No matter what you go through in life you always hear, “It will get better”. It didn’t and it won’t. I have no one to turn to and no one who would even care at this point. It’s not that I’ve ruined all of my friendships or I’m particularly mean, I’m just forgettable. I’m the person who will never be the favorite friend but would do anything for the people around me. Even my family I try to impress throughout all the abuse, sexual assault and negligence, I faced as a child I’ve still always tried to strive for their approval. In friendships, betrayal has come a normal but for some reason I can’t seem to get it through my head that they don’t care whether I’m there or not. Almost every relationship I’ve been in ruined due to either cheating, abuse or sexually assault. I’m starting to think it has more to do with me than them.
Lets say for argument sake, “It does get better” I’m not willing to wait anymore. I’ve reached my breaking point and I’m ready to stop the pain. The trauma never goes away whether I’m grieving over my dads passing or anything else I’ve dealt with in my life, it doesn’t get easier for me. I have a plan and I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.
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I hear you, there is nothing more infuriating when your own family betrays you and treats you like crap. There are days I truly wish I was not alive either.
While I am working on improving my situation, it doesn’t really mean much in the end even if I succeed.
My situation is precarious atm and I should seriously have a backup ‘exit’ plan in case my world falls apart on me since I have nobody I can rely on.
I’ve even gotten to my current state through the skin of my teeth-certainly I’m more stable than I have ever been, but it can easily change, overnight even.
I do hope you find a good friend who can be supportive to you. If you can get away from your toxic family that’d probably be best.
You’re also right, people spew a lot of useless platitudes like “it’ll get better” but they don’t want to admit that it can get a lot worse than you expect also.
We all have to ultimately judge our own life and decide for ourselves if it’s worth going on or not. In my case, I’ve experienced both the good and bad and for now my life has been improving so I’m planning to ride it out.
But as mentioned above I do need a plan B in case it doesn’t work out as I hoped. I’m also middle-aged so as the years go by there’s even less reason to stick around.
Family really is who you chose to have in your life. You owe the folks who contributed to your DNA makeup absolutely nothing. Not. One. Thing. You chose the direction you want relationships to go in. This is a hard thing to learn.
I come from an extremely abusive family. These folks that raised me are absolute criminals in their behavior. Do I interact them at the appropriate times of year? Sometimes. But on my terms. I live 1000 miles away from my closest relatives. They ALL need to get on a plane to get within arms length of me. My brother is the exception, he still lives near all those criminals but that is his choice and I respect that.
That said, I have built a family over the past 30 years of people that are absolutely some of the most wonderful folks I have ever had the pleasure of having company with. Do they do shitty things on occasion like blood relatives? They sure do. Are they human beings like me? absolutely. The difference is that I chose these folks. I am in control now, unlike when I was a 4 year old little girl or a vulnerable 11 year old tween. I chose who gets within arms length of me.
Is it hard keeping blood relatives out of my life? OMFG it is so hard. The pressure from the few I actually interact with can be guilt wrenching, but then I center myself and think…do they really deserve me in there life. The answer is typically no. I have forgiven them for the atrocities bestowed on me as a child. Holding onto hate and resentment guts my soul. The best revenge is indifference. It is actually the opposite of both love and hate. I wake up and I don’t even thing about any of these folks. Not even once.
It took me years to get where I am now. Have I paid the psychological price of what they did to me? Yes. I have Bi-Polar with Psychotic Features, some insanely strange bathroom habits, and the inability to deeply love anyone I am in a sexual relationship with. Does that prevent me from continuing to try daily to maybe someday have a relationship where I can have a sexual relationship with someone I truly love and trust? OMG yes. But for now I am married to someone who I am incapable of having both with. I either treat him wonderfully and refuse to let him touch me, or let him touch me then retreat into a shell for months where I don’t even talk to him, don’t even acknowledge he is there some days. He stays because he is autistic and doesn’t feel things like normal people. Kind of a perfect choice in husband for someone like me.
Lately though I have been craving more. Feel like I might be ready to move on to chapter four of my life. A better chapter, which is wreaking havoc with my mental health. So I keep walking forward. Just one foot in front of the other. Attempting to make smart choices on who gets within arms length of me.
@soda: all truths. deep deep truths.
@HazyDS, Thanks and your post is very lucid/well written. It is criminal what has happened to us primarily in our formative years which has led to lifelong consequences/pain.
Though I personally wasn’t sexually or physically abused, I have experienced psychological suffering at the hands of my father, who also made terrible decisions that put my life on the wrong track.
This is why I’ve always been an advocate of having some system in place to stop evil people from having kids so they won’t experience terrible abuse and suffering. But to expect change like that is like asking for world peace, it just won’t happen in our lifetime if ever.
The same goes for having euthanasia available to anyone for the asking. So sadly it falls on our each of us to make that call-to bring a bad life to a close. Then finding a good means of making it happen.
So if anything we should be grateful for the fact that our lives are finite and can be ended with some effort.
I guess the one silver-lining which you’ve alluded to you in your post is that once we became adults, we could stand up for ourselves and choose our own path.
The other salient point that you made is that we’re in control of who we allow into our lives. I’ve gotten rid of a few rotten people from my group of friends over the years and it was honestly very satisfying to do so. The rest have been ok and I feel fortunate that I still have a decent group of people who are there for me.
Lastly getting back to the point about ‘having a plan B’ I recall when I was younger I experienced a couple of pivotal, life changing events. I remember how I was not ready for them and was full depression and anxiety, but they came and I had to quickly adapt.
I know that it will be the same with my eventual death. It’s possible one day I could wake up and find my (immediate) world has fallen apart and there’s nothing I can do to fix it, then I will have no choice but to end my life.
So if there’s just one message I could impart to others and especially myself is to be ready for the end-because right now I’m not but I’m working on it.
