Lived Experience Forum

[Powderfinger]

@Lostandalone 

I'm finding it very hard to not be hard on myself or critical of myself. My brain truly has done a number on me. 

I come here, I talk because I know people are listening. It takes a heck of a lot to get through my brain. What scares me amongst many things is that it is permanent. It's hard to get anything through. 

[Powderfinger]

@Maggie  I was talking to my partner last night and I said that support and reading material seems to be non existant in the stages of going through an actual mental breakdown. 

There is tonnes of info online that talks about lead ups to breakdowns, just as much as there is after a breakdown has occurred. 

In my current experience, there appears to be nothing to read online that is helpful in explaining what is happening to you and your brain during the breakdown and what has happened. There is nothing to help you to make sense of the non sensical. To put anything that has happened into any context. It does not need to be this complete scientific journal about it, just straight talk that everyone can mostly understand that helps them to understand what is happening and why. It does not exist and it should. I sit in a daze most of the day, trying to make some sort of sense of my head. Clarity is hard to come by. It's almost like not even your brain can be trusted anymore. 

[Maggie]

@Powderfinger  I understand the anxiety about going to see this therapist. I hope he/she is trauma trained , as in my own personal experience, that’s a different ball game to other therapy.

As for making sense of the nonsensical, I wouldn’t even try to go there. It takes time to find a way of communicating to your therapist what’s going on inside your head. Time to build a relationship. You might be moving too fast. Just my thoughts from personal experience. We want it over, before it’s begun. We just want the pain to stop.

Do You journal  ? Writing things down, can be a way of getting things outside of our heads. Sometimes I write poetry. Other times, I just write. We have a thread Writing As A Form Of Therapy  you might be interested in looking at. Some of the writing is raw, but it’s real.

Sending warm thoughts. Listening and caring. 💕💕💕

[NatureLover]

Hi @Powderfinger , just wanted to let you know that I'm listening too.

I had a nervous breakdown too, it lasted 3 years. But since then I've rebuilt my life, and it's actually better now, despite having more MIs (mental illesses) and also chronic physical illnesses than I had before. 

I'm sorry things are so bad for you right now. We are here to listen and try to support you on your recovery journey...

[Powderfinger]

@Maggie 

I just say I don't know a lot lately when I just can't think. What is going on actually is my brain somehow won't let me think all the time, so I just say I don't know. 

It's coming to the end of the day now and I have stayed awake all day. 

Yeah, the pain to stop would be good. For me, it's the absolute terror that somehow I'm not here anymore. Like I'm lost and can't find where I have gone. That's how I feel. 

As for me and writing. It is my profession/career. I will always be a a writer. Currently I may take hours, minutes, days or whatever amount if time to take one tiny action. I just don't know. Everything is still very messy and this is not an overnight fix of cleaning up that very horrible mess, that is my mind. 

I'm also in a lot of pain. Grief and loss I suppose. I'm pretty tired this afternoon. I get intrusive flashbacks, that stop me in my tracks. It's not a usual thing for me. They just intrude when they like. I don't have the energy to work with in my day. At the end of the day, I shrug my shoulders and think we'll I did what I could. It's too raw and painful to go places with some things. 

Good on you for writing. It is therapeutic and generally I think a great way to go on other adventures away from all the proverbial bullsh.... of life. 

Thanks for reaching out, listening and caring. 

[Powderfinger]

@NatureLover 

Hi. Thanks for sharing. 3 years is long enough. Actually any time is long enough. I would never wish that hell in anyone. I don't know if I'm still in it, out of it or what really. 

I'm not sure what the statistics are when it comes to people not being aware that a mental breakdown means you need to go through re building. I don't know. I know I can't be bothered speaking to anyone. I just don't have the energy to converse with anyone I would either have to educate or talk to for a long period of time. I'm having enough difficulty helping myself. 

I'm glad you have re built and are a bit better now. Sorry to hear, you have other existing issues that cause you physical and perhaps emotional pain too. 

[Powderfinger]

I'm still figuring out how posting works here. I don't particularly want to start a new thread everytime I post, unless of course it's a different topic. 

At this moment, I'm figuring out there's no rhyme or reason to ant of this at the moment. I could journal but why journal when that just feels so much more isolating than I already feel. 

I moved five weeks ago tomorrow. Four hours away from where I used to live. New town, new everything. It's a small regional town in Australia. I love where I live and I love my house. It's just me in so many ways. 

