my stomach hurts, mood is terrible, brain is foggy
 

I'm afraid that the reason behind all these things is the childhood trauma I experienced. If it were something else I could possibly change it, like if it were caused by the last few years of drinking and drugs, maybe then I could reverse the damage somehow. But the childhood trauma I faced? From what I hear it's a death sentence. People in my position are essentially crippled for the rest of their life, subject to chronic illness and general misery.

I'm afraid my trauma has caused my brain to essentially fizzle out and die on me. The nature of my trauma is unbearable. Constant for basically my whole childhood. I learned to survive by shutting down who I really am. Now that I am grown I feel like a shadow of who I am, I'm caught in the same coping mechanisms that I used as a child and I can't get out of them no matter how much I realize I'm doing it and try to change it.

I don't feel an urge to live for myself, to choose my own life.
I can't even muster the energy to avoid future pain. I'm so resigned that I can't even act when the reaper is staring me in the face. I feel like I gave up once before and now I am condemned to always be giving up as soon as the road becomes difficult. As much as I hate to admit it, I am a quitter. When push comes to shove my resolve dissolves and I crumble.

I'm taking some probiotics now, eating relatively healthy foods (salads and fruits at least half the week, junk/regular food the rest (it used to be 99% junk lol)). I take some supplements for brain health and to get good sleep, GABA, rhidiola, ginko, 5-htp, trypotphan, valerian, etc. I have a wizard cabinent of magical herbs, including the ganja which is probably the one herb I should let go. To be honest, I got the health herbs to alleviate the ganja related brain symptoms. I smoke ganja to help me deal with the pain of the trauma.

I want to quit drugs, but there is an infinite amount of pain waiting for me once I get sober. The only way I have learned to live is by totally avoiding my mind, trauma, and identity.

I just want to have a normal life. To be able to have a good platform of emotions and physical feelings to work with. To be able to see my desires and go achieve them. To be able to receive happiness and love without automatically shutting down.

Right now I am struggling just to survive. Each day I wake up in horrible mental pain. When I go about my business I am not there, it's just a shell that has learned what needs to be done in order to see another day. I don't smile anymore, I don't feel excited either. I barely feel anger. I haven't felt stress in god knows how long. I feel almost nothing, I feel like a ghost.



Is this really just a phase of development that everybody goes through? The childhood trauma has been untreated for decades, and modern psychology basically says my brain is fried because of that. Based off what I am experiencing now, splits in consciousness, attention, memory, etc, seems to be a clear sign saying "your brain is fried buddy!".

I'm in hell right now and I feel like this is the new normal for my life. I'm learning to be a husk of a human who can survive in hell... I don't want to do that. I want to be something else but I fear I don't have the strength to withstand any more pain. If I'm a husk I can avoid the bad but I miss the good too. If I let in the good and feel the bad, I'm afraid I will truly give up next time things get bad. I'm paralyzed in a place of great pain and I don't know what to do.

Awareness creates change, realise how strong you are for being able to admit all this. childhood trauma is difficult to face but that's why you aren't supposed to deal with it all at once. look at the trauma as being a big ball of elastic bands, when you deal with each trigger one at a time, the elastic bands will decrease. pain and sadness aren't shameful, they are normal parts of the human experience, go into the pain fully, feel it, understand it and it will clear.

For this process, I strongly recommend doing transcendental meditation everyday! I do it everyday, basically when you allow yourself to transcend thought in the meditative state, you are immersed in a feeling of bliss...because I do this I don't need drugs.

p.s smoking cannabis is very ungrounding, I realised that after I gave it up completely

Your brain isn't fried. There's new research called the plastic brain which may be worth a bit of reading.

It's funny that smoking it has the feeling of being very grounded. I guess it stops being so grounding when its abused, and I abuse it.

