I’d say that describes the turmoil I feel pretty well. Loneliness, shame, anger, and frustration with my self is the soundtrack to my life on repeat it feels like. Right now the hardest part is the loneliness. Anytime I’m alone for more than an hour or two with no way to distract myself the despair sets in.

I spent most of yesterday crying. The loneliness hurts so much. I’m not shaming myself (as much) this time around, because I know if the world wasn’t on pause I would be making some kind of efforts to build community for myself. At the same time as I cried alone last night I thought about calling someone, but I just didn’t feel comfortable reaching out to anyone. I guess I am still ashamed, thinking I should be able to figure out a cure to my loneliness on my own which makes no sense at all, it has to involve others.

I got on a dating app this week. I texted someone back and forth for a few days, then just deleted it yesterday. Even if I did connect with someone over electronic communication, I won’t get to meet them because of covid and the cold weather. The hopelessness is setting in and I see no relief on the way. It doesn’t feel like I can just think my way out of feeling lonely. I’m still searching for good reasons to keep suffering through life. I haven’t had a hug in over a month and I don’t know when the next one is coming. I need hope.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by noname.

Anita,

I really appreciate the effort you put in on this site. If no one else has said it I can tell you our communication has had an overwhelmingly positive impact on my life. I think it is such a great thing that this site exists. With that being said after thinking about the last post I made I feel our dialogue has run it’s course, and it does give me anxiety to share so much on this public forum so I think this will probably be it.

I think we’re on the same page about diagnoses. It’s helpful to give a name to a set of common symptoms, unfortunately i see other therapists identifying people by their diagnosis instead of as an individual with a unique experience. I get alot of feedback from people telling me it’s refreshing to have a therapist who doesn’t treat them like a research study…but that’s neither here nor there.

I was diagnosed with BPD as well. I fit the diagnosis very well. I have been questioning myself alot this week, wondering if anything is actually wrong, or if i’m just being irrational/symptomatic. It has been so difficult to abandon some of my more problematic personality traits, because they have literally kept me alive. I’m grateful for my anxiety sometimes, because it has defiantly been on the money a few times that saved my life. I’m sure you understand it can be hard to give something up that has served you so well for so long, despite the byproduct of suffering. I feel like such a fraud most days, I am far from a mentally healthy individual trying to help other mentally unhealthy people. I’m going to figure out another career and get out of therapy as soon as I can, it’s just been too hard on me.

Thank you so much for support over years Anita. I wish you the best, and words cant express my gratitude towards you and this forum. I’m sure i’ll figure things out eventually and be just fine!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by noname.

My reason for living has pretty much remained unchanged, it always involves others well-being. Whether it be my family, friends, or my clients. I think i’m at a point however where living for other people isn’t doing it for me anymore. I know people will be okay without me. I’d much rather have a more selfish reason for living as odd as that may sound.

I think it must be said too that my lifestyle is more sedentary and isolated than ever. I spend more time on a computer than i ever have in my life because of Covid, and i haven’t had the motivation to exercise. I was once of the fastest people in my city on a bicycle and i’ve ridden my bike maybe 3-4 times in 2020. I also struggle with finances since covid. I was on track to make a good living before covid. My income last year was probably only 2/3rds of what it would’ve been. I simply cant do as much therapy with people over the computer as i could in person. I’ve been learning day trading for the past 7 or so months in hopes to supplement my income, which hasn’t taken off for me yet.

I’ve also been on the fence about continuing to be a therapist at all. I just don’t fit in philosophically with the career (i generally disagree with diagnostic criteria, and refuse to pathologize peoples adaptive behaviors as some sort of “disorder”) it feels dangerous and anxiety provoking to be authentic and stand out in a career field like this where I don’t agree with colleagues about the medical model of mental health treatment, which tends to be a huge relief to my clients who have had other therapist in the past who pathologized every behavior as some kind of “disease” rather than an adaptive behavior.

I see my career potentially going a few different directions once i get fully licensed at the end of 2021.

1. I can practice therapy solo and rent office space and make alot more money for the same amount work im doing now.

2. I can work towards opening a community center focused on mental health and mostly abandon doing individual therapy and focus on leading seminars, and doing group work.

3. I can ditch mental health altogether focus on Day trading, probably make a lot more money and not have to worry about anyone else but myself.

Right now option 3 sounds most attractive. The feeling of living an inauthentic life as a therapist just wont work for me. I fantasize about not having to respond to people, not having to answer to any governing body, and having my time freedom back to focus on things i want to do. It feels unnatural to be attending to peoples human needs through therapy.

