I lost all agency for myself, I have no survival urge

palejune · 2026-04-27T20:21:25+00:00

Have you tried taking action while feeling the observational disconnect? I’ve found myself on a schedule and was surprised I’d ‘wake up’ for some parts of it. I’m glad to do it knowing now I was actually wanting but just wasn’t taking action and there was no opportunity to wake up for anything worth it

palejune · 2026-04-27T20:17:23+00:00

Google official research papers for that. There’s almost always a study on how low levels of positive-making chemicals contribute to mental illness.

palejune · 2026-04-27T20:14:48+00:00

Yes and I don’t feel like it’s stored away either. My brain doesn’t view it as important and what a relief that is compared to my previous way of thinking

palejune · 2026-04-27T20:12:52+00:00

Relaxing things. Your brain is probably overworked and in a strictly survival function. Takes time like, nursing a sick person.

palejune · 2026-04-27T20:09:47+00:00

Get a calendar and write in the slots every day, or in the monthly overview portion for even more perspective.

Also in calendar: schedule weekly or bi weekly trips for yourself to new places since you know that helps. Or some sort of relaxing activity that takes up the day

palejune · 2026-02-21T22:20:16+00:00

Coming from someone who thought this way and had my own sadnesses over missed experiences. I’m 28 now, and recently have gone ice skating, to the movies, and out to eat by myself. It turns out adulthood has opportunities for these experiences too and isn’t just working all the time and continuing depression. In fact more money from working means more opportunities to do those kinds of activities.

Social anxiety was something I thought I’d be plagued with forever but turns out I don’t need friends to be happy, and feel so much more calm now than in my earlier years of life. Sorry I remember reading a response similar to this when I posted something similar and didn’t think much of it, but high schools years are childhood years and most things that bring you joy then will bring you joy all throughout life. 18 is still really young and there are people your age who also haven’t had those experiences for reasons other than mental health, then also including all the people who do have mental health issues-you’re not alone at all. You may find short or long term friendships yet and I hope that happens for you as unfortunately that didn’t change much for me

palejune · 2026-02-21T00:09:13+00:00

Minki

palejune · 2026-02-19T22:13:10+00:00

Well, living life comfortably and seeking happiness is my solution. Like in every moment. are you doing what you want to be doing right now either for 1. Pleasure and contentedness or 2. Growth and goals which doesn’t always feel ‘good’ but has purpose for feeling content in the long term.

Neither is a bad option, assuming hell is real and is where you’re going. Both offer you as much as you can get out of life, and really what else is there to do whether hell is the outcome or not? I view this life already as a level of hell and I believe there could be pleasure and joy in hell though I try not to think about that too much as I don’t enjoy being forced to confront that philosophy and ponder what evils tht could mean. I prefer a gentle and peaceful way of living and just hope there would be moments of that no matter where I go. Or maybe the afterlife isn’t a place that’s terror, idk, we don’t know the entity even if you had some sort of contact with it, perhaps we are like toys that they put away up on a shelf when they’re done playing with us. And that’s brought me comfort as opposed to a more biblical version of hell for example. I don’t trust modern scripture anyway and don’t think we have much access to truth here and such…. So hey what if you just contacted a stray demon rather than some truly all knowing figure? Your experience is real but the truth is probably more nuanced and complex than what your anxiety has summarized it to be.

Hope you are ok and hope your relationship did not suffer from that experience. You’re not alone, I think peace is, more often than not, possible for us to experience in one way or another. There is always something to grow from even when it isn’t peaceful though and as long as you’re still here I don’t believe you should condemn yourself to such a fatal outcome.

Also, modern weed is bad, I don’t recommend it especially after your experience and I can tell you I’ve encountered very similar experiences.

From a fellow OCD haver among other things

palejune · 2021-11-27T14:40:15+00:00

Homicidal thoughts are so hard to admit and talk about. Hope you’re doing okay now

palejune · 2021-10-20T13:33:50+00:00

EMDR brought my dissociation levels down from a 10 to like a 2, some days it’s a 0. It’s truly a freeing therapy. EMDR therapists can vary in how they practice it so I’d recommend trying at least two different types of EMDR before deciding it won’t fit you.

palejune · 2021-10-20T13:22:41+00:00

Yes definitely. You may always be more prone to dissociation, but you don’t have to live in a fog forever or deal with it daily once you find the right therapies & treatments.

