u/acrezxan1917

Long story short - since I was a kid I believe I've had a baseline of functional freeze/dissociation. I don't believe my parents were attuned to me as a child, due to their own unresolved issues. I spent most of my life in abstract fantasy and in my head. Spent my teens trying to get people at school to like me (fawn response)... spent my early 20s mostly in flight and trying to figure out why I was so fucked up, as well as trying to get my life together. Also realised that having no dad from the age of 12-13 onwards really fucked me up into adulthood and was a major trauma, as I had not many skills and had to teach myself everything. Lots of bullying at school as well, and coped w screens/dissociation, didn't get on well with my mum and fought with her a lot/she was busy w work and chores so didn't have time for me, and was dissociated herself. Also lots of workplace trauma - I practically worked like a slave, outside my window of tolerance, no boundaries, let people take advantage of me. It was really bad.

26 now and putting the pieces together. I had been running on adrenaline and cortisol for a very long time. Managed to stop caffeine, downregulate my nervous system, downsize my life a lot, get rid of unnecessary demands and try to rest as much as possible, eat healthy etc.

Throughout my days I mostly either feel rage, anxious, numb, but recently I have been wondering if I have been experiencing 'glimmers', sometimes I'll feel a bit of connection to a film I'm watching, sometimes the world will feel slightly crisper and not like the background static I'm used to. Sometimes I'll wake up and feel no need to go on my phone instantly and actually not find it too bad just sitting there doing nothing. Sometimes I won't feel much anxiety in my body. I'm wondering if this is a sign of progress/improvement?

I tried to heal 2 years ago but it backfired and led to a massive doubling-down on my old habits and addictions as I believed I couldn't get better, nothing could help w the numbness etc. But realised back then, I was probably going too fast and treating this work as another self-improvement exercise, when in hindsight I think it required an opposite approach.

I am currently doing TRE for 30 secs a week and also sensorimotor psychotherapy w a therapist biweekly. Everything just feels so slow, and I literally feel I can't do anything atm, even going downstairs to cook frazzles my nervous system. So I mostly just stay in all day watching films, but I feel a little better than before, but not sure, I still feel hopeless at times.

Any comments/thoughts? Is this all normal?

there's no healing from this stuff, its over

I received no guidance on moving from adolescence to adulthood. During adolescence, I spent the entirety of it dissociating online in my room. So i had to learn all of this adulthood shit while in survival mode. And it's broken me. Looking at my recent passport photos was quite upsetting. The ones from this year and 2021 specifically. There's no light in my eyes, it's just see through. Whereas in 2018 i at least look somewhat human.

The amount of stress and pain I had to go through to become an adult is insurmountable, all on my own with no help. And the dissociation won't even lift after getting stability and independence. What's the fucking point.

After continuing w this TRE thing... it's just.... strange. I did a 2 min tremor session, took a nap, and felt like my fingers on the bedding when I woke up but I felt the bare skin, it really freaked me out. Like I've kind of 'dropped down' so much into my body and woke up and felt weird.

I don't really feel emotions still. I think maybe bc not enough trust has been built. I also remember smoking weed giving me panic attacks a few years back.... now I realise it's bc I was so in my body and felt all the feelings that had been suppressed and it was lowering my defenses....

And then after that, I was numb again for years. I can't stress enough to myself how important it is to go slow with TRE, having complex trauma and everything. like max 2 mins sessions every 5 days or so.

I'm still very discontent. I'm losing my ability to numb out. And I'm still emotionally flat.

After continuing w this TRE thing... it's just.... strange. I did a 2 min tremor session, took a nap, and felt like my fingers on the bedding when I woke up but I felt the bare skin, it really freaked me out.

I don't really feel emotions still. I think maybe bc not enough trust has been built. I also remember smoking weed giving me panic attacks a few years back.... now I realise it's bc I was so in my body and felt all the feelings that had been suppressed and it was lowering my defenses....

And then after that, I was numb again for years. I can't stress enough to myself how important it is to go slow with TRE, having complex trauma and everything. like max 2 mins sessions every 5 days or so.

I'm still very discontent. I'm losing my ability to numb out. And I'm still emotionally flat.

Try too hard to make friends - people sense you're trying too hard - and want to get away from you

Don't try - you stay the same

Improvements come from being yourself, authentic, and open, but not forcing.

But surely to improve, you have to have a desire to improve

When I am authentically myself, I have no desire to improve/make friends. Maybe I do, but I just don't trust people. I don't like them, I assume the worst about them.

So hmmmmmmmmmm........................... maybe I am overthinking it, but it seems like a very difficult problem to solve.

