Hello dear Smiley,

I'm so glad you reached out, I have an idea of how hard that might be to do. And I'm so sorry to hear that you're in such rough shape. You don't deserve to be in this place. I mean that - I know we only see part of you on this board, but what I see of you strikes me as really honest, smart, caring, original, independent. You seem to me to be so much your own person - like there's a really strong, deep personal strength in you that may be even working against you at the moment - but it comes through powerfully anyway. What I'm saying is, I like and admire you, I'm glad you're around and I think you're really valuable here, even if we don't see heaps of you.

I identify with what you're saying about feeling sure that other people can't help you - I get that feeling in different ways too. I wonder if that's what really stops us from being able to get help - that conviction.

I hope you can keep reaching out, here and with your t. Say more about what's getting to you, start to unravel the tangle. Don't worry about being a downer, your T can handle it, and I bet people here can handle it too. Give it a try, see what happens....

and go gently on yourself, Smiley.

Jones

Thank you Jones, thank you for being here.

Smiley,

I'm sorry that you are in such a rough place right now. I'm glad that you are reaching out though, I know it is hard to do. Perhaps a quick call to your T might help or what about an extra session? How long until you see her again? I know you feel like you can't really talk about what is going on, but if you ever feel you can I know there are many people here willing to listen.

I saw her yesterday after about 3 weeks of not. Now I don't see her again until next week. I feel stupid calling cause I don't have anything to say. Thanks strm. I jost want the crap to go away for good!

Smiley

I am so sorry you feel in such a hard place - some people find it incredibly difficult to reach out, and I think I am one too. But even if you can't do details if what's wrong, just the acknowledging it and asking for support is a great step forward. You must only disclose what you feel you can, so no pressure on yourself please.

Your T will not mind you, however you are, but I know that someyimes we can feel a drain on them, especially if there are few others to talk to. Tell her how you feel smiley if you can. The living part is sometimes so hard to carry on with in the midst of everything else, you start doubting and questionning yourself and that's tough. Please let us know if we can help anymore and keep posting (((smiley)))

starfish

Smiley I'm sorry you're feeling so bad right now, I know you said you don't have anything to say to your T if you phone her but i phoned my T once when i was having a bad day. I just told her that i don't know what i want to say to you. After 10 mins talking to her i was feeling so much better. I think just hearing her voice made me feel better

(((((smiley))))

Hev

Starfish and Heather (()) thanks so much. I'm feeling the need to be totally alone and isolated. I just don't want to have to talk to anyone or smile at anyone or even look at anyone right now. It is just too painful right now. I'm really feeling like a disgusting and shameful person at the moment. So much that I need to get away from everything so no one can look at me.
Oh I'm so sorry to be plopping this out there.

Oh Smiley

Please don’t feel bad about saying how you’re feeling here - it’s one of the good things about this forum that you don’t have to actually make direct contact with anyone, but know that you’re being heard and understood all the same.

I’m so sorry you’re feeling so bad - is there something that has caused you to drop into this really bad place, or is it a general sort of thing?

Do you feel up to talking some more about what’s going on for you? You know I’ve found that most times what people think is unbearable or too much for others to take actually doesn’t affect them nearly as badly as they fear. And you don’t have to have specific things to talk about, just describing how you’re feeling will be understood, and might even make it more bearable for you. (And remember, there’s always the delete button!)

((((( Smiley )))))

LL

Thank you LL (()) I have been feeling down for a while now. Maybe 1 1/2 months. I thought I was coping ok and then all of a sudden, bam, I feel like crap. I want to die. I'm wanting out so bad right now. I know that isn't the way to be thinking and I know that life has ups and downs for everyone. I am just so tired of dealing with the past issues, living with a partner who can't understand what I feel, and always thinking about how I'm going to off myself and when. I can't even give a reason for this except that I feel worthless. I know it is from the past. I have been dealing for a long time. Why can't I just say ok, feel better and move on. It's all in your mind how you feel. Make yourself feel better. I don't know why I can't do this. I do things to make me feel better and it doesn't last. Nothing stays good long enough for me to actually feel the better place. Oh crap, I am so disgusted with myself right now.

