Hi there,

Thought I'd share this and see if maybe I can get some insight from other survivors..

I've worked a lot on my issues and have started to feel like I'm getting to a good place where I can start to make something positive out of my life - but this is where I feel completely apathetic. It's like, I just don't care. Everything's the same to me. I don't care what happens. I almost don't care if I live or die - because for all intents and purposes, I feel dead already..

I think this goes back to my childhood where I had to 'die' in order to keep going forward.. That sounds strange, I'll try to explain. My therapist once said that because I had no one as a child, I had to 'die', let go of my emotions because they were too much - or maybe because I felt they didn't mean anything since no one reacted to them (appropriately). And that to me is 'death'.. that not feeling. In a way, I feel I've been comfortably numb, but at the same time, it's the most awful place to be - because when you don't feel anything, nothing matters. It's like, I could do this, and it might be fun, but just as well I could be doing something else, and that could be fun, or something else.. etc. It's like nothing has any value, any meaning.

Can anyone relate to any of this? I've been wondering if I just lack will to live, but I don't think it's that - I do want to live, it's just that living feels like nothing! I'd like to care about things. Or maybe I'm afraid that life'll be all bad.. But I'm not the child anymore that I once was, the child who had very little if any say in how things were. I'm well into adulthood now, and can actually influence my life and try to make it better! Right?

[TishaBuv]

Maybe you're resting on your laurels until you get inspired about something you'd like to do. You're not alone in that feeling. I'm right there with ya' right now.

[Open Eyes]

It sounds like you did not experience "appreciation" when you were young and got lost with what that is supposed to mean, not just from another but from self appreciation as well. Perhaps you might benefit from helping others in some kind of donating your time where others go without, or look for someone to spend time with them, even feel someone cares.

[IrisBloom]

I have felt that way a lot in my life. You say you feel "nothing". Well, it might seem like nothing, but isn't that better than being in pain? I have felt the "nothing" many times. I think this feeling is mostly just an absence of what I have been used to, which in my case is mental turmoil. When it calms, it is not necessarily replaced with joy and rainbows, sometimes it just "isn't". You can fill the void with good things, happy things, productive things. You must find your joy.

[shezbut]

I do understand, d.o.a.

Going to DBT really helped me find alternatives. It helped me see and appreciate the many little things in life that I didn't recognize before. I discovered that nature is a huge stress-relief for me. So, I use that to my advantage.

I pick flowers, leaves, little rocks, etc. and I examine them. I look at each crevice, corner, edge, and really take the time to take it all in. Color/s, shape, touch, smells or sounds, and I let myself feel whatever. Sometimes, a memory will strike & I'll take notice of that as well. Just a few minutes, being in the moment completely.

There really is an art to it, imo. But, the beauty is in how much negative energy is released in those few minutes. Very relaxing to me! If you'd like more info on DBT, check out the link below. DBT is very helpful with a whole lot of emotional difficulties, so don't be worried how it sometimes seems to be angled towards those with BPD. DBT was created to help treat BPD, but it has been discovered to be very helpful in different illnesses as well.

DBT Self Help

Thank you all so much for your replies! It's good to have discussion on the matter as it helps me to get to the bottom of things..

Now I feel the problem has been that I try to impress others with everything I do. Even when it's something I enjoy, the point is to appear a certain way in other people's eyes. Maybe this has to do with the lack of appreciation you mentioned, Open Eyes.. I never really had people in my life who wanted to know me for me.

I don't want to live like this anymore, all the time fishing for the next compliment. I feel I'm then limited by other people's imaginations. I want to live according to my own values. They're so important to me because I feel they make me who I am. I don't want to be anyone else's acceptable idea of me anymore.

As for pain, I may be a bit weird, but I'd actually like to be able to feel that, too.. Not live with pain, but tolerate it enough so I can get the message it's trying to send. I think that's what all emotions are, information. Pain tells us something's wrong and that we ought to make changes. I guess the problem there has been that growing up, I had no one who would've seen or listened to my pain, so I indeed had to just keep it inside and live with it until it got to be too much, and I dissociated..

Now, I actually realise this is exactly as my therapist said. I'm still trying to keep pain at bay because I still don't trust that I have people in my life now who will care. I need to start trusting this - I'm not in the same situation I was growing up..

[Open Eyes]

You did a good job with identifying some things here, good for you. I think when you say you want to feel pain what you might mean by that is that you want to identify what was lost to you better so you can "grieve" it.

If you observe a dog that has been neglected and abused, the dog is very confused and afraid, but the dog doesn't really know what to do about it, even what it means. Even a dog wants to please and be loved, but, if the dog never had it but instead was neglected or abused, they too get very confused as how to feel. A dog who was neglected doesn't even really know how to please either. A lot of people get dogs and don't know how to train them. A lot of people get puppies because they are so cute, but once that puppy needs more, instead of sleeping alot because they are growing so much, many people begin neglecting and even get angry with the dog for having "needs". There are terrible things people do to dogs that the dogs never deserved. There are people, a lot of people that should never own a dog. The same is true for children. And it never means a child doesn't deserve to be loved and nurtured, it means that these people genuinely did not know how to raise a child, and love a child and make sure that child was nurtured correctly.

There are a lot of different things that individuals suffer from because of that. And there are many different ways these individuals even "self blame" or develop ways to "self protect" or self sooth because often they have to deal with some kind of anxiety/fear and they don't really know how to fix it. There are a lot of individuals who are confused about who they are even, but that is because their parent never helped them discover that, which is what a parent is supposed to do with a child.

One time I did an event with my ponies and the people at this event were very wealthy people. Most of these people had nannys for their children as that is often what wealthy people can do so they don't have to "know themselves" how to be mommys and daddies. So I was standing there and this woman walks up to me and her adorable little boy is walking along with her and she looks at me and says, "Ugh, my nanny is not here today, tell me, "WHAT DO I DO WITH "IT" meaning her son. So neglect can most definitely take place when it comes to children in all classes of people.

I have worked around so many families over the years and have come across many parents that don't know what to do when it comes to raising a child. Often the older the child gets, the more independent the child becomes, the more the parents make mistakes because they do not know the different stages of development. I think about when a puppy gets to the stage where it's full of energy and begins to want to run and play and the owners that begin yelling at it and hitting it, or put it in the garage, I have seen a lot of that. These people punish the dog and that is because "these people don't know what to do with it" so they get angry and frustrated and take it out on the dog.

You talk about how you try to please other people and yet you feel other people don't get to know you and appreciate "you". Well, a lot of times that is because they don't know "how" and unfortunately there is a lot of that going on now in society.

I think one of the ways that one can make gains is to actually learn child development. A lot of individuals study psychology in an effort to understand different challenges. However, often what these people miss is what was actually "missing" that creates these challenges to begin with. What that missing element is, is how the parent did not know that their job in raising a child is to help that child "self discover" and "build their own identity" and be loved for whatever that identity slowly develops into.

[TerriLynn]

I don't think what you have done is "die" inside, I think you disassociated from your feelings because they were too intense to handle. If you FELT your anger, it was too much, or like me, I didn't feel anger, because to me, the meaning of anger was violence, so I didn't allow myself to get angry.

I think you need help re-associating with your feelings, they need to start being expressed and felt again before the dam bursts.