Lived Experience Forum

[Powderfinger]

I posted recently about my mental breakdown. I'm not out of it yet so I can't focus on recovery whatsoever. Everything is suffering because of it. My relationship, business, me and my life generally. I feel incredibly helpless and angry. 

My thoughts are disordered and change from one minute to the next. How do you tell anyone at all the seriousness of it when you really don't have the energy to speak. That is how it's gotten for me. Talking is just nothingness. Just a bunch of words and nothing changes. 

Occasionally I may watch my partner. She may be whistling a tune and I hear it. I say nothing. It's like we are in two very different worlds. I feel completely distant and in some far off place on my own. 

Then there is the constant feeling of that aloneness. That I'm completely alone. No one can see me and I'm not there. I have to try make sense of the words someone in saying and just to even hear sound is quite annoying. When I do talk, it's almost surreal. I know I'm talking I just don't feel present at all. 

There is no concept of time. If I have to talk to someone my view is to get it over and done with so I can just be left alone. Put on the face that all is fine then go home and be my not fine self. 

Why do I do it? Because I don't need the pressure and million and one questions. Are you on medication? Maybe you should see a doctor. Maybe you can talk to a mental health professional, maybe go on a mental health plan. Are you eating and exercising. Oh, you poor thing. I wish there was something I could do. And the list goes on. I just shut down further. 

It doesn't matter anymore how much the stgma around mental illness is being worked on, there is still stigma. The main message I get is, no one wants to speak to you if you are not happy, have not got it together and are not depressing to be around. In short very few people care and very few people listen. 

So each day goes by am I'm sinking deeper and deeper in with no energy to try anything at all. Just an inner screaming that is there 24-7. It doesn't go away. 

[Tufftimes]

Please never give up, I am a single parent of a now 16yo son, who never knew his Dad due to etc etc etc, and commkitted suicide when my son was nearly 8 years old. Hang in there, please, things can only improve xx

[Maggie]

@Powderfinger  I’m hearing you. I really am. I’ve been there. 

I’m not going to fill up space with empty, useless words. But I am going to say I care. If you can keep talking here, we are hearing the pain, not just the words. Sending some warm thoughts your way.

[Lostandalone]

@Powderfinger I echo what @Maggie said

we are here to listen... and to support you

we feel the pain and many can relate

please reach out 

[Powderfinger]

@Maggie 

I don't know what to say. I'm done, comes to mind. 

I know I'm in over my head. I would not wish this on anyone. The internal 24-7 inner screaming is me wanting to express myself, yet I can't. I just shut down at the mention of talking about it. 

I've been crying a lot the last two days. 

My partner is with me and I don't have any energy to support what may be tough for her. I don't know. Sometimes I think she is completely oblivious. Some of her actions were a contribution to my breakdown. 

I start therapy next Monday. Addressing the breakdown is important, so that will be where I begin. I don't have any support. No friends and no family. 

I can't make decisions as it just feels to overwhelming. The joy thief visited and I don't feel any real joy. I told my partner to get her shit together or get out. I was tired of the stonewalling and lack of communication in our relationship. I could not take it anymore. I'm not sorry, she needed to hear it and needed to know I am done. I put my boundaries down. 

It's damn hard when you truly love someone so deeply and want to be with them, yet the destructive choices you can't take anymore. After eight months of it I just snapped. 

I cut contact last December with the last remaining family member I had left. My mother. It was and always has been toxic with her. I couldn't take her abuse anymore and I chose to walk away. 34 years of abuse dawned on me and in February I went downhill. 

There has been many other pressures and it just got to the point where I couldn't do it anymore. 

As for my breakdown, I feel hopeless. Loss of hope. Can't see a way out. I'm distant with my partner. The damage is there. I love her, that I do not doubt. There is damage. 

Not continuing the destructive and toxic behaviour is hard. I was my mother's counsellor while she carried out her emotional and psychological abuse towards me. That is the role she gave me and I played it. I was a child when it started. She should not have done it but she did. It went on for a long time. That has contributed to my messy relationships. I'm trying so hard to no longer play those roles for anyone. It's hard. One therapist put it to me that it is like a cult and you have been so brainwashed. I got it and I agree. 34 years of doing that and finding out it isn't normal is a shock. Then you are left with an identity being taken from you and not knowing who you are anymore. 

Anyhow, that is just a tiny snippet. Thanks for listening. 

[Maggie]

@Powderfinger  I do understand, believe me, I understand.

Sometimes, our brain says, I’m done, and strangely, now it’s time for you. It’s hard for many of us to consider ourselves worthy of anything. Breakdowns happen sometimes, to hopefully, give us a breakthrough.

Starting therapy is a very good start. Be patient with yourself. A lifetime of trauma, takes time to unravel, and time to deal with. It can feel like a roller coaster ride, but hang on, you’re not alone.

So many of us here on the forums are going through the same unraveling. We understand, and we will be here to listen.

Sending kind thoughts. 

[Powderfinger]

@Lostandalone 

Thank you for re-confirming what Maggie said. 

[Powderfinger]

@Tufftimes  

I'm doing the best I can. I need time to recover. I'm still scared. It was a huge mental breakdown. I don't see myself making headway with it until at least some time next year. 

I hope you and your son are well. 

[Lostandalone]

@Powderfinger   I know it is easier said than done... but try to not be too hard or self critical.... many of us have walked that mile in your shoes and have lived to tell the tale... reach out and talk to those who are willing to listen... remember you are only human... 

[Powderfinger]

@Maggie 

Thanks for listening. I'm still in a pretty bad place. The fog is so ever present and the rest I've been talking about. I said to my partner today that it is more than likely I will not see any real positive change coming till next year. Sitting with yourself is very much wanting an escape, but there is nowhere to escape to. You're trapped in yourself. 

I have so much to say and I can't find the words. I think mainly because my mind tells me no.one gives a damn, no one wants to listen to you. 

Anyhow, the one place that I can go where someone will listen is therapy. I'm very panicked and anxious around that as well. I'm scared. I have had the experience of a therapist turn me away and telle to come back when I'm strong enough for therapy. She felt that there was too much going on in my life and high stressors for me to focus on therapy for me. I was in a domestic violence relationship at the time. 

So, I'm scared this therapist will turn me away because I'm in the midst of a nervous breakdown. 

I don't know?