- Jun 6, 2014
- 23
- 10
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Non-Denom
- Marital Status
- Single
I see a giant ball of interconnected thoughts. Picking a starting place is always hard. I'm just going to start somewhere and hopefully fill in the links between things. I am posting this here because I feel like I have to admit I have a need, but I have read the advice others have given and it...is not what I need to hear.
I have always been the person who helps others. Why? Because I was literally beaten if I didn't. If I didn't bring a tool to my father *before* he asked for it, I was punished. If I didn't know what 'bring me that' when pointing at a wall of 50 tools meant, I was punished. So as far back as 3rd grade I remember being the person people could talk to about their problems. Nobody could ever help me with mine though. Nobody had ever experienced mine.
Family was far away. 600 miles or more. I saw anyone outside my parents once every 2 years, if that. The neighborhood friends were not great people. They stole, they cheated, they did many bad things. I am an only child. When the internet became a thing I tried to stay in touch with my extended family. I only ever mattered to them on holidays. They mattered to me every day.
My relationship with my parents was destroyed during high school. They lied to me, over and over. I could not ask for their advice, I could not trust their wisdom. I was, truly, alone. Utterly alone. And it stayed that way ever since (>20 years). There were brief periods where I would have a friend or a few friends. But if you summed all that time up it would be less than 2 years out of those 20. And while those friends could help me remember how to be a normal person, they couldn't help me heal my inner world. They had never been through anything like that. They had their own problems and had nothing left for me. And, in all cases, I was in their lives to help them with their problems, not to get help with mine. Something therapy exposed for me was that I do not understand how to have any value at all unless someone else sees my value. I have no value or worth to myself. I don't matter to me. It was beaten out of me as a child. Before my nervous system even knew what it was like to have self worth. I don't know that I can be re-taught this as an adult.
Over those 20 years I have tried to explain to my parents what they did and why it was wrong. It has been a non-appology every time. "We're sorry if you think/feel/believe that..." "We're sorry you believe that..." etc. Gaslighting. Manipulation. Making me the problem, never the. It's been that way since I was a child. My journals exposed that to me when I finally re-read them as an adult. There's no way to rebuild a relationship with someone who won't admit they did something wrong.
Since I was 15 I wanted to have a family. I'm basically 40 now, and I think that ship has sailed. Impossible? No. Improbable? highly. I cognitively understand that my family will be in heaven. The people I've saved over the decades of my life. The people who decided not to kill themselves because I talked them through their problems. The people who I helped find better jobs so they could afford the treatment I couldn't give them. The people whose faith I strengthened when they found themselves stuck in old loops of doubt. I have helped many, but I have found no human that could help me for more than a few months at a time.
Psychedelic therapy made it possible for me to start healing. And I share this so that those who can understand, might comprehend who utterly broken I was beforehand. I make no exaggeration when I say that I was so far gone that no other treatment could have gotten through to me. If you understand the totality of those three sentences, you understand how bad off I really am/was. I have made more progress in the last 8 months than I've made in the past 15 years. But I'm grinding against a wall and I need...I don't know what I truly need, other than to no longer be alone.
But people have betrayed me so consistently and so deeply that I cannot trust them. I cannot face going to church because the last time I tried I was placed on suicide watch. There are traumatic memories in the church for me I cannot face alone. People talk about the languages of love. Words have a negative meaning to me. I am more Romulan than human in this respect. I suspect everything is a lie, every action has another motive. The only girlfriend I ever had cried when she realized I wasn't lying about this. That I couldn't comprehend her parents being genuine, without subterfuge. Such is the depth of how deeply people have hurt me. And if you still don't understand, let me explain it this way: I can't just 'stop'. My entire nervous system is wired to distrust. The distrust is physical. It happens BEFORE conscious thought. Can it be changed? Yes. But only with great effort, and consistency measured in years, if not decades.
You'd never know it talking to me though. I seem totally normal. I have good social skills. I seem friendly, kind, and genuine. I mask very well. I had to. It is how I survived. It is how I felt safe. To this day I continue to try and find other people to help as my way to 'earn' my right to exist in a space. I sit at home, alone, because it's the only place I feel allowed to exist without paying. I do go sit in nature sometimes, when it isn't terribly hot outside. That helps a bit, but I can't be out there 16 hours a day.
In some ways, I need to have value to someone without me having earned it. And I need that to be a flesh and blood human, because I don't think I can rewire my nervous system any other way. I wish I could, but months of effort have shown no results. I think...I think this problem is one I can't fix in isolation.
