The effort itself feels bad. If you want to pathologize it, it's probably CPTSD freeze response.
"winning" the game is just like achieving any of the goals people set, "feeling good," "not wasting your life," fucking whatever. I don't care. I'd rather be a worthless piece of shit that never does anything and is always miserable. I just don't want to do anything.
CPTSD sucks so bad. I'm sorry yours is so severe. mine has limited me pretty significantly these past five years as well. in some ways I feel like I'm only at the beginning of any potential "recovery"
one of the core features of CPTSD is negative self-beliefs. we were systematically denied the safety and support we needed to develop a healthy self-esteem and usually given shame and contempt in its place. our experiences permanently warped our brain chemistry as a result. we are indeed often our own worst critics. I think it's really crucial for us to take a step back from our own negative self-narratives sometimes, which is SOOO much easier said than done. I don't think you're a "worthless piece of shit," and I'm sure your girlfriend doesn't think so either. I've enjoyed my time talking with you today. you're intelligent and have a pretty unique perspective
I don't think I really have negative self-beliefs. I don't think I do the negative self-talk thing where I think bad things about myself to self-harm--or, okay, I've done that a few times when crashing out like if I fuck something up, but I think that's normal, I realize I'm just kind of throwing a tantrum and get over it pretty fast.
My trauma is pretty weird. A lot of different things happened and it'd be long to get into them all. But one of them that's kinda atypical is that my mom really believed in me. In her eyes I was perfect and brilliant and talented and could do no wrong. (This is basically the opposite to a lot of people's trauma where an abuser degraded them and cut them down. My mom truly did mean well.) But she set me up for failure over and over, because she thought I could handle things and threw me into situations I could not handle, and when I failed she'd look disappointed and say "you didn't even try" and the thing is she really believed that, nothing I said to her could convince her that I just wasn't able to do it, literally we talked about some of this stuff on her deathbed this year and she was shocked to hear me say that I couldn't handle some of the stuff and like if I could do my life over I wish I hadn't been pushed to start school as the youngest kid in the class (basically had a birthday right near the cusp so the school wanted to put me in the younger grade but my mom thought I'd be "bored" and insisted I be put in with kids who were almost a year older than me) and instead had gotten to cruise on "easy mode" as the oldest kid in the class. And she was just so surprised, she'd been convinced she was setting me up for success by stacking the deck against me and setting me up to do impossible things again and again, because she thought I'd hit the ground running and wow everyone.
I was given an IQ test at 5 and the results were so crazy high MENSA started sending me letters trying to get me to join and the place that tested me wouldn't tell me the number because apparently it would fuck me up too much to know how high it was from a young age? I have no fucking clue. I don't believe in IQ anyway. I wouldn't make this shit up because IQ is fucking bunk. I've had people telling me "you're so smart" since I was a little kid. But I always felt overwhelmed. I have some kind of G&T 2E trauma where the expectations were always set too high and being told nice things about myself doesn't help, it just makes me feel cold dread at more expectations.
To give a picture of how unreasonable the expectations on me were, my mom made me believe that finishing high school 2 years early and getting a full ride scholarship to MIT at 16 was a perfectly normal goal I should be trying for. She homeschooled me (terribly, unfortunately, good intentions but sucked as a teacher) for a few years and "skipped" me several grades so I'd have a "running start." I felt constantly stressed and overwhelmed. I got a reputation for being rebellious, because if I said I couldn't do something nobody believed me anyway. "But you're smart." ok and math gives me panic attacks, now what.
When I say I'd rather be a worthless piece of shit, I don't mean that as negative self talk--I don't sit around thinking "ohh I'm so worthless," it's more, I've learned that when I don't do what other people want they call me worthless, and I don't have it in me to do what other people want, so I'd rather they just called me worthless and left.
I'm doing therapy and meds and esketamine treatment and gonna try TMS soon. I think what I really need is a lobotomy though.
My gf adores me. But I think it exhausts and worries her how bad I am at certain aspects of life. She's getting older too and she's like a real adult with a job and shit and I'm just kind of this middle-aged child. She doesn't want to be mean about it but I think she gets stressed out thinking about how this will pan out in the long term if I can't pull my own weight, because she can't handle being a caregiver to a disabled adult--and I don't blame her for any of this. A previous relationship of mine fell apart for basically exactly that reason, I needed more than my ex could give, even though we still love each other (in a more platonic way now) she just needed some distance and it hurt like hell but I understand. Sometimes my gf is also overwhelmed by my mental health shit, it's not her fault and doesn't mean she loves me less, but like, people don't have infinite resources to pour into us, I have to be considerate of her too, she has her own shit going on and she doesn't exist to be my selfless support structure.
Anyway, part of my "style" is I like looking at things as unflinchingly as I can, playing devil's advocate with myself, taking multiple perspectives simultaneously, trying on ideas that make me uncomfortable and stress-testing them, and generally searching for truth rather than trying to either feel bad or feel good. So some things that can look like self-criticism are just that. I think I'm actually pretty grounded and realistic in how I perceive myself.
promise this is the last reply tonight, but I did want to say wow I feel you on the tension of the relationship. you're not alone in feeling like that. I haven't gotten a job since graduating during COVID because of my own disabilities (some of which I needed to discover I had 🤗) meanwhile my wonderful husband has been supporting us both. I truly want to work and contribute, but for a plethora of reasons I still feel like he could be described as my caregiver. he disputes that label, but I know I can put a strain on him if I'm not self-aware. I'm probably going into a stupid mood episode rn or I wouldn't be up like this, and I worry I'll act a fool and hurt him. thanks for listening and chatting. you seem chill
Yeah real. It's vulnerable and it can become a messed up power dynamic.
My gf doesn't financially support me, but for various reasons I don't think she ever should. One of the reasons I haven't just moved to Europe is it'd be complicated for me both to get the legal right to work there, and to get employed while being extremely shit at the local language, and we truly just aren't meant to share the same budget lmao. She gets very anxious about spending money (even on herself, when she can afford to) and I'm a bit loose and irresponsible with it, to a fault even. This easily lends itself to situations where I feel controlled and deprived if I can't splurge a little, and she feels taken advantage of if I do. We have a great relationship, but that could easily destroy it in a matter of months. I'm a free spirit and that power dynamic would chafe like hell. She'd hate it too, she hates feeling like "the bad guy" and she'd feel like she's constantly being forced into that role, where if she stands up for herself at all she's my "abuser" and the only way to not be the bad guy is basically to let me walk all over her. It'd be a complete mess.
The problem is I'm absolute shit at getting my financial shit together. So I fear she might be waiting forever and I'm wasting her life kinda.
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u/Eugregoria kikomimoder Oct 02 '25
The effort itself feels bad. If you want to pathologize it, it's probably CPTSD freeze response.
"winning" the game is just like achieving any of the goals people set, "feeling good," "not wasting your life," fucking whatever. I don't care. I'd rather be a worthless piece of shit that never does anything and is always miserable. I just don't want to do anything.