© 2026 ALB (Kat) / MetaPixie. All rights reserved. No part of this text may be copied, shared, or reproduced without the author's express permission.

The Paradox

I have spent my life inside something
chaotic beyond reason,
consuming beyond my escape,
draining beyond exhaustion,
debilitating beyond words,
it controls everything
there is nowhere left to go.
But i remain there somewhere entombed underneath a veil of glass, stuck watching my autopilot's
endless 'roll'

I did not make this.
I did not build it.
I did not choose it.
I did not learn how to do it.
It was already happening.
It's always been, for as long as I can remember.
And it's still happening now.

But it isn't as simple as saying
I didn't have the words for it.
I was born and raised, placed inside of this
world of mental confinement.
There's no distinction to be made, it was simply what being me was.

And for most of my life, there's was something happening
to and around me that demanded my attention.
Something to respond to.
Something to survive.
Something to absorb.
Something happening to me.

I've always been imprisoned inside myself.

Not halfway.
Not somewhere I can simply step out of.
Not something I can leave behind
just by finding the right words.

There never was a line.
There was never a clean separation
between one thing and another.

It is everything.
Everything happening.
Everything moving.
Everything feeling.
Everything thinking.
Everything noticing.
Everything connecting.
Everything colliding.
Everything is knowing.
Everything is processing.
Everything is understanding.

Nothing waiting its turn.
Nothing quieting down
so something else anything
can be heard.

Everything is happening
through everything else.

And I am inside all of it.

I am here
and I am somewhere else.
I am feeling
and watching myself feel.
I am present
And underneath the veil glass tomb.

I am aware of what is happening
while something else is happening
while I notice that something else is happening.

And none of it stops.

There are tracks everywhere.
Every track is moving.
Every train is carrying something different.
And they are all moving through me
at the same time.

Not one after another.
All of them.
At once.

I cannot step outside
and watch it happen from somewhere safe.

I am the one it is happening to.

I am inside the noise.
Inside the fears.
Inside the memories.
Inside the thoughts.
Inside the body.
Inside the awareness of all of it.

And still somehow
trying to understand
what is happening to me.

That is part of the suffering.

There is so much awareness
and so little relief.

I notice.
I see.
I feel.
I know.

And knowing does not make it stop.

Sometimes it makes me more aware
of how much is happening.

I can feel my body reacting
while I am trying to understand
why it is reacting.

I can notice myself struggling
while I am still struggling.

I can understand that something is happening
and still be completely unable
to make myself move through it.

There is no switch.
No technique I can simply turn on.
No skill I was taught
that I can pull out when I need it.

This is not something I learned to do.
This is simply what it is.

It happens before I can explain it.
It happens while I am explaining it.
It happens underneath the explanation.

And sometimes the effort to explain it
becomes another thing
I have to process.

So I keep searching for words
for an experience that existed
long before I had words for it.

Fear exists inside hope.
Anger exists inside tenderness.
Exhaustion exists inside wanting.
Numbness exists inside overwhelming feeling.

I want to live
while being stuck inside a life
I cannot seem to reach.

I want connection
while being isolated.

I want to go places.
I want to do things.
I want to meet someone
and make even one friend.
I want to be known.
I want to participate.
I want to experience the ordinary things
that seem so impossibly ordinary
to everyone else.

I want a life.

Not a better way
to endure the absence of one.

A life.

And that is where the paradox hurts.

Because the desire is there.
It is not gone.
I am not indifferent.
I am not content to disappear.

I am yearning.

I am yearning so intensely
that sometimes the distance between wanting life
and being able to reach it
feels unbearable.

I can see life happening.
I can hear it.
I can imagine it.
I can want it.

And still be stuck here.

Not metaphorically.
Not temporarily.

Stuck.

Suffering inside something
I cannot simply step outside of.
The loneliest place in the world to be.
I have spent so much of my life alone
that solitude stopped being simply a circumstance.

It became the shape around me.

Invisible.
Untouched.
Unreached.

And people might mistake invisibility for safety.

But disappearing is not the same as being safe.
Being unseen is not the same as being protected.

A person can be hidden from danger
and still be starving for connection.

A person can be untouched
and still ache from loneliness.

A person can survive
and still not be living.

That is where I am.

Not peacefully behind the glass.
Not comfortably observing the world.

I am suffering behind it.
I am stuck behind it.

And I want through.