If life really does take a nosedive, you don’t want to be caught unprepared, have an exit strategy in place so the transition is easier to deal with. All the best.
“This is why I’ve always been an advocate of having some system in place to stop evil people from having kids so they won’t experience terrible abuse and suffering. ” This would be so good if it could be so.
a1957,
Agreed, it is absolutely necessary, but it won’t be a popular idea. People think they’re entitled to have kids and would be furious at being told they can’t.
At the very least there should be a licensing system-where the parents have to prove they can afford to raise kids in a nice safe home. That they’re stable and their relationship isn’t a sham or easily ended.
Apart from having an adequate income they should have to pass psych evaluations to demonstrate mental competency.
Raising kids is a 24/7 job and yet we put pilots through more rigor to fly planes than we do with people who eventually become parents-absolute tyrants over their children.
But file that under the same wishful thinking as many of the other good ideas that will never be taken seriously and implemented into law.
You have to a license to fish, but anyone can be parent, roughly goes a movie quote. I can’t see the day that the unborn could be legally protected from tyrannical parents either. Or even how practical it would be, but here is a glimmer of hope: birthrates have been in decline, almost the world over, for decades.
Thanks soda for the reminder, ive gotten distracted and off track. Totally resonate with what youre saying about having a plan in place in case the floor drops out. Cause it will and its not gonna be good. I do not have the support to survive it and they will surely take control of me, my money and my life and put me in a place i have no control and a way to end it. Its happened before. Nothing has changed so no reason to think it wont happen again except this time i will not have a lifeline to outside life. Best take care of it and be prepared now. Its just such a pita to find the method most desired.
Sgiksw,
You’re welcome and I’m glad to know that my suggestion resonated with you. Indeed, my situation is very similar to yours in the way you describe it.
I also don’t have any ‘safety net’ either if my life goes off the rails. I’ve struggled a lot over the years to get somewhere but it never worked out. It leaves you feeling burnt-out/tired and unwilling to go further.
While fortunately I am on a good trajectory at the moment, I realize it can easily change. Once I reach a certain financial plateau then I’ll be fine for the rest of my life and I will be able to relax and can enjoy my life then and I think I can get there in a year or two if I play my cards right.
However I’m not there yet, I’m still in precarious situation and if my life was to fall apart right now, I don’t believe I’d be able to go any further. I don’t have anyone I can rely on in my family to help me out if times do get tough for me.
“I can’t believe this is really happening” is what I’ve said when I experienced the last major upheaval in my life. I was unprepared and had very little time to “pull myself together,” which I thankfully did.
Having learned from such experiences, now I say “be ready for the next big catastrophe coming your way.” It cannot be avoided, but I can meet it head on.
I know if/when this disaster comes, I can probably still scrape by in life, but that’s not living, it’s barely surviving and I think that will be the end of the line for me.
To be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to face my death, esp the last few minutes and I’ll probably still say ‘I can’t believe this is actually happening.” But I won’t have any other option but to go through with it, because the alternative is much worse.
If I keep living, I’ll watch my life continue to degrade and get worse until I lose my job, health or sanity and the latter would be the worst since I will no longer have any sense of myself but I will still feel everything I suffer through but likely won’t be able to do anything about it.
Or I could end up dying in some terrible way that I would’ve never imagined like in a hospital bed paralyzed and alone. Or I could end up homeless, living on the streets where I’m vulnerable to all kinds of terrible abuse/torture from violent strangers. Not to mention the horrible weather, most likely I’d freeze to death in the middle of winter while already dying from pneumonia.
Lol, maybe I didn’t need to get all that graphic, but it is good to think about what could happen in order to avoid it. I’ve come up with a pretty good method and the materials are fairly accessible. Also here in Canada euthanasia is legalized under certain circumstances, so I’m sure I find a way to get the doctors to help me out.
I plan to try the euthanasia path first, if that fails then I have my own plan. So at least I have some peace of mind knowing if the “clock doth toll for me,” that I’ll be prepared.
I was going to say something but soda and sunflower pretty much covered it.
I’m guilty of saying that things get better, I’ve seen it, I’ve been through it, but that’s doesn’t really mean it’s helpful.
I know exactly how you feel with one sided friendships, lately I’m just learning to be by myself. It’s not so bad as you get to make all the decisions that way.
Saying “Things will get better” is an honest response @abnormal. For many things really do get better. There have been times in my life things seemed better, but truthfully, better for me is just “different”. I don’t know if that makes any sense. Things for me will never be better. But different makes walking forward something that has added value. I don’t label that better. I label that a reason to continue walking forward.
Different comes when I compartmentalize the pain and trauma. Lately I have been doing a shit ton of compartmentalizing and shoving shit in a box buried in the back of my mind. I don’t find any added value to remember what was done to me. Who did it to me. Why no one ever stepped in to say…that looks like a really suspicious rash on a 4 year old. Nope. But what is the added value of remembering that? reliving that? There is no insight into my life remembering that.
I will say there is comfort in knowing I am the way I am for very good concrete reasons. Concrete reasons other people remember, and I’m just fine with other folks storing my truly awful memories. Because in the end I have people who depend on me. Checking into a pysc ward is, for me, never an option. That would be death in days.
In the end my life evolves and becomes different because I build new compartments and shove things in locked boxes. For very good reasons. There is no shame in not remembering. I have no desire to be a hero. To be part of the Me Too movement. That would destroy me. In the end I’m private and come here to just feel like I’m not the only one. There are so many here that have sat in my chair, lived my childhood, eaten from the same plate of confusion I have. That gives me comfort. That helps me walk forward. So to all of you here, pouring out your hearts, thank you. Even those of you needing to be cruel, it is a form of walking forward, even if many folks find it repulsive.
See you on the other side.