So tired, (trigger?)

So tired, (trigger?)
P

Printer57

Registrant
Well, here I am again. Don't know why, just so very tired. Feeling depressed, don't even want to type this, forcing myself to. Tired of complaining, tired about feeling depressed, tired of the same "tape" going on in my head. Tired of the relentless feelings.
Family is planning a vacation, I am going but really want no part of it. But it isn't fair the burden them.
All I want to do is stay in my room , in my bed curled up. But if i do that, that only makes it worse. Sometinmes I just want to get into my car and drive to no where, I guess just to run away. But I see that I can't run away b/c it is always there.
When these feelings aren't pressing like they are now, I live in fear of when the feelings will return. I know there coming back, As if they have life of their own. How crazy is that?
Going forward, I know I have to go forward, but i really want to get a job as a lighthouse keeper, and be on an island all by myself. At least then i won't have the guilt of making other people feel bad, b/c I can't be me anymore.
I'm this new person, aware of what happened to me living this life of what happened to me who wants to give it all away, but here i am, left to struggle on.
Sorry for the depressed rant. But as i've said before and say it again, you guys are the only ones who understand.
Printer
 
Printer57,

Moving to an island to run a lighthouse, albeit a very tempting idea, will not fix everything for you. If there's one thing I've learned in my life, is that our ghosts are our own and they have this hell-bent tenacity to follow you wherever you go.

I have lived in the middle of 80 acres, working for a company halfway cross the country, only venturing out of my house once a week for supplies. I have sold everything I owned, including a house and all the possessions that implies, and taken off, having spent the bulk of the past three years simply wandering. I lived in my truck for four months, wandering about Montana, Idaho, and the Dakotas. I have moved, on average, every 8 months for the past 18 years. I have had girlfriends, but none that ever got close. I have made friends in my travels, but none know the me that I live with on a daily basis.

Running, isolation, distancing yourself from all others, yes, it's very enticing. But take it from an expert in this area. Not only am I still alone with my thoughts, I am alone even when I don't want to be, having pushed everyone and everything, save for my dog, from my life.

Enticing it is. Healthy and productive for your future. I don't think so.
 
Thanks for your reply.
I know objectivley that I can't run away. I know I have responsibilities to others. That being alone in the silence would be where I have to face myself most. I have been on retreats where you remain silent for a week at a time...not an easy thing to do even when I was in "another place."
Now that prospect scares me. To tell you the truth, everything scares me now. between the anger, the rage, the shame and guilt, all the while trying to maintain "who I am" is exhusting.
Some trucker on the hwy. yesterday was tailgating me in semi rush hour traffic, blaring his horn we were moving at 25mph at the most, it was all I could do not to stop the car get out and have a word with that gentleman.
This is not me. I was able to handle everything before. I was the one everyone came to for advice and counsel, who reamined clam and level headed in the midst of crisis, now i am so afraid to just exploding, and going hulk like, wanting to warn people "you will not like me when I'm angry." Wanting to tell people to grow up and stop all your petty complaints.
I know running away isn't either the answer or really an option. But I feel like I am really running away now. the idea of being alone of being isolated is for me just an extension of who I feel i am now. maybe its who ive alwsays been.
But staying where i am now, going through my life as it is, being with people i feel even more isolated. If that makes sense. i feel so alone surrounded by everyone at home at work in church. Like i am not even there...and like i don't want to be there.
so no, I can't go to a lighthouse, or be a forest ranger or night watchman. I guess there is no other way to do this then to just do this.
printer
 
I often daydream about being on a island or living alone in the woods coming out only rarely. I dream up elaborate senarios sometimes, but all of them have a central theme and that is being away from people and the relief I believe that will bring.

I am at least figuratively on an island sometimes anyway. My mind goes away. When I was a young kid, I developed a way of coping with the abuse which was to withdraw within myself and think up elaborate stories in which I was safe and cared for.

But staying where i am now, going through my life as it is, being with people i feel even more isolated. If that makes sense. i feel so alone surrounded by everyone at home at work in church. Like i am not even there...and like i don't want to be there.
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I too have felt really isolated among people, even more isolated than usual, as you say. It makes perfect sense to me.

I think part of it may be that it seems that no one really understands what I am going through--if there are other survivors among them I don't know who they are.

Another part for me is that I want to feel safe. In my inner core, perhaps what is left of the me that was abused, I want to feel safe and as off base as it may actually be, I often feel unsafe among people.

Trust is a big issue with survivors--it certainly is with me. Its no wonder. I grew up not being able to trust the adults around me, even those who were supposed to be most caring.

I was also taught that my anger was something that I was unable to control. Its no wonder that even now I hold back believing that I am sometimes on the verge of blowing up and that that would totally estrange people from me.

I know this is often suggested and sometimes guys just aren't ready for it or don't want it--but therapy has helped me a lot. It took me a long time to get to it and to get to the right kind but now that I am here my therapist is helping to guide me in directions that are truly healing.

I see now that for me most of these things are about the child in me still needing safety and trust and an understanding that anger is a perfectly natural response to the taking away of these things from me by my abusers and to things which one way or another, often subconciously, remind me of that.

That all sounded a little hocus-pocus to me when I first started examining it but as I have looked at it more I see that it is true for me. Its still hard to defuse my anger by reminding myself of its probable origins but I think its a step closer for me. And, I guess, that it is okay to express anger but I've got to find safe ways to do that.

Likewise, I understand that wanting to be "on-an-island," either in reality or figuratively, is also a natural response for me to these things.

Hang in there. Remember that in truth you are a good and whole person and that with the guys here at MS you are not alone but among many who understand what you are going through, have experienced many of the same things in very similar ways and want to help anyway they can.
 
Printer57. I know the feeling.

I was able to finally self diagnose that I had absolutely no outlet for the guilt, frustration, anger and shame. I was still trying to be what I thought I should be and that was the worst. The reason from my perspective was that I really did not know what or who I was. I was like a shadow in life.

It took me a while but I realized that I needed a pressure release valve or I was gonna go ballistic. Hell I got used to doing that. Everwhere and anywhere. Did not do me any good at all. Just made it worse.

Then I discovered baseball bats and trees; metal bats and really big trees. I have told others I would take a friend and go into the bush and find a big tree and start to whack it. Eventually I could not lift the bat anymore and I was bawling my eyes out at the base of the tree. The friend is there to let others know that you are just releasing steam. I mean they will not believe me.

Since then I have found a whole bunch of ways to release pressure. Believe it or not I can now joke about myself and laugh because I know I dont mean it.

Just a thought
 
I have been so close to what you are describing right now, with the depression, wishing to not come out of my room, to not be around people or anything. Still, I push away people that are good to me or for me, because I feel that I do not deserve them, and that I will hurt them somehow. I have also gotten into the car to drive away, and driven for hours, just to be away of my life. But ME, I am the problem, and I am in the car with me!

You say that the men here are the only ones who understand. Maybe that is true for now. But you can, at some point, talk of this with other people, people who have not been abused, and you will find some who will try to understand some, or at least be helpful and supportive. There will be others who are jerks, but is that not part of life? You just will have to be careful with who you trust of this.

It sounds trite and meaningless, but it DOES get better. My worst days now are much better then my worst days at the beginning. They do still get bad sometime, and I am not always in best control of my emotions or my brain still, but it is better, and I believe and have faith that it will become even better as time continues. I wish you good luck and wish you well.

Leosha
 
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