(((((Angel Girl)))))

I hear your pain. You remind me a great deal of the old me. Heck, you remind me a great deal of the current me, but all I can say is that it does get better. There is hope. Things will get better for you even though if anyone said that to the old me I just couldn’t see how to believe them.

I used to be in fairly much constant pain. I really didn’t feel that I ever had much respite from it. I hurt so much and I couldn’t understand why I hurt so much, what it was all for and I couldn’t figure out how to make it stop. Part of me didn’t believe that I deserved for it to stop anyway. I was worthless. I was hopeless. I hurt the people I most cared about. Most of the time I didn’t mean to. Sometimes I was just in so very much pain myself that I simply couldn’t see how my actions would result in another being hurt. Sometimes I did intend to hurt – because it seemed to me that they were causing my pain on purpose. They could have done something to stop it, but they did not. And when I saw things that way I just felt so very angry and hurt that I would lash out. And then after a time when the situation became clearer I felt so very bad for hurting them that I took that to prove to me that I really was a worthless despicable person.

This was a cycle that kept playing out in my life, over and over, and even with the make-ups afterwards the good feelings that came from that were just a very brief respite from my suffering until the next cycle would start to unfold.

That was what my life was like. And I couldn’t figure a way to make it stop. I couldn’t figure a way to stop the intense pain and suffering that I carried around inside me most of the time. And sometimes it would flare up because I simply could not cope with it any more. I couldn’t figure out why I kept hurting the people I most cared about. Why I kept pushing away the people I most wanted to connect with and feel connected to. I could see no way out. I did not think that there was any hope for me. Sometimes I would get so low that I thought it was in the publics interests for me to kill myself so that they wouldn’t have to worry about being hurt by me anymore and I thought it was in my own interests to do this because there was no other way that the pain would stop.

But that terrified the hell out of me. Because I wanted to be a good person. I didn’t really want to hurt anyone. I just wanted to feel happy. I just wanted to feel loved. But I was terrified because I really couldn’t see that there was any way out.

I have gotten better Angel Girl. Not perfect, no way. I struggle so very much with so very much stuff. I still hurt people sometimes. I still suffer. But as the days go on I am learning and progressing and that stuff is nowhere near as bad as it used to be. The days I spend that really are unbearable to me are so much less. They are still there, but no longer most of the time.

What helped me was therapy Angel Girl. In particular seeing a good therapist who was kind to me and not judgmental of me. Someone who seemed to understand the sorts of things I just told you. Someone who was kind and compassionate and centered in themselves and who showed me something that I really cannot praise enough because they have saved my life over and over and over. They have improved my quality of life to the point where most days I can say with conviction that I am a worthwhile human being who does her best. DBT skills. Of how to deal with intense emotions. Of how to ask people appropriately for things we believe we need. Of how to show other people appropriately that we care about them. Of how to self soothe. I know this probably sounds clinical and dry, but I found it to be a world view. Doing DBT changed my view of the world of myself and of my place in the world and my place in relation to others. I came to understand why the cycle happened Angel Girl. I came to understand my role in it and I learned how to change my responses. But I also learned which aspects of the situation were beyond my control so that I knew that aspects of it really were not my fault. And I could handle my distress better and I could soothe myself so that on the occasions when there is nobody there to help I am ok by myself because I am strong enough for this present moment which is all I need to be.

This probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. But the message I want to give to you is that other people have been there. In a similar (never exactly the same to be sure) but in a similar place to the place you are in now. Not just me Angel. I have met many of us. And the message that I want to give to you is that there is hope. Things will get better. Just hang in there Angel. It is such an incredibly hard time when ones therapist goes away. But you are coping ok You are doing the best you can You are hanging in there. I know that you are in so much pain but I have faith that things will get a whole heap better for you. But it is a hard journey and it does take time. (((((Angel Girl)))))