When 'functioning well' gets in the way of healing

I'm sick of constantly putting on a 'brave face' to the world, having a constant smile, telling people I'm 'fine'. It's become such a habit this smiling and trying to appear 'well', been doing it my whole life, that it's making me feel worse because a) it's a lie, and b) it's such hard work to maintain and it's wearing me out the more I have to put into it and the worse I feel inside.

And yet I also don't know how not to be 'well' - I'm so afraid of people seeing me as someone who can't cope and I've always been the one who copes with anything (because inside nothing really touches me - I just dissociate). I don't know how not to habitually smile or say 'I'm OK' when asked.

I know what you mean. Not that i have ptsd or anything, but i can still relate. You can either force yourself to smile and say you are doing fine (when you are not). It´s possible, it´s the route i´ve chosen. It´s exhausting and will serve you no purpose in the end. You´ll feel alone, weak, scared. I don´t recommend it.
If you´re brave you´ll share your feelings with others, be honest and open. You don´t even have to be that brave, you can start small. If someone asks you how you´re doing you can reply "actually, not doing too good right now..."

Carmina, thank you so much. I could have written this post. I know what this feels like too well.

I could have also written this post.I hate to lie. But it's better than expressing what I really feel to people and seeing their "get over it" expressions. Or them changing the subject so not to listen to me. Just easier to lie and avoid the extra stress. I don't remember what it feels like to be different, to enjoy life, to love. Not sure that is attainable anymore.

Me too. I'm trying to be more open about my mental health issues. And, surprisingly, it feels quite good.

Not good. But a relief.

Things came to a head when I flipped with an aggressive superior at work. Not just once, but twice.

Basically, I was pretending to be happy when I wasn't happy.

Instead of making an excuse, in the conversations that followed my blow up, I just decided there and then to say thing's as they were.

People think my company is a 'soft' employer. But they're not. Behind the scenes, no-one speaks back to the higher-ups.

Joining this forum had an effect. I got to know some people on here a little bit. They were nice! Sensitive. And my heart went out to them, seeing how they struggled to maintain their integrity in a bruising and indelicate world.

I don't know how it will turn out but I'm genuinely impressed so far with my superiors response.

I have made a space for myself in which I can say what I need and what I won't accept.

I am prepared to quit the job, if necessary.

So, those things in combination (saying for the first time that I wasn't happy, and being ready to leave) made me feel like I was no longer trapped.

Thanks

Well this is pretty much it

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...ing-depression

I can, occasionally open up to people, the real problem is the reflexive habits - the smiling and 'I'm OK' as if I have some deep seated need to appease others (which I probably do)

Interesting article, thanks for sharing it.

Could you experiment with a different phrase?

Yes I could but I would still find a way to make it another way of coping. I don't think I'm explaining myself well - it's not the surface behaviours in themselves, they are just manifestations of the fact that I need to maintain this exterior level of functioning and can't fundamentally 'let go' of that - it's blocking me from really dealing with how I am. I wish I could take time out from myself. I feel like I'm surrounded by layers of obfuscation - they don't let people really see me but they also block me from being me. If that makes sense.

It's not so much that I can't say "I'm not coping" - it's that I can't allow myself to be... not coping.

Were you by any chance the "high-functioning" member of a dysfunctional family growing up? One of the hallmarks of dysfunctional families is that they don't allow family members the space to act outside their designated role, so the high-functioning one can never fall apart (b/c if they do, everyone else falls apart).

Everything you've written in this thread is exactly how I feel. And now my brain or body or something won't allow me to ignore it anymore, and my life circumstances no longer allow for my habitual ways of coping, so I feel like I'm going crazy and out of control. The people around me won't let me "not function", and my-self won't let me "function", so I'm just in free-fall.

Oh yes, very much so

I had to watch my behaviour all the time because if I didn't my mother would be the one to fall apart and then everyone would be upset and we'd get suicide threats and worse

......

Actually though now I think of it perhaps my fear of falling apart myself is also a fear of becoming her? (not just like her but that she is inside me - when I was a child I had 2 nightmares, one was that she burst into my room at night just screaming uncontrollably - and that was so scary I'd wake up and it would be me screaming)

I think this is what the object relations psychoanalysts call 'introjection'

Don't know how I got through last week, had the funeral for my aunt Monday, had to cope with staying at my parents over the weekend, took Tuesday off to recover and then Wednesday too but had to go back to work Thursday and just couldn't face it. But somehow I did because I had to and couldn't let anyone down. Put my 'game face' on and just got on with things. I just can't contemplate the idea of letting other people down, or giving in, or going to pieces.

