Lived Experience Forum

[Historylover]

Every time I have a necessary rest and fall asleep, I open my eyes again and the same despair sweeps over me and I'm again in a state of mute desperation.  I'm again in despair, wondering how long I can keep going like this.  

I feel that everybody who knows me can recognize the predicament I am in, and they are just waiting for me to reach my breaking point.  Like predators, patiently waiting.  Some are very nice but I feel it is just to lull me into a false sense of security.  Misplaced trust.  A feeling that if it feels good, it's too good to be true and won't have a good outcome.  Like they just want to know my business so that they can hold it against me, like they want to get onto my rung and topple me.  Get close and betray me.  For their own revenge.  Another scalp for their belts.

How I'd love to get to know them like I should be able to, to trust them, to relate, to have true friends who are not judgemental - but I can't.  I am not judgemental towards them so why can it not be reciprocated?  I've tried everything.  I don't fit anywhere.  Not for long.  

It's not paranoia.  It's just how my life turns out, time after time after time.  There is a pattern to it and I just can't break it.  I've tried, but it's like it's been pre-ordained and I want to know why.

I guess life really is dog-eat-dog.  I wish I'd known that when I trusted that people had the same integrity as me.  I didn't realize that people were so two-faced and untrustworthy.  I didn't realize that parents, sibs, spouse, children, erstwhile 'friends', psychiatrist and doctors were all just using me for their own ends.  For revenge for some wrong done them so long ago by someone else and they want me to pay for it.  And they have all ruined my life and they are the only ones who have benefited from it.  Why?  Life shouldn't be a game of chance. I'm truly broken.

[Appleblossom]

Hugs @Historylover 

Nobody wants to a scalp or a notch on anybody's belt.

Not sure what you think about this youtube .... one thing he discusses is the Value of Despair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGu6JPduQxM 

[Historylover]

Thanks for replying, @Appleblossom.  I don't want to drag you or anyone else down but I just don't know what to do.  I've been through treatment and come out the other side - but while I'm happy with the restored me, no-one can survive if they are not connected.  I have no-one - no family and no friends.  My ex-psychiatrist saw to that by isolating me completely.  Then abandoning me.

I am at the mercy of every predator who wants to take advantage of my vulnerability.  I am on my own and everyone knows it.  I can't even volunteer because we need references - and I don't even have anyone to ask or a telephone number of a family member or friend to give.  I can't get established and can only survive in solitude - and I've had enough of that.  I've had all I can take of trying one thing after another - and failing at finishing anything.

I am still trying to understand my ex-psychiatrist.  I can't.  He constructed this situation and I can't get out of it.

Thanks for replying.  It meant a lot to know that you are there and that you care.

There's nothing anyone can do for me.  He has seen to that.

Take care, my friend.  I hope things are going well for you.

[chibam]

Hi @Historylover .

What you write about is very relatable... except my lengthy bouts with despair and worry come before I fall asleep, not usually after. When I wake up after such restless nights, I'm usually too exhausted to think at all; it's just coasting on autopilot - get dressed, go downstairs, ect.

The therapy industry needs to do so much more to alleviate loneliness. Going to a therapist with your crisis of loneliness ought to have a near-guarantee of being set up with a like-minded romantic partner; or inserted into a like-minded group of friends, or a like-minded work crew, or a like-minded household... whatever that particular patient needs.

But at the moment, the system does bugger all for the lonely because of it's "golden rule": it's rarely-disclosed internal rule that therapists should not offer actual assistance to remedy their patients' real-world problems - or even give them meaningful advice about how to solve them.

It's as you say, once people trap you in a pit of isolation to serve their own selfish ends, there's no escape. The system needs to rescue us. They pull out all the stops to rescue little kiddies who've fallen down wells, hikers who get lost in the bush, rock fishermen who get swept out into the raging seas. When's our turn?

[Historylover]

God, @chibam!  You always manage to make me chuckle with your turn of phrase or your insights.  You seem to have an extra eye to see things others miss.

Thoroughly agree that there should be results.  I don't need therapy.  I just need company with decent folks with no personal agenda - or a group therapy with people like everyone here.  Like-minded folks I can get to know and not feel vulnerable around. Wouldn't that be great!  

Hope you're doing OK.  

[HenryX]

Hello @Historylover 

Historylover, what you seem to be reflecting on is a severe sense of isolation and feelings of being threatened. In your first paragraph, you appear to be describing, what I have sometimes visualised. One vision that I have experienced, is the image of an ant trying desperately to climb out of a dry sand hole, the more it tries to climb out, the more sand falls in on top of it. Another image is of clinging to some sort of floating debris, while being swept out to sea, past a land point to which I cannot swim. In each of those images visualised, there are no other people involved, so consequently, no suggestion of judgement by or of others.

Those scenarios contrast with the description that you have offered, in your second paragraph, about you in relation to others around you:

Quote: “I feel that everybody who knows me can recognise the predicament I am in, and they are just waiting for me to reach my breaking point.  Like predators, patiently waiting.  Some are very nice but I feel it is just to lull me into a false sense of security.  Misplaced trust.  A feeling that if it feels good, it's too good to be true and won't have a good outcome.  Like they just want to know my business so that they can hold it against me, like they want to get onto my rung and topple me.  Get close and betray me.  For their own revenge.  Another scalp for their belts.”

I can certainly understand your feelings of fear, desperation, despair and existent sense of possible, or impending, threat or harm, in the description that you have given. You have also talked about others, as if they were trying to engender in you, a false sense of trust. About yourself, there is the issue of what you believe has likely been 'misplaced trust'.