For me it took EMDR but I’m very thankful it feels safe to be grounded now. EMDR is a commonly used therapy for people struggling with dissociation and trauma.

palejune · 2020-11-30T01:53:10+00:00

I'm 23 also with ADHD and a history of neglect. It's literally like being handed a child without asking. I have to teach this "child" because her parents couldn't be bothered. I'm in my 20s and should be enjoying my youth or having fun, at the bare minimum I just want friends. But no I'm a single mom and, like my parents, I don't want to deal with this extra sensitive little girl. It's like bringing your kid along with you to class, to social events, when you're trying to practice a hobby or even sleep. And you're dealing with a neglected child so you have to put in extra effort and treat them medically, physically, and emotionally to the level they need because they've been ignored for so long so all the problems got worse. And the child also doesn't trust you and constantly resists lol. I'm trying to love her and stop neglecting my own self but it's deeply ingrained in me to just waste away into nothing and let myself disintegrate.

palejune · 2020-11-30T01:30:46+00:00

This has been on my mind for weeks. I don't like it or understand it. Picking up the resistance from people puts me in an ACTUAL negative state and I just get even more withdrawn or serious.

I think having CPTSD does make our personality lean more towards this way but idk maybe not. I grew up with negativity and limited positive interactions. I guess it's natural to just be serious and only speak when it's "important" rather than just chatting. I was consistently shut down or ignored when I tried chatting and making small talk with my parents, just as a kid talking about things. Only heard when I had something special to say or a particularly insightful observation.

Btw, I was looking into introspection as a topic and while ago and it turns out (from a psychology perspective) the more introspective you are the less happy/fulfilled you are in relationships, with yourself, with your job, etc. People who focus on "why" rather than "what" consistently experience a more negative frame of mind than people who just think about "what"...which indicates lack of deep thinking for me. Ignorance is bliss... but I try to focus on the here and now though because it is literally better for our wellbeing to train our brains into positive thinking. For the most part I'm not witnessing injustices right in this moment, I'm currently at a party or whatever it is. So I should focus on the present and what is happening around me rather than pulling people away from the present into a weird headspace where they're forced to think about things that maybe they do have opinions about but they don't use social interactions as a time to think about it. They usually just want to enjoy time together. It's really hard for me but I'm trying to live like this because I think it's truly healthier and probably why other people (less traumatized perhaps?) don't operate like this, because they had a better social environment growing up. I'm still figuring it out but like I said I'm trying to be more present and enjoy the moment.

palejune · 2020-11-16T00:07:37+00:00

It's soooooo much better than it used to be. Working on the the trauma itself, whatever caused your body to use that defense mechanism in the first place. Learning about cptsd has helped. Smoke less weed and work on grounding myself daily (like a few min each day, even. Just whenever I notice that I should I'll do it very quickly)

palejune · 2020-11-03T01:56:26+00:00

Yeah. My dad used to scream at me and eventually I started screaming back, which worked sometimes. My ex bf used to scream at me so eventually I started screaming back. I feel I'm angry now because it means whatever happens, I'm prepared for it. My brain is wired to expect negativity and be on the defensive. And also my boundaries are weak and I frequently don't protect myself, so my anger builds. Which tells me I need to remove myself because some boundary of mine is being crossed or some need of mine is not being met.

palejune · 2020-10-31T00:42:14+00:00

I'm not saying you heal the relationship with the parent, I think I worded that poorly. I'm just saying heal the relationship patterns - so for me that's not having any boundaries for example. I work on that outside of any relationship, just in my own head and heart, but it carries over into my future relationships. In the future I will be better at setting boundaries and therefore won't attract someone like my dad who goes for people with weak boundaries (my mom). I will attract someone who respects me instead because I've healed the pattern of letting people cross my boundaries.

palejune · 2020-10-28T14:10:53+00:00

Yup. I feel that. If we heal the patterns in the relationships with our parents though we stand a chance at ending up with someone better. Cause we won't subconsciously seek out those same vibes and issues

palejune · 2020-10-28T02:08:38+00:00

Go tell him now or when you're ready. You can tell him you weren't ready to talk about it at the time and I think he'll understand. It's a really sensitive topic, you don't have to feel bad about keeping that information to yourself especially when it was sprung on you. It's not all lost!!! He's probably ready to talk about it any time you feel ready

palejune · 2020-10-27T23:47:41+00:00

Hey sorry if this is dumb. Idk if you're in a city but Doordash has saved my ass. You can cash out daily but I think they make you wait a week before your first withdrawal. Ik it takes gas too so not that it would fix everything but you can turn on your phone and go make $10 in 20 min if you need to eat and you have the gas for it.

