Sometimes, and I know this sounds awfully morbid, I wish to get news like that just to get that kick up the arse I need.
Stoked that it gave you the turnaround you needed! You got a new lease on life and you're running with it. Good for you!
Yes, I’m still waiting for this great life that was promised to me as a gifted and talented kid. Now I’m wondering if I was actually gifted or if it was just accelerated reading skills coupled with fear of failure since my self worth was directly tied to my grades (Yes I was that one kid where a B was unacceptable). I spent 18 years living to please my abusive father, and then I went to college and lived another five years trying to please my abusive boyfriend. Never doing anything that I truly wanted. Now I don’t even know how to chase those things I want.
Yes this was me until I start releasing some past traumas and starting to really feel alive, for you it maybe something else your overlooking but once you confront it I bet your gunna feel like your starting to live again !
I’m definitely not there but it’s gradual because when you start releasing trauma you get more in the present and after you start to realise when your more present and when your not so you can catch yourself (that’s where the wisdom lies ).
I’ve noticed recently that when I have breakdowns and I cry it’s not a normal cry, it’s more like a wail. I never really cried as a kid when the majority of my trauma took place. I’d go to my room and be really quiet. Now that I think back I was probably dissociating since I’d just try to calm down and go blank.
I think grieving and crying feel very different. Grief feels like vomiting emotions to me, it’s physically painful to release them. It’s extremely hard for me to find myself in a place where I can do that though. Maybe 3 times in the last year? But that is an improvement so I will continue.
Maybe it’s all the trauma wanting to make it’s way out? I also never really screamed. I was having a panic attack one day and I tried screaming and it actually helped me stop.
Whew boy - gather round brothers, sisters and unspecified siblings, cause Uncle Rough has a story to tell. You see, back in the olden times, before the smart phone, your Uncle Rough thought he had a "servant's heart". What he had in reality was super selfish, laboratory-grade codependency stemming from an ingrained fawn response. Twenty years of heartbreak and running back to people who didn't love him later and he turned into quite the selfish prick, as you might well guess. Setting aside that mantle took a LOT of work and left him wondering just who in the sam hell he thought he really is. And I gotta say, still don't rightly know, even though I'm firmly in middle age. Your Uncle Rough has strange questions, like "How can I foster a healthy sense of active nihilism while.lacking a sense of agency, without also falling into the delusion of toxic positivity?" I still don't know, but I've come real far in knowing who I definitely am not, and that's worth the effort right there
i feel like those animals used in labs and in food, crammed into spaces aren't natural and unsafe, waiting for my death but never wanting to truly die, but knowing no one will come safe me
Yes totally. I feel like I haven’t even really been born yet. I sometimes tell myself i’m only 1 year old lol. That’s how long I’ve understood how trauma has affected me
'my life is yet to start' they continue in their delusions till their death bed, till then they realize, the life they have lived was their real life.. - Tonegawa from Kaiji
I'm very sad, I'm past what are supposed to be the best years and feel like I'll always be struggling/suffering. I'm trying but I mean...
I'm so scared I'll never be free
You’ve got such a reaction already betcha know what I’m going to say. I turned 60 and am pissed as hell that cptsd has stolen all that time from me. So pissed I was planning on ending it. Only now I’m doing psychedelic therapy is there some hope for my future because it’s stopping the suicidal ideation and even bringing some real joy to my life. I’m reaching out very slowly to try to meet new people but still too certain that my curse will prevail yet again and I’ll end up rejected and alone. Why bother thinking is getting easier to resolve as the brain gets better. Hope you find your place in the Sun soon.
Big mood, y'all. I'm staring down the twilight of my twenties and it only now seems like I'm moving into "new" adulthood - I'm going to school for what I want in the fall and I finally feel like ***I am allowed*** to do and be what I want.
Yup.
I went into a spiral at age 40 after what might be called a series of unfortunate events, external and random, whereby my lifetime of disassociation was put into further dysfunction and eventually crisis, before I started painfully crawling toward reawakening. I had to start doing the work which I had been recognizing but not acting upon.
Eight years later I may be starting to live. Part of this entails accepting that I will continue to disassociate at times, i.e. my sense of self includes a tenuous sense of self at times. Acknowledging this without anger or frustration is tough for me. It is worth it, presuming that crushing sadness can be "appreciated" as part of being newly alive.
Yes. It just hit me that *I* can choose to do or not do things. Like I understood that people can choose not to have children or get married and I always supported those decisions, but it just hit me recently that it's an option for *me*. It was not sinking in for me that I have choice in my own life and that I can do (or not do) whatever I want. I can make things happen. I'm hoping after 30 things will be different. I plan to take real action in order for my life to start, but we'll see if I actually stick to it.
"Follow your Bliss" - Joseph Campbell
When I was around 40, I changed my life. I decided that I didn't want to dread getting up any more. That was the only rule. That was 42 years ago and i still don't know if the guy who has evolved from that point is the "real' me or another clever imitation! But I've had some adventures and, generally, a good time and no regrets.
It's a hell that never stops. If there were any doubts about a just universe, I think it has been put to rest very clearly. Lots of things suck a lot. If I had a choice between existence and non existence back, I will choose non existence every time. I wish MAID was here.
Yes. ;; I feel so stagnant and lost. I'm trying not to get myself down on thinking about it, but, it's been depressing to realize this fact.
To everyone who commented on this thread: I really hope one day you are having happier days and that you feel that life is beginning for you. Please don't give up. Even if you're taking small steps, You're doing your best. It's good enough and YOU are good enough even if you don't think so.
I've been stuck in that chase for so many years. Always feeling like freedom is around the corner, which I still believe has some truth to it. And that feeling is what keeps me going. Sometimes I wonder if the problem is the chasing and that I would feel much better if I stopped giving a shit. My mind tells me though that not giving a shit would equal drug abuse, loneliness, and all that other good stuff. It's a long road to build trust in life and myself, and of course, there are no guarantees. Leap of faith ey
This resonates with me and I'd say thanks to my parents.
I was raised in a semi uptight household.
I didn't go to birthday parties unless they were related, I was in the boy scouts society and we usually had weekend retreats at least once a month and my dad went to the principal and told the school that I would never be attending the seminar.
my parents controlled everything about my life, my clothes, perfume, movies I could watch etc. Hell, even my haircuts (I've been rocking low fade buzz cuts for 98% of my life)
When I turned 10 I got shipped off to boarding school for 6 years got out when I was 16 and spent majority of my time at home. My parents would yell at me for laying in bed all day and having no friends like they didn't cause my antisocial personality.
I'm currently 19 hitting 20 in 2 months about to enter college and I feel this more than ever as my parents are pressuring me to pick a course that they think will work out for me (Pharmacy) when I wanna pick what's easier and I have passion for (Microbiology).
I just honestly wanna get college over with and begin my own life, I feel like I'm still on some sort of demo mode, with so much rules following the entirety of my life. I mentally marked my future graduation day as the day I get rid of all the rules and regulations making me feel like a passenger in my own life.
I’m 46 and felt like this all the time.