How is transcendental meditation done and how would I know if I am achieving it?

ahhh yes ..... i so know this trauma!
Oh did my belly ache for decades before ........
Before ...... GRACE washed it all away ~
Still think not Enlightenment an end ..... just a new beginning and oh how you will laugh as Grace enters Consciousness ~
How to proceed ...... can't answer as Grace works in ITS own way and on ITS timeless schedule ~
i can share what single CHOICE i made which preceded GRACE Consciousness though , in the midst of all memories resurfacing and my heart about to give out completely ...... i chose to Let Go and Forgive it all ...... and myself as well. In that what i call Unholiest Hour ......... in the INSTANT after the choice ...... PEACE! A peace which defies explanation ........ and the following morning , my head was abuzz in Ecstatic Joy ~!
You sound CLOSE to that INSTANT .......
i once had a friend who shared a similar story ..... and that helped me get through the hard part. Something he wrote ..... A messenger told me ..... or something like that ~ Google it maybe you will find something useful ~
he or she ..... can't remember ..... ummm....found it "A Messenger Once Told Me"

I'm sorry to hear you are going through this, Corey, but I shall tell you something....every word of it, I could have written myself, except for the feeling 'hopeless' part, because thankfully, my alexithymia takes care of that...but the brain fogginess, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, M.E. etc, drives me to total distraction most days...yep, it's caused by childhood trauma (which I have also had my fair share of) and yep, it is a 'death sentence' in which no doctor out there will be able to tell me what I am dying from, even though we both know that I am dying.

I was only thinking yesterday, that after I go, I am going to donate my body to science. lol

Having said that, I am also on GABA, tryptophan and valerian, but recently, I cut out the Valerian for Kava Kava (it works much better than Valerian):

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/262623...-1/s-l1000.jpg

Also, make sure your vitamin B6 and vitamin D3 levels are way up there. I have also heard that DHEA is good, but haven't tried that one out yet.

In regards to the aches, pains and fogginess...I know that it tastes disgusting, but Apple Cider Vinegar with the 'Mother' helps...take about 20-30ml of it 3 times a day with meals.

Then, look into Ayurveda...I've put myself on a regimen of Ashwaghanda, Chyawanprash and Churna.

As much as you don't want to hear this, nothing is going to improve unless you wake up at 5-6am every day and do meditation and yoga...so if that seems unappealing to you, what is worse, doing that or suffering how you are now? The choice MUST be made. It's also something that both of us need to seriously address.

I was looking on Youtube yesterday...came across a video called "Yoga. My Bed. And M.E." which is about the state at which I can start this right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IaNskXb0-o

Yeah, all of that 'surrender to God' stuff doesn't work in regards to this, does it? :wink:

Meanwhile, think of them all as 'ascension symptoms' or 'kundalini symptoms' if it makes things easier, and go out and 'ground' yourself....there are things, that no matter how much we don't want to do them...no matter how much we hate doing them, or the whole idea of doing them totally un-appeals to us, nothing whatsoever will change unless we do it...so we must choose...do we do what we hate, or be how we hate?

Next week, I have an appointment with my GP to start back on Duloxetine (Cymbalta). I was on it once, but had to discontinue it after a week due to nasty side-effects. This time, we're going to start at the lowest dose and gradually build it up to a therapeutic dose over the course of a month or two...until my body gets used to it and can handle it.

Meanwhile, all you can do is self-care...look after yourself...try and distract yourself from whatever it is you are feeling, because the more you concentrate on it, the more attention you give it, the more it feeds it...like a spoiled, brat of a child....trust me, I know.

So, here's a list of 'other things' you can do when this strikes:
http://www.onelittlehappything.com/w...reideaspin.jpg

While all of this is going on, look into all of those cognitive behavioural lessons and solutions for a condition called distress intolerance, which is a natural result of trauma...and which I know that both of us have.

Seeing a counselor can help with this and there are a few online programs as well, like moodgym:
https://moodgym.com.au/

Remember those things you like to do and do them...whatever they are. It may take a lot of strength and focus, overcoming that which tells you to 'go to hell' when you ask it to come along with you to the park to feed the ducks...but drag it along kicking and screaming if need be.

There are those people for whom obeying/incorporating the ego as a holistic approach to their enlightenment works...and those who need to totally kill it to get any peace whatsoever....I am the latter.

All the best, my friend and I wish us both well.

One more thing - before I take an internet hiatus for a while (due to a total lack of logical communication online) and it's something to ponder.

I feel there must be a reason why two individuals such as we, who have so much in common are thrown together on this forum.

I also have a history of childhood trauma, I have random pain, no emotion whatsoever, am an 'empty shell', used to smoke a lot of weed (but don't anymore), know all the Tantras, have been visited by Shiva/Rudra, I am 'lazy', I'm a 'quitter'...I could go on and on about our similarities. Also, we've seen how, somehow, our individual moods and states of being tends to influence and affect each other....I am at a total loss to explain this.

