Well, you asked for other’s opinions?? Let us look at the situation. Alone. Head injury. Covid-19. Isolation. Question: Where does the mind go for relief? Looking at options. Death? Drugs?? A past love??? I am glad you found relief in yourself and your memories. You acted upon your emotions and thoughts. If it does not turn out the way you want then can you move forward? If you dwell in the past then will it cloud your mind and trap you in suffering? I hope you find yourself.

Dear Cat:

Your first post was 4 years ago, February 3, 2018. You opened it with: “Hi all, I’m posting on Tiny Buddha because I’m at the lowest point in life and I have lost my faith in the Universe (I’m 24). I’m a spiritual person, but right now I am finding it hard to muster a belief in the guidance of the universe – although I do keep seeing spiritual numbers everyday” – right in the beginning, you made it clear that you believed that (1) there is such a thing as  Universe aka Higher Power aka God, (2) Universe pays attention to billions of individuals and their personal life stories and circumstances, and provides all with individual guidance fitting billions of individual life stories and circumstances, (3) Universe communicates with and guides individual people through numbers.

Fast forward 4 years, and on January 29, 2022, at 28, you still believe in Universe, and in one that guides individuals: “on the 23rd of December whilst in isolation, I had a dream… it sparked a light in my soul I haven’t felt for years… I spoke to a psychic… I haven’t thought about the concept of twin flames for years, but part of me feels like I did leave part of my self/ my soul behind when I ended our connection… it’s definitely a situation that’s been sent by the Universe and I’m trying to see the lesson in it all” – you had a dream about an 18-year-old boy, at the time you met him, years ago. You had the dream on December 23 (the numbers 12 and 23 may provide some guidance), and you mentioned the spiritual concepts of Soul (a non-material, eternal aspect of a person, it never dies) and that of Twin Fames (two souls mirroring each other, having a special connection, a union made for eternity, and which leads to a spiritual awakening).

The title of your thread is “Spiritual Awakening/ dreams” – your hope is to experience a spiritual awakening as a result of connecting to the man who you hope is your twin flame.

What is a spiritual awakening? wake up world. com answers (I am adding the boldface feature): “Spiritual awakenings are the soul’s cry for freedom. Listen to its call and your life will be transformed into something meaningful and significant. Refuse its call and your life will be like a graveyard. If you have experienced a spiritual awakening, you have come to see through the lies and illusions of this world. Deep in your soul, you realize that nothing external has ever, and can ever, bring you true happiness or fulfillment. This profound realization leaves you craving for something richer, more fulfilling, and something that will make you feel whole once again… When we undergo a spiritual awakening, we literally ‘wake up’ to life. We begin to question our old beliefs, habits, and social conditioning, and see that there is much more to life than what we have been taught”.

On January 29, 2022, you hoped that this young man is your twin flame, and that connecting with him will make it possible for you to finally experience the great things that spiritual awakening promises: freedom, transformation, feeling whole/ that you and your life are meaningful and significant, feeling true and lasting happiness and fulfillment.

Back to 4 years ago, you were depressed: “I’m spending my days struggling to see my own worth, depressed and not eating or washing properly. I want to cry but feel like I can’t. I want to grieve yet at the same time know that I need to let go of my depression in order to move on in life“. You shared that the year before, 2017, you “kept seeing 11:11 everywhere for months… It was a sign that something big was coming” and you left the UK for Chicago on a visit. In Chicago, you were “still seeing 11:11 everywhere“, and you “got a tattoo of it on (your) wrist“.

During a music festival in Chicago, you “met a guy in the crowd” and spent 3-4 days with him in his place, hoping that he was your soul mate, or better, your twin flame and will therefore lead you out of your depression and into spiritual awakening: “This guy seemed to be a mirror of my soul…  I felt that he was my soul mate, and we were the only thing that mattered. He was my 11:11“. But you still felt worthless and depressed (“I felt worthless and that I wanted to die“), You did drugs and tarot cards with the guy, the two of you ended up “cutting (your) hands open and bleeding together over them“. But soon after, you had a mental breakdown from all the drugs, and you packed out your stuff and left.

You wrote back in early 2018 about numbers: “I look to the numbers because I am desperate for hope, and desperate that everything that has happened has been for a reason, and that my life has meaning“.