Oh Smiley you are in a really bad place I'm so so sorry. It really sounds like you've got no support around you and that you're in a relationship which is not only not supportive but seems to be destructive to you. You know (you probably do but I'm going to say this anyway ) the LAST thing that's helpful is telling yourself you should be able to make yourself feel better - you feel bad and that's that, and the more you beat yourself up for not being able to think positively or psych yourself out of the bad feelings, the angrier at yourself you're going to get. Hell I do understand how it would be worth just about anything to get rid of feeling SO bad that even death seems preferable - who in their right mind WANTS to feel so overwhelmed? I really really want to emphasize though that feeling bad, weak, ashamed, out of control, helpless and at the end of the line - doesn't mean that YOU are those things.

It sounds too like you've had a lot of bad things happen in the past - trying to understand and resolve them is bound to topple you off your perch! But it also sounds like trying to deal with past stuff could be making things in the present intolerable. I know it's just words, but I want to tell you that you are NOT worthless! It's ok to FEEL that way, boy I could write a book on what it's like to believe you are worthless but that's an outside message - someone else has made you experience yourself that way. Would you be able to accept that you feel worthless, but that you AREN'T worthless? (Actually that's rich coming from me, who has the monopoly on equating feeling with being, but I hope you see what I'm getting at?)

Really what I'm trying to say is, please don't be ashamed of feeling so bad, you will have good reasons for it and maybe giving in to it a bit, rather than fighting all the time, will give you some relief.

Please keep posting Smiley - you've got support here!

LL

Thanks LL and DF - I wish I could have all of you in one room together for one great big hug(()) I understand that feelings don't make who I am, but they sure are doing a number on me. Not that it takes much since I don't think much of "me" anyway.

(((smiley))) I can't write much as a bit wobbly right now - but please hang in there and know you are special and worth fighting for. We care about you, I am sorry it's so very hard,

starfish

Smiley, I know that feeling all too well. It was only last week at this time that I had gone through the worst of the worst with my T basically handing me names of other Ts and telling me to go see them and not him. It was tonight that he called the police on me because I made a remark out of desperation. A cry for his attention and care. I needed him and he turned away from me and allowed the police to step in for what was not a serious threat, just a cry for help. I felt like dying this time last week. I did not want to exist any longer and I wanted to just vaporize into the air and go away. I felt that everyone hated me, especially my beloved T and that I was burdening my few friends with my situation. I know that pain you feel believe me. I won't say it just goes away but I do want to tell you that you are in my thoughts and that you are a good and worthy person and I'm sorry you are having this awful pain and I wish I could help you some way. I found that posting here and receiving the support and love and care from the members here made SO much difference in the level of pain I was feeling. People even came out of lurkdom to help me and wish me well and give me hugs. So reaching out is the exactly right thing to do. It really does help. Also writing about your feelings is another positive step, either here or in your journal.

I'm so glad I have this community to come to for support, despite the incident with Kerry and PG who flamed me and said some really horrible things I had to read. But they don't count and they don't know me the way the others here do and I'm very grateful for the support I received.

Take one step at a time and one minute at a time and reach out for what you need. My T left me with this message in his last email to me. Reach out for it, ask for it and keep asking until you get it. You deserve it.

Hugs
TN

I had a pretty rough night last night. Really couldn't get any sleep. Still not feeling good. This process of trying to figure out just what the heck is wrong with me is getting harder. I know I'm no different than anyone else out there. We all have problems. I guess it's just that some people can deal and I don't seem to be able to or even want to. How I got to this place again, I don't know. My life is not terrible. I can't say it's wonderful but I've been living it.

I thought that after I understood what happened to me in my past, and talked about it, life would get better. It really hyas just gotten worse. Before at least I was alone, could get wasted everyday with no one to answer to, and basically just live in my own little private world. Now it just makes me feel worse, I'm more ashamed now because now my T knows and my partner, and I have to talk to them all the time. I don't even want to be in the same room with them. I feel like I am walking down the street with hundreds of other people, when this guy rolls up and starts pointing me out and telling the whole world around us just who I am. OMG!! I want to die! Just curl up and die.

So much for my control.

Thanks Monte. Funny about the spiritual beliefs question. I do believe in God. However, I think lately he has abandoned me. I just had this conversation with an old friend of mine who is a priest. There were alot of things thrown around but in the end I'm feeling empty and not getting any responses from Him. He's just kind of left me sitting out in the cold. Besides, the answer is always Prayer, and I've done enough praying to realize that I'm talking to thin air these days.

I'm gonna try and get up enough nerve to call my T. ot sure though. I really don't have anything to say exceptt hat I feel like crap.

