People Who Trigger
pray for strength
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: New England
Posts: 2,414
Good evening and day Stratman. 
Where were we?
Here is one reason I enjoy therapy: people and behaviors can be quite challenging for me. I cannot tell you how many times I have vacated the premises, shot myself in the foot, gone to great lengths to get away from emotionally challenging people, situations or perplexing environments.
As it happens, I feel exquisitely sensitive to my environment and the people in it. I actually used to drink at night to be clouded in the morning so I could work with a sort of filter. A hangover would help me focus only on the task at hand and not notice everything that is going on. So I told myself. Fairly ridiculous.
For example, this past year I worked closely with someone who has a reputation for being a tyrant and often his spoken word did not match his body language or non-verbal expression. The spoken/non-verbal mismatch drives me insane in general. When I meet with my therapist we talk about many things, a few themes but most important for me, I learn new skills to deal with life instead of drinking or freaking out and running from the building.
New skills. I want to live well - a definition that is unique to me and my collective experience. When I walk into a session, I am picking up where I left off and providing a narrative of what most people would consider mundane - but it means the world to me. No one else in my life could possibly listen as much as I need to be heard.
Stratman, what does "living well" mean to you?
Just an observation. Tell me if I am wrong. You appear to be Velcroed to the family that not only does not support you but seems to make sport out of keeping you around and tearing you and the world around them down. How will you break free?
Where were we?
Here is one reason I enjoy therapy: people and behaviors can be quite challenging for me. I cannot tell you how many times I have vacated the premises, shot myself in the foot, gone to great lengths to get away from emotionally challenging people, situations or perplexing environments.
As it happens, I feel exquisitely sensitive to my environment and the people in it. I actually used to drink at night to be clouded in the morning so I could work with a sort of filter. A hangover would help me focus only on the task at hand and not notice everything that is going on. So I told myself. Fairly ridiculous.
For example, this past year I worked closely with someone who has a reputation for being a tyrant and often his spoken word did not match his body language or non-verbal expression. The spoken/non-verbal mismatch drives me insane in general. When I meet with my therapist we talk about many things, a few themes but most important for me, I learn new skills to deal with life instead of drinking or freaking out and running from the building.
New skills. I want to live well - a definition that is unique to me and my collective experience. When I walk into a session, I am picking up where I left off and providing a narrative of what most people would consider mundane - but it means the world to me. No one else in my life could possibly listen as much as I need to be heard.
Stratman, what does "living well" mean to you?
Just an observation. Tell me if I am wrong. You appear to be Velcroed to the family that not only does not support you but seems to make sport out of keeping you around and tearing you and the world around them down. How will you break free?
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 6,666
Morning Verte. Thanks for reply. Your observation is 100% exactly correct. And depressing as sh1t when you put it like that. How will I break free...
God, I dunno. I broke free after I left school, there was suppose to be no looking back. I still carried around all the feelings of coming from a broken home except I was in denial about that. I must be the last person to know.
I feel I am screwed. Since I lost my job I have had a really difficult time with the authorities in accessing what I thought were some basic services/entitlements and for all of my peers and contemporaries that they are. I was driven out of the area where I'm from because I wasn't able to live there in peace unlike all of my friends.
And there was literally no reason for any of this, the reasons on paper were fabricated & inaccurate. I got them overturned, but it meant 3 years of living with the uncertainty of having nowhere to live the following day. I was also shared parenting then. So I have been at risk of homelessness now for the better part of a decade.
(even though I wasn't aware of that, but now I am). I'm on the register actually and spent 6 months in a hostel (after my mother robbed me and relationship with my ex broke down) and still was unable to get on any of the housing schemes. I spent about a year putting all of my energy into that. Nothing went smoothly as usual.
And was just being sent from one place to the next, until eventually at xmas I had no choice but to either head back towards my dysfunctional family or look for somewhere to sleep rough. I've slept rough several times when I was a youngster so that didn't hold much appeal, and I was totally exhausted too. It was miserable.
So here I am. Totally miserable and under the thumb of my dysfunctional family again in my 30's. They use me to their own ends. I can get no state support for some reason, either that or all these schemes don't exist (yet everyone else I know is on them, I have people asking me why I haven't been sorted still when they have).
I'm also a recovering alcoholic now, and only facing up to the fact that I am indeed recovering from a lifetime of physical, emotional, psychological, and narcisstic abuse more specifically. I endured all of it as the eldest. I have every single indicator of a person who is suffering from unresolved trauma too I recently discovered.
I have no confidence or self belief left, I was using alcohol for those and very much so. I dunno what else I can do now if anything at all. Any suggestions people...
God, I dunno. I broke free after I left school, there was suppose to be no looking back. I still carried around all the feelings of coming from a broken home except I was in denial about that. I must be the last person to know.
I feel I am screwed. Since I lost my job I have had a really difficult time with the authorities in accessing what I thought were some basic services/entitlements and for all of my peers and contemporaries that they are. I was driven out of the area where I'm from because I wasn't able to live there in peace unlike all of my friends.
And there was literally no reason for any of this, the reasons on paper were fabricated & inaccurate. I got them overturned, but it meant 3 years of living with the uncertainty of having nowhere to live the following day. I was also shared parenting then. So I have been at risk of homelessness now for the better part of a decade.
(even though I wasn't aware of that, but now I am). I'm on the register actually and spent 6 months in a hostel (after my mother robbed me and relationship with my ex broke down) and still was unable to get on any of the housing schemes. I spent about a year putting all of my energy into that. Nothing went smoothly as usual.
And was just being sent from one place to the next, until eventually at xmas I had no choice but to either head back towards my dysfunctional family or look for somewhere to sleep rough. I've slept rough several times when I was a youngster so that didn't hold much appeal, and I was totally exhausted too. It was miserable.
So here I am. Totally miserable and under the thumb of my dysfunctional family again in my 30's. They use me to their own ends. I can get no state support for some reason, either that or all these schemes don't exist (yet everyone else I know is on them, I have people asking me why I haven't been sorted still when they have).
I'm also a recovering alcoholic now, and only facing up to the fact that I am indeed recovering from a lifetime of physical, emotional, psychological, and narcisstic abuse more specifically. I endured all of it as the eldest. I have every single indicator of a person who is suffering from unresolved trauma too I recently discovered.
I have no confidence or self belief left, I was using alcohol for those and very much so. I dunno what else I can do now if anything at all. Any suggestions people...
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 6,666
Well that was a slightly long winded response, the short answer is that I do not know. And I'm open to suggestions.
I didn't enjoy that part. As for your other question- what does living well mean to me? Again, I really do not know.
As a hermetic monk perhaps. I'm only half joking. I could list a lot of things that it isn't, I mostly know about those.
Well, some basics like food and shelter. I have those now. After that it's really more about the absence of things.
Like other peoples BS. Petty nonsense, arguments, strife, and conflict in general I suppose. Spiritual kinda stuff.
What does it mean to yourself? And everyone else here?
I didn't enjoy that part. As for your other question- what does living well mean to me? Again, I really do not know.
As a hermetic monk perhaps. I'm only half joking. I could list a lot of things that it isn't, I mostly know about those.
Well, some basics like food and shelter. I have those now. After that it's really more about the absence of things.
Like other peoples BS. Petty nonsense, arguments, strife, and conflict in general I suppose. Spiritual kinda stuff.
What does it mean to yourself? And everyone else here?
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