Numb

[misssouthernbelle]

I know I've had a lot going on lately... .graduated college in May, was ignored/cut off from the pwBPD in early July, moved to a new city and into a 3BR 2.5BA townhouse in late July, started my new teaching job and cheer coach responsibilities in August, and lost my grandfather this week.

But, when life settles down for a moment... .like a Saturday morning... .and I'm left alone in this big townhouse, I feel absolutely numb. I slept from 2am - 2pm this afternoon. I don't even feel like I'm really in my body, if that makes sense.

I look on Facebook, which I only recently added back last week, only to get depressed by all the happy couples and people enjoying their lives.

Here I am... .single for 3 years and counting, empty, at a job that I spent 5 years in college to get and it feels like a punishment, and asking God why - after the abusive childhood I endured and all the abusive men I've dated - why, I must continue to be alone and suffer?

I just don't get what I did to deserve such a fate. Maybe if I had been a dreadful person, I might could come to terms with it. This townhouse doesn't make me happy. My job only makes me happy for the fraction of a second I see my students actually engaged and learning.

There is this gigantic, gaping hole in my soul and nothing can seem to plug it before it re-opens even bigger than before.

I'm constantly in pain, but I think from a young age, I learned how to quell the searing pain that is life. It's always with me, in my chest, a dull reminder of all the betrayals and hurt I have faced in my short - yet long - 23 years.

I ask myself how I can even move on and enjoy life when pretty much everyone I've ever opened up to has hurt me? After 3 years of being single the pwBPD was the first guy I really let my guard down to. I believed our friends that he was a good guy and thought I might have found someone like me. We all know that isn't how it went and though we only were in each others' lives for two months, when he ignored my existence and cut me off out of the blue, it only brought that searing pain to the surface, more real that it had been in a while.

I don't know what's going on with me, but life doesn't have a purpose. My purpose seems to be the punching bag of sick individuals who hurt others. I get beyond hurt and agitated when someone says IT'S YOUR FAULT. Why, you might ask?

I've spent the last 3 years knowing that I play a part in things after finally realizing at 20 that what I had endured my whole life wasn't normal. I've read everything there is to know about psychology. I've seen a therapist. I've seen a psychologist. I've let go of men who were disrespectful. I've let them go even when there was the slightest twinge of them not respecting me. I've also been played a while before I saw the sick individual behind the mask. I've tried with everything that is in my soul to correct what is wrong with me.

IT IS SO INGRAINED IN ME TO HAVE A BIG HEART AND TO BELIEVE WHAT PEOPLE SAY. ALL I KNEW GROWING UP WAS MY BORDERLINE MOTHER, AND SO, I DO NOT SEE THE BORDERLINES COMING. I KNOW I PLAY A PART, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT, MY FAULT IS BELIEVING THAT SOMEONE IS WHO THEY PORTRAY THEMSELVES TO BE! I am tired of being told it is me when all I've done is beat myself up for years... .I know I am broken, but that doesn't mean I can fix myself.

And yet, look at me now. Here I sit, on a couch, in a townhouse that is nicer than anything I've ever lived in, with my "dream" job, and I am numb. So numb that I could barely make it up the stairs a bit ago, before I stopped and bawled, leaning against the railing.

I don't know how to move forward. I don't know where the light has gone. I hate when life slows down because it feels as if I'm forced to face with emptiness within that I don't see when I'm within the motion of my fast-paced life.

I just want to be loved. I want someone to hold me. I want someone to surprise me with ice-cream at work like I did for the pwBPD. I want someone to be thoughtful and loving. I want someone I can confide in wholly and trust. I crave so badly what I've always given and never received in return.

Maybe my dreams of a loving relationship and family are just that... .a dream? Why must the world be such a cruel place with ruthless individuals?

At 23, I've almost begun to grow cynical and my well of giving has become restricted. I'm beginning to feel like I don't have much left to give.

I am numb and my heart feels like a black hole. I feel like no one understands and I don't confide in those around me because I don't want to burden them with my sad, child-like problems because they wouldn't understand. No one understands what it's like to have the life sucked out of you in childhood by a BPD and continue to have the life sucked out of you in adulthood.

BPDs don't just hurt you, they can screw up the way you see yourself, and the very makeup of who you are, so that it seems like you can never break free. They can make you numb, a prisoner of your own life.

[enlighten me]

Hi Misssouthernbelle

I can understand how you feel. I felt totally defeated. Angry at the world. Why was life so unfair and how dare she make me feel this bad.

Something that I realised is that the only person that could make me feel bad was me. No one can make you feel bad if you don't let them.

I also realised that no one can make me feel good apart from me. You can have a thousand people tell you your great and it wont make you happy if you don't let it. I realised this with my friends. I argued their compliments away. Your a great guy EM in my head was "what do you know? If I was that great my ex and I would still be together". That has now changed to "I wouldn't go as far as great but Im pretty good"

[SGraham]

Hello?

Is there anybody in there?

Just nod if you can hear me.

Is there anyone home?

Come on now

I hear you're feeling down.

Well I can ease your pain

Get you on your feet again.

Relax.

I'll need some information first.

Just the basic facts.

Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain you are receding

A distant ship smoke on the horizon.

You are only coming through in waves.

Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.

When I was a child I had a fever

My hands felt just like two balloons.

Now I've got that feeling once again

I can't explain you would not understand

This is not how I am.

I have become comfortably numb.

O.K.

Just a little pinprick.

There'll be no more, ah!

But you may feel a little sick.

Can you stand up?

I do believe it's working, good.

That'll keep you going through the show

Come on it's time to go.

There is no pain you are receding

A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.

You are only coming through in waves.

Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.

When I was a child

I caught a fleeting glimpse

Out of the corner of my eye.

I turned to look but it was gone

I cannot put my finger on it now

The child is grown,

The dream is gone.

I have become comfortably numb.

- felt like the lyrics kinda applied. I know Pink Floyd has got me out of a few holes in my life. I get how you feel though, i too was only with my ex for a relatively short amount of time, roughly 3-4 months but the pain is still unreal. I know how you feel when you said you dont like to tell people about it, i feel pretty certain that you cant understand the turmoil of a BPD relationship unless you've been in one. Well without going down a list of all your points and describing how i relate, i will just cut to the chase and tell you that i totally get all of it, i could have written it myself.  Hang in there bud, im right there with you, the numbness, the cynicism, everything.

Best wishes,

SG

[Sunfl0wer]

 

It is hard for me to know what to say.

I too have been struggling with feelings of numbness, and to stay feeling connected vs escaping somehow ... .in my mind, reading, TV, movies, drinking, just disconnecting.

Balancing feeling the pain vs marinating myself in it. 

I have honestly been feeling a bit stuck... .and discouraged in myself for this.

[misssouthernbelle]

Thank you all for the kind words!     

I really struggle with it, day-to-day. Some days are good and some days are bad. I'm really trying though. I appreciate you all giving advice. I'm trying to stay positive.