Hi again Smiley. Did you manage to call your T in the end? You know I'm not sure it matters too much if you don't know what to say to her except that you feel crap - that sounds like a good enough reason to call your T and more than a good enough reason for her to want to hear from you.

I hope you did get in touch with her, and got some support.

How are you fixed for the weekend, got anything planned to help you get through this blackness? Might sound cliched, but spending some time in being nice to yourself (if you can make yourself do it!) could be what you need to do right now. Treat yourself as if you're fragile and ill and put the stick away for a while (that coming from someone who has a whole stack of sticks on hand to beat myself up with, just in case I lose one!) But it's a serious suggestion, you do deserve a break.

Hope you're hanging in there ((((( Smiley )))))

LL

(((((Smiley)))))...thinking of you and wondering how you are doing...it's okay not to have the answers right now....mlc

smiley

I think I abandonned God a few years ago because I felt sure he was going to abandon me soon if not. What I have come to learn is that he still hasn't abandonned me, that he is just where he has always been, but that I keep moving in and out of wanting to be close. And that is fine. Sometimes I think we all need a time in the wilderness, for as long as we need, before coming back and realising where we are with God.... and that in our time away he probably loved us even more

quote:

Besides, the answer is always Prayer, and I've done enough praying to realize that I'm talking to thin air these days

Oh I had that from a priest - prayer and healing were all he ever said, that was where I was going wrong. But I couldn't pray then and still have a real block about it now. Smiley, it doesn't matter - God knows what's in your heart and what you'd like to say, even if you can't say it. You'll do it when you can.

I hope you had the courage to phone your T, if only to share how you felt. Let us know how you are and maybe follow LL's s und advice and just plan one or two small things to do over the weekend to be kind on yourself.

Hug,

starfish

Dear Smiley,
Thank you for sharing with us the deep struggle that so many of us often have. I wonder what message from God must we learn during these times. Maybe this can't help you right now- but this lonliness- this alone feeling is something we all feel at times, and I am told to hang on- ride the wave so to speak- pray my way through it, and I will be healed. After the wave has returned to the sea- I am told to look very carefully, observe and ask- Is there anything I need to learn from this experience. I am told in prayer to search for something to learn. Not often, but every now and then, I find a nugget of truth, something to help me grow. (And I have made a committment to growing.) Remember- you are a child of God- you are the daughter of a King, THE KING.

Thank you for reaching out- you have touched me with your sincere plea and I will pray that God does some mighty healing work in your heart, Smiley. (By the way- I still love that name- Smiley)

Always,
Mayo - Hele

Thank you to all of you here. I did call my T - she finally called back very late. Basically she thinks i am in the middle of flashbacks that are just now eeking out the feelings that I didn't have when I was younger. Sounds like bs to me but whatever. I'm still feeling pretty dark. Did a bunch of work today to just keep busy. Not much else for me to do.

As for God - I don't know where I am with that. I still feel like I've been thrown to the wolves and yet I'm still asking where are you?

I appreciate all of your help out there - your support means more than you know.

I didn't read all of the responses, but are you doing EMDR with your T? When I did- some memories leaked out during the week, and at times least expected after the session.
Just a thought. I hope this day is better for you.

Smiley well done you for calling your T. That must have taken some courage. I'm sorry that what she said didn't make much sense to you - but I do hope her getting back to you let you feel a bit less isolated and alone in your blackness.

Keeping busy sounds like not a bad option, even if it's under duress, it has the benefit of keeping your mind focused on other things and maybe give you a temporary break from the black thoughts.

How are you doing today? Hope you are hanging in there.

(((( Smiley ))))

LL

smiley
Glar that your T called and that she felt she had an explanation, even though it sounds like you are still a bit unsure. I think I sort of get where she is coming from...when I have flashbacks they might take several mins for the truly vivid intensity to wear off, but the feelings from the flashback hang around for ages - hours or days sometimes. So although I'm not still experiencing it as a 'right there' happening, my mind and my body sometimes are caught in limbo land, trying to discern where they really are....and it's mighty scary and odd. I don't know if this is anything like what you've been experiencing?????

Oh and I keep busy under stress - walk miles and miles and bake bread, endless kneading works wonders for me. I hope you can find a few pleasurable things to do, in amongst the difficult times too smiley. When do you see T again?

starfish