numb

[Damien]

I don't usually ask for help as i like to find my own way through a storm (usually by helping getting my loved ones through).... but I am exhausted to the point of being numb...

I really don't like giving my life story, but need to get this off my chest and see if anyone can offer any advice...

BG: In some way i am fortunate that I have only 3 events that haunt me from my past - suicide of a classmate when in school (same year we lost another classmate and my grandad to cancer - rough year), being stabbed and mugged by a drug stuffed family member and the murder of a good friend - all occurring when I was in high school. The last 2 occurred just a month and a half after eachother (really rough year).

I hav not really let that stop me, though it still haunts my dreams and memories on occasion. Most of my goals have come into fruition - world travel, teaching, scientific research, inventing, volunteer work etc (the oen that has not come true is being a husband and dad).

But the last 4 years have been a rollercoaster punctuating by the passing of over a dozen loved ones, colleagues and students - all of them I was close to.

Normally, I bounce back through my study, work or volunteerism - and even though I am pursuing all three with vigour - I feel so numb, only broken by moments when I tear up.

I think in some way I am broken, and I think I was broken by the early events and just broke even more.

So many people say for me to 'get over it' (usually a lot more politely, but not always) - but I think a line in Evanescence's song My Immortal somes it up for me:

"There is some pain that time cannot erase"

I have tried counselling, but despite their very good efforts, they don't help.

Conversely, I feel quite an intense guilt even contemplating any of this, as there are lot worse off people and I seriously feel i should get off my backside and do more.

I am just wondering if there are anyone else here who has had something like this - what did/do you do to overcome the numbness?

[Plaidman]

I have and do. And the only thing that can genereally get me through a day is that realization that life is just generally crap. Life will always be crap. Life loves to stab you, kick you while your down and stab and murder your cats while screaming at you that how dare you even think that life would ever be kind.

Life can be kind at times, but more then half the time, life just sucks.

You have at least lived some of your dreams. That's alot more then others can say. Even the basic necessities of life alot don't get, such as food, shelter, love, etc.

I know that doesn't help at all. But your not alone. At all. Life is a big steaming pile of shit that will always seek the best way of hurting you the most, because it's funny to it.

[TelephoneAngel]

Please ignore this if not helpful

When I had to see a therapist over something which haunted my nightmares for years she taught me a very clever trick which helped immensely, I don't know if it's something you could try (and to be honest when she told me about this I did not think it would help at all)

She said that whenever I woke up thinking about it I was to immediately imagine a big cardboard box and "put those memories back in it"So the memories are still there for if you want to get them out and examine them but at times when you want to sleep they are safe in the box.

It took me a couple of weeks of doing this before I began to feel ok with it and now I do just that.Unwanted thoughts go into the box.Thoughts I want to examine can come out of the box but they go back in when I've had enough.

So I do this now with thoughts of loved ones who have passed over.If I want to remember them I retrieve those memories from the box.But if I am becoming morbid over it then they go back in the box until I can deal with it.