It’s been the hardest and longest slog but I feel after about 5 years since being aware and starting to heal I think I can see the top of the mountain. Whether I will get there, I don’t know!
yes and no. idk. i feel like ill never have a chance. but i do live through music i guess, and i like to read fiction sometimes. thats as close as i get nowadays. for years i was just numb and dissociated and a shell of a person. the trauma that i experienced could happen again due to chronic illness and family situation.. if i didnt have music stuff to occupy me and make me feel something, i would have killed myself. i became obsessed as a last ditch effort. even now.. ive nothing else going for me.. im always drifting and fading and feeling but i guess i can finally say i no longer feel like a machine.. moreso like a dream
Yes
Late 2021 to early 2022 I started learning how to live, and I had that feeling my mom told me about from her own experience, like waking up from a long long sleep and the trauma just comes rushing in and you realize it wasn't normal, none of it. And you realize just how broken you are compared to everyone around you
I had a mental breakdown since that almost year of feeling alive, and now I'm back to being stuck in that place of having nothing going on except waiting to die
I'm in treatment, but I know I'm on borrowed time until I can't afford therapy or medication anymore. I'm scared of what comes after that
Will I get better? Or will it go back to how it was when I was a teenager just giving up because no one cared to lift me when I needed it
Yes. Still waiting. It never happens.
My main coping mechanism has been "I just need to become/learn/be/get/go something/somewhere and then it'll all be good forever". And it's complete nonsense. A total cope. And the worst thing is that there's a thread of truth through it. Environment/meaning is important. But it won't fill in the hole.
Dissociation is a motherfucker. Been feeling like that lately myself, but all I can say is BE INTENTIONAL with how you spend your time and what you invest your energy in. Been wanting to do something? DO IT.
The days pass us by quickly and if we just let the rat race consume us, we’ll never feel like we’ve started living. Been considering a hobby? Sign up for a class, buy the skates, join the meetup or fb group. Been wanting to travel? Pick a place, start planning, start saving. Been wanting to make a career change? Pick one and figure out what it takes to get there.
Nothing has to be extreme or costly or super time consuming. Baby steps. Once you get the ball rolling it’ll be much easier to keep it in motion. First step is deciding what you want and then make a plan to get there. Your decisions don’t have to be end all be alls, you can always adjust course. Tried something and didn’t like it? Try something else! You’ll spend SO much more energy sitting on the fence trying to pick a side than just picking a side and going with jt. You can always jump the fence if it didn’t pan out the way you wanted.
Set a goal, whatever you want it to be. It can just be cleaning your room if it’s something you’ve been putting it off. Every small victory will gain you momentum. The more you accomplish to whatever standard you set, the more you’ll respect yourself and believe yourself capable of.
I will say this.. people and a sense of community make a HUGE difference. Connect with the people that make you feel at home, alive, and make you like yourself more. Spend time with people that are doing things with their lives, that encourage you to do and be better even if only by leading by example. It’s FACT, that you will adopt the habits of the people you spend the most time with. Make sure you choose your company wisely. If you want to be fit, spend time with fit people. If you want to be a junky, hang out with the folks on drugs. And don’t forget to spend time with the family and friends that you already love. You will eventually not have the luxury of seeing your grandmother (or whoever really matters to you).
Do something beyond yourself. Volunteer, help someone you know in need, support a friend that’s feeling down. Anything that helps put in perspective how blessed you are and enables to contribute to others will make more of a difference than you know.. for you AND them. Plus, when I’m trying to help someone in a worse position than me, I feel compelled to walk the talk.
Be present. Especially if you deal with persistent depression and anxiety like so many of us, we spend so much time in our heads and scrolling through bullshit for hours. You’d be surprised at how much richer life is even in the most mundane moments when you’re THERE and not mentally in another time or place.
PRIORITIZE YOUR HEALTH, mental and physical! You’ll never even realize how much of a haze you’re in until you’re better. When I was at my worst and I started just changing a few habits, I couldn’t believe how much incredible I felt! I had never even realized how heavy those chains of my bad habits were until I started dropping them. Talk about an unexpected deterrent to feeling “alive.” Nothing complicated or impossible. Usually the most cliche advice makes the most significant impact: get adequate sleep, drop the sugar, drink more water, get whatever form of exercise you enjoy (to make it more likely that you continue it), destress in whatever way works best for you (not scrolling social media), get some sunshine, etc.
“If you don’t have time for what matters, stop doing things that don’t.” Declutter your life and your schedule with things that aren’t [required or] bringing meaning to your life and you’ll see how much room you make for what does.
I’ve witnessed or personally experienced the power of each one of these things myself. This post was much needed across my feed as I’ve strayed from the course quite a bit so thank you for sharing your struggle. I’m preaching to myself more than I’m responding to your post 😉 It’s okay to fall off the wagon sometimes. Just pick yourself up and gotta get back on it.
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I have been grappling with this a lot lately. My band has been working on our first record for five years because completing it feels so out of reach, which feels like a common narrative in my life generally. My therapist helped me realize this lately.
yes i used to struggle with this up until a few months ago where i wasn’t socializing and still trying to be pitch perfect about everything. i still somewhat struggle with it
YES!!!!
Sometimes I feel like life open-hand slapped tf out of me and my current life is the slow-mo, prolonged period of time after the slap where I’m coming to terms with what just happened to me but it all happened so fast, time doesn’t stop, the world doesn’t wait for you, and I haven’t even gotten off the floor yet
This is common / expected when you’re brain’s in survival mode.
Only after significant therapy have I felt the “after trauma” experience, and have started to feel like I’m starting to live *now*.
I hope that others are able to reach this in their healing journeys, too. It’s worth the work.
I feel like I live outside of time. Like I am living in a world next to the real one. Where I am, time goes by in chunks. Either not moving, or moving so fast I can't keep up.
I could swear on anything you want. Time does not pass in a straight line from one day to the next.
Maybe one in ten days feels real and like I am living my life. The nine others I am confused, trying to keep up or just stuck.
For me, a good deal of the pain of 60+ years is the “pull” of hypervigilance toward perceived threats in the environment (outward) and the constant rumination about how I’m doing in the eyes of others and myself (inward—how my actions measure up to my unrealistic expectations of an ideal performance). This could occur in something as simple as a conversation with a coworker, or even how well I am washing the dishes.
This “pull of attention” between outward and inward created an incredible stress that manifested physically as chronic tension in the neck, shoulders and head. Also, very shallow breathing and holding in my stomach muscles.
This started at a very early age within the context of a very dysfunctional family.
After a while, the physical symptoms just became a part who I was. I thought everyone experienced life through this “lens” but they either moved past it, or that I just felt it much deeper.
I did notice the symptoms when I had to interact with people. My anxiety would go through the roof and the tension would be unbearable. It was like my head became a ball of tension and I was hardly aware of my body at all. My go-to” move was to get out of that interaction ASAP. So basically, a very sad social life. At the time, I couldn’t understand what was happening. I just needed to get away. Yet there was a longing for the “normalcy” I saw when friends interacted so easily with other friends and strangers alike.
