I'm not sure how to manage myself at the moment. My ability to apply myself productively diminished after my traumatic experiences, and it continues to diminish in a negative feedback cycle of the above coping mechanisms.
In other words, I have little gumption at the moment. All my enthusiasm is tied up in escaping my negative traumas and giving myself a pleasurable existence. When I try to get myself to send a resume or study a new skill, all of my traumatic experiences seem to surface and overwhelm me.
If you have been through something similar, what changes did you make which helped you?
By the way I have seen a professional therapist and psychiatrist before. Unfortunately, these were not really productive experiences, and I've come to be inclined to think these suggestions might be helpful but might also be a little bit canned.
I care deeply about necessary virtue in the world, but I don't care about taking care of myself anymore. This has led me to being primed for constant stimulation, therapies and I'm struggling to get back into a pattern of productively applying myself. Have you been through something similar?
Getting away from your present environment will force you to start over. It's amazing how we get used to our daily rituals without giving much thought on how one daily action makes you fall onto the next.
Give it some thought. Think about what you would do if you moved to a new area and found a job that does not stress you, I would suggest a physical job vs a mentally demanding one. Find new friends that focus on things away from drugs, keep you active and keep you away from boredom which will give you a chance to fall back on your old habits.
Also keep your mind busy, I listen to audiobooks constantly. Find a genre you enjoy and listen to them. Your negative thoughts will sink you so it's best you minimise the time available for you to have them.
Also, make sure you believe and understand that you can change your ways. Keep in mind that you will not fix everything at once so face life one day at a time and keep moving forward. You will falter but you pick yourself up and continue with your plan. I can tell you that it's only a matter of time before things get better but you need to keep moving fordward.
Number 1: Stop being a victim, its far too easy to blame things that occured in the past for causing your current situation. You cant change what happend, accept it and move on, I know it sounds like im saying just get over it but thats not what I mean. Your trauma will probably stay with you for the rest of your life, it sucks and I feel for you, but no matter what it was, it only has the ability to affect your future life if you let it. Start by dealing with the addiction, dont use the trauma as an excuse to feed it, if you have cravings accept them for what they are. Lots of people deal with addictions, you dont need any reason why, just be aware that you are addicted and take real action to deal with it.
Number 2: Get your hands in some dirt asap, plant a bean, start a herb garden it doest matter just grow something. The act of raising a living thing and caring for it is extremely therapeutic. It will bring purpose to your life. I cant stress this enough, buy an amaryllis bulb if your worried about not having a green thumb. Grow something and your soul will heal. Trust me!!
Good luck.
Another thing that's an attitude that's been a bit of a carryover from my old religion, is that when your struggling, help someone else. Often in the process of helping someone you will figure out how to help yourself. You still care about the world but not yourself, perfect, find a cause worthy of your time and do something about it.
I dealt with depression almost my whole life, and although it's mostly better now and has been for a couple of years, it still tries to crop up from time to time. For me it was resolving a lot of identity crisis things, the parts that were inconsistent, I ended up losing my religion, moving across the country and pursuing new goals, a new career, a new life. Having a plan helped(especially feeling like there was some forward motion toward my goal), figuring out what I wanted helped, introspection helped, therapy helped(to kickstart it).
Good luck, rooting for you.
Very similar coping mechanisms to you despite being "employed", down to excessive travel (having driven something like 60 thousand miles in the last year despite living 10 miles from work)
Employed is in quotations because I'm on my way to my 3rd company in 3 years this month, after my last two fired me for being unable to care in a sense (not showing up on time, low output).
Partially due to my depression, but I feel partially due to what you describe struggling to get into applying yourself regularly after abusing those coping mechanisms to feel "something".
It's a little horrifying because each time the transition to the next place is so quick I barely have to stabilize, so I feel like I'm careening towards a cliff.
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The only thing I can say is different this time is therapeutic drugs, specifically Wellbutrin XL.
I know you mentioned "just do drugs" responses coming across as a bit canned, so I've included my context.
