Probably not useful advice. But you gotta give yourself permission to be loved
So I found a therapist I like right out of the gate. I've been with her for two and a half years. I'd say my first actual "oh fuck" breakthrough was a few months ago (apart from getting evaluated and diagnosed for ADHD and all the fun counterparts) and finally I'm more in that "therapy" mindset, not quiet interrupting my thoughts yet, but able to reflect and decontextualize now..... after 2 fucking years I'm seeing progress. It's meaningful progress for sure, and I do feel healthier now. But there's been a lot of times I thought of tapping out or looking elsewhere. But she gets me, and I trust her fully.
Someone shows me kindness or love I feel nothing.
For me, it was because I didn't believe it.
Self love is hard. I think neurodivergence makes it harder, as I have a harder time reflecting (at appropriate times) or interrupting my behavior. It's my current focus in therapy. I recently had upper jaw surgery (expanded my upper jaw nearly 2cm) that fixed my crowded teeth (did it for medical reasons but the teeth is a huge bonus). I can breath better, I can't imagine breathing from anything but my nose now, and there's a huge visual impact too. Also, not being able to chew for two months made me loose some pounds. So I'm getting compliments, and for the first time in my life.... I believe them. I'm not just oh-haha-thanksing my way into a new subject that's not my physical appearance, I'm engaging with the topic and it's boosting my self image. It feels good. The teeth have been a 2 year journey, a lot of pain, a long recovery but it's starting to pay off. I'm excited to reconnect with people and talk about it, and get attention.
Do I love myself? No. But I hate myself less, and can see the path to loving the person I want to be. I think that's been my biggest advantage. I still don't know who I want to be, but I know some of the things they do, or how they eat, or wear, or exercise, or their vibe. And it's been a subtle motivator for me. It takes time
So.... my two cents is sticking with it if you're able. Try and find a more specialized therapist, or try and get evaled by a psych if you think that maybe a barrier. Obviously I do not know your situation, or your access to mental health care. But I'm rooting for ya.
I think that a factor in accepting love is trust. I mean functional trust, not a gamblers capricious momentary choice, real trust. The kind that takes time and risk to cultivate. All the issues with "who do I trust" and "I'm scared to be vulnerable" are at play, so I'm not being facetious, I know it's hard because it's hard for me, too. And even if you cultivate trust, it's no guarantee that someone won't hurt you, I would only say it's worth the time and effort because all good things in life seem to come with time and effort instead of wishes or imagination by themselves.
I always feel like someone, anyone is going to hurt me. I don’t ever let myself feel comfortable like I’m always on edge or something ready to defend myself.
An early and important step of trust is trusting your own defense mechanisms. Don't give them free reign, but accept and even appreciate that they existed to protect you during bad times, and that the anxiety you feel is those systems trying their best to continue protecting you even when they aren't as needed.
Its an interesting thought but I feel like my defense mechanisms are so extreme they hurt me.
You did mention you don't trust any of your therapists. I mean it's theoretically possible that they are all bad therapists, but I think it's more likely that your defenses are a bit too indiscriminate.
but I can’t default to anything else.
It's possible to gradually grow a new default with conscious active practice. "Today, I'm going to trust someone in a measured reasonable way and see what happens" can be habit forming.
I’ll give it a go, but i always get hurt. I’m just a person people enjoy hurting.
It's understandable, it really is. It won't become a habit without voluntary repetition and it is possible that the person you decide to trust in a measured way hurts you anyway. A part of trust is vulnerability, after all. And that is risky.
I don’t even feel anything anymore I’m not sure im even human, Can I even go back to feeling?
I replied to this hours ago but :hexbear-retro: kept going Hi There!
I'll hope this reply gets through. Feeling numb after a lot of emotional hurt and a lack of trusting connections is very human. Feeling can return, but it may feel raw at first, almost like something frozen thawing out.
Healing takes time and can only start when conditions change, or are changed.
See, we're all in the same boat here. All you have is all I have. I can try to see myself, which is really hard and works better when someone that can see me describes what they see...then I can decide myself what it is that's in the way of what I want. Then I can do something about it. You gotta take things one at a time and take the time.
