Walking on the road to recovery ........ 🤔

@Teej

I didn't expect a response after your family had gone, but wow. That's some response. Thank you for sharing so much about you with me. I understand @Faith-and-Hope

knows much better than me, but gosh, so much of your story is #me too. I'm crying a few tears right now and my heart is heavy with how much hurt is in your heart.

I don't have brilliant traits and strength Teej. I'm a coward when it comes to conflict. Or I get defensive and look/sound pathetic. And I run with my tail between my legs and hide for as long as possible.

I'm so shite with relationships I've barely have any friends. The few close friends I had I destroyed with my dependency on them & also putting them on a super high pedestal. Now I see their flaws. I've never had school friends, play friends, work friends, whatever friends. The only two people who call me to genuinely ask if I'm OK are my foster sister and my only friend in this city. I've had three partners in my life and none lasted more than 3 years. No kids either.

My nursing was my identity, my everything. I never truly belonged and was bullied many times. I never really fitted in a team except for one job. Besides the bullying, I was often harassed by managers for being slow, talking to my patients too much, not understanding techniques properly. Nursing was the stitches that held me together. It gave me respect, it gave me money to travel and dazzle people with my stories, which me feel special. It gave me purpose and a mission. It gave me power over life and death. But last year at this time, that stitching wasn't unpicked. It was ripped wide open. Its so frayed its not possible to peice back together. So my identity now is nothing. No one. I have no real purpose. I have no idea who to be anymore, and what is next for me. It's like I've lost a rudder and I'm drifting.

Like you, I have disproportionate emotions. I have shame layered on shame and guilt. Like the shame I was such a bad child my mother rejected me. And continually rejected me as a child, and told me that I was useless, like my schools told me I wouldn't be anything because I never tried hard enough. I have the shame of Sa from two people, one I stupidly idolised and sought love and approval from, to be groomed and used.

I could go on, but this isn't about me. But I want you to see, others are like you too @Teej

That doesn't make your hurt go away or make it any less invalidating. It sucks when something you wanted, probably needed and hoped for you didn't get. And I'm really sorry about that. It must be devastating.

You are a strong link of the chain in this forum. You really are. You are kind, generous, gentle and even inspirational. You help me by your similarities to understand myself, and occasionally be ok about who I might be. You've often said things to me or others that make me think, yep, she understands that really well.

My only form of control through this chaos is self destructive acts too. I won't give that up, and finally my case manager agrees that although not ideal, I need even just the idea of self harm to gain control of feelings or situations I can't control.

You need to put that guilt and shame away eventually once and for all. We both have to learn to let go. It serves no purpose but to punish us for crimes we are innocent of, and had to say in the involvement of.

Gentle, gentle hugs @Teej

Like @Faith-and-Hope

has said, keep pouring it out here. I'll always be listening

You’re not crying Im crying @Sans911. I was so scared you’d reject me after writing that. Your post was so powerful for me. I didn’t expect that either.

I feel emotionally spent just now.

hopefully we can find a purpose for our existence supporting each other. I had lots of me too moments reading your post too.

And thank you as always @Faith-and-Hope.

Hugs to you both. 💜🤗

Hugs n hugs @Teej @Sans911 ..... we will all find our way forward, hanging out here together. The way will open. It can happen in unexpected ways.

Grateful for the friendship of both of you.

💐💕💐💕💜

Soul-sista

💕

Not sure if you want my response. @Teej

I identify with you as a social chameleon. For a long time I had difficulty with no sense of self. I could not even say what my favourite ...music .. or anything was ...

my sense of self has emerged and clarified fairly recently.... I am older ... ..if that gives you any hope ...

I can remember looking up spectrum, and feeling darn why dont I have BPD cos then I would get proper support and treatment.

I always fall between the cracks etc ...

Maybe trusting the process is key ... maybe a more appropriate therapy and service deliverer is just around the corner.

No point getting your foot fixed if its not broke.

You are not the weakest link. Its just a cognitive knee jerk habit of self put down ... Why even think there is a weak link. We are all vulnerable and so are you. It feels awful, but I am beginning to believe that there are treasures in it

Thanks @Appleblossom for your thoughtful response. I do agree with your response about not getting my foot fixed if it’s not broken. I guess I am just scared and frustrated that there are parts that need to be fixed. Much of this is still about time restraints as well. Having the pressure of Centrelink and how to live financially when I don’t function.

i am not so out of control today which is a good thing. I think it helped to get some things out last night here. I guess I rarely go 4 days of being in full crisis either.

Thanks again for the response. 💜🤗

Just reading @Teej . Nothing to add, just a tiny bit of support.

💜💐 @Teej @Maggie ....

********* trigger warning, includes discussion that some may find triggering ***********

I have a lot on my mind. I’m ok, just very reflective and confused. Last night went well with only a few glitches. He who can’t be named was named a few times but I switched off and managed (although I had to find out after in what context he was named by my friend on the drive home:face_with_rolling_eyes:).

7 years has gone by. This year has been largely marked by changes in my thinking about things. It has been about the people who’ve been hurt by me taking him back and why I did so. It haunts me that I don’t know the true answer to that. At the time I thought I was being altruistic in not abandoning him. He had a diagnosis in the dsm (but one that created victims). Before I understood anything about mi I had thought that you don’t abandon those you love because they have a mi. I micromanaged him. He did what was necessary to keep me and the kids but nothing meaningful for recovery. I was very ignorant and naive.

Over the years all the talk of dependence has made me question whether I was actually altruistic or needed him to survive because I was co dependent. I feel the guilt and shame of taking him back, and as a result putting him back front and centre of someone I loved dearly and was one of his victims. I would feel intense feelings of hurt everytime they came in contact with each other and see her and the effect of seeing him. It created so much more trauma for both of us and it was all for nothing. I put my kids in a situation that they should never have been. He was treated as a pedophile for a while (not his diagnosis). The shame in that was huge. I couldn’t leave my gate without so much shame. Shame became my life. My kids never got to have friends over again or have another birthday party. No one would come to the house. The kids would have to meet anyone outside our property.

My world shrunk. I couldn’t leave the house and if I had to I couldn’t return and would run away for hours and had to be coaxed back home by my therapist. I had chosen to give all my friends to my bf. She needed their support, I didn’t feel like I deserved it. For the first two years I only spoke to my therapist and GP.

In the last few days the #me too stuff has been on my mind. Me too has incredible power. I don’t think though that it is all positive but that the positive way outways the negative. Me too can be used in many contexts. Me too was a snow ball in my situation, I believe it was empowering and necessary for all the voices that were heard. Once he was caught by my bf, me too stories came out over the next 18months. Nearly all of them we friends of mine. They went beyond mi and included SA over a 30 period. I had known him for all that time. People had stayed quiet, dealt with trauma quietly and moved away. The more I heard (he did tell me many after the me too had taken off) the harder it became for me. I was so massively conflicted in every which way but had chosen him. I had given away my friends, support systems and life to support him.

Over the next part I started to understand that he wasn’t taking on anything seriously and recovery wasn’t going to happen. I became darker and darker with depression and isolation. I stopped being a mum. He looked after the kids. He began gaslighting me, it became about my mi, that I was the unwell one. My escape or so I thought was suicide and I first attempted 5 years ago.

This is part one. I have a point to writing it and it’s not for empathy or sympathy for this. I just hope it helps give some perspective. I will eventually get to why I’m writing it.

For @Sans911, @CheerBear, @outlander, @Faith-and-Hope, @Appleblossom and any others reading this that have supported me. 💜