My journey with personal development

[trenton]

I have a pretty clear sense of what has been going on throughout my journey in personal development. At the moment it is not looking good and it seems to be getting worse despite my efforts. My depression and medical problems have continued to worsen, making me unable to work due to severe medical reactions, insomnia, and depressive episodes. These things are happening to me despite the clarity and progress I have recently made. I have been going on a leave of absence more frequently and ending up in the hospital or rehabilitation for severe depression. This has been combined with continued complications concerning my medical insurance. I'm wondering how much longer this new insurance will take to be approved.

I have an idea of what my depression is ultimately rooted in. I suspect it is severe childhood trauma which has made me incapable of loving myself. I appear to have been punishing myself by cutting myself off from relationships with other human beings under the belief that I need to find a higher life purpose with which to justify my existence. From this point of view, my attempts to find a life purpose are doomed to fail even if I took the life purpose course. I have cut myself off from love in many ways. To name a few this includes relationships, sexuality, the pursuit of happiness, and others. I developed several compensatory values designed to rebuild a sense of self-worth. This included values like truth, goodness, and spirituality which ultimately brought me to a place like this. I seem to value things like truth and goodness to my own detriment and it often seemed to hurt me due to never feeling like I could be redeemed. Given the significant ways in which trauma has distorted and clouded my authentic values, I don't see a realistic path to improvement without finally getting a trauma therapist somehow, but there are many obstacles to getting one.

Even so, I have made some significant progress over the past 6 months. First of all, I moved away from my grandma and my sister. I was in an abusive relationship because my sister is a covert narcissist who likes to weaponize my trauma against me and exploit my vulnerability as she treats me like an emotional and psychological punching bag all while the rest of the family is blind to what she has done to me and therefore blame me for being too sensitive or not letting go of the past. The situation is still extremely problematic. Although I am not being driven to suicide attempts, there are still a ton of problems with navigating family gatherings such as holidays and birthdays. She continues to make underhanded compliments when she sees me while she pretends to be caring even though she knows she intentionally makes me suffer like this. I can no longer bring myself to attend family birthdays and holidays because the rest of the family continues to blame me when I express that I feel hurt while my sister gets to bully me with impunity. They tell me to let it go or be forgiving, but this is not an option in the case of somebody who is intentionally abusive. I have a somewhat difficult time feeling isolated from everybody I love through no fault of my own to the point that it now feels like Christmas is dead and I have been deprived of these gatherings. Sometimes I have nightmares about my sister, but my family does not understand PTSD symptoms and therefore blames me for not letting go of the past. It is also futile to try to explain my point of view to people in this situation, which is common in narcissistic abuse. And before you suggest I not judge her because she had her own trauma, I must point out that when she is not targeting me, she is targeting my younger brother who now also feels more distant from the family. It seems to have nothing to do with her trauma and more like she is just genuinely a spiteful bitch who wants to treat others like crap and get away with it for the sake of feeding her narcissistic complex. I knew her behavior was problematic for a long time, but I recently learned that there is a label for this kind of behavior and it is covert narcissistic abuse. I think this is significant progress because I now see through her dishonest tactics more clearly, and I am not giving her any further opportunities to manipulate me into an argument in which she will inevitably be the victim, forcing me to apologize when I have done nothing wrong. I learned the hard way the dangers of misplaced empathy and compassion while trying to be the bigger person for somebody who genuinely has no regard for the harm they cause you and might even enjoy it based on her smug laughter. I tried to be open-minded and understanding, but I understand that she never actually loved me or cared about my honest perspective because her empathy is two-faced and performative and she has repeatedly told me her bald faced lies without hesitation or remorse. I deserve better than this kind of family, as much as it pains me to be cut off from them even though I know they have objectively done a lot of shitty things in my childhood.

I have made progress on other fronts of my life. I remember I used to put a lot of effort into becoming a professional chess player, only to be met with repeated disappointment and frustration. I have started exploring other strategy games and board games, and it turns out that I am pretty good at those games as well. It all ties back into severe trauma. As a child, I had a hard time seeing my own value and worth. When I discovered that I was really good at chess and that I was able to win money and defeat titled players such as national masters, it gave me a sense of direction in my life that I could enjoy. I often became so focused that nothing else in the universe bothered me, and it gave me a sense of freedom and joy even though Mom was stealing my money and blowing it one heroin. When I encountered significant obstacles to realizing this dream, I was hard pressed to find some alternative life purpose. The problem is that fundamentally I feel incapable of loving myself, therefore any purpose which does not make me happy, must justify my existence through being significant enough to help me endure living my life in severe suicidal depression. I explored many different fields and subjects and continued to educate myself, but I always doubted myself and struggled to find anything that would be compelling enough for me to not kill myself due to my deep suffering and the fact that my suffering was not worth going through if it does not somehow help a large number of other people, thereby compensating my misery through the philosophical standpoint that my suffering is ultimately for the greater good.