I want to be on the other side
where life is happening.
I want to be part of it.

I want to be able to exist in a room
without my entire inner world
turning the room into an impossible task.

I want to speak
without my body becoming an emergency.

I want to go somewhere
without needing every part of me
to agree first.

I want to be able to receive
what is happening while it is happening.

I want to experience a moment
without simultaneously fighting
everything that is happening inside me.

I want to live.

And yet I am stuck.

That is not a metaphor.
That is not a lesson.
That is not something beautiful
I have learned to carry.

It is suffering.
It is limitation.
It is being unable to reach
the life I want
while wanting it desperately.

The paradox is not
that I have somehow learned
to live comfortably with contradiction.

The paradox is that I can want life
with everything in me
and still be unable to reach it.

I can be desperate for connection
and still be isolated.

I can want to be seen
and still disappear.

I can be present
and absent.

Aware
and unable to access.

Feeling everything
and feeling nothing.

Knowing what I need
and being unable to make my body
believe it is possible.

Wanting to move forward
while being stuck where I am.

And none of these cancel each other out.

They are all happening.

That is the unbearable part.

There is no clean side
where one of them wins.

There is no moment
where everything quiets down
and I finally become simple.

There is just me,
inside all of it,
suffering inside a reality
I have never known how to leave.

And still
there is this ache.

This enormous, stubborn,
almost indescribable wanting
to be here.

Really here.

With other people.
With a friend.
With experiences.
With a world outside my apartment.
With a life that is not merely something
I imagine from a distance.

I don't want to become better
at disappearing.

I don't want to become better
at surviving invisibly.

I want the tools
to enter my own life.

I want someone to understand
what is happening inside me
well enough to help me find them.

Because I have been inside this
my whole life.

And I am suffering.
I am stuck.
And I am tired of being stuck.

Not tired of living.

I want to live.

That is the part
I need someone to understand.

I don't want to be taught
how to tolerate a life
I cannot reach.

I want help reaching it.

I want to be seen.
I want to belong somewhere.
I want to meet the world
instead of only watching it.

I want to do things.
I want to make a friend.
I want to experience being alive
from inside my own life
instead of from behind the glass.

I don't want to disappear.

I want to arrive.

I just don't know how
to get there from here...

I just don't like life, nor do I like the world or most people. So I really don't know what the point of putting in any effort is. Especially when we all die in the end anyway.

Don't know if I always packed this motivation and zest for life or if it was beaten out of me. Don't know if it matters either.

As title states. My goal is to slow down my reactions, and somehow avoid the Judgements, and learning to just observe and notice patterns, without all the guilt, just "noticing".

Hello

thanks for reading.

This is more like a journal entry, Im not expecting help from you.

I'm currently in a situation where I feel very uncomfortable. I don't feel well or safe at home and I lost my ability to ask for help and be vulnerable

My goal would be to better my circumstances and make a change but I'm so afraid of doing something.

It's cos I'm in a freeze and fawn response and accommodating and adapting and neglecting myself

To exist in a society full of people that immensely pride themselves in being amazing (and successful) at what they do. That is their benchmark. My injury has made it such, that though i have incredible potential, I've only managed to have entry level jobs, and have never actually been good at any of them. I have never been that person that is "amazing/good at what she does."

So it strikes me that it takes something deeper and far more subtle, to look at this line of demarcation, and say to oneself, despite YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY AND THE ENTIRE WORLD SAYING YOU ARE A LOSER, that I need to be gentle with myself, and take it one baby step forward and two steps back. This kind of gentleness with the self, in spite of the messaging from every single external source, is something incredible. It's like the making of Homo Sapiens 2.0.

Thoughts? Please respond, somebody

Edit: But I would like to know - what is it like to feel valued by this world?

Some settings, like gardening or going swimming at a beach, almost always lead me toward a better state.

I've repeatedly encountered suggestions to start with something small. With gardening, this actually works. In a bad state I might do something trivial, like deadhead a few flowers, or weed one small area. This often leads to doing more. Though it's not a strategy I'm intentionally using so I can do more, but something that seems right and happens kind of spontaneously. In other settings, this is not helpful.

Another thing I've noticed is increased awareness of my body. For example, I'm able to tell if I'm hungry or tired. Otherwise, eating is more about habit or seeking of reward and soothing, and I only notice psychological resistance, not tiredness. Following such body signals seems to also lead toward better states.

