Hi. I’m desperate, which is why I’m posting here.
A lot has happened the past couple of years.
There’s a lot of trauma, neglect, abandonment, religious trauma, etc in my life (of which I’m not mentioning most of here). I’m not young. I’m in my 30s. (I’m not old, but I’m not young). I’m a highly sensitive person, so the things that have happened have affected me a lot. Plus I have kind of felt like an outsider for being so sensitive and misunderstood or misattuned to.
For some time periods, I’ve done well. I’ve done well when surrounded by loving and warm family, friends, and community. Theoretically my family loves me – at least a couple family members do.
I am struggling heavily with disorganized attachment (not a disorder) and failure to trust people because of some things that have recently happened (past couple years). I have one family member I talk to daily, but sometimes I feel we talk in circles. I have some friends, and some of them know I’m struggling, but not many people I can tell how bad it really is.
Because, to my bewilderment, people who used to be my friends and who know how badly I’m struggling have quit being my friends and exited my life, explicitly due to how much I’m suffering in some cases. These are people I trusted, and built trust with over years (some of them). Good people. I can’t make sense of why they left, especially because in my heart, part of me knows I’m a good person too. (Though I’m so deep and heavy in shame that I believe I’m toxic). Hence my struggling heavily with disorganized attachment. I’m bewildered, confused, betrayed. Abandoned. Alone.
Over my life, I’ve tried many things. Many medications, many types of therapies. Supplements. Energy healing techniques, psychedelics, prayer, many trauma healing modalities, crisis lines. Etc.
I research trauma as a hobby (again, out of desperation) and I have for quite a few years. I’m familiar with much of the cutting-edge stuff. Unfortunately, though I’ve found some help here, it’s also been overwhelming and made me feel much is wrong with me. (Return of the shame).
I know “trauma” isn’t the totality of who I am. But it feels like it is. Especially now.
I’ve been suicidal most days for the better part of a year and a half or more. I’ve texted in to crisis lines more times than I can count, and it most often doesn’t help at all. Folks on crisis lines have told me they don’t even know what relational trauma is. I duno, maybe people reading this won’t even know either. Some people seem to think it’s something that it isn’t. I try to enroll in recommended “treatments” for suicidality, and they just make things worse – our mental health care system is so dismissive and pathologizing, it just makes me feel even more like a disease. I am highly sensitive as a person, and so aware of subtleties.
I can’t find help. My current therapist only recommends the things that are making things worse, and it makes me feel unhelpable that she can’t think of anything else to help.
I feel like saying, “I used to be a normal person!” until my life fell apart.
Somehow I am still functional despite all the pain inside of me. I show up at things with friends, but I am hollow and empty inside, and I believe everyone is going to leave. I won’t let myself attach. I can’t for the life of me understand how everyone doesn’t see right through me. And it’s hell. My life is hell. Every moment almost is a living hell. And I’m not using the word hell lightly – I mean imagine whatever you think a true hell might be, and I’m in it. I’m living it.
I try to do all the things, I spend time in nature, I run, I do EFT tapping videos, I show up at therapy with a therapist I don’t trust. (Believe me, I’ve tried to find one I trust – I have trauma AROUND how people dealt in the past with my being suicidal, and so I can’t get myself to go to any kind of therapy regarding suicidality that is helpful because I don’t trust anyone. And therapy doesn’t work if you can’t trust the therapist. And I’ve been gaslit in the past, so I can’t gaslight myself into trusting. My nervous system needs to really trust. And I’ve TRIED. so many times.) I even had 8 therapists at one point not that long ago, plus some therapy groups, I was trying so hard to find help. I just ended up getting overwhelmed.
Anyway. I don’t feel safe. Hardly ever. I want to jump off a bridge. I live so much of my life in pain. And the only people who seem to take me seriously, seem to also think there’s something really wrong with me. As in that I’m some sort of toxic or evil or disgusting or dangerous or disturbing person.
I don’t understand why all of the people who’ve loved me have left me, including good people. I don’t understand why other people who love me can’t help me.
I feel really hopeless and stuck. There really aren’t words to adequately explain or describe the levels of torture and pain and stuckness and hopelessness I feel inside. Day in and day out sometimes.
I don’t want to keep going. But I don’t want to die because all I want is for things to stop hurting. I fantasize about jumping off a bridge or something like that (sometimes).
No one can seem to help me. Please refer to list of things I’ve tried. And please don’t tell me to try again or try harder. I try harder than almost anyone I know.
Anyway. I feel pretty hopeless about posting this, and honestly I’m also afraid someone is going to reply and say something that makes me feel worse, but I figured I’d at least try to see if anyone has anything to say that can help.
I’ve had hopes in the past – I thought Somatic Experiencing could help, I thought IFS therapy could help. They help sometimes but I’ve had to quit due to finances, it’s been impossible to find someone I trust using my insurance, etc. I’ve learned about cultural trauma, I’ve found insights about what I deal with. I feel no one can help how much trauma lives in me. It’s pointless.
And the last thing I want to be told is something about how I’m strong and resilient and can get through this. I shouldn’t have to. I can’t. I don’t want to. And why should I? I feel utterly broken. I have nothing to live for. And yet I’m still here because I long for a good life and to feel good. But it feels like an impossible dream. So I’m here, tortured.
I can’t handle that the relationships in my life won’t repair ruptures. I can’t handle it. At the end of the day, that’s why I’m in such ruthless pain. And this isn’t the first time this has happened. You can’t write it off by saying they were shit people. They weren’t. They are good people. And you can’t write it off by saying I’m a shit person. I’m not. I’m a good person.
And I can’t handle this pain.
I’ve lost two handfuls of ALL my best friends. I can’t handle it. I don’t have space for the pain. It’s intolerable.
I’ve lost too many things in the past. Too many communities. Too many relationships. Too. Much. Brokenness. I’ve been far too lonely, far too alone, far too much in my life. And not being able to trust people is torture.
I’ve been trying to find help since way before this got so bad. No one seemed to hear my cries for help. I saw this coming, I know how trauma works. And no one caught me.
I am in pain.
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Hello trailrunner,
I just wanted to reach out to you and say I hear you.
I hear and see how hard you’re working to keep pushing through every day. I hear you when you say that people keep telling you to try harder and it feels like a kick in the face.
You’re right that you shouldn’t have to just get through it and be strong and resilient. And the last thing I want to do it make you feel like all the pain you’ve expressed is going to be dismissed as it has in the past.
Trauma is such an immobilising monster and burden and it must be so hard to keep trying to express it and have people either not understand it or to just run away from it.
And it’s so hard to have to keep opening up to someone new when the last person couldn’t find a way to ease this pain or abandoned you in one way or another.
I’m not one to push anything onto someone, especially when you’ve expressed what you’ve been doing and it sounds exhausting. So I just wanted to offer that I hope this space can be a safe place for you to express what you need when you need. Without fear of pressure and without the cliches.
I know that I cannot experience and fully understand all you’ve been through and all you’re dealing with, but I know I have been overwhelmed and tired and just needed a space to say I’m tired without someone saying “do better”.
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Thank you for the reply 
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