Eisoptrophobe
Member
By green I mean new to this forum. How do I begin? I guess with a beginning. I am a middle-aged survivor of abuse. I have spent my entire adult life trying to please others in the strange belief that by doing this I will be pleased. I recently realized, after decades of the behavior and many periods of treatment, that this does not work. All this attitude of strength has given me is a diagnosis of anxiety disorder and major depression.
I spent all my life listening to the sage advice, "Look around you and you will see others who have it a lot worse than you." I failed to realize that when one looks around and sees no one worse off that maybe one is the worse off in the vicinity. The advice is also very troubling to me because it seems to me now that I was being told to make myself feel better through envisioning the sufferings of others. When examined in that light, the sage advice gave me the same reaction as the herb: I sneezed and stuttered and stammered about. I was in shock that I could be so cruel as to make myself more empowered because others had a more difficult lot in life. I realize now that the people I sought to please were the ones who told me to look around. Now that I look and realize what I see I notice none of those who espoused such sage wisdom are anywhere to be found helping those with the difficulties, but are rather sitting around the sidelines smiling at the ones who suffer. Just the way I did when they advised me so to do. Guess what? They are smiling now at me and making themselves feel better because my lot is tough to bear and I have no one worse off than me to use to make myself feel better. All I can feel is an overwhelming sense of guilt that I ever was so cruel as to watch and not lend a hand to relieve the suffering from which I took such power.
So where from here? My depression has become extreme due to medical concerns. I fear leaving my home and dealing with people for no reason other than I fear leaving my home and dealing with people. I no longer enjoy spending time with my grandchildren. I no longer look forward to anything except the end of the day when I can without excuses seek medicine-induced sleep, however even this brief respite has eluded me of late. I have often hoped my medical condition will worsen so I can escape the lifetime of longing to be loved and accepted and the resulting pain from the love I give being unrequited.
It is an interesting cycle of despair to know what you need, that which you long for so desperately, and then destroy any chance of getting it. It is a real life, real time playing of the Joseph Heller novel's self-fulfilling cycle of failure of logic. I honestly have no clue how to break the cycle. It seems if I am emotionally stable enough to recognize that I am emotionally bereft, then I must be emotionally well and therefore not emotionally unstable, except that I am, but I recognize it, so I must be able to deal with it which makes me well.
I think all of this is more simply put in the following: I know something is wrong with me and I know why, but I have no clue how to fix it, therefore I must not know what is wrong with me.
Oh, and by the way, hello.
I spent all my life listening to the sage advice, "Look around you and you will see others who have it a lot worse than you." I failed to realize that when one looks around and sees no one worse off that maybe one is the worse off in the vicinity. The advice is also very troubling to me because it seems to me now that I was being told to make myself feel better through envisioning the sufferings of others. When examined in that light, the sage advice gave me the same reaction as the herb: I sneezed and stuttered and stammered about. I was in shock that I could be so cruel as to make myself more empowered because others had a more difficult lot in life. I realize now that the people I sought to please were the ones who told me to look around. Now that I look and realize what I see I notice none of those who espoused such sage wisdom are anywhere to be found helping those with the difficulties, but are rather sitting around the sidelines smiling at the ones who suffer. Just the way I did when they advised me so to do. Guess what? They are smiling now at me and making themselves feel better because my lot is tough to bear and I have no one worse off than me to use to make myself feel better. All I can feel is an overwhelming sense of guilt that I ever was so cruel as to watch and not lend a hand to relieve the suffering from which I took such power.
So where from here? My depression has become extreme due to medical concerns. I fear leaving my home and dealing with people for no reason other than I fear leaving my home and dealing with people. I no longer enjoy spending time with my grandchildren. I no longer look forward to anything except the end of the day when I can without excuses seek medicine-induced sleep, however even this brief respite has eluded me of late. I have often hoped my medical condition will worsen so I can escape the lifetime of longing to be loved and accepted and the resulting pain from the love I give being unrequited.
It is an interesting cycle of despair to know what you need, that which you long for so desperately, and then destroy any chance of getting it. It is a real life, real time playing of the Joseph Heller novel's self-fulfilling cycle of failure of logic. I honestly have no clue how to break the cycle. It seems if I am emotionally stable enough to recognize that I am emotionally bereft, then I must be emotionally well and therefore not emotionally unstable, except that I am, but I recognize it, so I must be able to deal with it which makes me well.
I think all of this is more simply put in the following: I know something is wrong with me and I know why, but I have no clue how to fix it, therefore I must not know what is wrong with me.
Oh, and by the way, hello.