From these descriptions you have 'painted a picture' of yourself, in a situation, where you cannot extend yourself to others, none of whom you trust. And you have no way of knowing whether your own positive assessment, that any other person qualifies as trustworthy, and some-one upon whom you can entrust your thoughts and even existence, is secure. The threats that you seem to be describing are both internal and external and appear to have you wedged in. The expression "between a rock and a hard place" comes to mind. An image of having no room or freeedom to move.

In your third paragraph, you reflect on how you would like your relationships to be:

“How I'd love to get to know them like I should be able to, to trust them, to relate, to have true friends who are not judgemental...”

You speak of having “...tried everything.” but you have said “I don't fit anywhere.  Not for long.”

Then, you say categorically that “It's not paranoia.”. It is as though you are saying that your life has been predetermined or preordained, and that you have no control over it. You ask why it should be?, or, why it is so?, as though you think that someone else may be able to give you the answers to those questions.

In your statement:

“I didn't realise that parents, sibs, spouse, children, erstwhile 'friends', psychiatrist and doctors were all just using me for their own ends.”

you have included everyone in whom you might otherwise have placed your trust and expected sharing support, guidance, acceptance. You have said that you are, effectively, the 'scapegoat', on whom revenge is being exacted, for past wrongs by others. That your life has been ruined, and any dividend has accrued to those others.

It appears to me that if you do want change and to feel better than you do now, there are going to have to be small steps. Those might be to look inside yourself calmly, to see if there is any small glimmer of possibility. Someone, with whom you might be able to establish some small interaction, with the possibility of establishing a secure and mutually beneficial relationship. I say mutually, because if you consider yourself as giving as well as receiving, there can exist a benefit to you and to the other person. This way you are neither totally taking from the relationship, nor all giving.

Such a relationship might be established with another friend, counsellor, psych. person. It could be someone with whom you've interacted before, and is not one of those by whom you have previously or recently felt threatened. It could be another totally separate person, independent from your current life. A person with whom you could establish contact through a support agency, or possibly a church contact, if you have that resource available to you, and you would feel trusting in assistance from that avenue.

I would really like to know how you feel and think about these ideas, if you feel comfortable replying to me. I will value and respect your thoughts, should you wish to share them with me. Please consider, that I know nothing about you, other than what you have written and some other posts in which I have seen you offer your perspectives.

As you are, I am sure, aware that any discussion we have is anonymous and I have no other reason for discussion with you than a wish and desire to assist and share the path, in any way that I can.

With My Very Best Wishes

@HenryX 

[Historylover]

Quite a post @HenryX - and I have a computer which continually flashes blue and wipes my replies.  I also have carpal tunnel syndrome and my left hand fingers are rather numb.  I am sitting sideways against a wall with my unit in complete disarray while it is refurbished.  My kitchen is gone, we are now in lockdown - and I am overwhelmed by the difficulties of my life.

Yes, very much engender in me a false sense of trust.  It is like those in the situation I am currently in are sizing me up to move into my space when they get me out of it, when they get what they want out of me and can discard me.  It's not my imagination, it's not paranoia - I've been here before, many, many times.  I recognize the system and they are moving in on me.  Everything is going so well there now - artificially serendipidious.  I keep watching to see the developments and they are watching me.  How I wish it wasn't too good to be true.  How I'd love to get to know them - mutually respectfully.  But that won't happen.  It never has before, and it won't happen now when I am at my most vulnerable.

I will have to post this in episodes or I'll constantly be having to recompose each time it is wiped.

[HenryX]

@Historylover 

Hello Historylover,

Thank you for your reply. Sounds like it may be a time to withdraw from thinking about the future and sit with anything good that you can be aware of in the present.

I do know about the feelings that you expressed, as I hope that I conveyed in my earlier note. I'm happy to 'talk' with you anytime that you feel like doing so.

Hoping that tonight is peaceful for you and look forward to catching up again, if you would like to.

With Best Wishes

HenryX

[Historylover]

@HenryX   Yes, my life has been pre-ordained.  My story is outlined in "Not my story - it's my nightmare".

I have been through a complete psychological re-build.  I was my psychiatrist's trial patient.  He knew that what he had been taught was completely wrong and he used his treatment and cure of my Depression and damaged personality to prove it by using his own intelligence, commonsense and skill.  He was meticulous in his work and we worked together in a kind of 'partnership' because of the nature of our work together.  I studied psychiatry by watching him at work and we were able to discuss very heavy matters, observations, considerations and I am sure he learned a great deal more than he knew already.  I certainly did.

When my marriage broke down and my husband left us, I made the difficult decision to return him to the family home and our children, and left them in peace rather than tear our daughters between parents with conflicting values.  My ex-psychiatrist supported me through this trauma and the following complete breakdown of my health.  He promised me friendship at a future time when our work together was complete.  He isolated me completely and made me totally reliant on him.  Then, when I had spent many years waiting for him to bring it to fruition, he reneged on his promise and left me financially impoverished by his advice, friendless and without family, friends or a home.  I have been suicidal as a consequence for the past 18 months.  He was putting my life and family back together and I had left it to his unquestionable competence.  I am still trying to make sense of this man whom I had thought I knew - until he became someone else and left me bewildered.

What can I say?  I had marvelled at his skill, his apparent 'integrity', his love of family, profession, dedication to patients.  He was just a perfect human being and he was my role-model.  Then he destroyed me completely.  

So - to my pre-ordained life?  I have been completely rebuilt and now I have no-one, nothing and nowhere to go.  I can't survive this.  I am cornered and thoroughly broken.  And I just can't make sense of this man who was my role-model. I worshipped the ground he walked on - and he must have planned this all along.  

[Historylover]

Yes, @HenryX, it's been quite an experience.  I don't need treatment.  I've been there, done that - as they say.  I just need people about me with integrity, and having never found any in my life, in the real world, I don't hold out hope.

Thank you for your well-considered post.  It was much needed.  

Stay well.