One thing about living in the US is that people don't see their effort or time as valuable, it's about making labor cheap and fast. If you could see the result of your effort as valuable, it wouldn't be long before you started seeing all your problems in the light of making the effort and taking your own time and then you get the results all to yourself. Then self work is just another day and you get all the results.
Your effort matters and is valuable and it's easy to see it when you do it yourself. :soviet-heart:
I think something that is important to understand about love is that is isn't earned, its given to you freely as a gift.
Don't question whether you "deserve" it, or if it is offered as part of some kind of mistake. You only need accept it and not worry about what you did to receive it. The only thing you ever need to worry about is making sure you love others back.
Love doesn't work that way. It's someone else's decision to love you, that isn't for you to decide.
It is like I said, you are trying to justify this as if it is a computer program that needs "justification". It is a gift of kindness. You sound caught up in this idea that you are unworthy or deserve punishment for acknowledging and accepting it. For any reason you would try to dismiss someones kindness, it is irrational to reject someones unconditional love. So instead of resisting it, just reciprocate it back if you don't feel anything. It is important to others to feel loved too.
If you truly reciprocate enough and see that happiness it brings to others, you may realize why people were offering you love all along.
Something that could help you understand yourself would be to go watch a certain movie. Groundhog Day.
It's a movie where the main character played by Bill Murray, gains access to whatever he wants by being in a timeloop. He is able to enjoy all the treats and pleasures he wants and decides to neglect everything about himself. He becomes completely miserable. When he tries to pursue a woman to get her to love him, she tells him "How could you love me? You don't even love yourself."
He betrays his own sense of self respect because as far as he is concerned, he never needs to shower again, or brush his teeth, or do anything else to maintain his health or friendships. It destroys him internally despite the fact that he can never truly die. It is only when after striking out so many times with the woman he is infatuated with, he decides to do something different... he starts helping people. He suddenly finds purpose in his life and decides to take time building skills to help others. He turns his helpless attitude of him not mattering into his greatest weapon to find happiness. His helplessness he turns into selflessness.
Despite being locked inside one day... forever... he soon has the entire town falling in love with him every day and celebrating him. He finally feels love from others ,because he understands how it feels to give it to others. He finds such a sense of purpose that he becomes satisfied, even comforted by the fact that tomorrow will just reset everything all over again, because he will be happy.
If you are feeling in a place where you feel the same way, turn that feeling of worthlessness into a selfless drive to love and help others. Also you should watch it because it is a good movie.
Depression sucks. The solution I most recommend is meds, but if you can't get that get some good sleep and sunshine. I've recently discovered that I think more negative thoughts about myself when I haven't slept well enough the night before.
I would like to echo the "be careful" part of this advice. Especially if you have anxiety, psychedelics can seriously fuck up your brain for a while even after one use. It happened to me.
However, I have also found shrooms to be particularly useful and can ease anxiety for like a month after only one use.
This is a take that I feel is discredited because of how popular it is with the chuds, but exercising and keeping yourself in good shape goes a long way. Really anything that ups your self-esteem will do it for you.
I got to a similar place. best I could do with therapy/actively interrupting negative thoughts before they festered/getting fit was to feel ambivalent about myself. turned it was dysphoria and I had to transition. I was relating to my fit self as "this is a guy I'd be attracted to if I were a woman" -- which, you know, turned out to be telling. YMMV but in my experience you kind of just have to keep looking until you find the right answer for you.
you just answered your own question before you posed it. hun, dysphoria will eat at you forever. there's literally no rationalizing with it. it's pre-rational, pre-sensory. it disconnects you from yourself so thoroughly that life feels like it's happening to someone else.
some reading material:
- https://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/04/17/the-null-hypothecis/
- https://zinniajones.medium.com/depersonalization-in-gender-dysphoria-widespread-and-widely-unrecognized-baaac395bcb0
- https://genderdysphoria.fyi/
(the last one is a bit trans femme focused / enby/trans masc-exclusionary but it's still a good read)
try taking small, reversible steps towards transition and see how it makes you feel. like change your pronouns on here and ask people to call you she/her. for me, the thing that removed all doubt was wearing some makeup and catching the light in a way that made me a see a girl in the mirror for the first time. the world actually fell away and I felt so light and happy, in a way that trying to look attractive as a man couldn't touch. and the first time someone called me she had me over the moon for weeks. if you know any trans people irl, try talking to them - chances are they'll leap at the chance to give you a makeover so you can see how you feel. all of this stuff lasts as long as you want it to and you can go back at any time.
