I just dont know...

[cfstorey]

I just dont know what to do. Mornings are killing me. Every morning i wake up thinking "how do i fix this heartache". every evening im at rest that the Lord has me where he wants me. Maybe i'm not praying correctly, I know my faith is weak. I know i dont have the knowledge base i need to understand why God does what He does. I know its not for me to question why i have to go through such utter hurt and heartache - that of which i've never known. Why in the midst of this heartache would He take what few friends i had made as well. Why am i left with nothing, again. What is wrong with me. Why did He give me this huge tender heart that gives 110% to every relationship im in knowing how hard I will fall if it ends. Its not my place to ask why - I know. I want my heart to stop hurting so badly.

[April2]

Amen, cfstory. Keep clinging to the Lord and keep asking Him to guide you and show you the way. Keep your hope. *Hugs*

[cfstorey]

Hippie- it is hard to have blind faith. i've always prided myself i guess on having blind faith. I had blind faith in this relationship as well. I prayed God would send the right man after my last abusive relationship and over time He only sent one. So i thought this was IT. Its hard to surrender too. It hard for me, right now- towards the end of my day where i'm actually clear of mind to know what i need to do, to feel peace about it yet to know that tomorrow morning when i wake up, the anxiety will take over again and this reassurance i have to surrender and let go will be lost. again. For another day in a row.

Dazon- I am so sorry for your experience, but it seems like in the end you dont mind. You've found a peace with it. I wish i could find peace like yesterday as MMahon on here says it.

Ginger- I live in the country surrounded by such little wonders and in the evenings - it seems to fill me up, bring me strength and a little hope. But in the mornings- its like nothing means anything to me anymore. Even the small blessings. Even the huge ones. In the mornings i dont feel anything but pain and anxiety and despair. But i do thank you for sharing, I hope something will happen for me soon.

April - I did appreciate the scriptures! I am a faith based person going through a very hard time right now. I keep feeling like i should have enough faith in God to not need medications. Like i'm not a good Christian because it still hurts, because i'm still hopeless. Any scripture is good scripture and i welcome it with open arms- i really do.

[hippieblueeyes]

I have the same problem with my heart.....I'm going through very tough times now also....free will isn't it something....God i believe is like what a good father should be....he'll let us make mistakes so we learn....and suffer so we remember....but he always , always has our back......I think as believers we sometimes forget about surrender...to surrender our lives is something us humans have a hard time with...we ask why is this happening...what do I do....how can i fix this.....when all we really need to do is surrender....give to God...and believe....I'm trying to step out of the boat in blind faith...not easy to do... but sometimes we have to give God the time to work in our lives... and believe he will take care of things....I'll pray for you....I'll pray for all of us.....I hope things will work out for you

[Dazon50]

Thanks for sharing....that is beautiful :-)

I lost everything once also.  When I went to my first foster home, they picked me up from school with only the clothes on my back.  I never forgot that experience of having to let go of all my childhood treasures.  It wasn't till years later that I saw the value in the experience.

Interesting how it takes some of us so long to connect the dots and realize what we can make of our losses.  

[ginger899]

I lost everything once. I mean everything was wiped. Even my inner instincts I couldn't trust any more. All I had was my existence.
I sat down on the kitchen step one day and cried. I prayed to God....but I'd done that before, and nothing had changed or moved. Suddenly a little wild bird flew down and stood right in front of me, and looked at me. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life. It showed me my value. In the silence. In the utter emptiness.
I knew I could start again, and slowly build up a new life, but in a different way than before.

[boogieman]

Meds are for PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders, and mood stabilization. GM

[April2]

I'm sorry, I actually was trying to help and actually thought the scriptures would bring comfort and show that she was not alone in this and to take heart because we're all in this journey together at some point or another. I guess it didn't come across that way somehow.
cfstorey, I'm sorry you're going through all of this. I pray it will get better for you soon. Keep praying and talking to others, that really helps. Boogieman is a great guy and I'm glad you were able to relate to him. We all need friends who can relate and listen and give good advice.
Peace and blessings,
April

[cfstorey]

What are all those other medications for? I do work, but my job is pointless. I sit at a desk and stare at wall and answer a phone that never rings. This website has been my only saving grace and the only reason i remotely look forward to coming to work these past few days. My degree is worthless, i'll never do anything with it. I kind of like gardening. So i started the process for going to the technical school here for horticulture. I know i enjoy animals, and flowers, good humored people who are sadistically sarcastic but can laugh at themselves. I greatly fear meeting people, if i have an escort introducing me, its one thing - but if i'm alone - no way. I've ran crying from the room before. I feel like i've wasted my life, like i'm behind, and i've got no direction. I feel like God showed everyone else the path they were to take, but not me. The weird thing about me and people is that as much as they terrify me, i dont want to be left alone.

