When I was a child I just focused on surviving. Now I am sick of working so hard to survive…when do I get to just live? Not ‘relive’ ~ live.
How do you find the balance? How do you let yourself feel and not become overwhelmed? How do you listen to the hurt ones and not blame them, feel too much, and become incapacitated by them?
Both Wednesday and Thursday nights I found myself so overwhelmed with the pain that I was lying on the bathroom floor in a full-fledged panic attack; alternating between shaking uncontrollably and hitting my head on the floor, to pacing the floor considering ways to kill myself. In that moment, anything, including death, is better than living like that night after night. Major crazybrain freak outs both nights!
I feel so far away from myself. Each morning, after a night of dissociative fear and destruction, I try to put myself back together again. But each time I break apart, it gets harder and harder to fit the pieces back together again. Somewhere in the midst of these nightmares I lost my soul. I am not connected to this soulless body ~ it is merely a carrier for my traumatized brain. I feel tangled inside a mind I cannot escape.
Every night so many voices, so much confusion. His face before me, his hands on my body, his breath breathing on my neck. She takes a step back to avoid contact with him. She cries out. He advances toward her. She takes another step back, retreats further into the dark abyss waiting for another to help with the pain. Hopeless. She reaches out faintly while being overtaken by the memories boiling over. Step back! Get back! Step back! Get away! Over and over, night after night. Shame. The unspoken pain and shame. What happens when it truly becomes so overwhelming that it does kill me?
This is not good. Every single night I fight for a reason to live. Every night a coin is tossed ~ one night I'm going to lose the toss. Why does my body continue to scream at me? Why is it so hard? Why is there no end in sight? When will it get better? I am so tired *surviving* ~ I don't have any energy left to *live*!
I wish I had the words to say to make you better immediately. There are none. We all know that no one can say anything to make us feel better. Only the changing of the past could do that, and we all know how that one works out. One day at a time and you WILL come out on top. You are strong enough. Surviving IS living.
ReplyDeleteI haven't experienced the traumatizing things which you have .. I can only imagine the enormity of the pain you must feel. But I do understand the concept of struggling to survive day after day after day. I don't think I ever lived. It's like a never-ending nightmare.
ReplyDeleteI feel for your Grace. Finding the balance takes time...it's not an event but a process. I've learned through trial and error to keep seperate from the torment. I don't know how I've learned this, it just slowly happened. In the beginning years of the journey I read this book called "Uncovering the Mystery of MPD" by James G.Friesen, Ph.D. It really helped me not feel like such a freak and see that the possiblilty of balance truly did exist within multiples. It wasn't my experience at the time but it is now.
ReplyDeleteWhen we do our therapy work it's from the outside in, before it was from the inside out. That doesn't mean they don't come out, we have learned giving them avenues to express themselves has stablized the systems ability to function. When everyone who wants to share is able to the pressure doesn't build.
Learning how to feel is the same process...it's step by step. I found including in our daily focus things we like, helps us feel and express what we feel in a healthy way. I like my dog...she feels soft and she makes me feel happy. I like to colour because...I like my coffee because... It's good to own the negative emotions too but it's much hardier and takes much longer. Get stronger foucsing on the positive stuff and with that strenth you will be able to handle the others.
I have found the only way to listen to the pain of other parts of my humanity is by keeping the seperation...if someone wants to share then I listen if I find it to overwhelming then I tell them, I can't help them because I don't understand but I will find someone who can. Before I thought I needed to control everybody and everything that was happening inside...not anymore my focus is being functional. Sorry I went on so long...it is possbile to function and you will get better. Sending each one of you warm thoughts and peace.
(((Grace)))
ReplyDeleteYou are working hard. It will come around.
ReplyDeleteDitto to what Exhale says. If you focus on the good parts of your life, that doesn't mean the bad parts don't count. My therapist once called me on the pity-party I was having and told me that by spending so much energy on the past, I was telling my daughter that she was not as important as the hell of my past. Woops. Reality check. I've had to fight it tooth and nail, but I'm gaining ground and it's good ground. I hope you can begin to find comfort and peace. I'm so sorry that you are suffering so badly.
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