I'm struggling.

I don't know what I'm expecting to get out of writing this, but I'm going to do it anyway. It's been awhile since I've posted here, or anywhere for that matter.

For over a decade now, I've struggled to hold things together. Mostly, I failed. As I was about to turn thirty last year, I hit an early mid-life crisis. I saw that my life wasn't going where I wanted it to go, and finally reached out for professional help. Since my teenage years, I've spent my time doing whatever I could to numb myself emotionally. To stop thinking, stop feeling, and ultimately that meant also to stop living. My life was like a car stuck in the mud - the wheels kept spinning, but I was going no where fast.

I was diagnosed with severe anxiety. This wasn't shocking to me, I knew I struggled with that for years. After nearly a year of evaluation, I heard some other diagnoses drop. OCD and Borderline Personality Disorder. I never bothered to ask a question, I just ignored it. I pretended like I hadn't really heard it. That was around November last year.

Then in January, I admitted that I had been experiencing one of my occasional... 'dark periods'. These are times when I simply isolate myself from other people, and obsessively dwell on past events. Repeatedly. As in, I cannot stop. I'd say I become mildly depressed during this time, and mostly it consists of me sitting alone - in complete silence and isolation, staring blankly forward or closing my eyes, and just... reliving things.

Usually when I'm in these dark periods I'm also highly irritable, and my usual trouble sleeping magnifies ten fold. All of this got brought up, as I was talking to my therapist about my trouble sleeping mostly due to nightmares.

After a lot of questions he flat out told me that I had PTSD. I couldn't pretend to ignore that, because he focused in on it. I've alternated with trying to learn more about PTSD, as well as simply trying to ignore it and move on. You know, thinking I can take things a day at a time, focus on the small stuff or else I'll feel overwhelmed.

I still think that's the best advice. It's so easy to feel overwhelmed. The worst part is that I feel like I'm being suffocated by my issues. It's like, on the inside - deep down - I feel fine. Yet, as I try and live my life I constantly run face first into this wall I've built around myself. It feels like, if I could only get past the wall, I could live a "normal" life.

But no matter how hard I try, the wall doesn't budge. Even when I'm pushing against it with all that I have, I've only managed to move it by a few feet, and then sometimes it slips back into place - making all the work I've done irrelevant. One step forward, and two back, as it were.

It feels like all I have to do is find this one little switch, and once I flip it all the BS problems imposed upon myself by my own freakin' mind will disappear. My therapist insists that it's not a single switch, but a bunch of smaller switches that have to be flipped individually. I suppose this is true, I just wish they were labeled so I could just do it and get it over with. I hate living like this.

I haven't told my therapist, but during my last 'dark period' I briefly abused some substances to numb myself. I was prescribed some rather powerful pain medication, and I started taking them when I didn't need them. I was basically numbing myself out; using it as a way to relax and rest. The first time I did it, I knew I was making a mistake, but I believed it would only be one time. Then I did it again. And again. And again. After about the seventh or eighth time I got rid of the pills and just decided to suffer with physical pain, trying to make due with normal over the counter stuff. I made a promise to myself back when I was around eighteen to avoid becoming addicted to substances. I have enough issues already.

I knew I was a high risk. With my history of major depression, and my family history of addiction... I grew up on the horror stories of my alcoholic grandfather and uncles. I was always told that it could run in families, and with that knowledge combined with my history I knew I was high risk.

I avoided addiction and dependency, but found other ways to numb myself. Basically, anything that helped me bury my head in the sand and avoid my problems. Avoid my issues. Back toward the end of 2011, right before I got enough courage to seek help, was the first time I ever drank alcohol. It was another one of my dark periods, one of the worst I've ever experienced since I was a teenager.

I honestly don't know what to do. My therapist has pressured me on more than one occasion about where I see my life going. I can't answer that question. When I try to envision the future, all I can see is up to the point of me 'getting better'. What is beyond that point? I don't know. I've lived this way for so long... I don't even know if it is possible for me to change. What if I'm stuck this way forever? That's a terrifying thought. A thought I'd rather not dwell on.

...and PTSD is bad enough. What if I also have Borderline Personality Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? I don't even think I have the courage to ask for confirmation. I did some reading on them after my therapist mentioned them in a session. I match all of the symptoms. As dumb as it sounds, part of me wants to believe that if he doesn't confirm it then it won't be true. That at least on some level I can still pretend to be 'okay'.

I'm so good at hiding how screwed up I am. I know how to make people forget about me, and focus on themselves... and when that ceases to work, I begin to distance myself. It's like I wander through life as a ghost. People know I'm there, but they never really see me. The only person I've told anything about my diagnosis is my mother, but I've trained my family so well in dealing with me that they never ask questions anymore. It's a recipe for me to grow irritated and angry.

In the end, I've realized that I'm all alone on this. The ironic thing; I never have trouble making friends. The issue is keeping them once they're made. In the beginning of a friendship, I'm able to keep the focus on the person I'm with, and as a consequence they enjoy my company. Then as we grow closer, they want to get to know me as well. That's when I start to drift away. It usually ends with me entering into one of my dark periods, and basically avoiding them entirely.

I don't seem to have the ability to avoid acting this way. It can start with an e-mail, and a promise to myself to answer it later. Then later comes and goes. Another e-mail is sent. I promise to answer it, but I never do. Another e-mail is sent... and by this time, I have no explanation for why I've avoided them. I have a desire to talk to them, but at the same time I also want to avoid communication at all costs; to isolate myself and be alone.

I tried to convince myself last year that if I entered into a romantic relationship, then I'd be forced to confront my issues. To my surprise I found people who were interested in me. Lots who were interested in sex, of course, but some who were also interested in potentially something more than that. Rather than confronting my issues, they just became more prominent and magnified. I quickly realized the only people I could form any connection with at all were those who were just interested in sex, and the only reason that worked was because they didn't want anything deeper than that. They didn't pry, they didn't want to know more about me, they were predictable and controllable. I wasn't emotionally vulnerable or exposed. In other words, I could continue playing the role of a 'ghost' - I'm there, but they don't really see me.

Honestly. Things are pretty fucked up right now. I don't even know why I'm writing this and posting this here. I can only guess that it's because I don't have anywhere else to go, or anyone else to talk too. I also felt myself slipping back into one of my dark periods as I started to dwell on this stuff, and I thought writing it down might help.

I apologize for rambling and jumping around so much. This post is very much written from stream of consciousness. I'm not sure if anyone can give any advice or anything, but who knows. If nothing else, maybe it'll help someone else.

 

Thanks Newgirl31. Honestly, knowing that someone can at least get an understanding of what I'm feeling / going through helps a lot.

I've thought about hunting down a support group, but the only thing I could find was an hour away. They hold their meetings around 6:30 PM on Monday's and since it's led by a therapist, you have to pay $40-$90 to get in. Add in the cost of gas to get there, and I just couldn't afford it.

I mean, just to see my therapist I have to drive for 45 min (to and back) every two or three weeks. There is pretty much nothing in the way of support where I live, which is a major issue that I face.

But oh well. I've been muddling through on my own this long. I'll just have to suck it up and pull through.