[boogieman]

Hi. I still struggle with the people thing, for the same reasons. That has haunted me since childhood. At times I feel alone even in a crowded room. Music can be a powerful thing, and ya there are certain songs that get to me. But I primarily compose and perform original stuff, which is prolly why its such an emotional release. I'm on pristiq as well, plus lamictal, seroquel and trazodone. I wish I could trade all that for just 1 or 2 pills! We aren't bad people trying to become good, but rather have an illness and trying to get better. That's easier said than done to accept sometimes. I'm also a recovering alcoholic, and I once thought I would never be able to enjoy playing music or other things sober. But as time passes, I find I'm actually a lot better at it without getting wasted. Alcohol was my best friend, lover, and source of strength all in one. The realization that it was going to kill me began a kind of grief process, just as broken relationships have. Though it hurts, its better to go ahead and allow oneself to feel it, confront it, and as a result begin to heal. You can find enjoyment in things as well, it just takes time. You're young and have many years ahead of you, which may offer boundless opportunities. Are you presently working or in school? Those can be a healthy way to distract yourself for a little while at a time. There even may be support groups that can help as well, I think there's one called emotions anonymous that allow you to get feedback from others. There's no rule that says you must have all the answers or even a specific direction right now. This might be an opportunity to find out who you are and what you like. The answers will come. GM

[cfstorey]

Geez, you're the first to really calm me down. How do you deal with your fear of people, mine is largely rejection and fear of being judged or thought stupid. Got that nice little fear drilled into me by two ex's back and havn't been able to shake it yet.

Things to do? Honestly? With my recent ex  i did everything with him. I practically lived there. We watched sy-fy, Nature shows, played WoW (yes im a wow'er - i was solitary on there too). We'd cook and really just hang out. We occasionally would go out to a movie or play or something. I always just wanted to be around him, so whatever he was doing i was doing too. I know, im 26 and shouldn't be like that, but i am. It was more important to see him, than to stamp my foot and say "take me out!".

I usually try to read, or listen to audio books. other than that i usually just go with the flow of what the people around me are wanting to do. Bowl, swim, movies, whatever. But now, all i've got left is my mom and step dad. I feel so pathetic. I dont really know what i like to do. I don't even really know what i want to do with my life either.

Music used to be my saving grace. Im a music major - but i'm horrible about relating music to events that happen - so nearly all of my musical enjoyment has been robbed of me by hurtful events. Tim always said i was way too far into my head for my own good. I dont know if i agree or disagree with that. I think its important to know how i feel and why (which why this point in my life is driving me crazy).

Med: 1mg of Atiavan ( i usualy take in halfs because it knocks me out cold - even the half) and 50 mg of Pristiq. Which is the original and lowest dosage i was one last time. I have appointments to see a therapist, but its still two weeks away, i tried to call at lunch today to explain i need help with with the meds or with coping sooner than two weeks, but their office closed at 12 today.

Im trying the journal. Its not going well. I keep rehashing the break up, what went wrong, what would fix it if he would just listen to me, and how depressed and worthelss i feel. How i know i'm a burden to my family because i should have never gotten off the medication in the first place.

This website is the first thing to calm me down. Make me focus, either on someone's reply or on typing my own. I just get anxious when the replies don't come as fast i need them in the middle of an anxiety/panic attack.

I do pray. I pray alot actually. Not sure if i'm praying correctly, saying the right things or being earnest enough in my heart and honest with myself. I feel like I've been hurt so many times that it must be me that is the common factor and that i'm the problem. I want to know what i did and why.

I dont want to be a hermit scardy cat which is what i am honestly. I dont know myself, my likes or my directions in life. I'm lost.

[Dazon50]

I think we all in our own way come to a point where we reach the end of ourselves and our ability to make it all work out alright.  As April shared, it is precisely in the hard times that we look outside ourselves for the reasons ...why is this happening?  what did I do wrong?  why don't I have ____ or ____???

Some of us start with the reality of anger and I am a personal believer that God is big enough to take our anger at Him if that is where we choose to take it.  

The staying busy and giving is good when you have something to give.  If we give out of an empty bowl, there isn't much to give....just going through the motions.  That is why "healing" and "restoration" and "rest" are important.  Finding a good support system via a church, group or ? to listen, encourage.

I read THE SAFEST PLACE ON EARTH (Where People Connect and Are Forever Changed) by Larry Crabb Word Publishing, 1999, 238 pp.  years ago and took several things from it...such as a Safe Person points a person to other people, allows them to be who God wants them to be and points them to God.