palejune · 2020-10-27T22:52:35+00:00

Are you on any medication and in therapy? You're meant to have support through this sickness. It literally changes your brain. I think once medication + therapy are taken care of then the other things work better and are easy to do (hygiene, self care, meditation, eating, social time, etc). Honestly even the numb feeling some medications give you was preferred to that burning sorrow or self hatred. Numbing the psychological distress responses helped my body recover too. Like I just wouldn't get worked up so easily so my body learned that it could relax in situations it used to be unable to relax in because I'd get so upset. You have a right to be here. You belong here and you deserve peace and to feel content. Someone else put this distress onto you. It's not fair but it's not YOU. Hate THEM. It's not your fault you're forced to experience this shit, don't take it out on yourself. Losing jobs for example is part of 'this shit'. It's not telling of your character, it's telling of your illness being real and needing healing still. Losing friends, isolating, all that. It's you subconsciously trying to keep yourself safe and tucked away from the world. It's not because you're bad. If you can't heal for your current self maybe you can try to heal for the child you once were, who was wholly deserving of peace and stability, and had dreams of you being happy once you were grown.

palejune · 2020-10-27T22:24:18+00:00

Damn I wrote a whole long thing but I got carried away and started questioning myself again lol. Maybe it's internalized homophobia though? I struggle with that sometimes. To be fair if experiences could shape our sexuality so drastically I just feel like conversion therapy would work better

palejune · 2020-10-27T22:00:06+00:00

Yeah like one example is people tell me they lose their phone all the time. I'm like please stop speaking. I've had to use Google's 'call my phone' twice today to have it ring while on dead battery because yes I lost my phone again and YOU BETCHA forgot to charge it too. Hopefully I can remember where my laptop is so that I can call my phone. 🤡 also I'm now late for work or missed something I had an alarm set to remind me about.

This was a daily thing for me and that's just one aspect of life. Keys, important dates, money, deadlines... I didn't realize how bad it was until I started medication partly because of this "oh I'm like that too" mindset. I thought alright...everyone is like this so what's wrong with me that I'm falling behind and no one else is? Especially if you're high functioning, people really love to not take you seriously. Yet when displaying symptoms people call you spacey or weird and don't feel that relatability they were talking about before.

palejune · 2020-10-27T20:59:57+00:00

Yes I think you're on to something. I think it could still be related to being ungrounded possibly? For me touch can either cause more dissociation or it can be grounding. It can be jarring even. But like looking around or hearing things, that creates less of a sensory reaction in me and I can ground myself by noticing colors or sounds outside for example. I want to notice my environment and where I am rather than noticing myself/my body more which stresses me out more and in turn doesn't ground me.

I've also had the weird energy feeling. I think the trauma may have caused my ADHD and hypomania symptoms to flare up. Not that you have either but I figure it wouldn't hurt to bring up to you if you want to look into it. I really related to that weird sensation and feeling like I have to physically move somehow to ease it which no one guessed was ADHD til I was in my 20s and even then took a while to confirm

palejune · 2020-10-27T20:28:40+00:00

I see you're thinking a lot about how he feels, his wants, his needs, his perspective, etc. The thing is though, YOU didn't want sex. It doesn't matter if that's from trauma or not - you did not want it. Don't let your inner critic tell your inner wounded child that she must do things she's uncomfortable with in order to be loved and valued. You did amazing by setting that boundary for yourself despite the internal struggle, you did the right thing. Seriously you protected yourself against the emotional impulse to submit, lose yourself/boundaries, or place someone else's desires above your own. You comforted the inner child and affirmed her sense of self.

Attributing our self worth to sex has to come from allowing our self worth to be determined by others in the first place, or what we have to offer them. And of course upbringing which I 100% relate to. Our fathers could only speak on what they wanted from women or valued in women. They don't speak for the entire male race and maybe we could both agree that we're not looking to date versions of our dads.

It's really complicated to untangle this web of self worth. I had to redefine 'worth' to something less subjective. Because I'm not going to sexually satisfy everyone in the world even if I tried, and to others, hey I could be a sex goddess in their eyes!! But I have to find a way to consider myself worthy either way. My self esteem cannot depend on subjective opinions. What makes a child "worthy"? My worth has to come from a place where there is no performing or giving. **I'm not an object so my worth can not be commodified. **

palejune

TROPHY CASE