The answer to the first question is probably along the lines of “exist.” As for the second… I have no idea. Honestly.
Less flippantly, I’ve come to realize that, through a neglectful and abusive past, I never had an emotional connection or sense of love even as a child. And that developed into a core belief of “I was never loved because I cannot and should not be loved.” Combine that with the lifetime aggregate damage from an emotional survival tactic of “it’s be less painful to hurt/reject myself before others can hurt/reject me” and… well… that’s me.
It occurs to me that I basically have the emotional/psychological equivalent of an autoimmune disease, and I’m slowly being chewed up and destroyed by my own defense mechanisms.
That’s pretty damn insightful man. Do you see that the root cause of it does not lie with you? I guess you do. So you can rationalise your way out of it. In theory. Logically. But that’s far easier said than done.
At least you aren’t being dumb about it. Or a victim. Those are easy traps to fall into, and you didn’t. That is awesome. You know what it is, and you can go looking for a cure. It won’t be quick and it won’t be easy, but it can be done.
Unfortunately, it seems that discovering the underlying cause has made things worse: in part because it has opened up the wound and exposed raw nerves, but more than that because of the dawning realization of just how deep and fundamental this issue is–I think, ultimately, this belief is who I am; more than anything else. I can’t remove it because there’s nothing left beneath it.
And this all has made everything so much more difficult to cope with. The bigger a project this becomes to fix/heal, the harder it is to convince myself it’s even worth moving forward at all.
Maybe quitting drinking was a step too far. I’m not sure I can handle things day to day without that mechanism to numb myself and cut the day off short when it becomes too much to deal with.
It’s been a rough day. Hiding away in my office because I can’t let my coworkers see how visibly upset I am, and overtaken by sobs when I snuck out to the restroom. I tried journaling out some of my feelings on the little notebook I keep on me, but it quickly went down a path where I had to stop.
I really don’t know how to manage all of this without some sort of self-medication.
I have no idea of what anyone might say to improve the situation, but I do know you have friends here who care. Please remember that when you’re feeling the lowest!
I haven’t dealt with depression so I don’t know how to help. All I can say is that I was once in a relationship with someone who became severely depressed and suicidal. She felt similar about herself to what you’re saying, but none of it was true. She wasn’t this horribly flawed monster of a human being, she just had the perception that was the case. She wasn’t any of those things at all.
Please please please somewhere just understand that while you perceive yourself to be a certain way, that doesn’t mean that’s what you are. You are battling an illness, an insidious one that attacks the mind. Just like other serious illnesses, it sounds like you may need help to get through it. Other than the crisis line, are there any other resources available? Doctors, therapists, counselors?
I have a therapist that I see once a week; though now we’re stuck just have phone conversations, which I find to be far less effective than in-person sessions.
And I get this… I know it’s true. But that doesn’t stop it from being incredibly–even physically–painful. Some time back, there was a post likening depression to being in a burning building and having to choose between letting the fire get you, or taking a leap–because at least the fall will be less painful than the flames. I’m not close to that point yet, but it still rings very true.
But anyway… it’s hard to think about the future, or the present, or the past right now. I think the only way forward right now is to do whatever I can to keep myself distracted.
Okay, good. I know that doesn’t help or fix anything, I just am glad to know that a part of your mind at least understands it.
I really do wish I knew of things I could do or say or resources I could recommend. I can’t fix anything, but I can tell you that I’ll be here to listen!
I appreciate it. Really.
One of the issues that I’m coming up against is that I don’t know how to process emotions. It was beaten into me (not entirely figuratively…) early on that my emotions were wrong, and that sharing or expressing emotions was to be punished. And so I hid stuff away, ignored it, numbed it, and never actually learned how to feel it. I imagine it’s not too different than color blindness, or perhaps needing to speak in a language I have no context or familiarity with. And so when it does bubble out, it’s just incomprehensible pain that I am unable to articulate.
Yet here you are, being articulate and intelligent in finding words for it, sharing your emotions with us. You are not as damaged as you think you are perhaps. Not beyond salvage.
Yet here you are, slogging through another day in the burning building. Fucking awesome for toughing it out man! I respect the amount of gumption that must take. The amount of discipline. I doff my hat to thee, good sir.
No it’s not. What you are is always fluid, always in motion. Wanna get philosophical on this? How about this one: You are your story. Your history, the aggregate of your choices and what happened to prompt you to make them. What you are is the story you tell yourself and the world about what you are.
This can be changed. It is not set in stone. Once you were a selfish child, as all children are selfish. But no longer, at least not in the way a 4 year old is. You have changed, and you will change, this is inevitable. Growth is change, and we humans never cease to grow. Every experience, every thought is part of that.
You can make choices. Always. In fact, the space you have of different options is always, per definition infite. It may not seems so from your point of view. It may seem to you that all choice you have left is to burn or jump, but this is not true. And you are showing us, and I hope also yourself, that you have agency. You stopped drinking, you came to us with your blues.
TLDR: Don’t give up hope. There’s always a way. Don’t give up. Choose life. I want you in the world, you make it a better place.