About relationships: “This has been a pattern for many of my relationships: I tend to see the fullness of another person… For too long I’ve been an open book, hoping that someone will pick me up and understand me“.

About your childhood=> adulthood guilt and depression, being detached, floaty and falling into situations: ““I feel guilty for simply living my life… because my parents never had that freedom… if they can’t have it, why should I? … I feel so sorry for my parents… deep down I feel responsible…  like a massive moral weight on my shoulders”, “I can’t remember one time as a child or growing up where I was just allowed to be happy or at peace as everything me and my sister did was wrong, and so I find it really hard to find peace and happiness in the present…  the feeling is so indescribable, it’s like being morally and soulfully contracted to carry out a life under (your parents’) pains and misery… It’s the worst feeling in the world… I have lived so long hiding away with anxiety and depression and finding myself just falling into situations…  I hardly remember anything from my childhood… I too was very detached, a very floaty individual who was just drifting through life allowing myself to get bullied from all angles – school, home life etc.“.

A quote from you and my closing thoughts today: on February 2018 and on March 12, 2020, you shared, “I grew up in an extremely psychologically abusive household… My parents had no empathy at all for us… I spoke with the on-call GP today and she agreed with me, and believes I’m experiencing PTSD symptoms, and I do need to address this past trauma in my life. I am currently looking into trauma therapy” – there is a term, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, C-PTSD. Wikipedia on C-PTSD (I believe that you, like me and many millions of other people, all over the world, suffer from CPTSD. I am quoting from Wikipedia on CPTSD the parts that I believe are true to you, and to me): “a psychological disorder that can develop in response to exposure to (a) series of events in a context in which the individual perceives little or no chance of escape, and particularly where the exposure is prolonged or repetitive… an individual with C-PTSD experiences emotional dysregulation, negative self-beliefs and feelings of shame, guilt or failure regarding the trauma, and interpersonal difficulties… Situations involving captivity/entrapment can lead to C-PTSD-like symptoms, which can include prolonged feelings of terror, worthlessness, helplessness, and deformation of one’s identity and sense of self”.

A child growing up with abusive and unempathetic parents is their captive and is indeed entrapped with them. Repeated events of abuse bring about the symptoms of C-PTSD. You hoped to be healed by a man, a savior, like Cinderella waiting for prince charming. You have placed men up on pedestals, so to be able to see them as superior to yourself and in so being, powerful enough to heal/ save you.

Healing is not about looking for prince charming, a search on which you sprinkled flavors of spirituality. Healing is in quality psychotherapy and in spirituality. Tommy, a member here, described spirituality in a way I very much agree with (on Feb 2 and 7, 2022, you can find him on the first page of list of topics):

“Buddha once related a story of a village of the blind. Rumors were that the next village would attack with elephants. Not knowing what an elephant was, they had someone bring them an elephant to discover what is an elephant. Three blind men went to discover what an elephant truly was. One man said it was like a big flap of cloth as he felt the ear of the elephant. And another said it was like a rope as he felt the tail. The third man said it was like a heavy column as he felt the leg of the elephant. Enlightenment is like discovering an elephant. First glimpse of the truth is not the whole truth. And enlightenment has many depths. Like shining a flashlight into the deepest dark space. It only illuminates that which it shines upon. There is much to discover…  Bliss is not the goal. Stepping into the dog poop is part of Karma when one is part of the cycle of life, death and rebirth. Sorry, think I read this somewhere??The thinking is that when one becomes enlightened then one is in bliss. Doesn’t see the dog poop in front of him and steps into it. Rather, when one is enlightened, one is mindful and sees the dog poop. Then one can choose one’s action of stepping forward. Into or around or over. The actions of enlightened ones are done with love and compassion. It is not done in a vacuum or even with urges”.

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by .

Dear Cat:

“I understand what you’re trying to say, but I haven’t officially been diagnosed with PTSD, so I think it’s dangerous to presume that” –

– I did not diagnose you with anything, it would have been irresponsible if I did because I am not a mental health professional, and even if I was, a public forum is far from being the private, professional setting that is required to make a mental health diagnosis.