I think when I dissociate it feels like I can cope with almost anything. I was talking to my therapist today about when I was bullied at school - there was this fat kid who always made for me in the playground and would just push me over and sit on my chest most of the break time. I couldn't get up or do anything so I just took myself out of myself in my mind till it was all over.

Sorry, Carmina

Didn't sleep well, not sure I have the energy to face anything but I have to

Are you OK?

((Carmina)),

When you are asked how you are all that means is that someone else is acknowledging your presence politely. When you respond by saying I am ok, all you are doing is responding to that other person politely letting them know you are acknowledging their presence. Instead of thinking about your response as a lie, think about your response as your way of acknowledging the other person but that you have decided not to include this other person in your personal space or challenge. (this is self empowerment, not self deprivation)

Putting on your "game face" doesn't have to mean you are depriving yourself or that you should "feel" like you are being punished or deprived either. What you are really doing is you are actually controlling and protecting your personal boundaries where only you can decide who you will share with and who will not be of any help if you talk about how you really feel. (this is self empowerment, not self deprivation)

This thought you have shared is another self punishing thought where you are telling yourself to feel deprived and "just" suck up so other people get to have their needs met.

This doesn't really have to be your inner dialogue with yourself. Instead, the reason you are not going to pieces is because you need to find YOUR WAY to being strong for YOURSELF and this should not be about "them" but something you are doing for YOURSELF. (again self empowerment and not self deprivation)

This is where what you just faced in the now has brought up a past experience. It's a question, and yet it's also recalling something in your past that you experienced where you were pinned down and did not know what to do. Actually, what you did in this past situation is you went right into a defense mode that is part of our natural design as a way for self protection. You did not fight back and laid still because it was the best way to survive that experience because if you did fight back you would have wasted energy and that fat kid could have used his weight even more that would have physically "hurt" you. If you were to observe a mouse that is trapped by a cat, that mouse will freeze and be still, the reason for that is "instinctively" that mouse knows that this cat will react aggressively if the mouse chooses to move.

Predators get a "high" off of "reaction". Actually, that fat kid got to know that he could trap you, BUT, eventually he got bored with you because once he got you down "game was over and no more fun". YOU controlled that part. So you actually did much better than you realize. However, because you were so young, you did not have the knowledge and life experience to know that so it traumatized you and you stored that experience "unresolved question". The other thing you learned from that is to avoid "fat kids" and you probably continued to feel uncomfortable around individuals who resemble that "fat kid" that caused you to have such a bad experience. Well, that is simply how we are designed, to remember anything that hurt us in some way.

An interesting statement. Something tells me that your parents may be the people who taught you to not bother them with YOUR FEELINGS AND NEEDS. The individuals in your past/childhood that encouraged you to put THEIR needs before your own. It would not surprise me because this is often how a lot of children are raised where they are encouraged to think that their challenges and feelings need to be suppressed so they don't disturb mom or dad. This kind of environment can lead to memories where the individual ends up having a block and instead of talking about something with the therapist, the individual sinks into dissociation. How you "felt" while staying with your parents means a lot. It may help if you sit with your therapist and think about your stay with them and why it was an experience you felt you had to "cope with".

A funeral in a family can mean the family facing a gathering and how that can often be worse than the death in the family. What I am seeing in what little you shared is how much that entire experience was such a challenge for you. You deserve to talk about it, but not with a person that may just be acknowledging your presence with a "hello how are you" that is not meant to be something that says, sit down with me and let your feelings pour out of you. This is not the same as telling you that you don't deserve to feel and that you need to deprive yourself of "needing to feel and have someone who can sit with you and help you grieve the entire experience you just experienced".

What I am thinking from what you have shared is that in that experience there really was not anyone around that could validate YOUR feelings and show YOU respect for how you feel.

I am sorry for that ((((Carmina)))) because that is how I struggle myself. This is a common challenge many who suffer from complex PTSD have. However, each person will have their own experiences and can include many times where that individual survived through something traumatic and had to be strong somehow and yet began to hear messages of how they should stay silent with how they "feel" and "need".

