When you no longer have faith

[Healandlove]

Hi everyone,

It's a beautiful day in Sydney.

I am hitting a new low. I feel I have lost faith and belief in everything.  I don't even believe in myself anymore. I feel I am not a good person and that my need for family and connection comes from pure selfishness. I have been reading about how people that consider themselves good people because they want to make everyone happy which is a type of people pleasing, are nothing but manipulators. I now don't know what to think of myself anymore. Everytime I extended kindness then, was it kindness or was it just wanting to manipulate others to love me? 

Has anyone experienced these feelings or thoughts before? 

This is the first time I am loosing faith in myself. And being the support person of my husband with cptsd makes me think that he doesn't really need me. And as a mother I think I am not fit to be a good mother because all of this kindness is just a form of manipulation. 

I don't know what to think or feel anymore. I don't want my kids to ever feel this way but I fear I will pass all of my bad qualities to them so I think they would be better off not growing up with me. 

@tyme @RiverSeal @PeppiPatty @Shaz51 

[Shaz51]

Ohhh @Healandlove please don't lose you faith my friend,  you are wonderful and caring ❤️ 

I have and do feel like you many times 

And even last night I let it all out in my dream which woke me up with a wow 

Sitting with you my friend ❤️ and having a cuppa with you 

@Ru-bee , @Jynx , @Dimity. @Ainjoule , @Faith-and-Hope , @Determined , @Asgard , @Snowie , @Tootsy , @Bon_courage 

[Healandlove]

@Shaz51 thank you for your kind words my lovely friend. I feel like I have let everyone down, specially myself. If I could go back I would do so many things differently. I have a session with my therapist next week and I will speak to him about it. I think the EMDR is making things worse for me. 

Thank you for sharing a cuppa with me. I'm sorry but I am hugging you and crying.  I hope that's OK. 

How are you? Dreams can be so unsettling.

I hope you don't have many of those. 🫂

[Shaz51]

sending you lots of big hugs @Healandlove 😍

If I could go back, I would do so many things differently.--- same here my friend , everyone here can say the same thing and have the same feelings as us 

letting you know that you are not alone 

when we have these moments , sometimes it is hard to pick ourselves up again to carry on 

the link below was from the peer group chat , if you like to click onto it and have a look xx

Peer Group Chat // Stepping Stones to Self-Love // Thursday 1st August 2024, 7-8:30PM AEST 

[Dimity]

Hello @Healandlove I hear you... I struggle with wanting to help my sister (who is also ambivalent) and wanting to connect myself, but maybe we're too quick to judge ourselves harshly. I've found EMDR can emphasise and multiply bad old feelings of abandonment and worthlessness while we process them and learn to deal with them. Are you able to talk to your therapist about it? They may be able to help you through it with other strategies and ways of processing... mine did, we also talked about where in the body I was holding tension and how to relieve it.

Faith and trust and good intentions count for a lot, but unwarranted shame and guilt can fuel self-doubt. Please know that you're not alone in this journey, and there's a way through to happier times.

[Healandlove]

@Shaz51 , it's almost like I am believing I don't deserve love or happiness. I know it's not right but I can't shake this feeling.  Thank you for attaching the link to the chat. I missed it. It's hard for me to make these chats these days as that lands during dinner time for me. I really appreciate the time it takes to write up the notes so we can connect later and catch up on them.

Thank you Shazzy for holding my hand. ❤️

[Jynx]

Sending you some squishy huggles as well @Healandlove 🫂🫂🫂

I am here for ya hun, for chats, distractions, reassurance, whatever you need 💜

[Healandlove]

@Dimity thank you so much for taking the time to share this with me. It helps to know I'm not alone. And EMDR is stirring a lot of negative feelings...I suspect...and hearing about your experience helps confirm it. I will talk to my therapist about it and maybe pause it for the next session while he gives me tools to cope. It feels like I am broken and I don't know how to put myself back together again.  Is this how you felt? My therapist is a trauma trained and specialises in EMDR so I hope I am in good hands. Sometimes it worries me as it is a very vulnerable space to be in and I am double guessing whether I should stop EMDR all together.  I had 2 session so far and all around feelings of rejection from my older sister. Even though during the session I came to some conclusions which seemed peaceful, I now feel like I deserve the rejection.  This is also compounded by the challenges of my husband's behaviour towards my parents and at times me. He has cptsd so pushes everyone around him away. My parents live in a granny flat at our place so you can see how complicated it all is. They generally try to stay out of his way.

My husband has moments of kindness but is mostly distant and I think he resents our living arrangements even though he says no. My parents are independent and stay out of his way. 

I feel I don't even know myself or who loves me. I know I love my children deeply but even on a day like today I don't think I'm good enough to be their mum. They deserve someone mentalky healthy and strong and I am neither. Being a support person for my husband, looking after the emotional needs of my aging parents and the rejection from my sister has taken its toll on me. 

I don't know how to go on. ❤️‍🩹

[Healandlove]

@Jynx thank you so much.

I just want to be better but today I have self loathing because I feel I have let so many people down. I feel like I should run away. Even hugging my children is not helping because I don't feel I deserve them. 

I truly despise myself and I don't know how these feelings are coming about. I have gone from thinking I was a good person to just thinking I deserve all the badness in the world.

Thank you for holding my hand.

[Jynx]

@Healandlove anytime darlin, giving your hand an extra squeeze, too 😊

Sometimes, when there's lots of little things getting to me, it can kind of become like a knock-on effect - e.g. stress from one thing means I'm not sleeping as well, which makes my resilience lower, meaning another little stress (that ordinarily I would cope ok with) can become a really big stress. Then that means I might start cancelling plans or neglecting my food intake, and I'll end up so overwhelmed that a lot of the things I've worked really hard on (like my self-talk) can also start to slip. The reason I'm saying all of this, is because it sounds like the not-knowing is also a source of distress for you right now, which can kinda compound everything hey. Do you think overwhelm and/or burnout could be part of it? 

Sometimes a lil smidge of strengths-work can also go a long way. If you're up for it, perhaps you could recall some times where you demonstrated kindness, compassion, generosity, stuff like that, to someone? Things that can provide direct evidence against the nasty thoughts plaguing you. For me, it really helps to remind myself of the fact that I'm only human, I'm complicated, I'm never all one thing (never all bad or all good), I'm allowed to struggle and make mistakes, and that I deserve kindness and compassion simply for the fact that I'm human - I don't need to do anything to deserve them. And the same is true for you 💜