My Support Forums - View Single Post

Open Eyes · Oct 05, 2011, 09:59 AM

That's a really long time to "keep trying"... 25 years. I'm spent.

Ok, that is a long time of struggling JD. But if I look back at my own life, I have been doing that for as long as I can remember. And I didn't even realize it until the final straw broke me. I was sent on a Journey to look back at a little girl, teenager, and woman that has done nothing but struggle and stuff so many fears and tramas that she thought she somehow coped. But I didn't cope, every single time I just stuffed and I honestly feel like I failed somehow, fail all my life.

Meandering Aimless in life, well, I thought I was surviving life, and I didn't like all the things that came into my path, things that really hurt and frightened me. And right now I have been stuck in such a bad situation where anything I did do, was just taken away and I just couldn't wrap my brain around that, I didn't even get a chance to even really morn it. I was just caught up in a trap, am still trapped and I feel spent too.

Sitting here with this Complex PTSD or whatever they call it. I am now seeing things I never realized and what all the hard work and struggling did to my brain. And never in all that time was my condition respected or really understood, and even now I am still misunderstood. Yes I now have a very bad clutch, I am very aware of that and I can honestly say, it feels like it is getting worse, because I am still trapped and AS LOUD AS I CRY, no one hears my grinding gears and really understands how much I really struggle.

As I look back, my whole life has been waiting for things to be over, for me to catch a break somehow, but it really never got there. And I see how I tried so hard JD, and how strong I was so many times. And I have to be honest, why cant I seem to tap onto that strong part of me that had the energy and the will to keep trying?

I have a daughter that I can't even call because I don't know what to say to her. Shes not going to understand what my life was all about, because I made sure I was there every step of the way to keep life from damaging her in any way. Every single time I saw the traps, I changed her direction and taught her how, yes she could just have the strength to say, those people are not healthy for me, so I will go here and be with more productive better people and then when those people were creepy and they really were, surprised me to no end, I found another place that she could walk to and do her life and be healthy. And so she has a lot of experience understanding how to be strong and be her and not allow herself to be trapped by others and she is much stronger than I have been or every will be, because she never got damaged by a trap she couldn't see.

So, shes not going to understand me, she cant see my grinding clutch, because I was constantly wearing my gears so that she didn't have to.
So she is never going to understand what I am now, how it is for me and somehow I don't want to let her see it either. And my husband is the same way, all he saw was that I shifted and changed gears while he dealt with his issues and his guilt and struggled to get better. They cannot understand that all that time, even before that time, 31 years of marriage, 27 years of raising a child in a situation where I really never felt safe, really damaged my clutch.

Spent? Oh boy do I feel that, I really do. And every morning I wake up feeling spent and lost and lost and I can't find peace and I feel guilty about how I can't seem to be that person who had that stronger clutch.
And I get up and make some coffee and sit here at PC and try to work on that clutch somehow. And even here I get triggered and struggle sometimes and even here I am misunderstood and challenged. But at least here I come across others, like you that can relate and then I don't feel so alone with my very badly worn clutch.

And sometimes, I am able to help someone see how to believe in themselves, because that is one thing I did do for many in my life.
And remember what I told you about how you helped me when I first came here? JD, I was so lost when I came here, so frightened. And if you had not helped me and welcomed me and guided me to stay, I don't know if I would be functioning right now, honest to God, I don't see how I could have managed to hang in, especailly because I am still trapped in a bad situation that is taking such a toll on me. Spent? I feel like that every day, every day I feel like I am wandering in some kind of trap where no one understands," I JUST CANT KEPT DOING THIS ANYMORE."my brain keeps saying. And I am trying so hard to say that to everyone and yet I am ashamed about that too. And then I have to remember that is what I have, this PTSD condition that tells me that my brain is struggling and very tired and it needs rest, a rest that no one else can truely understand.

I honestly don't care about all the other crappy people that pick on you, but it does anger me, because as far as I am concerned your struggle has not been futile, because you helped me so much. Are you worthless JD?
Not to me your not, because you were there to help me. And whatever you have left was enough to save me. And that is important for you to understand. It is important for you to understand that your own FAITH has provided a person who can have the capacity to reach out and make a difference in the life of another person that dangles on a dangerous line that no one around her, including her can understand.

You cannot focus on what you can't do JD, and for you that is hard because you were at one time a very strong functioning person and you only have part of that left and you often morn that and feel so crippled and lost and useless. But you not as useless as you think, because that would mean I was never worth your effort. And I hope that isn't true.
I know how you feel, I honestly feel it too. But I am trying very hard JD to hang in there and I too reach out because I know how very important it is to do that, because it meant so much to me.

And right now? That is what we have left, and it is not about the people who don't understand us and even hurt us, it is about being there for each other to help each other find strength in what we can do, what we have left to offer, even if it is not perfect.

I know that it is not real people sitting across from you like you once had.
But I can tell you that it IS real people that come and go here and even other places that need you and me and others like us to help them find a way to hang on, and even forgive and love themselves.

Open Eyes