Thanks both of you, was up from 4.30 as I had a crap nights non sleep, eventually forced myself into the shower to clear my head and went into work and got through a few hours, home again now, survived another day.

I have no frikking idea how I got through last week

I think you survived but you were probably talking to yourself with bad messages that you don't realize you learned to create in "self". From what you have shared your inner voice keeps chanting "I have to for THEM" and how "I need to deprive myself".

What I tried to do in my post for you was to lay out the inner conversations you have and how you can work towards being "kinder" to self instead of the way you often talk to yourself like that part of you that needs doesn't have a right to need. Now that you have gotten through last week, I hope you can revisit my post and think about how you can change your inner dialogue so that instead of doing for "THEM", you are maintaining your own boundaries about your feelings and that you even got through work because you "need" the income from that job and you are functioning through these challenges FOR YOU.

Sorry but I really would rather have support here, not someone trying to second guess (mistakenly) what I may be thinking and advising me how to think, I know you are trying to help but it feels rather invasive.

Yes, you are correct in that I was trying to be helpful. Thank you for letting me know how my input affected you, I find that because my intent is to be helpful that when someone takes the time to give me feedback be it negative or positive I can learn from that and try to improve on my effort so that it has a more "positive" affect on the individual when I invest my time in trying to help that individual.

That being said, one of the things I noticed myself doing as well as others I have come across that struggle with PTSD is that self talk, "I have to do it for them" and "I have to not feel MY feelings (which is depriving self) so I can do for them.

Where I really became aware of that was during a therapy session where I was talking to my therapist about a lot of things I had experienced and tears were running down my face and he gently stopped me and said, "you just told me some very sad things you lived through, how about stopping and allowing yourself to sit with those emotions instead of how you are running away with them". I honestly had not realized I did that and the core message in me was "I have to not feel, I have to do that for them".

Well, it's taken me a long time to figure out where I developed that way of being Carmina.

I can SO relate to this. Yet, I did not know that was what I was doing. And when I failed to do that I tended to be hard on myself believing "I can't have my feelings because I have to do for "them" because that's more important". Not only that but if I faltered and feelings came out I was most definitely penalized for it because some other person most definitely needed their feelings to be more important than mine.

It's hard for me to share my own personal challenges in that I anticipate being criticized for my own feelings. Because of that I never truly processed all the trauma I experienced in my history, and I do have a lot of trauma in my history.

Thanks - my therapist tells me I keep trying to protect her and that she doesn't need me to - it feels safer to look after others and not oneself

(((Carmina))), I know just what you mean when you say this. However, I think this is probably where you get this and I believe this is also why I myself struggle because I had too many of these type of individuals in my personal history and my kind temperment actually attracts them to me and I just didn't realize it. It's something to sit and think about.

Why empaths and narcissists are attracted to each other - Business Insider

When I think about negative self talk, the I have to for "them" and I can't have "my own feelings", I think this develops because this is what someone is told to think about themselves because the other person, be it a parent or sibling or even a spouse, tended to insist on their feelings being more important and this can lead to the one being influenced to disassociate in an effort to "not feel their own feelings".

When I read the part about how it's ok to ask their advice, I can think of someone that liked having that power, that's not about empathy though, that's more about giving the other toxic person the power they like to have and the authority.

Had a bad day at work, 2 of my students were struggling with something and straight away I was finding ways to blame myself, examining everything I did for that little mistake somewhere I must have made. I tell them all the time not to beat themselves up for making mistakes and yet I do that all the time myself, and worse. I went home feeling back in that place, when I was small, thinking I had done something wrong, but never quite being able to understand what it was. Just that I must be bad, wrong, not even human really.

I'm really really sick of this feeling, I feel so cut up inside, and it makes me want to cut myself again outside. It's just intolerable. Even worse is knowing tomorrow I will find another way to drag myself in and cope all over again because letting people at work down would be impossible for me to do. I think coping has become such a habit, almost like an addiction.

I am finding this to be true for me too.

I did try to be true. My dentist said I looked well or at least better than my previous visit. I was brave and said if only I felt it. People don't like the truth...

My sympathies to you Carmina

Much love

I’ve also found that people don’t like the truth grrrrrrrrrrr

Hugs to all