Precarious job precarious housing constant worries about being homeless.

I ground myself in my body and there's just nothing here. No feeling, nothing. I'm so tired of this shit. Looming civil wars and global instability and shit economy ON TOP of my shit childhood. Fucking great. What is there to live for?

I'm not talking about acute stress, like for an hour or so. In relation to my situation, it was when, yesterday, I unknowingly had a drink with caffeine in it (quit caffeine as I'm very sensitive to it) and spent the rest of the day doing addictive stimulating habits when on the caffeine high (high cortisol high stimulation), went to bed, and when I woke up this morning I was still wired and spent the morning getting angry on Twitter.

When it hit midday/afternoon, I felt completely depleted. I have never felt like this before from stress/cortisol. Like just earlier this year, I spent months in chronic cortisol/stress, and never felt hungover. Is there any evidence that suggests that as nervous systems reach a lower baseline of cortisol, that they lose the ability to tolerate their old patterns for extended periods of time? Just curious, and also curious in ppl here's experiences.

I'm talking all day on my computer. I managed to cut out porn, caffeine for the most part. Managed to start eating a bit healthier. But it's this addiction. I'm not permanently housed at the minute, I've literally living between airbnbs for 2 months. I move into a house share in 2 weeks.

I'm highly likely to lose my job due to logistical reasons. If I do, and I don't find another one within a few months (Job market is completely messed up here in the UK), I could become homeless.

I didn't think this was how life was gonna turn out. This place I'm living in isn't the nicest and isn't in the best area so I use social media and the internet to distract, distract, distract from my reality. When I'm not using it I'm just bored and numb af.

Just fucking sucks if you're in your 20s/gen z rn. Feels like there are too many structural blockages to solve your problems. Can't get a job, can't buy a home, dating is a mess, people in society are more guarded and on-edge than they have ever been, etc. So people feel hopeless and they naturally turn to media, porn, alcohol, drugs, to numb out how stuck they are.

I suppose I'm making some headway w feeling. I can feel some fear, no caffeine required. It's these slight feelings and not much else. My mind expects a catastrophe. Not having one seems understimulating. Idk. Maybe my life has to completely fall apart and hit rock bottom for me to actually start doing something about my social media use, who knows.

Idk, anyone else relate?

I could lose my job, and i then have a few months of a runway to avoid homelessness, which is just fucking me up with worry. All of this fucking questioning and soul-searching for what. It doesnt do anything. The reality is im a numb husk, there is no light, no life behind my eyes. I am completely shut off from normal life, and my life is in complete fucking tatters.

I've always tried to do the right thing, if i was feeling loads of pain, yeah it would suck but it would pass. This? Seems like there is no fucking solution other than suicide or drugs. I'm so fucking done and fed up w life. Maybe I should just do a bunch of substances to just avoid this fucking numb state forever. Is there anyone i can talk to?? anybody??

In my late teens and early 20s, I was very obsessed with quitting my addictions. Particularly, quitting pornography. So I read lots of books, browsed lots of forums etc. And I doubled down on the attempts to quit. This was actually dysregulating my nervous system more - I kept trying, trying, trying. Which was pushing me more and more and more into fight-or-flight. Especially as I read up about a lot of the potentially harmful consequences of porn, which made me feel even worse as I relapsed and catastrophised and fell into despair.

Eventually in 2022, I completely collapsed into freeze. Since then I have been alternating between fight-flight and freeze/collapse states, but with TRE, with the resources in this community, and other communities online, am starting to realise that trying is the main thing that keeps you stuck.

Looking at regulated people with presumably healthy upbringings, they actually don't try very hard in life. They are in a state of presence and abundance and let things come to them. Of course, there are exceptions, but the parts of us that want to get better are often the parts of us that are the controller parts, wanting to fix and manage and arrange everything in our lives. Even 12 step talks about this: "Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way." (not the biggest fan of 12 step but this quote is very poignant).

The way out of addiction seems to be regulation and acceptance, not trying and striving harder. So I suppose the answer is to work with parts (but i only want to work with parts when my manager part is active, viewing it as a self-improvement exercise, so this is difficult).

Having periods where I am thawing and healing now - where I feel reconnected with parts of my soul and vulnerability - and get glimmers of connection to people. These are very sporadic though and only last for short period of time and then it's back into emptiness/numbness. People usually respond to me better when I'm in this state as well. I suppose it's because I'm not purely looking at the world through a lens of fear, envy and resentment like I was before.

Has anyone else dealt with this slow shift? It's so slow and I get so impatient with it.