This career dilemma also contributes to the hopelessness. Summed up i see my career  two ways 1. survive and be inauthentic. or 2. be authentic and risk not having my basic needs met.  I hate that capitalism forces me to use my talents to generate profits for survival or else.

I really feel like i just need a break, like a 6month-1yr break where i just live. I’ve held a taxpaying job since i was 14 years old i’m 28 years old now, and have bread crumbs to show for it. I just wake up most days tired of this rat race. It also angers me knowing i could have went into some profit seeking type career and wouldn’t be worried about survival right now.

My therapist points out to me alot that it is impressive what i’ve been able to accomplish with no resources and hardly any help, but that it is unsustainable for me to be a loner forever, and i totally agree. I feel like i’m playing a team game as a 1 man show and have no room for error. Which is exhausting and even more so when I see no reward(reason) for doing so.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by noname.

Anita,

Merry Christmas and happy new year to you as well!

I have ordered the book you recommended last post and will begin reading it soon, as I feel myself becoming more hopeless and depressed within the past week. The reason for depression feels pretty straightforward this time around; I am lonely and disconnected. The hopelessness feels familiar, it says to me “there is no relief from anxiety for you, ever. You will always be alone and even in the company of other people you are still alone”

I feel like I’m at that point where i’ve tried everything to feel better, but thinking of the future tells me there is no point or reason to keep trying. Throughout my life I have proven to myself that i can suffer through anything if i have a good enough reason. I’m starting to become afraid because I haven’t felt this type of hopelessness in a few years. In the past i was a able to see or feel some glimmer of hope for my future, whether it was being in school, a friendship, or romance. However, right now i see nothing but isolation and it feels terrible to think that is my future, and is keeping me from getting out of bed in the mornings right now. The hardest part for me right now is feeling unsupported, knowing the suffering that awaits me if i do not work to support myself, which feels like a rat race i will never get ahead of.

I’m scared if i do not find a reason for living and suffering to attach myself to what my life may become. I know you may not be able to give me a reason to keep suffering, and just so you know i promised myself I would never end things through my own actions, so i will keep suffering no matter what, but it would be such a relief if i had a better reason other than other people would be sad if i were dead.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by noname.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by noname.

Thank you for reminding me I am an animal. I think it’s interesting you brought up using imagination, something my therapist mentioned to me a few weeks ago. I find myself limiting possibilities of what my reality can be because of it, like how it is still hard for me to imagine being deserving of love. I also understand that as humans we can use our ability to focus our attention to create. As I was thinking some more this morning, i was asking myself how can i consciously create an internal feeling of love using my focus when i need it? Maybe some form of meditation can help with this…

Through my personal work, and my job i notice i have developed a skill of listening. I do a really good job on picking up on other peoples needs without them saying much at all. Of course this skill of rapidly diagnosing and meeting the needs of other comes from my relationship with my parents. However, i’m not so great at seeing and meeting my own needs in the moment. Which sometimes means weeks long episodes of depression or severe social anxiety. I am trying to learn how to give to myself what i give to others.

Anita,

Thanks so much for checking on me. How are you doing with all this??

I have been up and down this past week. My discomfort with anxiety has been evident. I have been doing therapy with clients over video chat. I also started a job 1 day a week working in a foster care facility. I am so grateful to be employed right now as so many people i know have lost their jobs overnight.

My sister text me last weekend pleading to unblock my mom and talk with her. I said okay but i still haven’t done it. My mom was in the hospital yesterday with kidney stones but shes okay now. I felt shame for not checking on her but i’m also just very tired of communicating with her, the conversation is always criticism of what i’m doing to hurt her and never about the abundance of things i’ve done right. My mom couldn’t have asked for two better children, yet she is always complaining about us and how we treat her. I’m sick of it and don’t feel like defending myself anymore against her opinions of me, because i frankly don’t have the capacity to care that much right now. I’m much more focused on keeping myself from spiraling into a deep depression.

My therapist pointed out to me the discomfort i feel with the tension of anxiety. I have probably said this before on here but sometimes i just want my life to go ahead and crash completely so i can just deal with it. Waiting around to see whats going to happen always feels worse than when the worst actually comes for me. Right now i have two months of savings, something i am extremely grateful for. Though it still makes me very anxious if it will be enough to keep me from being evicted if i cant keep cash flowing in. I should be okay, but again the anxiety is probably worse than the actual event, much like we’ve seen these past couple weeks with the panic vs. the actual virus in society at large. The anxiety itself seems to be the enemy. My therapist suggested i use this as opportunity to just be, be with the anxiety, and to be unproductive. Being productive has always been my coping mechanism (or achievement) , and these circumstances have forced me to be unproductive. When i’m working i feel as if im doing something to fend off the worry, as business has slowed to a trickle for me this week it has been difficult for me to stay calm without just becoming all out depressed.