I have developed very deep empathy for other people in deep suffering throughout this process. I have shown my goodness by going out of my way to help those in deep pain simply because I could. I did not need anything in return, which is what separates my genuine empathy from the performative empathy of narcissist who is trying to manipulate you through trauma bonds. To name a few examples, I helped a lost three year old girl who was abandoned by her parents, I helped a victim of predatory loaning get out of 60,000 dollars in debt, I helped my brother through his depression and suicidal thoughts by using everything I studied even though I am often limited in my capacity to help myself, and I overall supported various people in a similar situation to me in what ever way I could, and they were clearly grateful to have met me.

Throughout my personal development journey, I have been reading lots of books on emotional mastery, hoping it would help me to overcome some of these deep emotional problems. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to be enough. I even studied psychology so deeply, that I now objectively understand psychology better than many therapists with master's degrees due to continuing to educated myself outside of college. Many therapists get tunnel vision because they focus on one narrow domain within psychology, causing them to overlook abusive relational dynamics while pathologizing the trauma responses of the victims.  The problem is that my intellectual understanding alone is not enough to undo these deep wounds, and oftentimes it almost seems like more than I can bare. It isn't really fair that I needed to embark on this difficult journey to begin with, and I would have been a very different person if I never needed to study the mind this deeply. If I were my authentic self prior to all of this trauma, then I would likely be much more extroverted, jovial, and I would be much more open to dating rather than punishing myself through seeing my own sexuality as causing me to be permanently tainted and irredeemable. There is actually nothing I could do with my life which would finally make me feel like I am worthy of love, which is what I have been struggling  with all of my life. There is no amount of success or external rewards which would be enough to fill the existential void of depression. The problem is that from my point of view, doing what makes me happy doesn't seem to be a realistic option, so I need to find a way to justify my misery through the philosophical framework of Christ like suffering in which I carry the burden humanity refuses to carry like some kind of martyr.

For now I wish I could sleep at night, but I can't. I seem to be carrying a burden greater than I can manage on my own. I am unable to use my deep wisdom, education, and logic, to get myself through all of this because sometimes it is as if depression forces me throw away logic. At the very least I understand clearly, that I am unable to simply allow myself to love myself on my own. This is a silent struggle that I am often unable to communicate to my family as they think I need to toughen up enough to handle this level of depression. I really don't see how I am supposed to approach life at all if I am unable to function and I am losing my job and my money to hospital bills.

I write this message because although my suffering may border on unbearable, part of me still holds onto hope. I see how I am capable of feeling love when extending compassion to others even when I must give from an empty well. I see that I may not be able to help myself through constant self-education through book reading in personal development, I still hope that somebody else can help me. I understand that such a person likely does not exist on this forum as chances are, I understand psychology better then them as well. Until then, I am probably alone in my suffering.

A question I would like to contemplate is "what is strength?" All my life I have been looking to things like life purpose and intellectual ideals as something that would hopefully give me a reason to live. This reason to live would be the strength to withstand whatever life throughs at me because of my confidence and faith in my overarching vision and who I am. Perhaps in my next post, I will share what I come up with. Strength could mean a lot of different things, but what does it mean to me and what gives me strength if not praying to Jesus to not have Satan anally rape me with a flaming pitchfork until the end of eternity? I would love to explore where strength comes from and what it means. (My therapists actually did make me pray to Jesus by the way despite my objections.)

I know it bothers you guys when I talk about these things, but I thank you if you were able to read this.

[theleelajoker]

The presence of others give me hope. The presence of others give me strength.

A deep and honest hug, listening, just sitting there, sometimes cuddling, sometimes walking together, sometimes be being there for them, sometimes vice versa. 

If intellect and self education failed you in the past, have you experienced connection with others? Mentally, emotionally, physically?

Sometimes it's people I have known for long time, sometimes it's a stranger I have known for 5 minutes but the connection is so deep as if we knew each other for 5 years. 

Anything is possible. 

[hyruga]

Just rest more and don't overthink too much.