Trying to navigate through a storm

so its been a wihle since i wrote here, i should have posted sooner but i dunno, its hard to explain. this sort of thing has always been difficult for me, i never quite know how to explain things, words never quite come out right. my brain seems to be slightly off-beat to evryone else, like a radio that’s not quite on the right frequency. i can’t even understand it most of the time, not sure why i would think that anyone else could.

i should start with an update i guess. i got to my 1st therapy session, ive now been to 3 in total, and so far they seem to be going really well. by the end of my first session i was able to actally speak more than 1 or 2 word answers to the therapists questions, and by the end of the second we could actually have a conversation. well, sort of. theres always quite long pauses between him asking me something, and my reply, while i try to find the words, but he is always patient and doesnt try to rush me or put words in my mouth, just lets me take my time to figure it out. he doesnt seem to mind that i dont really make eye contact, and explains things in a simple way without making me feel dumb. i do feel like its a good fit for me, and that if i keep coming, and following his advice, i should be able to make progress.

and yet, despite me having evry reason to be happy and confident with how things are going, im still in this constant battle in my head. evrything is harder than it should be. evrything takes more effort. i fell like im trying to walk through a storm in the middle of the night. winds coming at me from all sides, stumbling thriugh life with no idea where im going. im exhausted all the time. not just phisicly, but mentally and emotionly as well. but theres not really any big reason in my life for this to be so hard. like, no family drama, or major illness, or work stress, or housing worries. i dont have heaps of money, but i have enough to take care of myself and my cat, and pay bills, and even put aside a little bit each week for savings. i dont even have school or study to worry about. there isnt a legitimat reason for me to be struggling so much to just function.

i know ive never quite been “right”, ive never fitted into any of the boxes that people expect me to. ive never really made friends and social situations were always quite hard. but over the years it just got harder and harder. just walking down the main street in town and trying to see through the noise of all the traffick (i know that doesnt make sense but its the only way i can think to describe it), i feel mysef getting tighter and smaller and i feel like covering my ears and closing my eyes like a child and just hiding from the world. im in my early 30’s. my job is childcare. i cant be like this, i need to be better. i can get home from what should be described as a good day at work and be so exhausted and drained by just trying to be a functioning human that im just in tears.

i know it takes time fo therapy to work, i know things arent gonna change overnight. and i know things are gonna probly get harder before they get better, but im terrfied, like actually genuinely terrified, that im not gonna last long enough for it to happen. evry day im feeling myself get tighter and smaller and getting closer and closer to just falling apart. im tired of trying to walk through the storm. im tired of being buffeted by the wind and rain. im tired of the constant roaring thunder of the outside world, and the crashes of lightning that send me into a panic attack. im tired of trying to hold the millions of broken pieces together. im so friggen tired in evry single atom of my body and mind and soul. i just want it to stop. i just want to curl up into a ball in a dark quiet corner and just stop.

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I’m so glad that you’re here with an update and it’s lovely that you seem to be trusting and getting comfortable with your therapist! That is awesome

This is such a beautifully written post, the imagery is fantastic and so well described.

There is no “right” time or place to suffer or struggle. We can have everything (house, food, kids, money, job etc) and still have a hollowness, still find it hard to find meaning or vale, or even motivation. Your struggles and your feelings are valid, because you exist. There is no prize for “Best sufferer” is what I say - there is no one right way to need help.
We all need help sometimes, we all need a caring place to belong, and some support for the journey of life. That’s what we’re here for!

You’re not broken, you’re not a mistake to be fixed. You’re enough, just as you are.

While I may not understand exactly what it’s like to go through your particular struggle, it sounds like you could use a safe spot where your mind can get some relief. In a recent post I mentioned getting a water fountain or water feature because I am a big believer in nature and it’s healing powers. The sound of water to me is one of the most restorative things in the world.

Do you have somewhere where you could just sit and listen to a river or at the beach, or even get a water fountain at home and see if the tumbling soothing sounds can help you? even online, I used to listen to a lot of tumbling waves or gurgling streams to help give my mind something to focus on and that sort of helped my mood and my thoughts. No harm in giving that a shot. it matches with the comparison of being in a storm… sometimes we have to hunker down and ride out the storm. I believe in you, friend!

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thankyou Sita, and thankyou to Megs and everyone else how was encouraging me during the stream.

im still trying to get my head around it all to be honest. to have shared about some of the parts of me that i see as the most broken and ugly and unwanted, and just have so much support and kindness and acceptance given in return, it was just overwhelming for me.

i appreciate the people who told me my post was well written, i think it took like 5 hours to write. lots of changing stuff and rewriting and reding it out loud to see if it made sense. by the time it got to cheking spelling and grammar and stuff i just kinda gave up and posted it anyway cause it was too much to get my head around. with the storm thingy, i once saw an animation, like years ago, with this person who was trying to just go through normal life, and from the outside it seemed “normal” but evry time the “camera” switched to their pespective, through their eyes there was this roaring storm, with wind and rain making it hard to see and move etc. when i saw that animation, it made so much sense to me, and the image really stuck in my head cause that was how i felt. like i was battling this storm that noone else could see. so yeah, thats where the storm thing came from. it seemed like the best way to describe it.

i will try the water thing. dad actually invited me to come with him out to the beach tomorrow, which is a couple hours drive away. we were meant to go out there a while ago but the weather turned so we didnt go. i do love it out there and wish i could go more often, but its not really possible. i dont live close enough to the river or a beach that i could go to on a daily basis, but i will try looking up some stuff on youtube. the only problem with getting a little water feature is that i have a cat who likes to play in water, lol, so i would end up with wet patches evrywhere.

i am working up the courage to show this post to my therapist. i have talked about some of this stuff to him, but i didnt get into as deeply as i did here cause i couldnt find the words to explain it. it seems easier though, sharing it here into the void of the internet with people i cant see, instead of in person with him sitting right there in the room. im going to do it though, cause these are the words i was trying to find, and he can only help me if i actually share about the deep stuff. i do know that, and im going to try my best, cause i do want to get better. maybe ill try to copy it into a word document and print it off, then i can give it to hm to read instead of relying on myself to try and read it out loud.

another thing that megs mentioned was afimations (i think thats the right word) like, saying positive things to yourself. i have tried it before, but its hard cause i never really believed the stuff i was saying, and i just kinda felt like a frawd. it didnt feel like i was telling the truth. i dunno, i guess i can try it again for a while. maybe i just gave up on it too soon last time.

anyway, thanks again to evryone. i really do appreciate all the kindness. i am going to keep trying, i will keep going to my therapist, im going to do my best to not give up. thankyou for giving me somethting to hold on to.

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