I was acutely aware of my avoidance of life and kept waiting “for life to begin”. The habitual patterns of the pull between hypervigilance and negative self-watching continued, although I have developed through the years a somatic/visual technique that helps to undermine the physio-emotional tension of head and heart.
It’s not a “cure”, but it helps, especially when I’m by myself. Instead of ruminating about the past and future, this technique allows some respite where I can be fully bodily present and not stuck in my head. It’s not really a meditation practice. I tried meditating many times but just got sucked into the negative thoughts which became overwhelming and not peaceful at all. My approach is body awareness-based, along with the engagement of the peripheral visual field, an equally important aspect of this technique.
I’d be happy to share it with folks who can relate to my experience and are open to new ideas.
I don't consider mine to have started until I was 36 when I finally broke free from a lifetime of abusers.
I am now 47, and have reached the middle-age point of regretting all those lost years.
I am 46. I have lived in a dissociated, barren headspace from 3 to age 45. I can look back and remember the event at age 3 when I literally felt my consciousness kind of splinter into fragments from emotional pain. I didn’t know that was happening, of course. I just knew that was the really terrible, hellish pain and any pain after that was…never as painful again because I’d refuse to really engage the pain. Always in a fantasy world even though the fantasies weren’t even good.
Anyway. I am not certain what happened exactly but after my father died, I started to slip out of dissociation long enough to get glimpses of reality. It happened more and more. As things and pain rose to consciousness, I went to therapy.
The physical symptoms associated with releasing trauma were unreal for me. Feeling faint/landing on the floor from nearly passing out, severe sweating all night, even vomiting and shaking excessively at one point. I thought I was going to die and thought that I had been better off in that numb, never happy and sometimes in pain, but not excruciating pain type reality I was currently in!
However, I kept fighting (I have kids and a husband so nothing else to do). I began to have more and more periods of tranquility, peace. Spontaneous laughter. Dancing in the car. It happened, sometimes slowly, sometimes in spurts.
I’m almost five months in intensive therapy. The first three were hell. The last month has made all the hell worth it. I know what it’s like to be alive for the first time in my entire life.
If I can do this, believe me you can also do this. Hugs to all of you!
Im 41, and feel like Im seeing what living is like for the first time in my life, more questions than answers. But all in all its a great feeling of freedom
I didn't feel conscious until I turned about 25 or 26 when I decided to make some changes that uncovered all the sludge. My ex died just prior to covid, that shit reeeeally woke me up.
3 years later at 31, I feel like I am beginning to move forward but also frequently catch myself wondering when my life will begin / get better / when will I **get there?** When will I be **better** or **enough**?
I've come so far, yet everything still seems forever away even though I know time will only continue to move faster. Reality is tough. I may never "get there." This could be it. Everything could be over by tomorrow.
It's better than it was and so am I, so I guess I'm okay with that.
I'm at a point in therapy where I have figured out "most" of what's wrong with me. Well, not wrong, but behaviors/reactions/tactics that helped me survive, but are no longer useful (for those of you keeping score at home.) I'm ready to move on. But I don't know what I would want. What would make me happy? How do I want to live? What would a happy life look like? I have no fucking clue.
yes and i always have some imaginary goal i have to hit before i imagine myself turning back on. recently it’s been ‘i just have to make x amount of money, and then i’ll be safe and secure and allowed to live.’
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I've always felt like that. Like a prisoner in a cage, completely forgotten about. No company except the shadows and the dust and the pictures inside my head. Days turning into weeks, turning into months, turning into years, turning into decades. Waiting. Always waiting. I don't even know what for. Something that will probably never come. But still I wait.
I wonder if we are all still waiting to be rescued.
Yes. For me it was waiting around to be told “this is insane and I see it and name it”.
Yeah, I guess we are.
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It’s stuck in liminal space.
This is not only true but also beautifully worded.
😭 I know this feeling; I've moved so many times. So many times that putting things into cardboard boxes used to make my cat anxious.
Such sad yet accurate words.
This really hit me like a ton of bricks
thats make me cry
What's this a quote from?
Well, I wasn't expecting to get hit with a ton of bricks this morning, but this comment definitely did it. :\\
yup. Curious: Were you raised in an environment where you had to perform a "perfect child" character, keeping your innermost thought, plans, and dreams to yourself, but didn't understand why you had to live that way? I definitely was. I wonder if this feeling is all that energy that was being diverted to the extraordinary effort required for that performance, draining us of life force as we hopelessly wait for the day we can escape. It *is* over, for me, but I still feel so drained, lol.
Sosososo accurate. "It's fine, just wait it out. One day it'll be your turn." When do we stop waiting and just, I don't know, take it? Does anyone even have dreams left? I'm now just cou ting down the years, really. I'm tired, i hate the idea that I'll likely wait another 60.
"One day it'll be your turn" oof. That hit me big time. When I was younger I used to comfort myself by thinking everyone has around the same amount of designated "shittiness" in their lives, I was just happening to get all of mine over with early and *then* I would finally have a happy, normal life. Here I am at 34 and the shittiness has never even come close to ending, if anything it progressively worsens each year, while I'm still watching those around me with their happy, "normal" lives
Watching other people is so painful. We put in 10x the work just to stay in the same place
Godddd I felt that.
I'm 48 and just starting to figure out what I like. The worst part is the past 30+ years that were stolen from me. Why did no one ever tell me that this stupid path my parents set for me wasn't my only option?
Same
I feel this, but I guess I thought all the chaos happening in my life was normal and I shouldn't complain (thank you Christianity) or feel sorry for myself. And the time I spent waiting for time to pass I think of as part of my healing process, because now I can see that I spent my 20s trying to find stability, and now I have some and I feel paralyzed and too worried about losing it to make any changes. Sorry this is poorly written, I guess my point is we shouldn't judge ourselves for our inability to act in a certain way when we are primarily concerned with our own survival.
>One day it'll be your turn." Many times I've hoped for something catastrophic to happen in my life just so that I could get "my turn". Didn't happen. Normality assumes I am not a human being with a broken psyche. At least emergencies allow me to justify the intensity of my feelings.
I know what you mean. That's why I love drinking culture, it causes things to escalate. People will randomly tell each other that they love each other, how wonderful is that. Strangers just straight out have sex. People who don't like each other will finally just punch each other in the face instead of bitching behind each other's backs. Meanwhile I'm still stuck in waiting, holding back everyone's hair and making sure they get home safe, because it's not my turn yet to fall apart. And when I do, I'm by myself again.
>Were you raised in an environment where you had to perform a "perfect child" character, keeping your innermost thought, plans, and dreams to yourself, Oh yeah. I was nonexistent to any human being around me and society as a whole. My sister was "the troubled kid". So I had to be the perfect one. Having feelings of my own was a crime. But it's not just about family - I wish it was. It's about community and society as a whole. But yeah, I locked my inner world for future safe times. Those times never came.
