I honestly don't know what to do anymore

Merlinexcalibur

Will I ever know joy, not sorrow, will I ever know happiness again. Ever know pleasure again.

Is this it? Is this the sum total of existence for me? I don't know how to be anymore. Or what to do. Just don't know.

Thought I was doing okay, but it seems I can't handle certain things anymore. No idea what I am doing. Not a bad person, wouldn't even know where to begin to be one. Just such a mess. So many times in recent years have I started again, picked up where I left off. Can I do it again? If I let go. My own stupidity has led me here, trusting the wrong people who took me for a ride, took me for everything, leaving me here now, posting like this or I wouldn't be here I am sure. Trying to understand all that, why it happened. Yet I let it happen. Had no choice, though.

And I feel dreadful because there are others here with so many many worse, more financial worries than me. Mine are small in comparison. I've tried, really I have to keep a lid on all of it; to not let it get to me. But if I let go, I lose once again. And because someone else put me in this position. It's an anguish I know will never go away. But this time I know there is no easy way back. I worry if I take a DRO, it will impact severely on other things. Just seems I get out of one mess, have no control over those I know that, then relax again, then another comes along. Doesn't ever seem to stop. But if I do the DRO, will it make those things far worse.

And I wonder how I came to be in this place, this state.

Lightattheend

Merlin, please don't dispair, things will get better it just might take time. Take joy in the here and now, in the simple things like the sun shining after its been raining and the joy in children's faces at splashing in the puddles. Lots of us have been in very dark places and have felt there is no light for us but I assure you there will be and while you are waiting hold our hands so you know you are not alone in the darkness.

Flowerpot_2

Lightattheend wrote: »

Lots of us have been in very dark places and have felt there is no light for us but I assure you there will be and while you are waiting hold our hands so you know you are not alone in the darkness.

What a lovely, lovely thing to say :A
Here's my hand Merlin

Flowerpot
xxx

Lost2

Now come on, stop this
You haven't got cancer at the end of the day it's only Fuc* money
you are doing fine you will get though this
take it from an old and smelly person
you are going to be fine
and there are a lot of nice genuine people out there, just don't give up
or I will have to come around to your place and give you a talking too
and you don't want that

Merlinexcalibur

No, I'm okay. I had a nasty shock earlier in the post on top of the other stuff going on at the same time. It was an incorrect bill, so I nearly collapsed when I saw the amount, then all of the anguish over trying to get it sorted out. If possible.

I can fill you in a little. A few years ago I had harassment from a group of people who eventually drove me from the area I lived in all my life. It was grossly unfair, and it frightened me so severely I left where I lived, just up and went. Gone. Where I ended up went even more badly. I loaned money to someone, it never got paid back. It was the last amount of money I had left. It got fairly nasty in the end, as the people responsible threatened me if I told anyone. What would happen to me. So, for over a year I stayed quiet, only those closest to me who were indirectly involved with all that knew the full picture. My family didn't. But that's another thing entirely. As we aren't close, a close knit family. And far as they knew I'd just run away; when there was more to it, excessively more. So, I never told anyone, because of being too afraid and because I was happy to have got away from them.

Except I became homeless very nearly as a result. By approximately 1 day. Had nowhere to live, stuck hundreds of miles away. Managed to find somewhere to live by random chance.

That's all of it briefly. So, all this grief, all this anguish, unable to tell anyone is too much. I have arranged to see a counsellor now. To talk all this through because I should have done it when I came back here to live. But when I got away, I wasn't bothered so much about the money, it was how I'd been manipulated by the people I lived with, the lies they told me, the shock of it all. And they didn't care a damn what happened to me being out on the streets. I saved their marriage, I saved their home for them (I attended court to save it from reposession) and I saved them for the rest of their life. Because I like to help, but I didn't know what I was getting into. You wouldn't have thought this of them had you know them for example. But I learned a very very harsh lesson about trusting. But also about how I let my trust be abused like that. And the shock. The shock of the uncaring act that was done. When all I had done was save their entire life from what I am going through right now, and all I got in return was all that money gone, and nowhere to live. I never wanted to come back here to this area you see. I tried to start a new life where I was. There was a lot going in my life before all this, I was making some progress, getting a lot of recognition for things I was doing. Establishing a life for myself for really the first time. Then it just fell apart severely. It was how could someone do that to someone else? Sure, I know it happens, seen it on shows, read about it in the paper happening to others.

And every now and again it comes back to remind me, usually when I get shocks like that earlier. Because before all this happened I could glance at that bill and not worry over the amount, whether I could pay it.