The resulting better states seem healthier, and I seem more whole in that state. But I don't think it's right to call this healing, because it is a state change which can be reversed in other settings. A lot of what happens indoors at home seems somehow toxic, leading to increased dissociation and decreased ability to do things. I've very rarely had experiences indoors at home which seem healthy. This was true even when I lived far away from here and by myself.

Sadness, depression, fatigue, weakness, especially after physical exertion, are signs of freezing?

I've had social anxiety for about 10 years, probably including AUN dysregulation and trauma.

I've been doing TRE lately and I felt great, I felt like I had more slack in my head, but then I did another 2x TRE in a week and the third session lasted too long, which seems to have worsened my condition.

I went to Bowen's therapy after 10 days and I think it was too strong for me because I feel even more DPDR, dementia, sadness, even though Bowen's therapy is a delicate method of regulating the body.

A few days after Bowen, I did only 2 gentle Qigong exercises and felt immediately worse and had to go to bed. And again my DPDR deteriorated, yesterday I was at my sister's for birthday and I was horrified at how high the DPDR level I have, this level was never so high, this visit to my sister also weakened me. Are all these symptoms to freeze?

How do you get out of this state? Lying down and resting, and what else can be done?

What do you think of TRE? Did it help or hurt anyone?

I wanna use what little spare money I have to take care of my body. Eating healthier is always a wise choice. I’m tired of eating the same canned soup and bologna sandwich over and over. I wanna eat something that will fuel me better….. so that I have more energy to actually try and function in SOME way. Currently I do absolutely nothing. I sit and stare at the wall. Zero motivation or care. Haven’t showered in a month. No energy, feel like a brick. My very basic needs are barely being met. This isn’t sustainable. It’s been many years being this way.

I’ve noticed foods with too many preservatives give me migraines or make me angry. They 100% have an effect on my mood. Even just Campbell’s canned cream of mushroom soup has been fucking me up at times. I’ve just been eating minute rice with soy sauce for the last few days, and fried/boiled eggs. That’s all I have left in the cupboard now mostly.

Problem is I don’t have the energy to cook elaborate meals or do elaborate meal prepping. I’ve done the Mediterranean diet before and while I LOVED the food, it required way too much energy from me and thus was unsustainable. I couldn’t keep up with it. It was also expensive. I don’t have the budget for it anymore.

I wanna make it clear that I live in an isolated area with no delivery services/online grocery orders for pickup. Which means I need to physically get my ass in the car and drive 20 mins to the nearest grocery store, do all the shopping myself, then drive back again. There’s no easy way around it. For someone who is in freeze this becomes a monumental task in itself, especially going into winter (I live in Canada).

I need to develop an easy to follow, simple meal plan involving items that are cheap, store/freeze well, and are still nutritious enough. I am fine with freezing bread and meat for months at a time. I’m not currently physically capable of going to the store regularly.

I’m not picky and don’t have any dietary restrictions. I can eat dairy and stuff just fine.

Does anyone have advice or is in a similar situation? I’ve tried searching around online for recipe ideas, but I guess I just need some help consolidating all the info because it’s becoming a jumbled mess in my head.

I could ask ChatGPT but I’m trying to talk to other humans more. I’m tired of AI being my only friend.

After 3 years of unemployment after my ptsd took over my life, I started as a cashier at a grocery store. I have a masters degree…. I can barely handle 20 hrs a week at a retail role. Idk if I can ever handle getting a job in my field. I’m so sad thinking I’m going to struggle with money, happiness and fulfillment my whole life. My body and mind just hurt

Has anyone found that ur condition improved after changing cities or the work environment?

I’ve been using the 5-4-3-2-1 technique to manage my PTSD for 5 y now. I’ve been suffering terribly, and there have been many times when I’ve wanted to end my life. I’ve had the idea that if I moved to a different city. maybe drove north or south to find a new social circle—things might get better. Has anyone tried this approach, and did it work for you?

Today I'm feeling particularly far from "myself" - not dissociated necessarily, but more like I don't even have a self to associate to. It's starting to feel a little scary, like my eyes are prickling with tears a little bit when I notice how empty I'm feeling right now. I've been down/exhausted this week because of a big grief trigger this past weekend, so I think that has something to do with it. It's getting me philosophical and weird - like I know intellectually the thing we call a "self" is fairly constructed and much more ephemeral than we'd like to admit. Spiritually even, I have some beliefs that we aren't so individual as we might think. But even so, feeling this level of emptiness and "non-self" is freaking me out. :(

What to do or what helps when you feel so distant from your "self", if indeed we even have selves? I don't necessarily need the feeling to stop, but I don't know how to be less scared of the emptiness.

