That's annoying, by the way. Like, I'm kind of scared of what my brain decided to hide in my subconscious and I've gotten little tastes of what it had hidden for years and it wasn't nice. Still, I'm a fan of actually knowing myself and understanding why I feel the way I feel, behave the way I behave, and think the way I think. I'd rather know, honestly. I'm safe now. I can handle it. To that end, I'm getting EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy to sort those things out as much as they can be sorted. See related graphic.
Anyway, back to my constant psychological pain. Most of my personal therapeutic work in the past 9 years has been about maintaining and managing myself. I've successfully distracted myself and sometimes even forgot how much psychological pain I was in. I don't know what changed in recent years, but it's like I had whatever junk psychological pain reliever ripped away from me all of a sudden and ow holy shit ow I forgot how much I actually hurt ow. Maybe it's the stress and trauma I've endured in the last couple of years. I don't know. It finally got to be too much again and active suidicality became such a constant that I reported the thoughts to my husband as casually as telling him how work went.
The pain had gotten so intense with the trauma of recent months that my anxiety hitched a ride and made the end of my agency work a living nightmare. Perhaps it's not true, but I felt like a shitty therapist. I had to pull back on my emotional labor in my personal life and started to feel like a shitty friend. I missed my friends and activities and affiliations and so very few people seemed to care or be able to respond to my cries for help. The ones who did were golden, of course, but I had grown accustomed to hunkering down in the vast love I had before. The adjustment was hard when I had to step away from that. Painful.
I don't know what clicked lately, but suddenly I don't miss Novitas any more. I don't regret it, mind you, but I don't get that sting of jealousy and longing looking at pictures my friends post from there and status updates showing they're going. I'm actually relieved to not be there. Friends have asked me already if I'd consider going back if X happens or Y is no longer a factor and I've said yes or I'd consider it but at this point I don't think I would. I always loved that community and that game but like most things in my life it wasn't until I got distance and embraced the trauma of being forced at that distance that I realized the negative aspects of the relationship I had with the community. I was so in love with them that I couldn't be honest about the flaws. I don't believe those things will ever change, so I guess considering whether or not I'd return if they did is kind of a useless thought exercise.
But that's not what this is about. This is about my pain. It's subsided to normal levels. There was an intense surge there, and very few truly understand the depth of pain I'd been dealing with ever since. I'd smile and actively be thinking, "I want to die." I'd be at work and wishing I'd been in a fatal car accident on the way there. I'd be holding loved ones close and wishing I'd never met the people I lost so I didn't have to feel the pain. I was in crippling amounts of psychological pain, and it was hard to describe to anyone. Even the ones I could describe it to naturally took it for granted that a good day meant I wasn't feeling that, but of course that wasn't the case.
Anyway, like I said, the psychological pain is back to normal levels. No, I'm not okay. I haven't been okay for as long as I can remember. I'm maintaining. I'm managing. I'm not actively planning to end my life. That's the best I can do right now, maybe the best I've ever done. I'm headed toward a treatment plan that will open up the possibility for better than that. I've always said that I wish my brain could understand how wonderful my life is now. I'm not being abused by the one person who was supposed to love and protect me. Not any more. I'm not trapped. I have people who really and truly love me, a career I love, a safe home, lovely pets, more financial stability than I ever had before. My brain doesn't give a shit. The pain endures. I'm tired of living this way. It hurts.
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