So, maybe what I'm asking you to pray for is people to enter my life who can help heal me. People who can show me I have value inherently. People who can show me how to trust again. People who can...make it actually possible for me to heal.
I have always been the person who helps others. Why? Because I was literally beaten if I didn't. If I didn't bring a tool to my father *before* he asked for it, I was punished. If I didn't know what 'bring me that' when pointing at a wall of 50 tools meant, I was punished. So as far back as 3rd grade I remember being the person people could talk to about their problems. Nobody could ever help me with mine though. Nobody had ever experienced mine.
Family was far away. 600 miles or more. I saw anyone outside my parents once every 2 years, if that. The neighborhood friends were not great people. They stole, they cheated, they did many bad things. I am an only child. When the internet became a thing I tried to stay in touch with my extended family. I only ever mattered to them on holidays. They mattered to me every day.
My relationship with my parents was destroyed during high school. They lied to me, over and over. I could not ask for their advice, I could not trust their wisdom. I was, truly, alone. Utterly alone. And it stayed that way ever since (>20 years). There were brief periods where I would have a friend or a few friends. But if you summed all that time up it would be less than 2 years out of those 20. And while those friends could help me remember how to be a normal person, they couldn't help me heal my inner world. They had never been through anything like that. They had their own problems and had nothing left for me. And, in all cases, I was in their lives to help them with their problems, not to get help with mine. Something therapy exposed for me was that I do not understand how to have any value at all unless someone else sees my value. I have no value or worth to myself. I don't matter to me. It was beaten out of me as a child. Before my nervous system even knew what it was like to have self worth. I don't know that I can be re-taught this as an adult.
Over those 20 years I have tried to explain to my parents what they did and why it was wrong. It has been a non-appology every time. "We're sorry if you think/feel/believe that..." "We're sorry you believe that..." etc. Gaslighting. Manipulation. Making me the problem, never the. It's been that way since I was a child. My journals exposed that to me when I finally re-read them as an adult. There's no way to rebuild a relationship with someone who won't admit they did something wrong.
Since I was 15 I wanted to have a family. I'm basically 40 now, and I think that ship has sailed. Impossible? No. Improbable? highly. I cognitively understand that my family will be in heaven. The people I've saved over the decades of my life. The people who decided not to kill themselves because I talked them through their problems. The people who I helped find better jobs so they could afford the treatment I couldn't give them. The people whose faith I strengthened when they found themselves stuck in old loops of doubt. I have helped many, but I have found no human that could help me for more than a few months at a time.
Psychedelic therapy made it possible for me to start healing. And I share this so that those who can understand, might comprehend who utterly broken I was beforehand. I make no exaggeration when I say that I was so far gone that no other treatment could have gotten through to me. If you understand the totality of those three sentences, you understand how bad off I really am/was. I have made more progress in the last 8 months than I've made in the past 15 years. But I'm grinding against a wall and I need...I don't know what I truly need, other than to no longer be alone.
But people have betrayed me so consistently and so deeply that I cannot trust them. I cannot face going to church because the last time I tried I was placed on suicide watch. There are traumatic memories in the church for me I cannot face alone. People talk about the languages of love. Words have a negative meaning to me. I am more Romulan than human in this respect. I suspect everything is a lie, every action has another motive. The only girlfriend I ever had cried when she realized I wasn't lying about this. That I couldn't comprehend her parents being genuine, without subterfuge. Such is the depth of how deeply people have hurt me. And if you still don't understand, let me explain it this way: I can't just 'stop'. My entire nervous system is wired to distrust. The distrust is physical. It happens BEFORE conscious thought. Can it be changed? Yes. But only with great effort, and consistency measured in years, if not decades.
You'd never know it talking to me though. I seem totally normal. I have good social skills. I seem friendly, kind, and genuine. I mask very well. I had to. It is how I survived. It is how I felt safe. To this day I continue to try and find other people to help as my way to 'earn' my right to exist in a space. I sit at home, alone, because it's the only place I feel allowed to exist without paying. I do go sit in nature sometimes, when it isn't terribly hot outside. That helps a bit, but I can't be out there 16 hours a day.
In some ways, I need to have value to someone without me having earned it. And I need that to be a flesh and blood human, because I don't think I can rewire my nervous system any other way. I wish I could, but months of effort have shown no results. I think...I think this problem is one I can't fix in isolation.
So, maybe what I'm asking you to pray for is people to enter my life who can help heal me. People who can show me I have value inherently. People who can show me how to trust again. People who can...make it actually possible for me to heal.
