I feel like I'm a horrible person

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I feel like I'm a horrible person.

The stuff that is most upsetting to me, the gender dysphoria, the PTSD, they are so PETTY.

So insignificant compared to the suffering of others, especially right now.

Sighs ... I could use a hug or three ..

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Rose's picture

You deserve more hugs than I can give. I would hesitate to say gender dysphoria and PTSD are petty.
I know that they leave me suffering. Maybe not physically but mentally, certainly.
each of us has a cross to bear in one way or another. Don't beat yourself up about it. You can only change so much, and to do much of that, you need to be in top shape, so working through your own problems often has to come first.

hugs!

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Hugs!
Rosemary

If I find it...

Andrea Lena's picture

I'll send you the link. I read an article on line the other day that discusses how folks who have been traumatized often lapse into comparing their pain with others who they perceive to be worse off. I do it all the time, even with the support of my therapist.

Your HURT is no less painful merely because others have what you perceive to be worse. Without discussing specifics, remember that dysphoria is NOT just about feeling bad about components of your self.

And your abuse includes constant reminders via flashbacks and other extremely painful processes and symptoms. Add to that the stress of taking care of your family while in the midst of a nationwide crisis with limited resources? I consider you one of the most self LESS people I know. Hugs!

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

You are the exact opposite of a terrible person

You are a wonderful person, and I believe I speak for everyone on this site when I say I admire your resilience, kindness, and courage, not to mention your writing skills. Just because there are others who have it worse than you, does not mean your struggles are not difficult, nor your own experiences less painful.

*Lots of Hugs*

Big Hugs...

tmf's picture

Your pain is valid...
Gender dysphoria is valid...
PTSD is valid...

...and the fact that you think of others make you anything but horrible.

Loving Hugs and Huggles tmf

Peace Love Freedom Happiness
and
Health

Why don't horrible people ever feel like horrible people?

laika's picture

But always tell you how great and amazing they are as they brag and bully their way through life, thinking only of themselves and expecting everyone to love them for it, flying into a rage and tweeting a barrage of hurtful abusive insults over the slightest perceived disrespect, like...

Well I can't think of any examples; But it sure ain't you!
People here love you because you're lovable and good.

There's a passage in my Star Trek Deep Space Nine story where a young person with gender dysphoria is talking to a priest of the planet she lives on (Bajor), and says very much the same thing as your blog here about her problems being "petty" compared to so many people with "real problems". What the Vedic says in response just popped into my head as I wrote it, and it really doesn't sound like me or how I usually think, so I think I was either divinely inspired by the Bajoran Prophets or my unconscious is a lot wiser than I am. But I've used it at times to get myself out of a shame/feeling-like-a-horrible-person spiral, and I've pasted it below,
~Big hugs, Veronica
.

One of the monks was standing next to my bench. I must have been deep in thought to not notice him approaching me. He had a nice smile. The sort of eyes you want in a man of faith, “You seem troubled.”

“I don't know,” I shrugged.

He sat down beside me, “I think you do know. I'm a professional at this, I can spot a troubled soul at five hundred meters, and I'd say you're hurting pretty bad.”

“Yeah but ........ I've sort of been thinking here. And I can't really say my problems are that terrible. There's so many people who have been through so much. The farmers who can't work their fields because they're full of mines. Or because the Cardassian poisoned their well as they were leaving here, no reason for it, just being Spoonheads.”

“That seemed pretty low even for them,” he nodded. “You've been testing and purifying your water, I hope.”

“Of course. And my father and my brother, they just got back from spending nine years in a labor camp-”

He whistled in astonishment. “Nine years...”

“They came home, looking like skin and bones---and this was after a month in the hospital, one of those recovery wards they have for the camp survivors---with scars all over them that I don't even want to ask about. When I think about someone going through something like that my own problems just seem so STUPID!”

The blunt, no-nonsense way he spoke, this monk didn't sound like he'd been born into the priestly caste. Maybe a farmer, or a tradesman like my pap. He said, “There's always someone who's got it worse than you. And it's useful to remember that, to help put your troubles in perspective and remember that there's things to be grateful for. But to use it to make yourself guilty and undeserving on top of whatever's hurting you, that's not productive. Unless you just like feeling miserable.”

“I don't. Or I don't think I'm like that.”

“And besides, we always think material problems are more 'real' somehow, because everyone can see them happening; so the empathy comes almost automatically. But they're not. A problem of the spirit can kill you just as dead as a Cardie disruptor. And without peace of mind, all the comfort and luxury you ever wanted will taste like ashes in your mouth. So trying to put our own spiritual or emotional problems on a scale with someone else's physical hardships, it's like comparing apples to oranges.”

“What to what?”

Hugs! The good people are the ones who worry about others ...

It's the good people who worry about others ... Seen it happen.

When I worked for USA FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), it was >routine< for us to have to have to tell people "Please >do< apply for disaster assistance. Never mind that you are saying 'other people need it more' ..."

However much we care and worry about others, however much we would like to help...

We also need to take care of ourselves. "Can't pour from an empty cup." If we don't take care of ourselves, if we don't get care we need - we can just get really into a bad place, we risk burnout - which hurts, until we are so burned out that we stop feeling ... a bad place.

I got lucky - I had a friend who got me to somebody to talk to.
---
And yes, I do have a pretty strong streak of thinking: "The cookies are only for other people ..."
---
So again, (from way more than 6 feet away) Hugs!

Precious Dot.

Do you have a quilt or other heavy blanket? If so, when you get in bed, roll yourself up in it; grab the edges and pull it as tight around you as you can. Hold it that way as long as you can tolerate it.

That's me hugging you.

And remember my byline - (goes with the last sentence of your post) -

Hugz! - **Sigh**

Words may be false and full of art;
Sighs are the natural language of the heart.
-Thomas Shadwell