Please don't worry, I won't do anything stupid. The last time, it was stupidity, never having done anything like it before. It took me a long time to start trusting people again because of those people because the whole time they had an ulterior motive there. To use me for their own ends. I was stupid, I let them do it. So, in the end, it was ultimately my own fault. I should have walked away from it, people I knew told me to. Did I listen? No. Because from the first experience, I just wanted to forget all about it, leave it behind me. I couldn't go back there, not with that worry that that family would start harassing me again. So, everything I knew for over 30 years I left. Just like that. I felt totally alien to the region when I came back. It just felt so surreal; hard to explain. So surreal, all the shock, the intertia.

And one of the reasons I do try to stay upbeat is to hide those things above. It's a lot to burden someone with.

The only other thing is when things get too much I have a habit of being self destructive. Self destructive because I know I am here right now by their hand. I have taken responsibility for their actions, when it should be the other way round. Then when it became clear I could no longer sustain my debt payments over a year ago, the money was running out, what I had left; got no savings, never really did TBH. But I need to know that there is something out there, I will find my place. I should have listened to myself, not to what family were telling me when I had the money. And got my own place, not tried to save it because I knew it was going to run out some day. No way round it. The money was left to me you see, so not my own. Never wanted the money really but I accepted it eventually because it was keeping me alive, helping me through life. And I know that's what the ones who left it would have wanted. Then I allowed all that above to happen, and the last few thousands of it all went. Just really really stupid.

I've sold mostly everything I've collected, ever owned of value since childhood to stay just above the surface. Each time I do, I kid myself I can have all that again; I know I won't. Some of it was rare, one of a kind items. Stuff you'd never in a million years ever think you'd let go of. And it literally feels like I am selling parts of myself, nothing will be left I can call my own anymore. Just seems these last few years has been taking so much away from me. The way I usually deal with it is by telling myself I needed maybe to learn this lesson, and it does help.

Lost2

I am sorry to read about all the shi* you have had in your life
dont give up, I am glad to see you are getting help ((((HUGS))))

Flowerpot_2

'Do not dwell in the past, do not dwell in the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment'

The Buddha said this Merlin & I firmly believe in it, because the past is the past, its over, just a memory......the future..who knows? Don't worry into the future, no point, wasted energy. Now? Now is the important one - don't waste it........one step at a time Merlin, one positive step at a time You take care now x
FP
xxx

Lightattheend

Glad to see you here again Merlin and glad to hear of the positive steps you are taking but remember we are here if it starts to get dark again.

Merlinexcalibur

I'll try. I don't give up easily but it's what I face now; the uncertainties. Just terrifies me. And I fear what it is making me become. When, if the world was ending or going to I would be the one there holding my hand out to whomever was left to save. That even if things were ending there were some hope for those left by offering that hand to them. Then I also try to understand that part of myself. Hope that made sense. That I worry that it changes me in that way. I don't ever want to stop helping people you see and it took me ages to start beginning again. Don't ever want to stop because there are so many who have no one. BTW, I once nearly became a priest. Very very nearly, just didn't have the guts to do it, take it further. But I am not really religious, not in that sense. I just fell strongly compelled to help others one day and decided at the time that was the best course. The church (not Catholic) had formed an immense influence in my life since childhood and I had many roles within that organisation. Until I began to learn about other things and left that behind me forever. But I nearly did shall we say.

I was told a while ago by someone that when I began helping people I musn't forget I am also a human being. Because I do. Mostly because I know maybe there is no salvation for me but I can make that happen for those I help. I can change something in their lives, make that spark happen so it flourishes. Then along came the doubts about doing all that kind of thing, that kind of influence. That I didn't want to get it wrong, so I began to doubt. I know that sounds silly, and I don't mean it literally. It's really all I have left. If I can transform someone elses life I will be proud of myself. If I can change the direction, let them know/see that like myself I don't always see the wood for the tress, that things can get better. Offer them something that is missing in their lives. In the process of all this I also discovered something else about myself but that's for another time/place entirely. But it helped me to understand the need to help others once and for all.

Flowerpot ... plenty have told me that in the past couple of years.

Lightattheend

Merlinexcalibur wrote: »

I was told a while ago by someone that when I began helping people I musn't forget I am also a human being.

That is very true, because if you don't help yourself first then how will you be able to help anyone else?

Dodger61

Merlin,
It sounds as if you need a completely fresh start in order to forget the past. Though the past will never go away, you have to look and move forward. Every new day presents opportunities and when you dont know what the future brings, that can be exciting.
As for BR, what the hell, yes, it is very stressful, but nobody dies. We can still feel the sun on our face just like any millionaire. Be strong.
Dodger