rant/hopeless
hi everyone,
hope you're all doing okay! i just want to rant a bit, even though it's repetitive and the same thing i seem to always rant about. clearly, i can't learn from mistakes.
i'm dealing with a lot of self-destructive tendencies and disappointment and basically i don't know what i need to do right at this second. i would pay millions of dollars so that i had a specific, clearly explained manual on how to build a healthier version of myself, one that doesn't fall back on the default setting of self destruction every single DAY.
i feel like life is just against me. like i'm literally on a prank show, and any day now the camera people are gonna show up and throw a pie at my face. i mean at this point i wish that would happen so that my days would be a little more eventful and fun and i wouldn't just be a giant sack of self-pity. i'm just SO tired. the new year has begun and it's just the same me. i just don't want my life to be like this at all anymore, i don't want another day of waking up and hating the reflection on my mirror that looks back at me with nothing but disappointment, embarrassment, and shame.
and i don't want to hear anyone say anything about self love. don't tell me to meditate, don't tell me to see a damn therapist, don't tell me to journal, and for the love of god do NOT tell me to drink water. i will throw an entire grand piano across a room if i hear one more comment like that. because if anyone knows the most about self love, it's me. i have researched everything there is to learn about self compassion, self love, forgiveness, and self care, for YEARS. and everyone usually shares the same if not very similar advice. talk to someone, reach out for support, meditate. i am very aware that all these strategies, if they're often talked about, that they must work, at least to some degree. if not, i'm sure there wouldn't be giant industries marketing these tools and making loads of money off of them. i'm sure they would be amazing for me to try out. and i have, but i've never been consistent with any of this.
i used to think consistency was my biggest weakness, but recently i've learned that i'm actually a very consistent person, i'm one of the most loyal people i know. but i'm only consistent if it ruins me. i'm consistent if it feels good but i somehow make it into a bad thing because it messes up other areas of life, and i keep at it. i've been an overly self-indulgent, self-destructive and even egocentric monster. it's what i've become and i know it. i also know that beneath my skin is a very sad, hurt, lonely, confused, scared little girl who all she wanted was the complete support, acceptance, and love from her parents, friends, and family. all she wanted was the encouragement from them and the consistency from them, to always be good to her and present in her life. but she quickly learned about unpredictability, unreliability, from a very young age, and she somehow managed to become just that, to herself. i've shown myself what others have shown me. i've made myself feel the regret that others have shown me. by avoiding the very thing i've feared the most, i've made my worst fear come true.
i'm so young, relatively, and yet i already know so well what the burn of extreme regret feels like. what it's like to be stabbed in the back, only to see your own hand instead of another person's holding the knife. why? why didn't i move on when someone hurt me, why did i hurt myself in an even worse way? i never knew i wanted to be competitive with who could damage my soul the most. instead of healing and cherishing myself, i found solace and so much happiness doing the opposite. i need to change. i've said it so many times but i just want to change already, how will i ever be able to love appropriately if i can't love myself appropriately?
so PLEASE help me. i know that we all over the entire course of a lifetime will have challenges, there's always highs and lows, but as i get older, it starts to become really frightening when you realize you can't cope with any of this, when you have to parent yourself but you just don't effectively parent yourself, even though you know you can and you know how to, but you still don't. so how on earth will i still be a fully functioning person years from now because i don't think i can go on like this all my life, it's anything but sustainable. i don't know how to forgive myself for all the time i've wasted and all the things i've done, or haven't done, that have led to my darkest lows, to me letting myself down and not being able to trust my own person. i don't know where to start. do i start journaling then meditation? do i try meditation first and then journaling or what? what do i need to first do? i know this sounds like such a redundant question but these solutions have never been obvious to me. when i'd try solving a word problem, sometimes the answer was literally right there, right in my face, but i could never figure it out because i would look at anywhere but the answer. i would make it SO much more complicated than it was ever meant to be. and then when the answer's revealed i feel like an idiot. i feel like the pie's been thrown at my face. and this has happened to me so many times that all i can do now is feel the tears building up in my tear ducts, just thinking of all those times.
i wish i could move somewhere far and leave my past behind me and start fresh. i want to shed an entire coat of skin off of me. even though perfection doesn't exist, i just wish i could be a little closer to it. it is SO difficult having to live with the burdens of my history. and i literally am in a situation where daily i have to come across certain places/people that trigger me. some don't trigger me too much, other things can be severe, but either way, they affect my mood. and i'm just not in a position where i can physically get away from some of these things, but i wonder, even if i did, would it matter? wouldn't the burdens my past still be there? don't i need to first learn how to live with these difficulties and not let them overpower me?
but the question is how.
@peaceandblessings
I don't know if I can be much help to you, but I can identify with a lot of what you're saying. You seem like a very intelligent person to me by the way you've written your post. I'm no expert on the things you're dealing with, but I know it helps to at least have a response and for someone to say they understand what your going through.
There's days I feel like throwing a piano across the room too. But I think the times we are living in, there are many that are going through what you and I are going through. Seems society has turned against us and things are falling apart and going south. It does tend to bring a sense of hopelessness in many of us. I guess the best thing is that we try to lean on each other and hold one another up the best that we can.
I'm 62, and I live with a lot of regrets. But there's one thing I've learned, I can't go back to undo anything. I just have to learn to accept it, forgive myself and move on to do better. To make today a new start.
Don't give up on yourself though. You seem like a good person really. I don't perceive you to be the careless type. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders. Stay strong. And come here and rant all you want... it helps me when I do it.... 😊
It can all be so, so frustrating sometimes. It is obvious how hard you are trying to find solutions.
I so wish that I could give you a magic bullet or tell you exactly what to do. The challenge is that what works is different for each person. So any advice you get can be off.
I can tell you that it took me a few years to find myself again, but I did do it. It was just continuing to try lots of little things consistently for a few months until some of the stuck.
But feel free to keep talking here so we can find more ideas for you to try, if you want. @peaceandblessings
@peaceandblessingsHi. My impression is that you are very smart, but also that you want very specific concrete answers. You may assume you should be able to figure things out and probably feel frustrated when the answers aren’t easy to come by. Some of the concepts that have helped me most have been fuzzy. For instance, “self compassion” is hard to define, so I call it a fuzzy concept. I thought I understood what it was. Later my understanding of it got deeper, but it’s still a fuzzy concept. Still, it’s a very important concept and helps me a lot in life. Someone could have defined it for me in words, but it was really experience that allowed me to understand it.
