Do you ever feel so low about your life?

That most people around you are getting jobs, podcasts, going away/traveling, getting a new home, a new puppy, dating, having kids etc.

And what am I doing? Trying to read self help books every week on just how to alter myself, change myself, better myself. (From severe decades of trauma).
Still feeling panicked about dating, about certain jobs, and even about simply meeting up with a friend from many years ago. People say just say to guys, I do have anxiety but I accept myself...but I know they can choose so many others who don't have my issues. And realistically, do I think they'd choose a person with chronic PTSD over a confident woman? No.

It can feel crippling watching everyone around you experience joy, love and life.. while you are stuck for years, drowning.
Have you felt that?

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PatientlyWaiting25 · 46-50, F

Listen to your auntie Roberta. Usually I talk absolute crap but today there might be the odd thing I say that is sensible. 😂

Everything you do or do not do is a choice. You can choose to stay trapped by trauma and live a life that is somewhat stagnant which makes you miserable or you can say to yourself "that was then, it is not now" I'm going to choose to be happy instead.

I'm not arguing that choosing happiness isn't hard sometimes but whatever you choose to do, it is you that has ultimate control over your life, even choosing to do nothing is still a choice that you are making right?

Also, don't be comparing yourself and the choices that you make to other people, because most people present the best side of their lives to the world so you're getting a false impression of their lives anyway, when it actually might be really crap but also, it's their life, what they are doing might not be right for you.

And comparing yourself to others is actually a pointless exercise because all you achieve in that situation is to set impossibly high standards for yourself, which you cannot sustain, so you set yourself up to fail and then you are back at square one again feeling shitty again.

Well it's twenty past one in the morning and I've also been drinking vodka so I hope this actually makes sense lol. It feels like a bit of a nonsense rambling, sort of like drunk dialing an ex to tell him he's a knobhead. Don't ever do that by the way. It usually backfires. 😂

Baybreeze · 41-45, F

@PatientlyWaiting25 Would a choice need to be conscious, because I definitely don't think or have had a clear thought of choosing, I'll do nothing. Trauma makes you feel numb, non-existent, and distorted thinking, often that you don't deserve joy, or regular things, and that you're also incapable of it. I agree to not compare, Bec you don't truly know of someone life is what they're portraying. Ty🌼

PatientlyWaiting25 · 46-50, F

@Baybreeze it can be both I think. You already recognised that some of the feelings you're having are negative - such as the feeling that you don't deserve joy or that you are incapable of it but the choice is, what do you do with that? You can choose to call it out as negative and thus not a helpful or truthful thought or you can choose to accept it. Each time you make the choice that it's not true or helpful, you slowly reeducate your brain of that fact ❤