I don't know if it will really change things this time, but it has helped me feel more human. Made doing things from my job search to caring enough to maintain basic hygiene a little easier. It's a little easier to break out of my gaming ruts. There are downsides, sometimes when my depression gets the best of me, I feel like the accompanying anger is more destructive on this medication, like I'm more prone to do something reckless than before.
But I feel like this is what will give me the foothold to move on, so if you're willing to try anything, maybe try going back to a psychiatrist (therapy is good but not for everyone I feel, you can get medications to help without therapy as a start)
I'm not sure if my advice can be useful, but to change what I expect to do with my life was the first and most important step.
Also, very important but very personal as it worked for me but can have the opposite effect on others is that at my lowest, I started to smoke weed and started to have long sessions of thinking, meditation and productive time alone, reflecting or studying something new.
People here praised this book recently, maybe worth reading: "The Body Keeps the Score" https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/01...
I have one in my local area and they helped me a lot.
The book 'The Body Keeps the Score' that showed up recently on here[1] has been immensely helpful for me. It explains all of the changes your body and mind go through after trauma. Before reading that book I tried to treat the symptoms and it didn't work. I also didn't realize that a lot of the things I was dealing with were really symptoms of underlying trauma. Reading the book is hard (there are lots of stories of other people's trauma that can be triggering) and I cry a lot and need to take a break to self soothe but it's been my roadmap to getting through this. This is the first paragraph of chapter 13, when the book finally explains how to heal:
> What has happened cannot be undone. But what can be dealt with are the imprints of trauma on body, mind, and soul: the crushing sensations in your chest that you may label as anxiety or depression; the fear of losing control; always being on alert for danger or rejection; the self-loathing; the nightmares and flashbacks; the fog that keeps you from staying on task and from engaging fully in what you are doing; being unable to fully open your heart to another human being.
> Trauma robs you of the feeling of being in charge of yourself...The challenge of recovery is to reestablish ownership of your body and mind--of your self. This means feeling free to know what you know and to feel what you feel without becoming overwhelmed, enraged, ashamed, or collapsed. For most people this involves 1.) finding a way to become calm and focused 2.) learning to maintain that calm in response to images, thoughts, sounds, or physical sensations that remind you of the past, 3.) finding a way to be fully alive in the present and engaged with the people around you, 4.) not having to keep secrets from yourself, including secrets about the ways that you have managed to survive.
For 1.) yoga and meditation have been really helpful for me. Both yoga and meditation have been clinically proven to help PTSD sufferers. For meditation I enjoy using the Headspace app. I've mostly been doing yoga with Youtube videos by 'Yoga with Adriene'. I would suggest starting with the video 'Yoga For Post Traumatic Stress' or the 'Dedicate 30 day Yoga Journey'. All you need is a mat. I've started going to in person yoga classes and it's been really nice but I did yoga on my own for about a month beforehand.
For 2.) I've been learning how to 'ground' which is essentially mindfulness with a focus on your touch points (your feet on the floor, your butt in the chair, etc). The breathwork from yoga and meditation is also super hepful. Your breath is one of the few things under both conscious and autonomic control so you can use it to tap into the part of your body that is losing it when you're triggered.
3.) comes back to mindfulness, and again yoga and meditation are really helpful. After experiencing trauma I started to disassociate all the time. Now I can usually notice when it starts and check back in with myself.
For 4.) therapy, journaling, and self help books have been helpful for me. I would suggest trying multiple therapists until you find one you like. The consensus seems to be that you eventually need to revisit trauma to move past it, but you don't want to do that until you have the tools to revisit it without reliving it. You might be able to do that on your own but I feel a lot safer doing that with a trained professional. I've also realized that the stuff I am dealing with is a little too intense to expect a friend or partner to deal with so my choices are either journaling or therapy.
As I've worked on those 4 things the hold of addictive behaviors and coping mechanisms has started to loosen. It's easier to not drink when I'm actually comfortable being in my own skin and feeling what I feel. I still compulsively check my phone sometimes but I try to acknowledge what I'm doing and ask myself what need I'm trying to fulfill when I do it.