Seeking to be seen in this world

[Maryel42]

I'm a bit scared tonight and confused. I thought I was really getting things together but I'm not. I also am having big trouble trusting too much. I am coping. I don't think I'm doing it well. Questions and hugs.

Right now I need validation the most.

[Just Pomegranates]

Hi Maryel

I'm sorry to hear that you're in a difficult place right now. I think many of us go through a similar feeling at some point but first and foremost is keeping yourself safe and looking after yourself. Feel free to post anywhere you're like on Bus or PM on the staff members if you want to talk. And if you have the option of speaking to a therapist or a psych (if you aren't already), that might possibly be a good idea as well. But you do matter, you are seen, and people do care about you.

[swirlish]

Yes, what Just Pomegranates said is really true - you are seen and we hear you.

If you want validation and hugs, the nest is one of my favourite places for that. They're really good at making you feel seen and safe and comforted.

I hope you feel that you can get support on bus, but as Just Pomegranates said - if you can find someone irl to talk to as well, that's probably really helpful.

<-- that's my favourite hug emoticon!

Mia

[treasure]

trusting and talking to people can go up and down - get easier and harder - when circumstances change. the most important thing is not to let go of the connections or push people away when it's hard. if you haven't already, and if it's appropriate, you might let people know how/why/when things are harder for you, to give you a little space without pushing people away. i find talking by sms or email or online is a lot easier than face-to-face or by phone, so that's an option if needed, but face-to-face is almost the only way to get the sort of trust and camaraderie that other people can give you.

apologies if none of that is relevant. i hope you are coping better this week, i hope bus is helpful for that.

[Maryel42]

trusting and talking to people can go up and down - get easier and harder - when circumstances change. the most important thing is not to let go of the connections or push people away when it's hard. if you haven't already, and if it's appropriate, you might let people know how/why/when things are harder for you, to give you a little space without pushing people away. i find talking by sms or email or online is a lot easier than face-to-face or by phone, so that's an option if needed, but face-to-face is almost the only way to get the sort of trust and camaraderie that other people can give you.

apologies if none of that is relevant. i hope you are coping better this week, i hope bus is helpful for that.

BUS is great for that. I started reading years and years ago, I started posting, what, three years now? It's been here for me through a lot of very very very difficult nights.

I've got a lot of personal life changes happening (again), I've just been accepted into a pain management clinic program, which is a huge adjustment in terms of weaning off the meds I was on and onto a new treatment plan... and I've just started to open up to a new therapist.

The therapist is going well. Scratch that. It's going great. A bit slow on the warmup, but we're clicking in the way that I've rarely known. Right now I would have to say that this guy is on track to be one of the top three therapists I've worked with in my whole life. My trust issues are coming up, it's like that moment when my inside has decided to trust and my outside is willing to risk the trust and about seventeen tons of assorted trauma and past abuse wants to flood out in the same session. I'm not letting it. (don't want to risk scaring him so much that he fires me, you know?)

One of the big ones is the cutting. The other week I let it slip how much I thought about it lately, and he asked straight out how recently I had, and I told him. (not that bad, for me, and very small)

I guess that with the subjects I've been working through in the past couple of days, with the recent disclosure, and I was super panicky this past week, and I let something out that I thought I had. So today it leads up to this: urges, a new upswing in old and highly disturbing flashbacks, the scariness of starting to let new therapist into deep childhood trauma issues, all of that leading up into even bigger urges...

BUS is the safest place I know. This is where I take the super freakout moments. I leave for months on end and don't read or follow or anything... but I know that it's here when I'm crashing and feeling hopeless and helpless and on my last shred of willpower.

I totally agree that online feels easier and safer. Between t sessions I've started emailing him every day, nearly. Just these really long rambling things of what happened, of what I'm thinking and feeling, of what I'd call background info, stuff that makes sessions easier and less like I'm hiding.

Today, this minute, I'm really hurting. Today, this moment, I'm struggling again with my urges and I'm trying to take care of my kids and do some housework, and my muscles are all spasming because my emotions are all over. It's taking most of my energy to keep all this crap in my head and off my "outside" face. I refuse to fall apart in front of my children. I'm falling apart in this post instead. And later on, when they're all safely asleep in bed, and I'm staring down the darkness and sleepless night again, I really have no clue what I'm going to end up doing. Reading here, or reading some of my therapy books, or... I just don't know.

[Maryel42]

Just checking in, again, and needed to share this:

After everything else in my life, all the ups and downs and sideways cartwheels that life has handed me... After being in high school, then college, after a metric ton of various therapies and counseling and relationships, jobs, marriage, kids, after all the life changes that have come and gone and left their changes on ME...

I'm not the person I was at 15. Or 20. Or 30. Or (heaven help me) at my last birthday of 36.

This is still the safest place I know, this is still the only place where I know that I'll never be turned out of in crisis, this is still the only place that I can let go of a few of my nightmares, and this is the only place I believe can truly handle the overwhelming panic I sometimes go into.

Even if I never post. Even if everything goes either to hell or comes up roses. Whenever I even just need to reach out and read a few threads and know that I'm not the only one who struggles, the only one who has SI as long as I have, I'm not the only one who has sunk to the depths of what I've done in the past when I had neither means or opportunity to give in to my urges- and yet created both to do it. BUS is here. BUS will always be here for me.

... and if I could get a cow or two to help me be happy for this feeling I have now, in the middle of panic and stress and urginess, that would be really nifty... It's so wonderful to be able to reach past the massive self-freakout moment and have moments of peace.

[alisha111]

always remember all we want to do this world , think twice then if you believe God, just pray then he was guiding you.

[treasure]

hope you are sleeping/ have slept well.

i am also really glad bus is here

[Maryel42]

Thank you!

I slept pretty badly, but I did sleep! And that's half the battle right there!

It's going to be a long day, I fear, but I'm starting it feeling fairly optimistic. That's a lot, starting a bit positive is so much nicer than starting it crying and shaking because I feel so crappy and sad and hopeless.

[Just Pomegranates]

Yay for sleep, even a bit of sleep is better then none like you said. It's amazing the difference that a decent night's sleep can make.

And very happy to hear you're feeling more optimistic, that's fantastic.