I've been trying to set up my business. My bread and butter. I work from home. I've been wondering if I should give it a break while I'm going through this hell. Is it helping or is causing me to feel more stressed and anxious. Then I feel angry. I guess I feel angry at being robbed of so much I deserved. Starved of love and care. I'm not sure why I use the word robbed. It's an interesting choice of word. Starved,I would stick with, robbed not sure. Perhaps I feel robbed of things I could have or had. 

I feel that most of my life I've had to prove I'm smart and I can do awesome things. Not all the time. Just now and then. I think this stems from my father. I can trace it back to see where in time this may have started for me. I was 12 and my mother told me my father did not love me andthiswas in front of him. Gosh how many times I have said it that it's like just a really old line that even I'm tired of hearing. 

I know how that few minutes changed my life and not for the better for a long time. That was the dumbest thing she said, not the dumbest thing that ever came out of her mouth but dumb nevertheless. 

Both parents, well they sucked really. The thing is I always wanted my mom. I loved my mom deeply. It couldn't be returned sadly. It still hurts. I don't think anyone can touch that pain of not being loved. No therapy, no amount if loving yourself,self care, choosing great friends and so on. The ache of not having a mother's love is so persistent. 

There has been a tonne of grief and loss for me this year. My dud of a father I assume is still alive. Left him behind ten years ago and sometimes still hurt and grieve. I just remember him as the father who didn't want his daughter. That is my memory of him. 

Cutting contact with my mother meant losing my sister and niece too. Triple whammy. All three painful, and me feeling robbed again. Robbed of being with my younger sister in our older years, robbed of being the aunt I wanted to be for my niece and once again being robbed of the family I always wished I'd had. 

Happy days. 

[Maggie]

@Powderfinger  I’m reading along. I hear your pain, and sometimes, there just are no answers to some questions. Why we are dealt the hand we are dealt, Will the pain stop, Will therapy work.  .?

I’m sorry you had to leave loved ones behind. I too have left my family beside, sometimes, it’s the only Choice we are left with, or continue being abused.

Sending you warm thoughts. 💜💜

[NatureLover]

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@Powderfinger wrote:

@NatureLover 

I just don't have the energy to converse with anyone I would either have to educate or talk to for a long period of time. I'm having enough difficulty helping myself. 

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I can relate, @Powderfinger . Depression is exhausting. 

I'm glad to read that you love where you're living. That would help. 

I'm really sorry to hear about what your mother said to you when you were 12. How incredibly damaging. And not having her love either... I am so sorry about all your loss. 😞

[Powderfinger]

@Maggie  it gets to the point that leaving the toxicity and abuse means leaving the toxic and abusive people. It's the only thing left to do. These sorts of people don't like to take responsibility and don't like to be confronted with the truth. In my mother's case she acts like a teenager in that regard but she is an adult and it's abuse, end of story. 

These two individuals will always be abusive and toxic. The damage to me is if such epic proportions that I never want to see either of them. 

I decided a long time ago that I will not be going to my father's funeral. I actually have no feeling about when he died. I really don't care. I have put strong boundaries down that I'm not to be notified he has died or is dying. I've said I will not respond to any correspondence regarding him. It will not even be read, just straight to junk. 

As for my mother, she had legally put me in charge of everything upon her passing. That was perhaps over five years ago. This year I made the decision to decline responsibility for all the legalities and roles upon her passing. I denounced being an executor. I denounced everything. I basically told her, find someone else. 

It took me a long time to make the decision. It was painful and arduous to hi through. Very taxing on mentally and emotionally. I was angry. I had had enough. My whole life, she was my responsibility, not the other way around. I felt she gave me more reasons to be responsible for her. After 34 years of it I had enough and did not want the responsibility anymore. I left her. As if I'm going to just rock up to a family I'm estranged from and carry out all those duties and responsibilities. Someone else can do it, that is in her life on a permanent basis. Perhaps it will teach her a lesson that I'm not responsible for her anymore and that she doesn't have me to fall back on anymore. Who knows really. Whatever the case I've let go of that now. It's not my business anymore. It was the only contact I had with her this year. I notified her via email, she responded, I didn't and I just moved on. 

I have never been so callous and unfeeling, perhaps it was just a way for me to survive it. Not sure.