Shouldn't have gotten my hopes up

Finally went back to therapy today. Didn't help a damn thing. Nothing helps. Not therapy. Not medication. Not dieting or exercise. Nothing.

Maybe nothing helps because nothing's actually wrong and I just need to get over it.

I just don't know what to do or even what's left to do. Maybe I just need to accept that I deserve this. Stop looking for a way out and just accept my punishment.

I personally get really tired with the exercise trend growing nowadays.
If I do exercise, I want to do it so I'll enjoy it. Why should I suffer doing it? Because high social status people encourage it?
I will only do something if it actually makes me feel better.

It was your first day back in T, give it some time, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Perhaps you just need to "warm up" before it starts having any effects..

It's not like I was gone from therapy for months. I was gone for close to three weeks. That's it. Maybe being gone for that little time can effect me like this but I just don't see it.

And I understand that I don't believe he's actually my T. I just pretended he was. I told him about the stuff going on. I didn't feel any relief from it. Hell, I didn't feel much of anything and still don't. All of my emotions are just numb.

Even with numb emotions, I still feel doomed. I've tried several kinds of therapy and medications. What's the point of that if no one even knows what's going on with me in the first place? Sure, I'm officially diagnosed with PTSD and it's been repeatedly mentioned that I have depression. The thing is, all of my symptoms are just umbrella-ed by PTSD. Like all of my problems are trauma related. How does that work when I've dealt with these things since way before the trauma began?

Sorry, I'm just venting at this point.

Yeah, exercise is an overrated load of **** in my book. And I agree that I might just need more time, but I've given so much time already. I don't know how much more I can give.

Whathever you do, please don't blame yourself. You're doing your best to cope

Thanks, Mickey.

I just wish I could find a way to do better.

Reach for a star; and what will you find?
A stone, my boy, a stone.
Reach for a stone; will you find a star?
No, my boy, not one.
The sensible view is the view of the floor.
- Theodore Spencer (1941)

You don't sense any significant differences in your experience before vs after the trauma?

You don't need to just get over it and you don't deserve to be punished. Hold on and keep going to therapy. You never know when it will kick in. I know you've tried a lot of stuff and you're weary but hang in there. Your answer may be just down the road around the corner tucked out of sight. Sending big hugs.

Yes, I do. But even with significant differences, there are significant things that didn't change.

I'm so sorry. Could this mean that bad things happened to you before the trauma that you are focusing on?

Hi! I'm just curious about your meds, not that you have to tell me all you've been on but I have gone through so many docs and trial and error with meds it made me crazy! I finally found a great psychiatrist and I FINALLY feel awesome! I'm not even sure that's an issue for you but I do hope you keep your head up and never stop looking for what you need. I know it's exhausting.

Yes, there were. There always has been. What early memories I have, they aren't good. Still, they could be worse. Plenty of kids go through that stuff or worse. But they don't develope this stuff.

They don't fantasize about or even plan it.

Why do I?

Can I ask why you should be punished, because I don't think you should be.

I don't know what else to say, but I believe if you have the thoughts, you must have experience some pain even before the trauma. What's bugging you so badly? Have you know it yet, or can you discover it in next therapy session?

Keep going on your therapy.

Other people did many bad things to you, but right now you mainly blame yourself for the aftereffects of those bad things.

all I can say is you don't deserve this

Like Turtle, I wonder why you believe that this illness is a punishment.
Who is punishing you So?

I really think that seeing your pdoc will help... I know it's a ways away. Just hang in there til then. Meds may not have worked because they were the wrong meds. Research over the years has shown that T plus meds is usually more effective than just T or just meds. But it needs to be the right med combo. Keep posting, and you can always pm me. It may take me a bit to respond sometimes, but I will.

I can't really verbalize why I believe I deserve this. As to who is punishing me; life, as it should.

I appreciate all of you.

So, but who's life is punishing you? I do not understand the way you refer to life as a power external to your own self.
Do you mean a higher power?

I don't have much belief in a higher power. I used to. Externally, life's a pain but it is for everyone and I'm no exception.

When I talk about punishment I'm talking about my own head. I'm talking about the fact that I'm told repeatedly that I deserve this. I deserve feeling like this and not being able to move past this. This is what I have coming. Externally, no one hurts me anymore but I don't know why it stopped. I realize how messed up it sounds, but the fact that it stopped makes my mind so much worse. And I self-harm, not for any other reason than I deserve it, or even that I need it. If no one else will do it then it's up to me.

Long story short, at this point I'm the only one punishing me. You'd think that would mean it can all stop if I want it to. It's not that simple, or at least, doesn't seem that way.

divine1966, who often posts in the relationship forum, has shared a helpful term: the unhealthy familiar.

We tend to strive to create and maintain what we are accustomed to, what we are familiar with, who we already are: particularly, what we grew up with. The familiar is what we believe that we deserve.

Being punished, being told (literally or by implication) that you deserve pain, sounds very familiar to you. You were taught, by people's words and actions, that you deserve pain. Perhaps this is one reason that you continue to give yourself pain.

No, simple it is not. I think yoda said that...