When you no longer have faith

[rav3n]

hey @Healandlove i'm sorry you've been feeling such conflicting emotions, i can see there's a lot going on and it totally makes sense that you're finding it hard to know yourself while feeling overwhelmed! 

seeing you reach out here, share your experience, be so open to learning from others and working on yourself - this shows so much strength! it's not easy to talk about these feelings and take actions to try help ourselves and others - yet you're doing it - i reckon that's a pretty big step to be proud of. 

i hear you about not recognising yourself and knowing where others stand with you - perhaps figuring that out with your therapist or any other professional support person could help? even though it sounds scary, sometimes we don't recognise ourselves because we've gone through so much change and we're a different person - and perhaps we just need some time to re-discover ourselves? it could be a nice thing to re-learn things about who you are and what your new goals are?

i can see that you have a lot of love towards your family, and i hope you're getting time to fit in some self-care for yourself. you're not alone in this community, we're here for you 💙

[Dimity]

Ohhhh hugs @Healandlove 

2 sessions is very early days, just enough to really rattle the memories and emotions and only hint at the relief to come. Hang in there, and definitely talk to your therapist about it. 

I'm also in a complicated famIly situation re finances and living arrangements and estranged from many - I'm sure we all trigger each at times, especially when we're most vulnerable. It must be especially hard for you to balance the needs of all your loved ones in the different generations. That's highly skilled, empathetic work, and takes diplomacy, not *people pleasing". 

Yes, I've felt broken. I didn't complete my EMDR course as time ran out in the community care I was allocated but am now much more accepting and pragmatic about the incidents I processed. - the trauma is much less.  I'm hoping to resume with a new psychologist but have only met them once and I'm not yet confident or comfortable with them.

Choosing to support  all your many family members and to embark on EMDR takes courage. I'm blown away by your ability to analyse and articulate the complexities of what you face - and recognising the maelstrom of feelings is part of that. I wish I'd been as clear-headed and aware when I started EMDR, I might have made better progress.

Please know you'll find love, support and acceptance on the forums -  while you negotiate the intricate dances of real life relationships. Be reassured you might be healthier and stronger than you think - or if not, that's OK too, and we might find a way through together. 

Take care.

[Healandlove]

@Jynx thank you,  what you say makes so much sense and I guess it is finding that strength to remind myself. I will try to do this. I will write it all down tomorrow.  I have spent parts of the day crying and I am emotionally spent now so will go to bed shortly.

Thank you for caring and being here. I don't really have anyone I can talk to about these feelings...this forum, this community keeps me going..

I am definitely overwhelmed and burnt out. 

I know I'm.human but I also feel like life for me it's not worth it. I know this is depression and exhaustion. I will talk to my therapist next week.  I guess this is a new low for me. Thank you. I know I'm broken 💔 and I hope I can build myself up again. 

Thank you for being here and listening xx

[Jynx]

Any time @Healandlove it's a privilege to be able to be there for you. Just take it all one step at a time hun, and we'll walk beside you all the way 💜

[Healandlove]

@Dimity ...thank you so much for the rays of hope in your message.  I'm crying as I read this.

I don't know what I'm doing half of the time. I wake up every morning just hoping to feel better, for it to be an easier day and to have moments of peace, healing and connection. 

I feel some hope from your experience that EMDR can make things better then. I will definitely speak to my therapist next week. 

It will probably take the whole session to unpack everything. 

Thank you for being here and bringing me back from the brink of dark thoughts.  Although I know I can't act on it because of my kids, these days the thought of being an inadequate mother has been present in my mind and if that thought gets more powerful I don't know if I can hold on. Today I even thought I would be doing them a favour by ceasing to be.

Thank you for holding my hand and listening.  

[Healandlove]

@rav3n thank you for being here and listening.

You are right I have changed a lot and I don't know who I am anymore. My husband's diagnosis and the estrangement from my sister turned my world upside down and I just don’t even know who I am anymore. 

Your comment about what are my goals as the "me" now got me thinking.  I guess if I decide to stay then I have to make it worthwhile for my children and grow up to be a good mother as they get older. I would like to be mentally healthy for them and peaceful and just love them. They are so amazing they deserve a mum that's not broken.

I don't feel as alone having this community...thank you for listening and holding space for all my rattled and confused thoughts. I need to find a way forward...

[Healandlove]

@Jynx ...and I imagine you as angels walking beside me and holding my hand. 

[MJG017]

Hi @Healandlove.  I would probably be described as a 'people pleaser'.  I think for me it comes from growing up and finding it difficult to connect to anyone.  So I did what I thought they wanted so they would like me.  Whether that was doing something I didn't really want to do, trying to make people laugh, whatever I thought would make me seem more like someone worth 'having around'.

I've never thought about it being manipulative in anyway.  I guess if I went out of my way to please someone and we became friends because of it, and then I stopped being helpful or trying to make them happy... then I guess it would be manipulative.  But if I did that, why would I try to get closer to them in the first place?!  Then main issue I see in this idea of a people pleaser is that we often keep putting the needs and wants of others before our own and this doesn't help us at lot of the time.  So I think if there is anything to work on, it would be finding that balance between pleasing others and pleasing ourselves. 

