Damaged. Broken. Not Fixable. Second Best. Hurting.
These are all emotions that I’m feeling and have been feeling for quite some time. I’ve always felt deep down inside that I was damaged, pretty much from the time my Mom died, and if I go back far enough even before then. After all I did write my first suicidal poem in grade 4.
Things came to a bit of a head in the past ten days or so. I had a meeting with my addictions Dr. and we were talking about my Seeking Safety group. I said it was intense, and that everyone in it, myself included was pretty damaged. She gently challenged my language saying that perhaps it was better to say people had lived through a particularly challenging set of life circumstances. I thought about it and it didn’t fit. Because I do feel damaged.
I have a pathological fear of intimacy to the point where being touched sends me into fight or flight mode, with my instinctive reaction being violence. Kind of makes dating hard. So I don’t date. For years I told myself I was ok with work and friends and being single, and I have made the best of it. But deep down I’m not ok with it. I want a loving relationship and I’m afraid I’ll never have one and that makes me sad.
I also feel like a failure over my many relapses. Yes I get it’s a disease, and my addictions Dr. tells me I just happen to have a very severe form of the disease. Great. I’m an overachiever at being an alcoholic.
I’ve posted about my feelings on several web boards I participate in and I’ve gotten nothing but loving supportive responses and that makes me cry. And I’m not talking discrete eyes welling up. I’m talking tears flowing, nose running, all out bawling. Actually everything makes me cry these days. And it’s kind of embarrassing in public. Oh well. At least in Toronto, people pretend not to notice.
My addictions Dr. says I’m doing extraordinary things. I don’t believe that. I’m just trying to get my life back to the point where it was before addiction took over. And it’s hard.
I’ve had several thoughts of leaping in front of a subway car – but I won’t. I’m too damn stubborn. Because suicide would mean that the world had won. And I won’t let it. I won’t give up that easily. But some days it’s painfully hard.
I just wish I could stop believing that I’m damaged beyond repair.
Elizabeth
I just found your blog so I have only read the first post so far. But I have to comment now that I got chills when I read that you wrote your first suicide poem in 4th grade. Me too. Hang in.
Hi Jillie,
I’m sorry you’ve struggled with suicide for a long time too. But thanks for the encouragement. I hope your life improves to.
Elizabeth
I am happy to say that I worked my butt off in therapy, got some excellent medication therapy and haven’t had a “I wish I wasn’t alive” thought in about 7 years. It CAN be done!
Thanks Jillie – that’s great that you’re no longer thinking of SU. I remain hopeful that I can get there too.
Its good to now we’re not alone, the stubborn part made me smile, its one of the things that has kept me going, im too stubborn to let life get the better of me and become a victim to my circumstance, however i do have days where i do really struggle with being inside my head, it can be a scary place at times, a lonely place. I too have told myself i dont need men and relationships and now that im nearly 30, im thinking do i want to lose the oppurtunity to have children and this is causing confusion.
stay strong
x