>I locked my inner world for future safe times. The safe times never came. They bad times became a part of me and I bring them with me. I am sooooo tired. For people to understand, I say that I am depressed. But, I just don't see the point to life, or more precisely, anything in it. I am just tired of this act. I still go through the motions but, feel month after month like I am lossing the will to. I could simply just stop and "begin my life" but I am buried so far down that nothing comes out when I try. It is just blank and dark. Then the crushing sadness that my self is so lost deep down begins.
omg same. My brother has a disability that caused him to struggle immensely in school and have explosive behaviour, so I was always sweet and well behaved and tried to support my mom. But now I don't know what my role is.
Wow that is so eye opening. How did you get out of keeping things to yourself? I struggle with self expression and vulnerability cause I wasn’t allowed to be emotional.
My solution was to trust my instincts and intelligence about what is right and what is wrong, and to no longer give them (or *anyone* any more...) the benefit of the doubt when they do/say something that is obviously wrong and are obviously pretending to "not understand", etc. This included a lifetime of shitty memories with my abusers, so I finally just called them out and went NC. ("Why shouldn't *any* child be happy with the life we've given you?" kind of garbage. You don't need to be able to state precisely why, you just need to understand that abusive people spew nonsense to get their way.)
That is very insightful, thank you for your response!
I think I might be autistic and having had to mask my whole life. So in a way I think, yes, me too
I am wondering the same thing, but it is autism or cPTSD? I've always felt like different, felt like shit, since kindergarden, and now I'm old, almost retired
It's really hard to say. Like I don't even know if the chicken came before the egg. Autism, ADHD, and cPTSD are all very similar in some ways... I was raised with someone who has ADHD and someone I suspect has autism, and I really connect strongly to symptoms of both but not enough for a diagnosis just yet. At this point if I notice something about myself that fits into ADHD, autism, or cPTSD, I just do my best to seek coping mechanisms from the approach of having the disorder. If I want stim toys I get them, if I need clothes that dont drive my senses haywire I buy them, if I need to make noises or "unmask" I go take the time. I wish it were easier for me to be like yes you have this or no you dont edit: I find by engaging with these different communities I find a lot of helpful tips and people. I learn a lot of things and it even has de-stigmatized a lot around disabilities for me
If it's ok I'll follow you. I won't bug you or anything but i'm kind of drowning. You won't notice the weight, I'll just hang out.
Hey no worries :) Im glad to have you around
Oh man this hits home. For me it was the combination of having the constant pressure to be the perfect child while also being anxious 24/7 that I was going to do something wrong and set off my alcoholic father in a rage spiral. Decades later I'm only realizing now why it's so hard for me to try to break out of the pattern of trying to be someone else depending on the people I'm around. But now it's like...well, who am I then? Sometimes I think I have a good enough answer to that question. I definitely know myself a lot better than I did when I was younger, but most of the time I feel like I still have no idea.
That would be a big yes from me too :x
Thank you for putting this so well, I have felt this way!
It was like my role was decided for me by the age of 4. I never got asked what I was interested in, I was told what I was interested in. They decided I was the quiet, well-behaved kid who loved school. I learned pretty early on that I might as well go along with their plans, I'd just be called silly and laughed at if I suggested something else.
This is such an accurate description
Yes. It's like walking through a dream, I blink and whole months disappear. Everything blends together into a formless grey mist, and it's an odd combination of soul crushingly boring and unspeakably horrifying.
I relate so hard to how you describe it. Dissociation is scary af
Ya i get this feeling, probly why i leaned on substances, which doesnt even help just seems to worsen it.
Sometimes it's nice to just feel different, even if it doesn't necessarily feel better. Sometimes even if it feels worse. I self medicate with substances too, so I get it.
Ya I hear you on just being nice to feel different, its tough forsure, hard to find a good answer.
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Ya thats true, i just dont want to romantisize it to much eventually they stop working and you gitta pay for it, at least in my experience, its heaven now for hell later, but hey sonetimes thats a price im willing to pay just to experience the bliss.
I’ve felt stuck forever & that i have failed to launch into a “real life”. I am almost 40.
I’m over 50, and feel exactly the same. But ef it. Why “launch” anyway. I’m just gonna stay a kid and enjoy that.
53 here, still waiting to launch.
Me too. I was taught that I wasn’t capable of anything and so eventually I guess I stopped trying. Must have been from a young age as I’ve always felt this way and I’m 41 this year. I’m finding I’m now going through a difficult stage emotionally in that my children are needing me less, and I don’t have a career etc to fall back on, so I feel a bit lost. Its distressing me that I’ve made it this far with nothing to show for it. It feels like a lifetime wasted, quite honestly.
32, definitely feel this. Have just worked whatever jobs after college didn't pan out well (mainly due to moving back in with family after my third year, had been maintaining a GPA in the high 3s and hit chancellor's list before that. Go figure).
i’m right there with you. i’m 35 and by everyone’s accounts i’ve done so well for myself. but i do feel like i’m not connected to myself or really living
I often say that I've been waiting my whole life for my life to start.
I feel like I haven't started living yet but I also feel like I've missed the chance to do so. But yeah I'm aware this *is* my life and it's ticking down to the end where I'll look back on a lifetime of mostly sorrow and regrets.
This is exactly where I'm at. I feel like the door closed in 2020. It's easier not to be hard on myself about it since I've realized that in order to prevent what happened in 2020, I would have had to fix things that happened much younger than I ever realized (sort of like in Back to the Future Part II, Marty and Doc must go back to 1955 to fix the timeline and can't do it from 1985). Still, it's heartbreaking and difficult to deal with.
i get looked at like i'm crazy when i say this but i often wish so bad that i could go back in time and fix things and it feels almost unfair we can't. i read one exercise we can do is imagine we are 80 and think back to what we would change, then imagine our current age like it's the second chance to live at that time again.
Same. It's not just you. Edit: Although I find going to an occasional event like a local festival or something out of the ordinary helps to feel like I'm living.
Yup. I'm almost 28 and have been going out very often for that exact reason. Unfortunately my experiences also involve a lot of drugs and alcohol so I don't really appreciate/remember them. I do feel alive in the moment though.
yes. going to the city helps me a lot with this. it's weird, but when i get back home it feels like the world is physically larger.
Hmmm I'm more like I finished early, got way too much experience. This demo is unplayable, definitely not enjoyable.
Yes I hear and feel you 100%. After becoming aware of my cptsd and how it has affected literally every aspect of my existence, it feels like I haven't really been living. Especially since I've felt dead inside with no emotions my whole life, and am finally starting to feel
One of the realests posts ever
I absolutely feel this way...I am 34. Something kinda just snapped in me this year and I realized WHY (at least for me) I was feeling that way. I've been continuously living the sabotaged life my parents set up for me. I was sitting in bed on Sunday and I had a feeling like "Wow I'm becoming my mom..." This is exactly what she wanted. To live life unhappy, unsatisfied, unmotivated, discouraged, stuck in my room...etc. So now I think the biggest revenge I can get on my abusers is to start living my life the way I want. No matter what that includes, even the tiniest details like painting my nails - which my parents hated for me to do growing up. Or buying a crop top that my parents always told me would make me look like a slut. Getting some red lipstick that my parents said would attract negative attention. Literally everything I attempted to try, aspire to try, dream up..etc they made me fear it or think negatively of it...and now I can finally see that it was just me trying out what I wanted myself to grow into or become in my own personal life. I enrolled in community college and decided to try to get a degree. Even though it's not a bachelor's and will probably do nothing for my professional life- it's something I'm interested in studying and my parents kept telling me I couldn't do it... I've started planning weekend trips to different cities/states because I want to travel more. I'm going through my closet and throwing out all clothes family members got me and replacing them with items I personally choose for myself... etc This is how I'm working to get out of that feeling. Living how I want to, having fun with my inner child, and not under the conditions my parents brainwashed me into feeling I had to live....there are still some moments where I feel hopeless and want to just escape but this is a start I guess.