This whole situation has raised some awareness in me however, its shown me how disconnected we are from the earth, and meeting our own basic needs like food and shelter. It is clear to me I am far too dependent on the system to meet my basic needs and to meet the needs of others. This disconnection has highlighted why there is so much despair within me and the world around me. I want a small affordable home with a yard where i can grow food and raise chickens or somethings, i want a community where people are interdependent on eachother for our physical and emotional well being. I want to live more humanely. This is where the dissatisfaction in my life has it’s roots i have discovered.

Anita,

Thank you for your reply I paid close attention to what you said about emotional regulation. It is exactly what i needed to do, tolerate the discomfort and resist the urge to engage in my childlike coping strategies. Thank you for your reflection. I find it difficult to see myself sometimes, had someone come to me with this same issue it would have been easy for me to identify. This does scare me sometimes as well, the fact that I am an adult yet my inner child is so noisy and still requires very much attention.

I would like your input on another topic as well, accepting other peoples past. I’m very into this woman i’m seeing and she is kind, thoughtful, intelligent, independent, and empathetic. She told me about her past though and that’s when I became afraid and wanted to run. When she was a teenager she became pregnant and didn’t know who the father was. She regretfully got an abortion and never told anyone. after that she said she didn’t have sex or any relationship of any kind for 3 years. Then she was in a relationship for a 1 year and ended it. I run into this problem often with myself, I find myself judging her for her mistakes. I hate that i do this. I don’t do this with my clients either, i try to keep an unconditional positive regard towards them, but women i want to be intimate with i find myself judging them for their past even if they are more self-aware and a completely different person now. It makes me feel hypocritical

Also, I wanted your input on another topic as well. I went to my sisters yesterday to some work on my car. While i was talking to my sister my mom continually interrupts so i just ignore her and keep talking to my sister. I was talking with my brother in law and my mom comes out of nowhere and interrupts yet again, i sighed and rolled my eyes. My mom went off and screamed “you’re always so F***ing disrespectful!” i asked if she wanted to talk about it and she just went upstairs to her room and stayed there the rest of the day.

This morning she texts me this “I’m not sure why you continue to have an issue with me, but i think we are old enough to have a conversation about it. I will not continue to be made to feel as if I have to walk on eggshells around you. You act as if i inconvenience you by being emotional about the last 2 1/2 years, trust that you know a snippet of what has gone on. If it’s not about you then we all know it’s not your concern. So please stop being so disrespectful towards me, i don’t deserve that from my child. I have decided not to take treatment from anyone that i do not deserve and i know deserve the type of treatment you constantly give me”….

I replied “Good for you”

she replies “I dont have time to convince you that i’m worthy of your respect. so I have my non answer”

I replied “if you actually care you wouldn’t be passive aggressive in the message you sent me telling me ‘if its not about you we all know you don’t care’ continuing to try to make me feel sorry for you ‘trust you know a snippet of what has gone on’ Good! i don’t want to know everything that goes on with you it drains me, take care of yourself please”

She replies “if you have such disdain for me then why would you accept anything from me?” (referring to the money she gave me when she divorced)

I replied “let’s just not talk to eachother anymore please” and then i blocked her on my phone.

Sorry for the length of this post i cannot express my gratitude enough for all the help you continue to provide me. I feel I’m at that point with her that you have encouraged many many times. No contact whatsoever. I was offended many times in this communication 1. she says we should be old enough to have a conversation but she declined my request to talk in the moment. Childish. 2. She says i don’t care about anyone but myself but i helped her with SO much since she’s been divorced moving shit, working on her car, consoling her. Childish. 3. It’s still about her because i don’t know everything that goes on with her. That’s my greatest wish honestly i was tired of her shit so i set a boundary and i felt much better but to her this means i’m letting her down. Childish. 4. She says she doesn’t deserve disrespect from her own child, implying she deserves uncondtional respect no matter how disrespectful she has been to me because i am HER child. Childish. 5. when she asks why do i continue to accept anything from her, well because she stole my tax return money when i was in college and didn’t tell me until years later. Not to mention the emotional damages. a few thousand dollars barely made up for the money she took.

Overall i’m disgusted i was working out in the gym this morning when i got these messages and it just pissed me off even more because it saps my energy. I guess i’d like an outside perspective (validation) on this matter but i refuse to believe what i’m feeling is somehow invalid. She acts as if i’m somehow at a loss for not communicating with her, but i’m the one who loses every time by engaging with her, so i’m done. This does make things even more difficult for me to see my sister, but i guess she will just have to come and see me now.