I have a similar feelings about my partner, in that I sometimes think she would be better off or doesn't really need me.  I know this isn't true but it feels that ways sometimes, especially the past couple of years when I've put her through so much because of a serious health issue I've been fighting.  It's been incredibly stressful for both of us, and I do feel guilty at times for bringing all that into her life.  No one chooses to get cancer but it doesn't stop the guilt.

I also never knew my biological mother until I was 51 a couple of years ago and found out more about why she gave me up and what a difficult life she had.  I only got to meet her a couple of times because she lived interstate and sadly passed away about a year after I found her.  But it only made my life-long wish that she had kept me even stronger.  I felt like I had let her down by not being there for her and that I could have made her life easier.  So from a childs point of view, please never think you're not got enough for your kids.  Trust me, they will never be better off without you.  The same as your husband who Im sure loves you, wants the best for you.  I'm certain none of them has ever even had the tiniest thought you are being manipulative.

Don't lose your faith, be kind to yourself.

[Healandlove]

@MJG017 thank you for taking the time to write and give me your prespective. I am second guessing everything in my life to the point of who I am. All my life I wanted a close knit connected family and I did everything to keep everyone happy or feel connected. The biggest realisation has been that my feelings of not belonging as my sisters sibling turned out to be true. When my husband had his breakdown ultimately causing him to be cut off from the extended family I suffered that cutting off too. He has complex-PTSD. He suffered a trigger incident in front of my sisters family which caused damage which my sister and her husband says can never be forgiven and they basically banished him out of the family.  This hurts even more because my sister is a psychologist. She was not able to be curious about my husband's trigger and approach it from a professional place with the aim to understand and try to help him. My husband had always been a good brother in law and uncle to her kids prior to this trigger. I am still allowed to see my nephews but as there's a rift in the family it will be a matter of time before we loose touch. I predict once my parents are gone, my nephews will disappear from my life and from their cousins lives. I don't excuse my husband but I think my sister could have acted with more empathy and compassion even if not for him, for me and my children. My husband has tried to apologise but they didn't like the apology and banished him. As a family unit we have suffered and continue to suffer as we go through therapy. My husband is full of shame and goes deeper and deeper into detachment mode.  It is so sad to have lost the kind of person he was. 

I'm sorry   I'm rambling ...I don't know who I am and my only family are my kids. I don't know where my husband will be with his mental health but that's his own journey.  My sadness is that as he tries to find himself with my support, I have lost who I am because I defined myself so much through the relationships with other family members.

My therapist is working on my feelings of rejection from my sister which have always been there.  I am going through EMDR but after 2 sessions I feel worse.

So since I don't even know who I am anymore,  I am beginning to think I must be a bad person, what else is there... Empathy and people pleasing have led me nowhere. I hope this explains where I am coming from.

I am sorry you have been diagnosed with cancer. How is the treatment going? Your partner is walking with you in this journey because she loves you.

• I feel happiness for you for having been able to meet your biological mum and have those questions answered. There's nothing for you to feel guilty about. Perhaps the guilt is more the wish that you had had more time with her. The longing to have shared more together. 

Thank you again for being here. 🙏🏻

[MJG017]

Thank you for your kind words @Healandlove, I certainly have a lot of happiness for the chance to finally meet and speak to my mother and it still is the thing im the most thankful for in my life. After I wrote about it, I even went and brought up the photo I have of me with her and looked at it for a while.  My treatment is going okay, numbers in the right place.  I get the results of my 3 month test tomorrow to find out if those numbers are still behaving themselves.  It's very stressful, because even if they are good, it just resets that 3 month clock and I start again, knowing that they will go up eventually and a different treatment will be needed.  But hopefully that's a while off.

Don't be sorry, you definitely weren't rambling.  It gave me a much better understanding of your situation.  You say you don't know who you are anymore.  I wonder if it's more that you don't know who your family is anymore.  I can understand how your husband's trigger incident would be scary for your sister's family, but I think anyone would think a psychologist of all people would be more understanding.  I can only think that the type of psychology she deals with hasn't given her any experience with what your husband has been going through. 

I dont have any experience with CPTSD and obviously didn't see your husband's incident, but I don't know, it baffles me that family wouldn't be more understanding.  And now of course you have to deal with this massive rift it has caused in your family.  I think about your husband as well and it's hard to even guess at how this must make him feel.  I can't even begin to imagine!

I certainly can see how this had put you in an incredibly tough situation and knowing personally how important being close to family is, I can empathize with how heartbreaking this all must be for you.  But I certainly don't see you as a bad person...  more a good person in a very bad situation.

I'm sorry the EMDR isnt working so far.  I don't have much knowledge or any experience with it, but maybe it's a bit like starting going to the gym... the first couple of sessions you feel worse, but as you continue you start to feel the benefits.  So hopefully it starts to have some benefits for you soon.  Hopefully some time your sister and her family can come to forgive your husband and maybe the family can start to heal.  I really hope there can be some mending done over time.  I think all you can really do now, is be kind to yourself, continue to try and feel better, and get yourself in a stronger place.