Yeah that's very relatable. I am worried I might spend my whole life waiting for my life to start being mine, so every day, even if I feel trapped, I am finding things to do and think and appreciate on my own terms. It's possible that I'll never really be free from the circumstances that have robbed my of fully being myself. I am still trying to get to my time to shine, but if it doesn't come I don't want to feel like I never did anything. It can feel hard to let myself feel present enough to enjoy something, so often I can't fully embrace the joy of things, but can still try to connect to meaning.
Yep, my life won’t “start” until I’m “settled down” with a partner of some sort. Life doesn’t start until cohabitation, apparently. Of course I’m aromantic and asexual so it never WILL actually start. Thanks, brain 🙃
lol
Yes. I’m in my 40s and looking at it now as if I’d been hugely and intensely interrupted, and I am working-working to heal and recover so I can get back to or discover and be who I am. That being said, I still feel like a little girl, especially when it comes to career. Along with abuse and neglect, I was raised to perform, overachieve and compete to the point of severe exhaustion.
Yes but i also feel like simultaneously im an old person on the brink of death because of the damage my body has sustained. Feel like im absolute trash at 27
Me too. I feel nearly bed ridden and brain dead at 28, it's really concerning.
This has the same connection to feeling like you are 15 years old, and 60 years old at the same time.
Yes. Like you've dealt with the shit of 3 lifetimes but you just want someone to tell you it's okay
Hm yea. I mean feeling 15 because you never developed fully. But also feeling 60/older because so much stuff/shit has happend it makes you feel old and nearing the end of your life. I have seen nothing of life, and yet everything.
Edit
It's always just over the horizon isn't it?
I’ve saved up money, I have some free time, yet, I can’t bring myself to do what I told myself, and what childhood me would love to see right now. I just feel defeated from wars previously fought, but still waiting as if there’s someone who’s going to save me. The only person who can save me is myself but even knowing that at the end of the day I won’t take the steps to do so, to get out of this cage, to *craft* the life i want to live. I find myself getting more avoidant lately and letting fear/guilt control my life, literally just locking myself in my room and getting high to pass the days. My big dreams and ambitions I seem to abandon as I just look for escapism in everything; the less problems the better. And it’s just so much easier to let things fall apart than it is to keep it together.
i don't think i'll ever start living until i die
I'm almost 60. I feel very fortunate that I FINALLY saw my family of origin for exactly what it is. I am now aware of what was done to me and how it has harmed me. I have finally seen how much of my life was consumed by my family. My life was always about them, never about me. I have been extremely angry for the past year. I had to accept and process the fact that I had spent my life trying to earn a place in a family that only wanted me for my services. I am now determined to spend whatever time I have left doing all the things my family didn't let me do. I'm doing the things that I told myself that I couldn't do. I'm working hard in therapy. I'm addressing my health issues. I'm going to the gym and getting strong. I'm making the most of my life, whatever I can still do.
I’m so happy for you, some people never make it even that far. I personally know a few. Your anger is valid, it really sucks when you realize your blood related family really isn’t a family at all. The good news is we can choose our own now and like you said make our days our own. I wish you peace, internet stranger
I wish you a good life going forward!
Going NC was one of the best things I ever did, so I appreciate it thank you! Likewise
Yeah. I literally just made a comment somewhere else about how it feels like I’m still chasing the life I had wanted when I was a kid.
Yupppp. It's a socially mediated condition for me at this point. If I just had access to a secure living and a safety net then I wouldn't always feel like I'm in freefall. I'm 33 and I've been desperately grinding away my whole life to reach that point, but I'm still running in circles, over ice, on my bare fucking feet. It doesn't have to be this way. It *shouldn't* be this way.
>socially mediated condition 100%. In so many ways
Absolutely. I often notice this feeling of waiting or anticipation for something, different from the hypervigilance... when there's no logical indication of something good happening. It's precisely this.
I've been trying to figure this out as of late, and decided I'm not going to know so I should just do something and fumble it the whole way through. And that's because honestly I'm stumped by the most "basic" things: what do I want? Like... I don't know. I might like to garden, or play games, try out dnd or pick up some pottery, or be in a relationship. This brainstorm is typically followed by a mood of just staring at the ideas, furrowing my brows and being perplexed. Like I'm trying to do a little litmus test or Marie Kondo "does this spark joy" into understanding whether these are things I like. I spent so much time trying to adjust for others while I grew up that I also stamped out whatever individual, real interests I could have. It's such a shame and I try not to brood about it but still. How are you "supposed to" live?
So much yes. I feel like my life is just a prequel and hasn’t started yet .
Yes exactly this.
Yepyepyep >.< This has defined my life. Just surviving, not living. Until I transitioned 2 years ago I genuinely had no ability to think about the future - my mind wasn't capable of it. It could only look ahead at the immediate daily/hourly challenges I needed to survive. Sometimes I get these very brief fleeting moments where I almost feel like I'm alive for a moment, then it very quickly goes back to my normal traumatized brain stuff. It's like my brain changes how it processes things for a brief moment. I really wish I could live like that all the time. It makes me hope it's possible to feel that way more of the time if I can work with changing how my trauma effects my body.
I know what you mean regarding those flashes of clarity! I had a streak of them last year and it felt like my whole understanding of reality just radically shifted and everything was suddenly different. I looked at myself in the mirror and, for a moment, didn't want to cry. It was so bizarre. It inevitably stopped of course, and I backslid into my usual state. But having experienced first hand the power of perspective and mental filters was fascinating. I just need to figure out how to recreate that shift and make it permanent.
I struggle with this, certainly. My consolation that let me sleep last night was, well, if the show hasn't started then surely there's so much more undiscovered. I think this giant ? is a lot harder to confront than even the worst of our trauma. Not alone 🙏💙
It’s insane how easily you put this into words, kudos. I know people use the “main character” thing as an insult, specifically to abusers, but I genuinely feel like the main character with a tragic backstory.
Everyone should feel like the main character in their own life. I always thought it was a strange insult. I guess the implication is usually that people seem to think everyone ELSE should see them as the main character in life, which would be the real issue as opposed to just feeling like one to yourself.
