I don’t know how but I’m lost again

I won’t say no one because I’m sure there is someone who knows what it’s like, but not anyone in my life. I worked my ass off to recover from years of extreme trauma, just to look in the mirror one day and realize how much of that progress is gone. To realize all that confidence and bravery is gone. To realize I am back to apologizing just for existing. To not doing anything that I enjoy and feeling guilt for even wanting to try. I’m back to a shell. I’m forgetting things. Days feel extremely long and feel like they pass way too quickly all at the same time. Most days I don’t even have the motivation to get up. But I do. I get up and I try because I have kids that need me. And then I hide in the bathroom and cry once they go to bed. Nothing feels safe anymore. Nowhere feels safe. I am on edge 24/7 and miserable. I hear constant negative monologues in my head every day all day about everything that I try to do. I feel like I have to ask permission to use my own possessions, I feel like I have ask permission to exist in my own home. I am back to constant panic every time I have to go into the public and be around anyone. But feeling completely isolated and cut off at the same time. I worked so hard to be able to go to grocery stores and parks without having panic attacks that me or my daughter or someone I was with would be killed or my daughter would be kidnapped. And now I’m back to extreme anxiety to where I have driven home without going into the store because the thought of getting out of my car crippled me. I try to use the therapeutic processes that helped me last time but the negativity is so loud most days that I can’t even do that. I miss appointments, I miss events, I get most of my essentials delivered because I feel like I can’t face the world. I’m back to feeling like if I don’t have my phone that something is going to happen to me. My house is clean, but it’s not a home. It’s basically like a hotel with nothing personal because the anxiety and fear I have about losing my home again. I leave everything in boxes because nothing feels safe or permanent enough to take it out. Because I might lose everything again. I go to try to unpack a room and I’m reminded of all the things that I loved that were stolen from me, all of the things I don’t have anymore. So instead I put the things back in the box. I don’t know what’s in half the box because it’s stuff that was given to me to “replace” all the things that were taken from me. But it’s not the same. I go to hang a photo on the wall and I don’t recognize myself. I’m suffocated by the traumatic flashbacks of things that followed “happy” events. I’m reminded of just how many people I have lost. So I put those back in the box too. My kids are taken care of and loved and happy and have more toys than they will ever play with. But I’m still drowning in the guilt of all the things I should be doing that I’m not. The physical therapy exercises, the Montessori living set up, letting them help me with things around the house, the homeschool activities, playing with them, taking them to parks. All things I used to do great at. All things that feel impossible. Some days I wake up happy and hopeful just for the smallest comment to send all of that crashing into the ground. I worked so hard to get my spark back, but it’s gone again. And I’m a shell. And most days I don’t know how I will ever get those things back. I have an extreme desire to go “home” and feel safe again but I don’t have anywhere or anyone that feels safe like that anymore. But most days I’m still trying. And I don’t know if there’s anything else I can do but that.

And before anyone thinks it’s because of my current relationship. It’s not. I have extreme complex ptsd. I had to move states away and live with my best friend to feel safe. I had to move back for court. I got pregnant and I got sick. And slowly but surely I lost all of the fortitude and confidence that I had.

#ptsd #trauma #vulnerable #domesticabusesurvivor #mentalhealing