Welcome....we are here to let you vent or talk and support you....hope you get a bit of help with things that are making you so miserable....hugs

I'm so sorry you are struggling. You are not a burden. We are here to listen and offer support. Please post as often as you need to. Keep reaching out....

Well, since you are already stumbling into the dark...Welcome to the dark side! We are all here with you trying to find a little bit of light in this struggle.

Glad your reaching out. You'll find many of us are floundering. This is the best place for it. Your post took balls. You sound like you don't share that often. Tell us more about your story and let us help you. We're here!

we are stumbling in the dark...you are not alone

not tragic at all. I have a problem --> I am seeking a solution. Seems legit.

welcome. :)

Thank you all for responding, it is a relief in many ways, this tells me that I'm not actually invisible!

Debbalina, you're right I don't really open up very often, I'm extremely hard work in that sense. I will be at breaking point yet still feel guilty about unloading on anyone.

I am haunted by a traumatic past, and I don't really feel like I've ever got past it. I started using drugs very young in order to cope with what was happening, but I feel now that I never learnt how you cope 'normally'. Every day stresses seem huge to me, I never learnt how to respond to them...like there's this whole part of my brain that literally has no idea what the fuck is happening. I lived in my own false reality for most of my life...and I find life now even more terrifying than it was before.

I feel a real fragility, yet everyone wants me to pretend to be strong now. I don't think they can cope with me any other way now...so I feel like I owe it to them to at least pretend to be ok, I have put people through a lot in the past...

...

This might sound like a cliche, but have you got a therapist? I think that could really help you in terms of not feeling so alone with your problems and learning helpful/better ways to deal with stress. You need someone just for you. I'm sorry you feel your not able to lean on those closest to you. Living with a mask on is hard. Perhaps they are stronger than you think they are? I'm sorry you feel so fragile. I know thats a very scary way to feel. You really need support. I'm glad your hear at DS. Its a very important first step to reaching out. You're stronger than you think!!!

I'm not currently seeing anyone nor am I on any medication for depression after some very bad experiences.

I am considering it though...but I am very reluctant.

Honestly, I just feel like giving up right now...and I don't like saying that, not after everything. I am finding it all so hard. I just hate that aching sadness in my stomach...the constant feeling of being a disappointment. I am a disappointment...maybe it doesn't matter what I do...maybe it's just how it is. I don't know...

You're not a disappointment. You're human and going through a very rough time. I know you feel like giving up, but hopefully if you continue to reach out that feeling will pass. I think you'd really benefit from a therapist. Really consider that! They're there to support you. You need folks on your team!! And remember - you got us. :)

I suffer with crushing depression, and did what you're trying to do by pretending everything was alright, until it wasn't. Even on medication I still try to use my old coping mechanisms when it comes to my depression, pretending. With some people it works, but usually not with the people who love me, They can see through it. I hate worrying them the most, being a burden. Talking about me, me, me! I think that's why a therapist could help you, if you're willing.

But are we sufferers of depression the only people who pretend things are fine when they are not? No. In a way it's part of survival to put on a happy face, like when you're at work, or in front of your family and friends. Maybe pretending for so long we begin to distort our perspective on reality, just a thought.

You are not alone. I too am suffering from a traumatic past that led me to cope by doing drugs at a young age. I don't think I ever really learned how to cope with my negative feelings. I'm in therapy now and learning coping skills. It's hard, really hard.

If you need to talk more feel free to message me.

Just thinking. There is technique for handling these kinds of growth. You've been blocked for years and so haven't learned the different levels. Like... you missed school or something so you have to start to learn to read at a 5 yr old level when everyone else is operating as an adult.

this is still fine, because adults can still learn to read. (metaphor.) And they can learn quickly, and from the top down. You can be taught technique as an adult you can't be taught as a child. So it's not really a handicap. Just.. interesting.

Basically, you're in your fantasy world and you need to come out to the real world, and whenever the real world hits, you get a massive anxiety attack. Sound right? That's where I was at, and it was hard. LOL. And embarrassing. I was so off the planet in terms of what I though people were like, and what to expect.

I've learned a few techniques though.

When you get an attack, accept it, and try to manage how you look while you're having it. This protects your privacy and stops you from having secondary attacks, you know - attacks on top of your attacks. You need one attack per lesson, not fifty. :D

At the end of the attack, there's a gem. A pearl of wisdom. A discovery. The shock leaves. The chemicals leave. A HUGE attack can boil down to a TINY piece of wisdom. It's like it spits out a jigsaw puzzle piece, and you get to then take that piece, stare at it minutely, put it into the puzzle where it fits in life... and then forget you went through this hell and carry on.

People do this throughout their lives but if we have a huge backlog, it can seem neverending, like an avalanche. It's not neverending. It's just a deluge caused by a blockage. As you come to the end of these experiences, they become further apart and they become milder.

The anxiety may last five minutes. I have got now so that I get mild anxiety for a few moments, and then I hook into 'accept' mode, open mode, and let it flow through and earth, and I get my little jigsaw puzzle piece far more quickly. And with far less pain.

It is so very hard to talk about this, to describe what I'm talking about. But I have noticed a lot of people on here have the same errors:

1. they think this is going to continue forever;
2. they think this is abnormal and not just life;
3. they think people who look normal don't go through this.

I think everyone real goes through it. And I think everyone real learns how. New learning always will come at us. We will find ourselves wrong all our lives long, and get shocks, and discoveries. Some of those discoveries will release stress and pain for us, and some will increase it; but we can always process it simply by letting our bodies go through the time with it. We don't have to think our way out of this. We have to accept our way out of this, and let the thinking follow the acceptance.

man I can go on can't I.