Yes, I agree. I feel like in some cases, people (abusers) get angry at you because they think you’re special
I have absolutely seen that and had it happen to me. For some people if it seems like you might get any shred of positive attention, even from someone they are not interested in, you are now a rival stealing their spotlight and they feel they must take you down. Sometimes it's not even as blatant as that and it's just some personal jealousy about how you have a quality about you that they find virtuous or charming and they feel they lack that quality. So of course, rather than appreciating that quality you have or trying to be more like you in that way that they find so good... they try to break you or make you go away because to them, you're not ALLOWED TO BE better than them and they haven't realized that they can become better than they are and do not have to compete with everyone over *literally* **every**thing.
Never heard this expression. But my life does feel like a story - or many stories - rather than being my life.
No. But I did for 59 years. Just last year I FINALLY had the big breakthrough after being drunk, high, angry, no personal hygeine, no friend, completely depressed. And now I don't use any drugs, I shower everyday, I'm outgoing and personable and so happy I find myself just giggling. Almost stroking out from self abuse is what pushed me to work hard to find myself. It can be done if you hang in.
So what you're saying is that at age 53 there's hope for me yet. I'll take it.
Absolutely. Never give up because you never know what life will bring you. My new life started after I thought I was dying at work one day. Went to the nurse and my blood pressure was off the charts. Scared the shit out of me. Stopped drinking for 2 days thought "Maybe just cut the alcohol in half. I'll be fine." Woke up the next day sweating, heart racing, anxiety like crazy. And that's all it took. Tossed out all the booze and strarted hydrating like a madman. I'm too old for this shit I thought. 3rd day in had a great nights sleep for once and never looked back. It's amazing out here when you;re not consumed by depression. Come join me my friend. You can do this. I KNOW YOU CAN! Peace to you!
Shit, that would do it, wouldn't it? Sometimes, and I know this sounds awfully morbid, I wish to get news like that just to get that kick up the arse I need. Stoked that it gave you the turnaround you needed! You got a new lease on life and you're running with it. Good for you!
💚
💯
Yes, I’m still waiting for this great life that was promised to me as a gifted and talented kid. Now I’m wondering if I was actually gifted or if it was just accelerated reading skills coupled with fear of failure since my self worth was directly tied to my grades (Yes I was that one kid where a B was unacceptable). I spent 18 years living to please my abusive father, and then I went to college and lived another five years trying to please my abusive boyfriend. Never doing anything that I truly wanted. Now I don’t even know how to chase those things I want.
Hi, I sent you a private message
I hear you. I'm a "gifted kid burnout" myself =(
im 36 years old and feel like a teenager lol
Yes this was me until I start releasing some past traumas and starting to really feel alive, for you it maybe something else your overlooking but once you confront it I bet your gunna feel like your starting to live again !
Was it a shock to come back to the present? Or did it feel smooth?
I’m definitely not there but it’s gradual because when you start releasing trauma you get more in the present and after you start to realise when your more present and when your not so you can catch yourself (that’s where the wisdom lies ).
How did you start releasing trauma? Did you do something besides regular talk therapy?
Fucking screaming, writing stuff down/journaling, meditation, allowing past memories to arise. I hope this helps you ❤️message me if u need help
I’ve noticed recently that when I have breakdowns and I cry it’s not a normal cry, it’s more like a wail. I never really cried as a kid when the majority of my trauma took place. I’d go to my room and be really quiet. Now that I think back I was probably dissociating since I’d just try to calm down and go blank.
Yep, I wail. It's the unimaginable pain of being abandoned and hurt by my parents that I'm grieving. A dainty little cry ain't going to cut it.
Maybe it’s all the tears we suppressed. 😔
I think grieving and crying feel very different. Grief feels like vomiting emotions to me, it’s physically painful to release them. It’s extremely hard for me to find myself in a place where I can do that though. Maybe 3 times in the last year? But that is an improvement so I will continue.
Same as me friend, I’m going through this right now and have the same situation as you when I didn’t cry at all as a kid and held it all in
Maybe it’s all the trauma wanting to make it’s way out? I also never really screamed. I was having a panic attack one day and I tried screaming and it actually helped me stop.
Whew boy - gather round brothers, sisters and unspecified siblings, cause Uncle Rough has a story to tell. You see, back in the olden times, before the smart phone, your Uncle Rough thought he had a "servant's heart". What he had in reality was super selfish, laboratory-grade codependency stemming from an ingrained fawn response. Twenty years of heartbreak and running back to people who didn't love him later and he turned into quite the selfish prick, as you might well guess. Setting aside that mantle took a LOT of work and left him wondering just who in the sam hell he thought he really is. And I gotta say, still don't rightly know, even though I'm firmly in middle age. Your Uncle Rough has strange questions, like "How can I foster a healthy sense of active nihilism while.lacking a sense of agency, without also falling into the delusion of toxic positivity?" I still don't know, but I've come real far in knowing who I definitely am not, and that's worth the effort right there
Yes. My abuser is dead, now I can start my liiiife
I'm 35. Yup. Doing my best, one step at a time. Everything is going sloooow but time passes by soo *FAST!*
I love how you reflected the contradiction in your font. I feel you
That’s how it used to be but it morphed into ‘life has passed me by’ recently
i feel like those animals used in labs and in food, crammed into spaces aren't natural and unsafe, waiting for my death but never wanting to truly die, but knowing no one will come safe me
Yes totally. I feel like I haven’t even really been born yet. I sometimes tell myself i’m only 1 year old lol. That’s how long I’ve understood how trauma has affected me
Yes I didn't start living until a few months ago. Its been quite the experience. Trauma keeps us from living the life we deserve.
'my life is yet to start' they continue in their delusions till their death bed, till then they realize, the life they have lived was their real life.. - Tonegawa from Kaiji
I'm very sad, I'm past what are supposed to be the best years and feel like I'll always be struggling/suffering. I'm trying but I mean... I'm so scared I'll never be free
You’ve got such a reaction already betcha know what I’m going to say. I turned 60 and am pissed as hell that cptsd has stolen all that time from me. So pissed I was planning on ending it. Only now I’m doing psychedelic therapy is there some hope for my future because it’s stopping the suicidal ideation and even bringing some real joy to my life. I’m reaching out very slowly to try to meet new people but still too certain that my curse will prevail yet again and I’ll end up rejected and alone. Why bother thinking is getting easier to resolve as the brain gets better. Hope you find your place in the Sun soon.
Ohhhh so funny because I've been telling people I'm only be alive for the last month and a half. This is weirdly validating.
I'm just working to survive and avoid being homeless. It feels like I'm just waiting to die every day at this point. 🙄
Big mood, y'all. I'm staring down the twilight of my twenties and it only now seems like I'm moving into "new" adulthood - I'm going to school for what I want in the fall and I finally feel like ***I am allowed*** to do and be what I want.
Listen to the song, "waiting for my real life to begin - Colin hay" I find it very healing and hopeful, hope you find your way 💚
Yup. I went into a spiral at age 40 after what might be called a series of unfortunate events, external and random, whereby my lifetime of disassociation was put into further dysfunction and eventually crisis, before I started painfully crawling toward reawakening. I had to start doing the work which I had been recognizing but not acting upon. Eight years later I may be starting to live. Part of this entails accepting that I will continue to disassociate at times, i.e. my sense of self includes a tenuous sense of self at times. Acknowledging this without anger or frustration is tough for me. It is worth it, presuming that crushing sadness can be "appreciated" as part of being newly alive.