None of us can go through the suffering for another in their place, but we come alongside of.....becoming compassionate.  Compassion is a wonderful word.  One worth doing a study on...digging deeper.  

You may have that gift and God wants it to be used in the lives of other in special ways.  None of our experiences, painful or not goes to waste.  It is our choice when we come through the trials as to what we do with what we have learned.  

In the meantime, honesty in how, when, where, who.....is hurting and letting the tears flow, and taking the time to heal is important.  It is part of becoming "real".  A real person "suffers"  

April, as difficult as it is for christians and non-christians to read the passages and accept that this is the way we learn, the lessons learned in patience, humility, trust, long-suffering, compassion, mercy, kindness, etc. are worth it in the end.  At the beginning, all sorts of protests and even anger, hatred, mistrust, etc. are often thrown out at others and God.  Try take God out of the equation and make sense of it all without HIm.....not so easy as there is a need in all of us to know ...why?  From childhood on...like a homing device....why?

One client who was in his early 80's when I started to work with him, asked me why he was suffering spasms and had a stroke?  He said, "who did this to me"?  He had been coasting along (if you call a divorce after a short marriage, being alienated from his only son for 27 yrs., living along for 30 plus years, being in Germany on the front lines during World War 2 and suffering from chronic pain from spasms coasting along) without any major illness till he hit 81 yrs. old and in a local grocery store had his first major stroke.

Life changed completely for him and it turned everything upside down.  Suddenly he didn't have the control anymore...ended up at the VA, then in a nursing home where he begged a nephew from another state to come and spring him free.  That is how I ended up working with him through a home care agency.

Suddenly I with my 2 yrs. in a prayer group, going to 5 bible studies at one time, church week after week, got emptied of all I had learned and my life turned upside down as I came alongside this elderly gentleman in his pain and suffering.  I gave 120 percent plus, sacrificing family and friends to be there to help, giving up vacations because he needed my help.  I learned about boundaries, about running away from things you couldn't solve....and a whole lot of other things.

I was there when he died at a local hospital and it tore my heart out because suddenly my life was "empty".  I felt I had died when he died.  I learned about simplicity from this special individual who had not gone to a church until I took him  once to my church for 40 plus years.  All the memories, of his praying to die in his pain, of wanting to live in the better moments....these and the feeling that I let him down at the last moment when I could have stayed overnight in the hospital to watch over him instead of thinking of myself and my oldest daughter to not spend the night but instead went home to rest.

In the morning when I went to the hospital, I saw a huge pill in his mouth, asked the nurse what it was.  She went to find out, came back & said it was an antibiotic.  Then she said something that has haunted me since 2005...she said to me.  I gave him his insulin.  I looked at her and my mouth dropped open.  I said..."He is not diabetic".  She then said, it must have been someone else.  Within 3 hrs. he went into cardiac arrest and even though they tried to save him, it was too late.

So....his suffering on a physical level seemed to end, but I bore the images of him clutching the rails of the hosptal bed while the doctors pried his fingers off to while the team worked on him after confirming with me that they were to do all they could to save him.

I re-played what that nurse said over and over and over.  I told the son later about it, but nothing was ever investigated.  His death was put down as "natural causes".  I realized later that this nurse received grace.  My client was released from the suffering & endless trial & error of various narcotics to find the perfect combination that would take the edge off the pain but not put him so far under that he couldn't enjoy Animal Planet with me or drink the Sprecher Rootbeers and eat Popcorn while listening to the Brewers game.

Why do I share this?  Because as a caregiver, you enter into that special place of another you have chosen to care for.  You enter their sacred place......their heart.  I can remember saying to this Client in the VA in 2003, that he had a permanent place sitting on the ledge of my heart dangling his feet.  He would tear up when I shared things.  He told me I had done more for him than any other person.

It was through this experience that I learned valuable lessons about suffering and loving others through it.  It is the suffering that makes us real.  It is the suffering that our fingers are pried off of what we think is valuable on we learn to grasp what truly is important.

I went home after that death and gave away 1000's of books, clothes, dishes, nic nacs.....filled my garage up several times after calling Good will, Purple Heart, American Council for the Blind.....  Why?????

Because I would have given all I had to bring that one person back to life....suddenly possessions meant nothing and I saw the brevity of life.  I remember the stories I listened to over and over a 2 1/2 yr. period.  I listened to the losses that person had.  I became the daughter he never had, the friend in the last season of his life, a mother figure, a sort of wife, a sister........a genuine caring loving person.  

I didn't know if I had it to do over with another person.  I took months off to heal and grieve.  But within 6 mos., I went back into caregiving to continue on.  This is my area in life, learning to give and serve.  It is what is making me real.  All the suffering as a child, being unwanted and abused led to this.  I say again...nothing goes to waste unless you let it slip through your fingers/heart.