also, I completely get not wanting to transition because of how brutal society is to trans people right now. like the day I realized I had to transition was also the same day Trump's admin published their first memo calling for the genocide of trans people. but here's the thing... you only get to live once. you can keep living in a dream world, perpetually walled by force you can't see or break by any means, or you can try to be you. there may very well be consequences - there definitely have been for me, I can't hide that. but there's never been a moment where I wished I could go back to the way things were. I can't even contemplate such a self-annihilatory thought any more.
best way to make that treatment rare is for more people to experiment with pronouns & gender. everyone deserves to be themselves - even you. the only one stopping you from being you is you. we no more own what it is to be a woman than the cis. you deserve to be happy.
Research shows that isolation is the mind killer. Separation from others works for people who genuinely mean you harm, but also isolates yourself from people who might help you. You've already identified the problem; seperating between the people who care about you versus the people who don't give a fuck about you.
So here's a band-aid solution: find your '🍓' people
You know people. Some people hurt you and some people make you feel better after you interact with them. The people who hurt you? They don't matter. Find the people who make you feel fuller after you interact with them. Happier. Better. Those people, you need to put a 🍓 next to their name in your phone/discord/whatever device. These people, their attention is what matters. If it's been a while since you've heard from them, talk to them, if they talk to you, talk back.
Everyone else? They're not important. They are NOT important.
Strangers are white noise. Do not let their words in. They don't matter. Only your '🍓' people do.
Have you ever tried a Stellate Ganglion Block? It's kind of a hard reset to the nervous system, maybe it could help
I'm not sure of the how the science works, it's still in early stages, but apparently the anesthetic temporarily disrupts the signals that go to parts of the brain that make you feel sad and anxious
Which forces the brain to rewire itself, which apparently has resulted to the alleviation of everything from ptsd to long covid
Pain and Spine doctors are usually the ones who provide the treatment since it was originally for people suffering from chronic pain, but it was inadvertently discovered that symptoms of all kinds of disorders and emotional traumas also dissipated among many patients
Isn't that similar to what psychedelics do, without injections into the spine?
Possibly, I'm not knowledgeable on the effect of psychedelics on the nervous system but I've heard some incredible things that have happened to people
One anomalous medical case I remember reading about a few years ago was one women who "overdosed" on psychedelics, practically had a hours long seizure and then woke up with her schizophrenia cured
I had an ex I dated for like 6 months last year and they told me they loved me, but I was so weirded out and had no idea how to respond
That is most likely why they are now an ex
Love and appreciate others. So you can recognize when it's given to you.
You know that cliche about loving yourself before you can accept love from others? Unfortunately, it's true. The good news is that this process doesn't have to involve repeating mantras in the mirror while collecting crystals or whatever.
According to the Internal Family Systems model, we each have various subroutines that we pull from for various scenarios. When you have a strong sense of self, these subroutines feed you valuable information. They tell you when you're anxious or overwhelmed or depressed and they give you suggested responses. When you don't have a strong sense of self, however, these subroutines can essentially run the show. The voice telling you "hey, it's weird that you don't have more friends," for example, can become the dominant voice.
What works for me is to actually respond to these voices like they're separate people existing within me. When my "manager" voice starts to get on my case for not getting enough work done, I verbally remind it that I am perfectly okay being an inadequate employee. When my "fireman" voice tells me to start panicking because my emotions are too overwhelming, I give it a gentle reminder that it's okay to feel a little overwhelmed and that there are healthier ways to escape. At the same time, sometimes these voices are right - sometimes I need to get shit done to keep my job and sometimes I just need to escape my feelings to deal with them. As you start to figure out what you actually want to do versus what those subroutines are telling you to do, you can decide when their advice is worth following. Trust yourself that what you want in life is good and tell those subroutines "thanks, but I've got this."
This part is all about practice because you will feel super silly talking to your voices like this, but idk, I've been in therapy for well over half my life and this is the first time I'm making progress. If this sounds interesting to you, look into a trauma-informed therapist with a focus on the IFS model. A good therapist will help you explore how these subroutines developed and begin to see the contradictions within them.