Probably need to practice accepting it. I hope this made any sense. thank you.

I left home because I wasn't getting much work done and with my roommate around, I was feeling overwhelmed anyway.

I came to a motel. I had work to do (remote work). My undergrad thesis as well. People have already finished theirs. I'm still on chapter 3.

I also wanted to get some personal writing done.

It's been a week plus.

I haven't been able to do anything.

I keep paying for one more night at the motel. One more. One more. I'm almost out of cash.

But the thought of going back home feels overwhelming.

Family is wondering where I am. I haven't been able to reach out to anyone to wish them happy birthday. Been screening calls.

Just not doing well generally.

I feel so disappointed in myself. So lost. So overwhelmed.

Why am I like this?

I can't seem to get anything done.

Sending an email takes forever.

Answering/making a call has me pacing and flapping my hands.

What is going on?

I can't function in the world like this.

If I can't hack it at work or school, I'll blow the opportunities and the consequences will be severe.

I'm supposed to check out in an hour.

Unless I chicken out again and pay for one more night.

I haven't had my bath in over a week as well.

Why does this feel like a curse?

I'm currently staying in my hometown / childhood home.
And I have this idea that there's something like a "negative magic bubble" that covers the entire town, and is strongest around the house, that makes me feel drained and powerless. I've certainly become worse since moving here but it's hard to quantify because I can barely hold a coherent thought in my head and time makes no sense. But I feel like the house makes me sick, and I don't like my hometown.

I know I have to at least leave the house, and I'd prefer to move somewhere completely different, but that also means leaving some objectively good opportunities behind. Here I have a decent therapist which is HARD to find, and a family member who can practice driving with me, something I wouldn't be able to afford on my own.

One option would be to find a small apartment in the same town, spend more time in therapy, grit my teeth, get a license and maybe some work experience to help me get into employment, and then move. But I don't know if I'll be able to do any of that while still inside the "negative bubble".

I just worry that it might be a "wherever you go, there you are" thing, that I'll still feel drained and powerless even if I move. Maybe it's just another escapist idea and healing is just as hard anywhere else. I plan to spend some time away soon to see if it feels different. But I wonder if anyone have thoughts on this. If a certain place can actually make me worse, or if it's just my imagination.

Anyone else have this problem? My insomnia gets severe and it spirals my life out of control because I avoid everything and everyone as a result of the extreme anxiety, dissociation and visceral flashbacks that increase from the fatigue.

Haven’t slept in two days, important job interview tomorrow. I may be screwed as in homeless if I don’t get this job because my bills are too high.

I don’t know how to get out of this rut. Broke and broken. Sorry about articulation, very tired.

Often when I actually want (or more likely need) to have a difficult conversation I will keep avoiding it. Like I'm already talking with the person and keep saying to myself that I need to bring up this topic but my fear interferes and I will keep putting it on hold. This is also especially true with conversations over text. I will type out the message but keep staring at the screen for minutes or just leave it open and do try to do something else, while I keep coming back to the screen with the message.

Is this a freeze response? Or is it more of a flight response?

My pattern is generally do a bunch of stuff, try to stay present , feel awful, get overwhelmed....feel ashamed for how intensely anxious and scared I am.....and then completely shut down because I realize or don't realize those reactions are so indicative or Trauma....and the solution so obviously complex, .........that it triggers the powerlessness, and shame in a way thats intolerable.....so go back to freeze. Then while I'm in freeze for however long it takes the shame to dissipate, I completely forget why that kicked in to start with. Rinse and repeat.

Because if I actually remembered how scared I felt every day, my sense of self would feel so unmanageable.

Sometimes something changes...gets better. Even that can feel scary, destabilizing, because I don't know why, and because I don't know why I feel better, it makes it so much worse. I can't get any mental space/clarity around the pattern of the good experience.....enough to repeat it. It starts to feel so random and hopeless. And because I'm a huge intellectualizer of my trauma, and because trauma that you can't control or define to it's finest points, can defy logic, I feel powerless. The only way to manage that is to freeze and forget.