You choose the direction you go.

[boogieman]

Hi. Ya, solitude can be tough. And as far as the "friends" that went away, they are not your friends. I know what its like to be afraid of people too, and I tend to isolate at times as a result. What kinds of things do, or did you enjoy? My saving grace has been my music. Do you have family you are close to? Its not good to stay in my own head by myself at times. This website has helped me tremendously by giving me an opportunity to help others as well as discuss various issues. If I may ask, what meds are you on, how much, and are you at your original dosages? Are you seeing a therapist? Another excellent tool is keeping a journal, or just writing about how you feel. The internet has a wealth of information as well, I can get lost surfing at times. And it never hurts to pray, even If you don't know exactly who you're praying to. Answers will come in time, but they will come. Hope This helps, GM

[cfstorey]

Im the exact same. I give everything i've got to the relationship bc i think that this relationship is the one that will save me and make me happy. And like now, when its gone - i have no clue how to function. My whole purpose was to make him happy, to make his life easier, to veg out and relex with him. Now.. i've got nothing. And he took all my friends with him since our friends were his friends first. And it was such a shocker - so out of the blue - that i'm still reeling from it with incomprehension. Truthfully i dont know think i want to know why, but i do want it to stop hurting. I dont know how to take care of myself becuase i've always thought my place was to take care of others. My dealing with God are short because I dont really know what do or say to Him that doesn't sound selfish or petty. My mom actually works at an assisted living home which is where i spend my Friday afternoons. I'll try to find someone there maybe. I"m terrified of meeting new people. So we'll see how it goes. ANd please, tell me how to stay busy by myself. Becuase i'm lost when it comes to this concept.

[April2]

Sometimes God allows these things, these trials, and allows us to  lose everything in order to test our faith to see if we will truly give our all to Him. He has to get us to a place where we are completely humbled, even broken, before He can pick us back up and bring healing and restoration. As long as we are relying on other humans instead of God  He can't do that. I've had to learn this. I've gone through some terrible trials the last 3 years and this last year was pretty intense but  you know what? My faith grew in a way it never had before. I had to get to a place where I had no where to look but up, no where to turn but Him. I'm starting to understand what it means to experience His peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding, even in the midst of  the trials. People who don't know God or who are not close to God just cannot understand this. I didn't understand this for many years. It really is a mystery.
I hope some of these scriptures will help bring some comfort.

1 Peter 4:12-13

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.

1 Peter 5:8-10

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Psalm 22:24

For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.


2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

2 Corinthians 4:17
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

James 1:2-4
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Romans 5:3-5
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Romans 8:18
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.


Stay in the Word and keep your eyes on the Lord. He will comfort you and teach you through this time if you let Him. Our faith grows through trials and sufferings, not in the good times. You are in the valley right now, something we all will  go through at some time in our life. But you will have your mountain top experience again and will look back and see how much you've grown through all of this.
Keep praying and don't give up! God will reward you in time for your faithfulness. Hugs and blessings.

[boogieman]

Hi. Sorry to hear things are so difficult. I'm guilty of doing the same thing in relationships, give give give, and when it all goes south, it seems devastating. I asked my first therapist many years ago about returning to a previous relationship, at a time when I was very depressed. He simply said, "a broken heart hurts like he11." but I'm stubborn and I did it anyway. It ended very badly. However, over the years I have learned a powerful lesson. First off, to be in good enough emotional condition to have a girlfriend, I must be ok with myself. For me, this requires a conscious contact with God, as well as working through my issues with a professional. Otherwise, as I have proven over and over, my focus will be all on the relationship, and ill neglect everything else to some degree, even my personal spiritual condition. In the event that the relationship fails, I have left myself with nothing to fall back on. Its always been conditional, with thoughts like, "If I can have this one thing, I can make the rest work out." companionship is a basic necessity of most people, but there must be a balance, and both parties need to give equally for things to work. I don't know If any of this applies to you, its just been the experience of myself and countless others. As crazy as it sounds, the best thing to do is to stay busy, in addition to using emotional and spiritual tools. Here's a suggestion. Go to a hospital or nursing home and find someone who has been forgotten- no friends, no family, and little to look forward to. Talk to them. Read to them. It is amazing what effect we can have on another and ourselves by reaching out. It can mean the world to such an individual, and it will help you If you persist. I promise this kind of action will help you, just give it a try. Take care, GM

[Dalubaba]

Is it possible that the situation could be ****** than what it is now? Can this attitude can help to lighten the burden on us?

[drifter0213]

keep your faith and god will still be with you :)