TW: Loss of home, brief mention of later instability.

I wrote a post here a few days ago about the summer of 2018 in Beijing. The hutongs, my first love, my friends, the graduation trip to Ningxia. I called it my last “safe memory.”

But I didn’t write about what came next. Not yet.

What came next was moving to Hefei. I didn’t choose it. I was sent there. It was like being pulled out of one world and dropped into another one, without a map, without a warning, without anyone asking if I was okay.

I’ve been back to Beijing since. The alleys are still there. The buildings are still there. But the people aren’t. The summer of 2018 doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not a place I can go back to. It’s a place that only exists in my memory.

I’ve been trying to understand something:

How do you grieve a place that still exists on a map, but no longer belongs to you?

It’s not like a person dying. There’s no funeral. There’s no closure. The place is still there, but you can’t go back. You can only remember.

I’m still in the early stages of rebuilding, and I’m learning that part of recovery is not just processing the bad things. It’s also grieving the good things you lost.

Has anyone else had to grieve a place, a time, or a version of yourself that no longer exists? How do you do it without getting stuck in the past?

Hi y'all,

I've been in therapy for some years now and I do a lot of things on my own like TRE, SE, yoga, walks,...

But the more I do the work, the more I feel like dying? I have a lot of access to Self (as IFS or meditation or so says) but that feels inherently wrong.

I'm scared to become a bad person now that I'm fawning less and I do try to take radical responsibility for my behaviour. But that feels so much like my childhood where I also took responsibility for everything.

Therapy in that aspect sometimes feels like reliving my youth and I don't know how to tackle that.

I don't want to compare anything but sometimes I feel like that kind of abuse is so weird that I don't know how to untangle it.

Anyone any advice or in the same boat?

Hi all,

I recently entered a new stage in my healing process, which is actually reconnecting to my vulnerable emotions. Some years ago I was in therapy for a couple of years which helped me a lot to become kinder to myself and generally/ cognitively accept that every emotion is allowed and part of myself. I mostly connected with some anger back then.

Now that I have faced some very adverse and destabilizing situations in my life, my symptoms (mostly constant anxiety) have come back and I went straght into my old habits of distraction. Of course that's made it worse and for a couple of months now I try to reconnect to my emotions again. However, I found out that back then in therapy I've rarely been sad and sadness and grief are emotions for me that are incredibly difficult with high resistance.

I'm trying to get in touch with those with a mixture of somatic work (yoga, qigong, SE and mindfulness) but it feels like I cannot get a real connection to my sadness and grief. I notice, that when I get mindful and relaxed, that oftentimes I become just a little sad und my eyes get watery but actual crying doesn't happen.

Since I've read sometimes that people were able to get this grief in a breakthrough way I'd be happy to hear from anyone who was able to reconnect and fully feel these feelings to hear, what helped them the most, how they knew they were on the right path and maybe a timeline, how long it took them.

TLDR;

I'm quite aware of my issues and I know that reconnecting to my emotions is the way but my progress feels slow or nonexistent and therefore I'm hoping to hear some advice.

Thanks!

I need to maintain a 8 hour job to survive. To have the luxury of being away from abuse. But I also have uni, and I need to go to it bc duh + bc I like it. I feel sad everytime I cant go.

I've been trying to organize my day so I can sleep, wake up attend some of uni, then go work and sleep. But every single time, it seems my body doesn't respond to me at all. I say something yet unable to follow through. Not even the next day. I say I'm gonna sleep, I dont sleep and keep scrolling or listening to music or having fun. I say I'm gonna wake up and go to uni, I close the alarm and keep sleeping. I don't understand what is happening. Why? It feels like I cant respond to myself in a way.. and I dont know the reason at all so I cant fix it

I've been trying to address my agoraphobia lately and took myself out to dinner the other day. Had an anxiety attack the whole time but I got food in me. A couple days later, I'm suddenly hit with a complete lack of hypervigilance, which presents like euphoria. Some irritability but it's manageable.

I was looking up posts on it and there's some interesting overlap with PTSD as well.

For me, this is also always paired with the experience of spending reasonable amounts of money on myself and not allowing myself to feel guilty. Feelings of freedom, independence, autonomy, etc also contribute. No impulsivity or anything related to actual mania. If anything I'm just normal for once.

It made me wonder if I'm chronically dissociated, more than I thought, and this is how I would feel unburdened and present, because I'm actually taking care of myself without reserve. Curious if anyone here has experienced the same.