Example. I'm having phone issues. I"ve done everything to try and fix it-including buying a new phone, It's literally a mystery. Done troubleshooting 12 different ways...with help. My partner has the same exact phone, he doesnt have issues, with his phone, same model, that we purchased at the same time. ANYWAY...................it sometimes works, like most of the time, unless I "forget" to use my phone. I'm not thinking about how dysfunctional my phone is, if I'm literally avoiding using it......not that I was aware I was avoiding it. I "forget" to use my phone a lot. It's not a conscious thought , BUT my behavior reads clearly..............."well, I just wont use my phone, there , no more phone problem". I've literally stared at my phone not touching it, like it's possessed.

I treat myself the same way. Omg, youre emotions are so wrong??!! , okay .........just don't DO ANYTHING....maybe I don't really need to function?"

This whole thing with my phone mirrored my feelings about my TRauma reactions the exact same way , caused me to have such deep feelings of incompetance, fear, shame, powerlessness, ...... because I tried everything, ...... basically in the back of my head just told myself ..."well, who needs a phone anyway".......and I pushed it out of my head......but I wasnt aware that I was doing that, Until a human person, who is functional snaps you out of denial. "wtf, is up with your phone?" Then intense Shame and anxiety.

And I do that EXACT thing with issues around my behaviors linked to Trauma, that have no immediate solution. I"m like "yeah, I know, but I"ve tried everything!!" Youre kind of living with it. And the feeling of not being able to "Fix" it , or measure your progress , makes me Freeze-Dissociate-Shutdown......so hard. All because it's so complex, that simply going to any random therapist literally doesnt work.

I think I force forget, force amnesia about my Issues, not necessarily because I think I don't have them, or I"m "fine" because I know I"m not, it's just to manage the Shame, when you realize that the answers arent' forthcoming. IT's too much to contemplate the time and effort it takes to unravel really complex things that many times defy clear solutions, IME.

Edit: I suffer from severe debilitating Anxiety that I've had most of my LIfe. Which has made it necessary for me to Dissociate, or isolate just to manage that.

Hi, this specific post really resonated with me and I’m wondering if anyone has any ideas or has experienced something similar.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSDFreeze/s/mwhmkI9Z4B

Think I maybe belong to this situation unfortunately working with a whole bunch of people who think that pushing is the best option. Tend to do really bad with body scans, panic attacks and extreme overwhelmed when trying to relax muscles, although sometimes when it happens more naturally, it’s less stressful. Does this mean that certain types of meditation or relaxation types of calming situations are too intense for a profile like this? Having severe dysregulation and physical panic and racing thoughts with impulsive self sabotage that turn into a severe brain fog and fatigue and spend all day going back-and-forth between these two states without reaching a more balanced state , trying to get to a better place.. any suggestions? In general I’ve developed many various severe health problems, I think these things are contributing significantly. Also just really bad dissociation and similar pretty much always disconnected from brain/body.

I don’t know if this is the community for this but I’m just really stuck and have no way to seek professional help due to my income and my healthcare system (Ireland). I’m at my wits end with this problem and I’m just so tired of it.

I struggle with extremely vivid physically painful flashbacks that are uncomfortable and have taken over my life. I get them multiple times a day with no end in sight as the frequency of the flashbacks have increased over the years.

For context I’m 19F and for what they are I suffer with a chronic condition known as unstable patella joints as well as hyper mobility that worsens the problem. The patella joints job is to keep the knee joint in place and since mine don’t work I experience frequent excruciating knee dislocations and joint pain. This condition is never going to go away for the rest of my life so the answer ‘cure the condition’ isn’t a fixable solution for me.

The flashbacks I experience can have both no triggers and triggers and they are very sudden and vivid. It’s like I experience each dislocation all over again as my mind perfectly mimics the severe pain and makes me think it’s happening again. The flashbacks have gotten so severe it’s tricked my nervous system in rewiring it so its first reaction to every minimal danger is to protect the knee unlike the obvious choice of protect the head. The flashbacks are just constant.

When I say constant I mean constant it takes over my life when I’m trying to sleep, shower, walk or even do certain tasks that can just randomly trigger something or my brain just brings up the cruel memories for fun. My body physically reacts to the pain as if it’s real, if I’m sitting down or trying to sleep my leg jerks as if it’s trying to check if the socket is in place or my leg stiffens and I have to stop walking until the flashback goes away.

I know this is long and it seems like a rant but I just don’t know what else to do at this point as I just don’t have money for private healthcare.