It was you who wrote back on March 12, 2020: “I spoke with the on-call GP today and she agreed with me, and believes I’m experiencing PTSD symptoms, and I do need to address this past trauma in my life. I am currently looking into trauma therapy” –

You believed at the time that you were experiencing PTSD symptoms, and an on-call GP agreed with you, and that’s why you looked into Trauma therapy. In my most recent post to you, Feb 9, 2022, I introduced to you the concept of Complex PTSD, which is not an official diagnosis, but I find it very useful; you can read about it online or in books, if you so choose.

In your most recent post, April 3, 2022, you wrote: “I’m quite plagued with the darkness of the world. Suicidal thoughts, the dairy industry, the porn industry and all these bad things. They really really plague my mind so much. I’d really like to come to peace with myself at first inside and know what I’m doing in life and how best I can try and change the world before I make any moves…. I’d really like your advice on all of this, as I am finding it all a massive head f**k and confusion” –

– I’ll do my best, but please try to be patient as you read my input and advice, don’t easily disregard all of it just because you dislike this or that word, don’t quickly react, don’t overreact… give it a chance:

I believe that the reason the dairy and porn industry and other current dark practices and events in the world plague you as much as it does (“really really… so much“, to the point of suicidal thoughts), is that the darkness of your childhood still plagues you and the new darkness is added to the old… altogether it’s too much, too heavy, overwhelming, confusing and paralyzing.

The old, childhood darkness= feeling guilty for simply being alive, weighed down by guilt because you feel responsible for your parents’ misery, feeling that you are morally, and soulfully contracted to be miserable: “I feel guilty for simply living my life… I feel so sorry for my parents… deep down I feel responsible…  like a massive moral weight on my shoulders…  the feeling is so indescribable, it’s like being morally and soulfully contracted to carry out a life under (parents’) pains and misery… It’s the worst feeling in the world“.

I am not saying that the current dark practices and events in the world are not bad and that you shouldn’t do anything about it, on the contrary: they are bad, and we should all do what we can to correct injustices and eliminate cruelty!

What I am saying is that the worst feeling in the world, for you, has always been that old guilt, that moral and soulful contract that you mentioned. Added to current bad practices and events, it’s too much for you and you end up confused, weighed down, and therefore, unable to help neither the world, nor yourself, not on an ongoing basis. You have to attend to the original darkness within you if you want to take on the life that you would like to live.

“I’m 28 now and I’m scared about getting older, and not living the life that I was meant to” – you decide what you want your life to be about, don’t wait for an outside force such as a man, a friend, or “the Universe” to make the evaluation and the decision for you!

“Throughout my 20’s I created this punk ego and tried to band stuff, never too much success. Hanging out in squats, people at protests” – online: “Punk is defined as a young, rebellious person, or aggressive rock music that was popular in the 1970s” –

– Having communicated with you for this long, I think that a rebel is in the core of who you are. You wrote: “I am trying to live life in accordance with who I really am” – I think that you really are a rebel.

Back to your original guilt, that darkness within- it is very, very common that children feel responsible for their parents’ misery. I was burdened by this common guilt for decades, leading to a life mostly wasted in guilt, while all along I was not at all responsible for my mother’s misery. If I wasn’t weighed down by this false guilt, I would have had the clarity of mind and the energy to live a life that makes sense, a life worth living, and I would have been able to help others!

I see your most important act of rebellion yet to be taken, being against this very common practice of a child taking on the responsibility for a parent’s misery.

“I am struggling with knowing what to do with my life. I don’t have a partner. As I want to wait for the right person. I’m still in Bristol – should I go back to the punk ego and do band stuff? Or should I focus on the fantasy book? Keep my head down?” –

– (1) Never keep your head down, that’s not what a rebel does, but remember that not every time you feel offended, it means that someone really offended you, evaluate situations before you react to them (don’t react too quickly, don’t overreact)!

(2)  Question is, once you unload much of that excess weight, once you break that moral and soulful contract to carry out a life under your anyone’s pain and misery (“to carry out a life under… pains and misery”), what do you rebel against next?

One thing at a time, first your most important act of rebellion has to start taking place.

anita

I hope you are well, Cat, MeRRy ChRistmaS!

anita