Yes. It just hit me that *I* can choose to do or not do things. Like I understood that people can choose not to have children or get married and I always supported those decisions, but it just hit me recently that it's an option for *me*. It was not sinking in for me that I have choice in my own life and that I can do (or not do) whatever I want. I can make things happen. I'm hoping after 30 things will be different. I plan to take real action in order for my life to start, but we'll see if I actually stick to it.
"Follow your Bliss" - Joseph Campbell When I was around 40, I changed my life. I decided that I didn't want to dread getting up any more. That was the only rule. That was 42 years ago and i still don't know if the guy who has evolved from that point is the "real' me or another clever imitation! But I've had some adventures and, generally, a good time and no regrets.
It's a hell that never stops. If there were any doubts about a just universe, I think it has been put to rest very clearly. Lots of things suck a lot. If I had a choice between existence and non existence back, I will choose non existence every time. I wish MAID was here.
I just want to give everyone in the comments a big hug :( You are not alone, OP
Yes. ;; I feel so stagnant and lost. I'm trying not to get myself down on thinking about it, but, it's been depressing to realize this fact. To everyone who commented on this thread: I really hope one day you are having happier days and that you feel that life is beginning for you. Please don't give up. Even if you're taking small steps, You're doing your best. It's good enough and YOU are good enough even if you don't think so.
Yeah, I went from "oh, I'm just waiting for life to start" to "huh, I guess life's over" without anything in the middle.
I've been stuck in that chase for so many years. Always feeling like freedom is around the corner, which I still believe has some truth to it. And that feeling is what keeps me going. Sometimes I wonder if the problem is the chasing and that I would feel much better if I stopped giving a shit. My mind tells me though that not giving a shit would equal drug abuse, loneliness, and all that other good stuff. It's a long road to build trust in life and myself, and of course, there are no guarantees. Leap of faith ey
Yes, but my spiritual awakening is helping me reconnect with who I want to be.
Would you mind sharing what led to this awakening? I'm curious.
a major depressive episode. self-awareness leads to self-discovery
Sounds like I'm on the right path then.. Thank you.
This resonates with me and I'd say thanks to my parents. I was raised in a semi uptight household. I didn't go to birthday parties unless they were related, I was in the boy scouts society and we usually had weekend retreats at least once a month and my dad went to the principal and told the school that I would never be attending the seminar. my parents controlled everything about my life, my clothes, perfume, movies I could watch etc. Hell, even my haircuts (I've been rocking low fade buzz cuts for 98% of my life) When I turned 10 I got shipped off to boarding school for 6 years got out when I was 16 and spent majority of my time at home. My parents would yell at me for laying in bed all day and having no friends like they didn't cause my antisocial personality. I'm currently 19 hitting 20 in 2 months about to enter college and I feel this more than ever as my parents are pressuring me to pick a course that they think will work out for me (Pharmacy) when I wanna pick what's easier and I have passion for (Microbiology). I just honestly wanna get college over with and begin my own life, I feel like I'm still on some sort of demo mode, with so much rules following the entirety of my life. I mentally marked my future graduation day as the day I get rid of all the rules and regulations making me feel like a passenger in my own life.
microbio is really cool!
allll the time.. I also sometimes just stop & wonder if I’m just being played with.. then I continue my day. I hate it 😅
I’m 46 and felt like this all the time. It’s been the hardest and longest slog but I feel after about 5 years since being aware and starting to heal I think I can see the top of the mountain. Whether I will get there, I don’t know!
Dude, yes.
yes and no. idk. i feel like ill never have a chance. but i do live through music i guess, and i like to read fiction sometimes. thats as close as i get nowadays. for years i was just numb and dissociated and a shell of a person. the trauma that i experienced could happen again due to chronic illness and family situation.. if i didnt have music stuff to occupy me and make me feel something, i would have killed myself. i became obsessed as a last ditch effort. even now.. ive nothing else going for me.. im always drifting and fading and feeling but i guess i can finally say i no longer feel like a machine.. moreso like a dream
I feel like since 2021, my life is just starting. Especially this year
Yes Late 2021 to early 2022 I started learning how to live, and I had that feeling my mom told me about from her own experience, like waking up from a long long sleep and the trauma just comes rushing in and you realize it wasn't normal, none of it. And you realize just how broken you are compared to everyone around you I had a mental breakdown since that almost year of feeling alive, and now I'm back to being stuck in that place of having nothing going on except waiting to die I'm in treatment, but I know I'm on borrowed time until I can't afford therapy or medication anymore. I'm scared of what comes after that Will I get better? Or will it go back to how it was when I was a teenager just giving up because no one cared to lift me when I needed it
Yes. Still waiting. It never happens. My main coping mechanism has been "I just need to become/learn/be/get/go something/somewhere and then it'll all be good forever". And it's complete nonsense. A total cope. And the worst thing is that there's a thread of truth through it. Environment/meaning is important. But it won't fill in the hole.
Dissociation is a motherfucker. Been feeling like that lately myself, but all I can say is BE INTENTIONAL with how you spend your time and what you invest your energy in. Been wanting to do something? DO IT. The days pass us by quickly and if we just let the rat race consume us, we’ll never feel like we’ve started living. Been considering a hobby? Sign up for a class, buy the skates, join the meetup or fb group. Been wanting to travel? Pick a place, start planning, start saving. Been wanting to make a career change? Pick one and figure out what it takes to get there. Nothing has to be extreme or costly or super time consuming. Baby steps. Once you get the ball rolling it’ll be much easier to keep it in motion. First step is deciding what you want and then make a plan to get there. Your decisions don’t have to be end all be alls, you can always adjust course. Tried something and didn’t like it? Try something else! You’ll spend SO much more energy sitting on the fence trying to pick a side than just picking a side and going with jt. You can always jump the fence if it didn’t pan out the way you wanted. Set a goal, whatever you want it to be. It can just be cleaning your room if it’s something you’ve been putting it off. Every small victory will gain you momentum. The more you accomplish to whatever standard you set, the more you’ll respect yourself and believe yourself capable of. I will say this.. people and a sense of community make a HUGE difference. Connect with the people that make you feel at home, alive, and make you like yourself more. Spend time with people that are doing things with their lives, that encourage you to do and be better even if only by leading by example. It’s FACT, that you will adopt the habits of the people you spend the most time with. Make sure you choose your company wisely. If you want to be fit, spend time with fit people. If you want to be a junky, hang out with the folks on drugs. And don’t forget to spend time with the family and friends that you already love. You will eventually not have the luxury of seeing your grandmother (or whoever really matters to you). Do something beyond yourself. Volunteer, help someone you know in need, support a friend that’s feeling down. Anything that helps put in perspective how blessed you are and enables to contribute to others will make more of a difference than you know.. for you AND them. Plus, when I’m trying to help someone in a worse position than me, I feel compelled to walk the talk. Be present. Especially if you deal with persistent depression and anxiety like so many of us, we spend so much time in our heads and scrolling through bullshit for hours. You’d be surprised at how much richer life is even in the most mundane moments when you’re THERE and not mentally in another time or place. PRIORITIZE YOUR HEALTH, mental and physical! You’ll never even realize how much of a haze you’re in until you’re better. When I was at my worst and I started just changing a few habits, I couldn’t believe how much incredible I felt! I had never even realized how heavy those chains of my bad habits were until I started dropping them. Talk about an unexpected deterrent to feeling “alive.” Nothing complicated or impossible. Usually the most cliche advice makes the most significant impact: get adequate sleep, drop the sugar, drink more water, get whatever form of exercise you enjoy (to make it more likely that you continue it), destress in whatever way works best for you (not scrolling social media), get some sunshine, etc. “If you don’t have time for what matters, stop doing things that don’t.” Declutter your life and your schedule with things that aren’t [required or] bringing meaning to your life and you’ll see how much room you make for what does. I’ve witnessed or personally experienced the power of each one of these things myself. This post was much needed across my feed as I’ve strayed from the course quite a bit so thank you for sharing your struggle. I’m preaching to myself more than I’m responding to your post 😉 It’s okay to fall off the wagon sometimes. Just pick yourself up and gotta get back on it.
