I hear you, and I can feel the pain in your words. I know how difficult it is to struggle with dissociation and depression. I also understand what it is like to feel all alone, even when in the company of others. While it is true that most people are not able to understand what it is like for us on a daily basis, those of us on PC have more ability to empathize and understand. Please remember this when you reach the point where all seems lost, and you question whether it's worthwhile to keep pressing on.

When reading your thread, what jumps out at me are the many negative ways you refer to yourself: broken, pathetic, insignificant, alienated, alone, disabled. I wonder what has made you feel this way about yourself. If people don't or can't understand you, does that make you wrong? Is it possible that part of the reason others can't understand you is because your inner workings and thought processes are deeper than theirs are?

Dissociation is a creative defense mechanism that is usually begun in childhood as a way to tolerate intensely distressing or abusive circumstances. While it creates problems when we become adults, it still shows a capacity for creativeness and resilience in the face of chaotic situations.

Does that make you odd, weird, and freakish because you are different from others? Or does it make you unique, complex, and deep? It depends on who you ask, doesn't it? One thing I have had to work hard on is accepting that I am different in many ways from other people. Many people don't understand me. While I can communicate how I feel, most of them still will not be able to understand what it is like to live in my own skin. That does not make me wrong or freakish. It does make me different.

Like you, I struggle with some very critical, punishing inner voices. Those inner voices that criticize everything I do are not always truthful. They often accuse and blame me for things I am not guilty of. The awful things I tell myself are negative messages that my dad and others told me as a child. I've taken those criticisms in, and I've made them a part of me. I believe them. But the people who told me those awful things about myself were wrong. They did not understand my sensitivity, vulnerability, and depth of experience. I wonder if your self-critical voices are there for a similar reason...

While life can be intensely painful for us, we are often very intuitive and able to both realize and experience situations from several angles. It can be overstimulating, exhausting, and feel like entirely "too much to bear." It sounds like you are in this overwhelmed, "too much" state right now.

I would advise you to contact your therapist or psychiatrist and let them know that you are not in a good place right now and could use some extra support. You deserve it, whether you think so or not.

You are so right in saying it's exhausting putting on that mask of normalcy every day and trying to live up to everybody else's expectations. Don't worry about everybody else right now. You need rest and peace, acceptance and support. You do not have to be perfect.

Please hang in there.

Sending warm thoughts,
Peaches