I'm sick of talking about it, I'm sick of reading up on CSA, I'm sick of taking a microscope to my past. I'm stick of it all. It's so raw and painful, it's not pretty, it's not fun to look at. I feel like it's even unhealthy to spend as much time as I do on this site, in therapy, and in the all the corners of my mind. But most of all, I'm sick of putting other's wisdom and advice above my own intuition.

What does it mean to recover? What is causing me pain? What do I need to change?

I already know, to recover I must let go of my past and look to the future while not leaving the present, and I need to change the unhealthy coping skills, habits, and survival tactics from my past. I know what I need to do now.

But what do I really want? Like what do I really want out of life? To be happy? That's too broad an idea, I'll never forever be happy. Happiness comes and goes, I don't think anyone is always happy. But if you ask most people what they want, they say happiness. Why?

So again I ask, what do I really want? I don't know, but I do know I want to stop living in the past, and I want the past to leave me alone. I want to learn from my past, keep whats good, put on the shelf what's bad, change what I need to and be done with it. But if there's one thing I do know I want, I want a voice that people will listen to, and I want to be able to leave this world better off than I entered it. But is that really what I want? See it's hard to see the difference between want and need sometimes, I need to be loved and to love, but that seems like a want. So if asked what do I want sometimes I'd say I want to find my soulmate, but that's not a want, that's a need.

Where are we all going and why do some of us get stuck here for so long? This isn't a happy place to be, none of us should want to be here, but most of us have to.

Do I need a professional to be a better person? Do I need therapy to live? Do I need these drugs I take to calm my anxiety? If truth be told, I don't think I need them, but why do I feel like I do? I feel like I'm stuck, because of other people telling me whats best, without looking at myself and asking myself what's best. Trusting my own thoughts, my own heart. And if I asked my heart what should I do, it would be leave, forgive, and forget. Those who love you will follow, and those who don't aren't a part of your life anymore. They played their role, and it's time to move on. Go out and do something besides looking at my past, some would call it running away, but if I already know my problems, is it really running away? Do I really need to face my problems everyday and let it get me down? Or is that perfectionist black and white thinking? We do what we do in life, we survive, we try our best, and for those of us who made it, we're here. Were we wrong? Who cares, we have the ability to change, I've thought a lot lately about what changes us, and I think it's not us who change, we are the same we've always been, it's just our view that changes. Maybe that's what our depression is, our pain, maybe we just have the wrong view of things. I know I did. But now I think it's time I trusted myself. I know what I need, I don't know what I want, but I think I know how to find it. And for me that means leaving this city behind. Should I listen to my heart? Or the professionals I pay to care? The professionals who don't know my 20 years of life, why should I trust anyone over my heart? I made it this far, I know I'm strong enough, if I fall, I'll get back up and learn from it, then I'll continue my journey, but it's pointless to look outside yourself for all the answers, because nobody knows the answers to your problems, only you do.

So I ask you all, what are you doing that your told to do that doesn't parallel your heart's whispers? What does your heart say?

Maybe that's why we get stuck sometimes, because we don't listen to that inner instinct, our heart. And the older we get, it seems the less we trust it. Maybe because it's wrong sometimes, maybe because it's gotten us hurt, but that doesn't mean it has taught us nothing.

Cloudy,

I'm just hanging on, same as you.

Cant

Hay CF,
Excelent post and questions.

I think this is not an easy questions for me to answer.
I honor my hart always in that I don't discount or minimize the importants of what I need and feel. I have had to deal with a lot of confusion and conflict when it comes to what my hart seems to want. I have learn to ask my self a lot of questions, like what do I realy want? I have found that getting down to the deep often young needs and desires of the hart is a bit difficult. Often for me they are covered by layers of extra meaning and painfull memories. But when I get past all the distortions, confusion and pain, I usually get down to something that look like a unerversal human need.

Being wanted
Being known for who I realy am
Giving and receiving comfort
Having meaningful connections with others
Experiencing the fullness of my life with in meaningful relationship
Becoming more and more whole and compleat
And the like.

I have had to come to the realization that the damage that I have received and the damage that I have caused my self and others in reaction to the original damage has been tremendous and far be on my ability manage.

My hart has taken me on a bunch of long walks on short piers, and seems to prefer to often be leading me to the porvierable sloughter. Step by little step.

When I ask myself what am I realy feeling? It help me get in touch with the underlining basic need.

I think that this helped me see the disruption more clearly and distinguish it from the legitimate underling need.

The problem that I see is that the disruptive distortive needs do not realy ever get met. They just become biger and want more but never lead me to being truly happy.

For me I have learned that going counter intuitive on what I want sometimes allows for a more happy outcome. So I supose I am becoming truly happy by not following my hart unless it meets at least one of the underling true needs and does not take away from any of the others. If that makes any sense.

thanx SS

Cee

I think really in my heart I want to pretend it never happened, like go back to the way I was a couple of years ago where everything seemed fine and it didn't really bother me.

Apparently that's bad and unhealthy. But it worked pretty good for me.

I thought counselling was going to be where someone would tell me what to do so i could fix everything. But its nothing like that. It sucks! They just want me to talk about it while they listen. I suppose sometimes when you are totally inolved with some issue then it can be helpful to get another persons perspective on it, but my counsellor doesn't even really do that. She just seems to basically repeat everything I say back to me and it IRRITATES me. A lot.

Yes yes oh God please someday yes. This speaks to me so much. I know it's impossible but that's what I want too. I had over 2 decades of some level of awareness of my abuse without ever caring about it and never once feeling hurt. It's so unfair to have the suppressor switch wear off and then be unable to find it and flip it back on again.

But more realistically.... I want the emotional tornado to disperse. I want the physical and emotional sensations to become less immediate. Want it to have less of an effect on my marriage and job - better it shoukd be none at all. I want it to become like every other bad memory in life: a MEMORY, that I can choose to think about or not.

Excellent post and great question.

I what my heart really wants is to, to be a good partner. To stop constantly disappointing my partner. To be more open... I was pretty fine with my CSA and ASA until I found someone who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

I want to be able to focus on the future and stop letting the past control me...

So good question/topic.
I want to reclaim my past and to reduce the negative impacts made by sudden appereance of negative feelings like isolation, abandonment, neglect, helpless, loneliness...I want to stay present when scared and in some negative spot.
Actually when I close my yes I want to have positive image of myself in first place.
I want to have control over my habit of watching porn and hyper-sexuality.
I want to be constructive, affirmative and positive in first place comparing to it's negative antipodes that attract me sometimes like with some gravity force.

My therapist asked me this question this morning. What I really want is to be able to act with spontineaity. Whene my granddaughter sits on my lap, and I read to her, Making different character voices, I want to be able to be in the experience. What I do now is enter the role of grandfather, I play the role well, and I don't think my granddaughter knows the difference, but I do. I want an intimate partner who wants to enjoy sex with me. I want to stop being afraid that I am vulnerable. It is a fact, I am vulnerable, it always was a fact, and I will live with it. I do not have a choice, but I still think I can be safe by not being vulnerable.

It is a delusion. I don't just have to know it is a delusion, but that I can permit myself to act without trying to defend against my vulnerability. Don't get me wrong, I know I need defenses against danger, but not against myself.

Thank you all.