Rianestorm

I've been having issues with empathy lately. As in I think I've lost the ability to feel it. This has been going on for almost a year now. People have died since then, in my family, and I can't seem to muster up more than a shrug and a vague murmer of regret.

It's really disturbing me that I seem to have detached from humanity this much. I just feel so jaded. Like I'm not surprised by anything anymore and that everything's just going to suck forever. So all I can do is wait for the suck and try to figure out a way to fix it when it appears. And I might fix it (whatever it is) somewhat, but never completely. And things will never be good.

I jsut feel like I need to HEAL so badly. And I don't think I can do that while still living here. But the fact of it is that I don't have a place to go yet. I won't till next year (which, by the way, seems like twice as long as it actually is).

Some times I just want to find a small, quiet, dark place to crawl into and hide for a couple years. Like a closet. Like a closet filled with cheesecake and that hot guy who lives two blocks down the street. I have a feeling that would make me feel better.

utopia

It sounds like you're burnt out and depressed and I relate to the sense of despair in your post.

This is because for me, I can feel this way when I have given repeatedly in order to get some sort of return and not getting that return has left me emotionally bereft. This is also a lot to do with unfulfilled needs from childhood. Growing up in a home affected by alcoholism and thus abuse, mental illness and dysfunction left me feeling emotionally bankrupt, shut down and withdrawn. Caring, hoping, dreaming and being passionately infused with a love of life were sucked out of me.

The only way to revive myself was to find what worked for me to find my anger at not getting these needs met and also the deep grief at the family or ideal family I lost to dysfunction. I found great help in working the steps of Alanon, getting professional help, volunteer support groups, and alternative therapies such as rebirthing and in being more discerning in choosing friendships that support and respect me, that nourish and validate me. Learning how to do this I learnt in the previous ways.

The aim of these is to identify why I feel as I do and my thoughts and feelings and then what I actually want to feel like.

Another huge thing for me in letting go of despair has been just that, letting go. letting go of close friends, family, pain, hurt, regret and loneliness and the injustice, the sense of things not being as they should.

feeling when I was emotionally shut off felt like I was going nuts but with help Im learning how to be compassionate, not pitying and to let go of my bitterness and jaded look on life by learning to fdo nice things for myself, recover my strength of self, restore boundaries and develop a sense of values that work for me.

hope this helps

Rianestorm

Thanks utopia. I read over my post and your's a few times and a few things became apparent.
1. My post has no context if someone didn't read my other one too. And so makes very little sense. And I should have done better at clarifying some things.
2. Just because my sense of humur kicks in at wierd times doesn't mean I should write it down. It kinda takes away from how serious I was trying to be. And
3. You are obvoiusly MUCH further along in this than I am.

I can't even imagine being in that place. Where you can let go and actually talk to people. That's something I've never been able to do. I'm really glad you're finding help and benifitting from it. But I don't think I'll ever be able to trust someone enough to actually tell them all of this. It's kind of like a 'doctor heal thyself ' thing. If I can't trust someone else to help me, how can something that's broken fix it's self?

GiveLove

Rianestorm, I'm sorry you're stuck in this mess. You know the only way to start rebuilding yourself is to get out of the toxic environment you're in and start reaching out to others for support, but you're not ready or able to do so. Feeling dependent on them has to really stink....because addicts are anything but dependable.

Why - if you don't mind my asking - do you have to wait so long for your own place? If you didn't have any fear, would you be able to see a solution that gets you out of the poison faster? (is it your fear of being unsupported by them that keeps you trapped?) If you felt you had unlimited financial resources, would other solutions appear?

I remember desperately wanting healing, but I couldnt' begin to heal until I got away from the people who were keeping my wounds open.

Are you doing any work on yourself at home - good books about children of damaged parents, keeping a journal, exploring other self-help options online like e-courses, etc? Do you know of the resources available to you locally to protect yourself from violence and abuse? I know that until I was ready to reach out and get out, things like that kept me from feeling like I was nuts....it was like building a little arsenal for myself. Having a plan kept me sane.

Hugs to you -
GL

Rianestorm

Well GiveLove it is the money. If I had more I could probably be out of here on the first of next month. It isn't that I'm not afraid of what it's going to be like when I'm on my own, that is scary. But I'm becoming more and more aware of the fact that being here is killing me, or at least my mind and spirit, and the stress induced migranes and fights arent doing much for my body either. I'm much more afraid of that than being alone.

I have a very small but regular income and I have a small apartment tht's promised to me but I need to wait for the person who's living there to move out. That should happen around the first of the year, at least if everything goes as planned.

And I understand what you said about having a plan keeping you sane. I actually tend to plan obsessivly. I have lists for everything as well as budgets. I seem to have a need to control everything I possibly can. And I am trying to help myself, mostly with books. I'm just not really seeing myself get any better.

And I am aware of a homeless and abused womens shelter in the next town, but they're actually full. I call them once a month. But it seems I'm just going to have to wait patiently (or not-so-patiently) until next year. It just seems so far away.

Hugs you back,
Riane

GiveLove

From one obsessive planner to another!!!! I think I got into that habit because it was something I finally felt like I could control, in contrast to the family situations I came from, where I just seemed to get tossed around and beaten up. I also developed one heck of a fantasy life, and a pretty sick sense of humor LOL Hey, whatever it takes to survive.

I'm glad you're doing these things for yourself. If I could speed up the clock, I would absolutely do that for you. Keep your eyes open for other situations - temporary or otherwise - that your guardian angel might drop into your path. I'll give you my example:

When I was a senior in high school, I just really didn't want to be alive any more. It was just so awful living with my folks, and I didn't have anywhere else to go. One day my bus driver was talking to one of the bus aides about how she wanted to rent out a room to some nice kid at the college in exchange for helping her with a few things around the house, including obedience training her enormous dog (which she couldn't handle due to a disability).

The next time I saw her, I had summoned up all my courage to ask whether she would consider letting me take that room after I graduated, and she said yes. It was small, with just a twin bed, and a bunch of boxes stacked in the corner, but it also had a window that looked out over a hundred acres of woods, and it didn't have my toxic family. It was like heaven.

Keep your ears open for opportunities like this to get you by until January or for even longer. You'd be surprised.

And in the meantime, always feel free to come talk things through here in the Friends & Family section. There's always SOMEBODY awake on one of the three forums...

You're not alone in this.


GL