Home→Forums→Tough Times→Can't see way forward
- This topic has 7 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 8 years ago by Anonymous.
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November 27, 2016 at 9:19 am #121243BuruberuParticipant
Hi,
I have been here before (on Tiny Buddha, in a difficult place), but this time I think it might be the last. I made a step towards committing suicide today. I am 30 and have little support in the form of friends and family, partly because I feel I have put upon those I can call on too much already, partly because people have drifted or I have pushed them away after perceived mistreatment by them.
My behaviour at times in my life has been destructive, and this hasn’t improved much with age.
I had problems with eating when I was a teenager, and was put on antidepressants that made me feel numb – on which I then tried to overdose at 21. I called my boyfriend straight away at the time who took me to hospital. My family did not suggest they were aware although my boyfriend told me he had told my brother. My family generally are very ‘hands-off’.
I then moved to London without knowing anybody there, thinking it was the only place that seemed like a step forward for me to look forward to. I gradually made friends, but also faced a lot of rejection. I became depressed and with it isolated, and when a guy started to show interest in me I let him into my life. He turned out to have a violent streak within the relationship, and I now have a permanent restraining order against him, but also suspect I was left more emotionally unbalanced.
As that relationship was ending, another guy became supportive towards me and insisted on pursuing a relationship with me. We’ve had some really wonderful times, but crucially we can never seem to resolve disagreements. He prefers to smooth things over (often to the end that seems to suit him not me) and I have become increasingly frustrated to the point of sometimes lashing out. I had wanted to get married and start a family, but we’ve never been in a good enough place to start planning. Our latest fight seems trivial; he accused me of being difficult because I said I felt cold at a pub we planned to eat at, I said he was criticising me and eventually left without eating. It says a lot about how we interact. I often feel criticised and unappreciated, and it takes little things for that to come to the surface.
The turbulence of the relationship combined with unsociable work hours (I have to be in the office at 4am) and feeling isolated and resentful are really getting the better of me.
I have had therapy courses twice in the past (around the time I was in a violent relationship) but they didn’t really have any effect. My parents (not together) live a 2 hour drive away and don’t have a spare bed for me, nor are there jobs in my industry where they live. Otherwise I am physically healthy, and have a permanent job.
I don’t have the energy to find somewhere to live (I am currently staying in my boyfriend’s house), make new friends and largely start again. I feel deeply ashamed of being isolated and of various irreversible things I have done, including lashing out, deleting people on social media and being in an angry mood around people where it has been inappropriate. I don’t think I can keep coping.- This topic was modified 8 years ago by Buruberu.
November 27, 2016 at 10:07 am #121246AnonymousGuestDear Buruberu:
Your last sentence on this post is: “I don’t think I can keep coping.”
Having looked at the previous threads you started, I think you did a lot of coping through the years and did very well coping, the very best. You kept going and going, coping and coping.
Time to do something different: start the healing process. It requires seeing, over time, reality as is; seeing your childhood as it was, gaining insight, learning skills to tolerate the distress involved, applying lots of gentleness toward yourself and lots of patience with yourself and with the process.
Does it make sense to you: my distinction between Coping and Healing?
anita
November 27, 2016 at 10:11 am #121247BuruberuParticipantHi Anita, thanks so much for your reply.
I do see there’s a distinction, but I don’t know how to heal, or really believe I can.November 27, 2016 at 10:54 am #121361AnonymousGuestDear Buruberu:
You can heal. You can start right here, right now. I will ask you a question and you can, if you choose, answer it best you know, as calmly as you can:
You wrote: ” My family generally are very ‘hands-off’”-
through the years, from as early as you can remember, what does “hands off” mean?
anita
November 27, 2016 at 11:20 am #121363BuruberuParticipantWell, I was allowed out late and made my own dinner by 14/15. my parents aren’t very educated so I did homework alone. At 17 I moved in with a boyfriend, then moved to uni pretty much from there a year later. When I was a child I remember liking solitude and I think I was quiet, but I don’t know where that trait comes from. My family never discussed decisions or feelings. To date I speak in a slightly childish voice and very softly. For a long time I’ve felt I have full responsibility for myself, and take decisions alone (eg moving to London) which on the plus side means I can be proud of my achievements. It’s only recently I’ve started to communicate my level of depression to my mum.
November 27, 2016 at 11:50 am #121365AnonymousGuestDear Buruberu:
You wrote that when you were a child you preferred solitude. Do you have memories of closeness with any of your parents, a feeling of togetherness?
I am asking this because a child is not born with a preference for solitude. A child prefers solitude when reaching out to a parent to connect is ignored and even rejected again and again. Finally the child gives up.
anita
November 28, 2016 at 6:13 am #121395BuruberuParticipantHi Anita… hmm I don’t know. I have wondered about that because my early memories are of feeling isolated and not understood. I don’t remember rejections so much as not being encouraged to develop, not part of a unit or family. My parents struggled (financially, with each other) and I had to live around them. I don’t think I have a lot to complain about when considering the extremes I feel and how other people cope with much worse though.
November 28, 2016 at 8:24 am #121399AnonymousGuestDear Buruberu:
You wrote above that your early memories of yourself, as a child, are of feeling “isolated and not understood.” You wrote that your parents struggled financially and with each other. This means to me that your parents were too busy with financial issues and with their relationship, and so, they were not available to attend to you and to understand you, and this is why you felt isolated and not understood.
You wrote, as I understand it, that you dot have a lot to complain about when considering how other people cope well enough with worse childhoods. My thoughts: people often survive ANYTHING, any emotional and physical pain, and sometimes they seem to be doing well, as in holding a job, even making good money. But many of these people are not doing so well, are on psychiatric drugs, suffering a lot- think of the-rich-and-the-famous, like Robin Williams: an international star, certainly doing well, but no, not really.
When you were a child, you needed to be understood, as all children need. You needed to be attended to. It is very scary for a child to be neither, to be alone, day after day, night after night, year after year. You get used to it, but it is damaging.
In your original post you wrote: “I made a step towards committing suicide today. I am 30 and have little support in the form of friends and family…My behaviour at times in my life has been destructive, and this hasn’t improved much with age.”
You still need today, just as you needed as a child, that support, that connectedness, being understood. To be understood, by your own self, you need to be understood by someone else first. This is true for anyone and everyone. Without you understanding yourself, you don’t understand your own behavior and why you would behave in destructive ways. You even want, at times, to destroy that stranger- that is YOU- because you don’t understand that person looking back at you in the mirror.
The purpose of competent therapy would be for you to get to know yourself, to understand you, to connect to you.
anita
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