Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group

Find support with others who have gone through a traumatic experience. Whether you have chronic or acute PTSD, we are here for you.

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mujicaptsd 01/15/2018

I don't feel good today. I woke up that way. It's related somehow to being a guest in the home of friends yesterday. That makes me feel worse, because I feel like an ungrateful guest. They were nothing but nice to me, feeding me twice and allowing me to watch NFL football playoff games on their big screen TV.

What could possibly make me feel bad about that? I think it's because I saw what I lost yesterday. Their home is what are what should have been were I not divorced twice long ago.

Now I'm old and in bad health with PTSD living alone and working toward the end of a career twice interrupted and started over by PTSD. Both times I went bankrupt and lost my job and my home, and had to start over without seniority in earnings again. I once could afford a home like theirs and now I can't.

Wow, I don't like envy or self pity, feeling sorry for myself, but I felt it sneak up on me yesterday. Seeing the kind of home I would have had yesterday left me feeling kindness left me unexpectedly hurt. I apologize for it, yet I wonder: has anyone else here ever felt the same way?

Leo 01/15/2018

In a nutshell, yes. I have felt that way. It sucks. I just... What I once dreamed, I can now not even imagine to be possible, and it's a weird grief indeed.

Ghostdancer 01/15/2018

I’m seeing firsthand the meltdown you describe in relation to divorce and bankruptcy. Nothing can compare or adequately describe what you are feeling. I would say to fight the emptiness you feel and go with some music that lifts you up. Even reading makes for a good distraction as well as a great funny movie. Anything that can interrupt the feelings that are being triggered by where you happen to be physically. If you can try grounding your emotions and shift to a different focus of what you’re seeing. Blessings Be!!

arfie 01/15/2018

Thank you for the reminder to re-read one of my favorite poem, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. It helps me through the envies and regrets of whatever it is I am envying and regretting at the moment.

Envy and self-pity aren't my favorite human traits, either, but they just keep on happening, no matter how often I attempt to banish them. Sigh. . . Can I go be a fruit fly now?

lovelilbeany 01/15/2018

Oh i can so relate. Hugs.

jennyoo7 01/15/2018

Not a lot of regulars joes get to confidently say they fufilled their life's ambition to the max. You, like many of us in this world, had this thing called life shoved in your face and to me your resilience makes you stand out far more than the people in the big house on the top of the hill. How many people can say they've been completely down and out, had to start at the bottom thrice times and still got to travel, still can be so willing to be there for others, still have a successful job? You're far more humble than envious in the bigger scheme of things so you're allowed to feel sorry for yourself for a little while. Truth is you got a raw deal in life and deserved more, point blank. Sit with it for a bit but don't let it consume you, hugs muji

SunCloudJD 01/15/2018

Big hug for you sweetie..... I have had quite a number of days that I could have written this myself

Let it out.... Another hug and a blessing......xo

nancy6464 01/15/2018

(((muji))) Yes, dear muji. Every time I see a parent holding their baby I feel this.

no apology needed for this one~ we feel what we feel triple hugs~

rupa 01/15/2018

I do feel the same many times.. not jealous of other people but its unsorted grief.

Ash 01/15/2018

I feel like this a lot. You're not alone. (((Hugs)))

jewells1 01/15/2018

We do have some commonalities in the starting over, age and health issues. Choosing to leave a situation that left me with a car and a few bags of clothes, as opposed to not living..that as a decision of a restart has been made a couple of times. The third time was not of my choosing. I had found the "home" of love that I wanted and lost it so fast with no recourse. I was just as defeating to my thinking, living and love of life, even more so...but here I am. Making fertilizer out of the shredded left overs of the waste. Keeping the love and support as the hope. It may never be what I had dreams of way back when, though I know back then escape looked good as gold. I don't want pity, but kindness? I fall to my knees.
Maybe because I accept the dark easier than the light. I am wired for that.
It's an accomplishment to unlearn it and make new connections. But, I am into learning.

Hugs Amigo.
J.

cuddles0241 01/15/2018

Yes, I have felt similar feelings of envy and regret after visiting in friends' homes who obviously are doing better financially than I am. My only way of coping with my feelings is to try hard to remind myself of what I do have and tell myself to be grateful for those persons in my life who help me everyday. I also try to remind myself of all the wonderful physical belongings I do have (a small house, a car, my computer, etc.). It doesn't exactly always work but when I can feel grateful I do better with living my life in that moment. Best wishes to you. cuddles0241

patti22 01/15/2018

Sure do. Two of them. And they look a lot like me.

There are times when their normal squabbling can trigger me to hell and back (the old...you don't have anything to cry about thing only from the other side).

Really, really hard being a single parent sometimes and not having anyone to watch the kids for an hour or two.

At times the flashes of anger can make me understand child abuse.

Sigh. I'm forever grateful that I've been able to control it.

donnawanda 01/15/2018

For all of us, looking at what we could have had and should have had, and feeling the grief of having lost so much, is natural and unavoidable. That grieving work is part of the healing process. I would feel bitter anger in your shoes and I guess the grief would be underneath.

By the grace of God I do have a family but still suffer over my inadequacies and the deprivations my children had to suffer growing up because of my emotional issues, chronic illness and dissociation. I just spent two weeks with my in-laws in India, where I saw happy, harmonious families, cheerful gregarious people and mothers who were selflessly and energetically attentive to their children and guests. I felt so much shame at who and what I am, and the kind of mother I have been. I really had to battle my feelings every day of the trip. I told myself "I am exactly what I am supposed to be in this moment." It wasn't easy to believe.

Jillsaundars 01/15/2018

Here with a hug, I just try to enjoy the respite from my reality when I enter a happy home and wonder at how different everything is for everyone

KneeDeep 01/15/2018

I can relate too muji. remembrance of times in your life and the losses you experienced. Hugs and wishing you better days ahead. ☼

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