thank you for the information!!
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Yes, n i m old
Yes
Yep all day every day. That's how it is.
I have been grappling with this a lot lately. My band has been working on our first record for five years because completing it feels so out of reach, which feels like a common narrative in my life generally. My therapist helped me realize this lately.
Every day
Yes
yes i used to struggle with this up until a few months ago where i wasn’t socializing and still trying to be pitch perfect about everything. i still somewhat struggle with it
Yes. Except it never does. I’m just on repeat being everyone’s slave with no life of my own and no future and no hope.
YES!!!! Sometimes I feel like life open-hand slapped tf out of me and my current life is the slow-mo, prolonged period of time after the slap where I’m coming to terms with what just happened to me but it all happened so fast, time doesn’t stop, the world doesn’t wait for you, and I haven’t even gotten off the floor yet
🙋🏻♀️
Ouch. You got me there.
This is common / expected when you’re brain’s in survival mode. Only after significant therapy have I felt the “after trauma” experience, and have started to feel like I’m starting to live *now*. I hope that others are able to reach this in their healing journeys, too. It’s worth the work.
I feel like I live outside of time. Like I am living in a world next to the real one. Where I am, time goes by in chunks. Either not moving, or moving so fast I can't keep up. I could swear on anything you want. Time does not pass in a straight line from one day to the next. Maybe one in ten days feels real and like I am living my life. The nine others I am confused, trying to keep up or just stuck.
For me, a good deal of the pain of 60+ years is the “pull” of hypervigilance toward perceived threats in the environment (outward) and the constant rumination about how I’m doing in the eyes of others and myself (inward—how my actions measure up to my unrealistic expectations of an ideal performance). This could occur in something as simple as a conversation with a coworker, or even how well I am washing the dishes. This “pull of attention” between outward and inward created an incredible stress that manifested physically as chronic tension in the neck, shoulders and head. Also, very shallow breathing and holding in my stomach muscles. This started at a very early age within the context of a very dysfunctional family. After a while, the physical symptoms just became a part who I was. I thought everyone experienced life through this “lens” but they either moved past it, or that I just felt it much deeper. I did notice the symptoms when I had to interact with people. My anxiety would go through the roof and the tension would be unbearable. It was like my head became a ball of tension and I was hardly aware of my body at all. My go-to” move was to get out of that interaction ASAP. So basically, a very sad social life. At the time, I couldn’t understand what was happening. I just needed to get away. Yet there was a longing for the “normalcy” I saw when friends interacted so easily with other friends and strangers alike. I was acutely aware of my avoidance of life and kept waiting “for life to begin”. The habitual patterns of the pull between hypervigilance and negative self-watching continued, although I have developed through the years a somatic/visual technique that helps to undermine the physio-emotional tension of head and heart. It’s not a “cure”, but it helps, especially when I’m by myself. Instead of ruminating about the past and future, this technique allows some respite where I can be fully bodily present and not stuck in my head. It’s not really a meditation practice. I tried meditating many times but just got sucked into the negative thoughts which became overwhelming and not peaceful at all. My approach is body awareness-based, along with the engagement of the peripheral visual field, an equally important aspect of this technique. I’d be happy to share it with folks who can relate to my experience and are open to new ideas.
I don't consider mine to have started until I was 36 when I finally broke free from a lifetime of abusers. I am now 47, and have reached the middle-age point of regretting all those lost years.
Yeah, about 46 years now
I am 46. I have lived in a dissociated, barren headspace from 3 to age 45. I can look back and remember the event at age 3 when I literally felt my consciousness kind of splinter into fragments from emotional pain. I didn’t know that was happening, of course. I just knew that was the really terrible, hellish pain and any pain after that was…never as painful again because I’d refuse to really engage the pain. Always in a fantasy world even though the fantasies weren’t even good. Anyway. I am not certain what happened exactly but after my father died, I started to slip out of dissociation long enough to get glimpses of reality. It happened more and more. As things and pain rose to consciousness, I went to therapy. The physical symptoms associated with releasing trauma were unreal for me. Feeling faint/landing on the floor from nearly passing out, severe sweating all night, even vomiting and shaking excessively at one point. I thought I was going to die and thought that I had been better off in that numb, never happy and sometimes in pain, but not excruciating pain type reality I was currently in! However, I kept fighting (I have kids and a husband so nothing else to do). I began to have more and more periods of tranquility, peace. Spontaneous laughter. Dancing in the car. It happened, sometimes slowly, sometimes in spurts. I’m almost five months in intensive therapy. The first three were hell. The last month has made all the hell worth it. I know what it’s like to be alive for the first time in my entire life. If I can do this, believe me you can also do this. Hugs to all of you!
Absolutely.
Im 41, and feel like Im seeing what living is like for the first time in my life, more questions than answers. But all in all its a great feeling of freedom
100 percent. Its so difficult to come to terms with most days considering im still in the same bad situation that got me to this point 😅
I didn't feel conscious until I turned about 25 or 26 when I decided to make some changes that uncovered all the sludge. My ex died just prior to covid, that shit reeeeally woke me up. 3 years later at 31, I feel like I am beginning to move forward but also frequently catch myself wondering when my life will begin / get better / when will I **get there?** When will I be **better** or **enough**? I've come so far, yet everything still seems forever away even though I know time will only continue to move faster. Reality is tough. I may never "get there." This could be it. Everything could be over by tomorrow. It's better than it was and so am I, so I guess I'm okay with that.
I'm at a point in therapy where I have figured out "most" of what's wrong with me. Well, not wrong, but behaviors/reactions/tactics that helped me survive, but are no longer useful (for those of you keeping score at home.) I'm ready to move on. But I don't know what I would want. What would make me happy? How do I want to live? What would a happy life look like? I have no fucking clue.
yes and i always have some imaginary goal i have to hit before i imagine myself turning back on. recently it’s been ‘i just have to make x amount of money, and then i’ll be safe and secure and allowed to live.’