I have heard this from several therapists and healthcare workers in the past. Basically I try with all my might to try different things to better my mental health, then i fall into depression, despair, and hopelessness, and lose the will to keep trying, as the aforementioned things have not helped with much. Then I try and get help, and they ask me have you tried doing x? I answer yes, it hasn't helped. Then they ask more questions. Usually I have done what they have asked. Then they eventually come out with something like 'Do you want to get better or do you want to just sit in temporary housing?' or 'You can get better, if you want it' - the implication being that I am suffering because I'm not trying hard enough. And I just need to try harder, and it's basically my fault.

Of course, if I accused them of implying that it's my fault, they would deny it. But it's pretty obvious that's what they are insinuating. That I just need to spend the rest of my life in fight or flight trying to get everything together.

Curious if anyone here has had anyone else say similar things to them?

Just asking this as recently, I have been detoxing from caffeine (switched to decaf coffee). And my days are, well, the same each day pretty much now. Just scroll online all day with no motivation to leave the place I'm currently staying. Nothing interests me, I don't care about anything. I was in chronic survival mode, chronic anxiety for so, so long (adolescence, late teen years through university to young adulthood, then into my mid-20s).

I don't feel much physical exhaustion. I feel a little, but I think this burnout is more likely to be psychological and neurological..

Symptoms are:

Lack of affect
Lack of motivation/energy that sleep won't fix
Apathy, lack of caring about things
Lower libido than usual, etc

I've recently developed more acceptance around it. Before, I would rebel against this state and consume lots of caffeine and stimulants in order to keep me in a state of high alert. I realised how destructive this lifestyle was for me and stopped, as it developed into a pretty heavy addiction.

Did anyone here experience a similar phase and if so, how did you get out of it? Is it just rest + playing the waiting game? Or is there something I'm missing?

My health is failing. No friends, no family to lean on for support. Constantly worrying about my health and searching things up. Feels like there's no way out. I can try and control the situation and constantly search about my health and try to improve things. I can do that. Or I can do other things. But everything just keeps getting worse. All the time. I feel lightheaded all the time. I'm selfish and constantly obsessing over my own problems. The advice people give me doesn't work. The world is a shitshow and can't accommodate my needs, as the health systems are overloaded. I dont have much money. Things fucking suck. I'm so tired of it all.

Had another panic attack today. I'm just over it. Coming to terms with the fact that maybe a lot of my issues are related to being neurodivergent. I have a numbness and flatness that doesn't seem to get better. It's either flatness or stress and panic attacks. Great options. Constantly terrified of being homeless, no friends, no family i can count on. I can't feel connected with other people. I have to hide who I am and put on a pleasant persona around people. ADHD. Addictive habits i cant shake. Therapists who don't know how to help me. therapist after therapist and no results. What is the actual point. Suffer for what? All my life i've tried to do the right thing, I try my hardest and still get blamed and seen as evil by people.

'Life swings like a pendulum between pain and boredom' - Arthur Schopenhauer. There is no other emotion, no other feeling, no other mode of consciousness for me.

What am I living for? What's the fucking point? I've had countless people tell me it gets better. 4 years ago. 6 years ago. I can get to a point where I'm not in crisis. Great. But i'm not happy, not content, not fulfilled. So it's either crisis or unbearable boredom and anhedonia. Great.

I had a massive lightbulb moment - that my dad probably comes from quite a high-IQ and intelligent family. Like he comes from a working class family in Liverpool and no joke, him and all of his siblings managed to make it financially in countries like Australia and South Africa. And his parents were both alcoholics. I suppose that explains the drive, the amount of structural and logistical barriers they would've had to overcome to achieve things like that just boggles my mind. My dad was a programmer and the others were Merchant Bankers and had other high paying jobs.

That explains my sister and I. My sister was more organised than me, and worked harder. For me, I have ADHD and underachieved cause I procrastinated. Now at 26, I have no idea what I want to do w my life. Like I never had a plan. I did cybersecurity out of a sense of obligation, maybe picked it up bc my dad was in IT. But as an adult now I'm completely burned off that path and work a low paid office job as my nervous system is completely spent. I basically pushed through school and university on adrenaline and I started getting health problems from this adrenaline. I think bc I never actually cared about the subject, my system kind of rejected the IT/corporate ladder as it feels soulcrushing to me.

How did you find your purpose in life? Going on a tangent here but I get interested in certain things, spend time following them, then get bored. I have ADHD and an addictive personality. Like I'll write about philosophy or politics or something like that then because I'm structuring myself, I'll just get bored. Don't really know how to deal with this. Personal experiences/resonance is welcomed.