I think that we are somehow meant to help each other out here...and the universe has done this for a reason!

What else do I think? what I think is that we both know what it is we need to do to help/heal/cure ourselves but we are not doing it because it is 'too hard' but in doing so, we become totally used to the way things are...have always been. At first, we are comfortable with it, used to it, but after some time, it confines us...we are suffocated by it...but unable to break free and break out of it, so we totally resign ourselves to it, and total numbness and a total loss of all emotion, pleasure, desire and attachment results which we then mistake for 'spiritual progress'.

It is hard to break free, to escape that box of conditioning we have placed ourselves in because it has served us up to a point, but we urge to go beyond that point, but the bulls*** that we keep telling ourselves stops us...."It is too hard"..."I am too tired"..."I don't feel like it"...."I'll do it later"...."I don't care".

While ever we remain a slave to this 'demon' that seeks to sabotage our efforts at getting better...at moving on...at doing anything, we'll forever remain exactly where we are...so we'll read books, make plans, try to fool ourselves into thinking we are doing something due to all our 'good intentions' alone...until we get reminded about that whole 'no pain, no gain' thing...and that's not only on the physical level.

God is the biggest 'personal trainer' out there...and you may surrender your heart and soul to Him, only for Him to go; "drop and give me 50 push-ups...stat!" and you say "awww...do I gots to?" and God just gives a divine sigh...Shiva isn't called "Yogeshwara" (God of Yoga) for nothing and love/surrender to God is not enough, because it is really true that "God only helps those who help themselves!" and if you are a quitter, then God will quit on you as well...sad but true.

God will give you those experiences, show you the bliss, let you taste the carrot and then dangle it in front of your nose and you will have to work at it from then on and work really hard to get it back again...it was so easy the first time, but then it keeps getting harder...and harder...and the 'men from the boys' all become sorted out...the 'quitters from the persevere-ers' become sorted out and that which once aroused emotions within us, fail to do so anymore.

As unfortunate as it is, we can't afford the 'luxury' of staying in bed until 9am, eating whatever we like, vegging out in front of the TV, not doing any 'spiritual work' on ourselves because it is 'too hard' (only because we've become so used to our 'comfort zone', it's going to take an atomic bomb under our bum to move us)...but unless we somehow break through...just by taking one baby step that we can keep up every day, then that is a start...but what happens? we miss a day and punish ourselves with guilt over that for a whole week.

It took years for the trauma to happen and manifest and unfortunately, it's going to take that long to get over it in proportion...but unless a start is made and a progression is made that doesn't involve 'setting goals' and 'planning' without carrying any of them through, nothing will get done, nothing will change and we'll be in that place where nothing exists, but not in any 'blissful' way whatsoever, even if we once felt it.

Om Namah Shivaya

Chrysalis is correct, neuroplasticity is the hot term. We can rewire the brain, that becomes abundantly clear with each advance in technology. Staying with the theme of an abusive childhood will only keep your mind there.

From what i see Shivatar, you're far more advanced than you realize. Face the inner demons but let them be what they are now, a story. You know what you are from a pure awareness level, try to reach the inner child from there. Work with it.

I've probably gone a little to far into the Psychology meets Spirituality realm after awakening, but it's how I was wired to see things. If you want any resources, feel free to reach out to me in a PM.

From a regiment standpoint, a flush of the system with apple cider like Shivani Devi has worked well for me. Having met someone who was becoming a Ayurveda yogi, they gave me a pretty simple breakdown and were not just woo woo about it. It's been around for a few years. Find a practitioner when the time is right.

Hi Shivatar. I was in a similar backslide last year and taking valerian and a healer I went to advised me that it can cause anxiety if used long-term. So I stopped and that helped and in hindsight I was spiraling downward due to the valarian but did not realize. Just wanted to let you know about that. An alternative that works for me is passion flower. I find it to be subtle but effective.

As others have said there are ways to shift your brain. The problem with past trauma is that it is like an echo chamber and can seem hopeless at times when you are caught in it. You just need to either interrupt the cycles or find a way to stop feeding the system. Both are doable but it takes time.

Have you read the book "The Untethered Soul" by Michael A. Singer? Its an insightful book that might just help you understand yourself and what you're going through which I believe is the road to self healing. Hope it helps.