This is awful. It’s amazing you are here, because without having that parental love in my life I would not have made it to this point. Praise yourself for being a good person and enduring without something so critical. Can you please do that? If not for you, do it for us at QT3? You’ve got to feel the love here for you. And if you don’t see it, you need to realize it’s real and take it in.
Cutting out alcohol or any kind of dependency based drug does what you’re writing to a person. Trust me, I’ve been through some serious shit from dealing with chronic pancreatitis and the heavy narcotics they put me on to handle it. The problem is you get past the physical withdrawal and any issues it may cause, and you think… well I should be fine now. But the worst is yet to come and that’s the psychological withdrawal past the acute stage. I don’t know what it’s like for alcohol or how much you drank, but for what I was in it took several weeks to get past the actuate stage where I was blithering mess, from crying and gutted, to anxious and upset. I think that lasted a month and then I thought I should be fine. But that’s not how it works, because then you have the subconscious psychological crap that slowly gnaws at the back of your mind feeding a slow drip of bad thoughts. That lasted 2 months for me. But the upside is, you get past that and life gets so much better. My guess is it would take less time for any of these steps for it to heal in you, and though you will probably tell me that you’ve always had these thoughts and you wouldn’t expect anything to change. But if you’ve been using alcohol to manage for the last year or more I’m going to tell you you’re wrong, you need to do it, and you need to trust me on this. If you don’t I’m gonna kick your ass and that’s gonna be quite the feat considering my condition. If you desperately need something because you can’t settle your mind at night, then try Trazadone (Desaryl), and if not that then some strain of marijuana that doesn’t cause you anxiety or paranoia.
There is one thing I want you to consider above all, Ketamine infusion therapy. My PCP has had patients who were chronically, hopelessly depressed, and had the ketamine infusion and were cured for the next couple months. Happy and not a trace of depression. You NEED to try this. Go in expecting nothing, so whatever level of relief you get will be good. It’s like my tumor surgery. This entire thing has been shitty and the fact insurance held up the MRI I needed to a point they have permanently damaged my spinal cord, but I decided if I came out of this surgery not paralyzed, I could use my fingers and hands, I wasn’t impotent incontinent I’d be happy. It’s served me well, because things didn’t go as planned and it’s been a very rough ride with a lot of complications I still have to work through. But hey, I can mostly walk, I think I can game, and I’m not peeing my pants :)
Well, I’m feeling a bit better today. Not sure if it’ll last, but I’ll take it.
And again, even if I don’t respond to each message here, I’ve still read it all, and it does mean a great deal. So thank you.
One observation I had on my way home last night was that my only real mechanism for processing feelings/emotions/whatever this junk may be is self-harm–specifically: verbal/emotional abuse, withholding of food/pleasure, and alcohol abuse (that one’s a two-fer!). I know it’s not healthy, but it’s the only way I have of coping.
Sometimes I try positive avenues, like posting my photography (seeking positive attention/praise as a soothing mechanism), but positive attention is painful, and ends up accelerating the spiral. Things that make me feel “better” make me feel worse.
Even when I exercise, it tends to be taken with an underlying attitude that it’s being done as a form of punishment to myself, and I push myself until I hurt myself.
That’s called comfort food. I see it in my ex-wife. She had a miserable upbringing full of instability turmoil, abuse. She married me and I brought her everything she ever needed. Financial stability, emotional stability, support to help her with her OCD and bipolarity, no violence in the home like she had before, an honest and sincere mate. So what did she do with that? Ran away from engaging and accepting those things and in end is destroying her life heading straight back into the very things she wanted to get away from that caused all the things that were ruining/running her life before she met me.
Don’t be like her. Move to accepting positive things from others and for what you do for yourself. It will make you very uncomfortable, maybe even scared (scared of losing positive support and feeling abandoned), but I see a difference between you and her. I “think” you really do want to get to a point where you’re ok with it. But you have to make yourself uncomfortable and realize that feeling will pass. It will take a bit, and will take dedication, but stay at it. You have your chance right now to pierce your bubble and step into a new world that makes you queasy. Do it please. Don’t throw away a 15+ years of your life since you seem to have the tools to know where to go and what to do.
I’m going to say again, try ketamine therapy as well. Insurance likely will not pay for it, but it is worth every cent.
The thing is, it’s not really a choice–not at the present, at any rate. The pain is severe enough, that at an instinctual, involuntary level, I need to do something. And the “good” and “healthy” routes not only do not ease the pain, they amplify it.
To come back to that analogy, it’s like being caught in a burning building, many stories up and pressed against the window with flames licking at my feet, and being told what I really need to do is just build a fire escape. It’s one thing to work on that before the fire breaks out, but another matter entirely when you’re actually burning.
Kinda like where your legs don’t work because the fear is so great. Not that… but kind of like that?
I’d say more like someone tells you the healthy thing to do is to just hold your hand down on a hot stove burner. Don’t pull it away, just keep it there. Even if you fully, 100% believed it would help, would your body allow you to?
It seems to me that depression and anxiety can’t possibly have just one “healthy” treatment. If something doesn’t help or makes it worse for you, it certainly doesn’t seem like continuing it is a good idea! Photography is already a good outlet, perhaps that or just going out for walks would help? Spending a half hour (or more) just walking through nature without responsibility sure helps calm my mind.