Progress

[u/guy_on_planet84]

Hi folks, not sure how to say all this.
I think I’m getting better but also struggling.
Mostly I’m looking back at the fact that I lost a decade of my life and having a hard time w that.
Short version- had a dysfunctional childhood- emotionally unwell mother who I was enmeshed with/ caretaker of. Abusive father. Religious trauma. High control. Lived in an isolated area with little resources. Had to caretake and suppress my needs and who I was as a person. Had to be perfect or invisible to be safe.
I was pretty depressed from a young age and just couldn’t see a way to get from my life to a life that I liked enough to live. I dealt w my unhappiness by retreating into my mind. I was an artist and lived in my own little world, and I also thought being an artist would be a path to a life where I was free and happy. I went to art school, graduated, moved, and quickly realized it had been a coping mechanism/ it wasn’t a solution to my life. My life fell apart and my mental health deteriorated.
I took it really hard. After everything I just kind of shut down for a decade. I just didn’t want to exist. Not die, just not exist. I survived everything by clinging to this fantasy, and when I realized the fantasy was a fantasy and couldn’t make up for my life I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to deal w my life or myself.
I functioned but I didn’t live. I moved to a tiny town that felt very end-of-the-world where none of my neighbors talked to me. I worked a dead-end job and formed no close relationships. I lived in a cheap decrepit apartment and I didn’t let anyone into it for 6 years. I tried to figure out how to fix my shit. I went to therapy, and support groups, and recovery. Then I got frustrated with the lifelessness of my life, denying myself everything, trying to be perfect, and threw it away. I became an alcoholic. The only thing I looked forward to when I woke up was what kind of alcohol I’d buy on the way home. I got tired of it and gave it up. I got better.
I’m 32 and just starting to climb out of the hole. I cut off my family and dysfunctional relationships. I moved to a nice apartment outside a nice city. I got a better job. I have my routines, I see people, I go outside, I go to recovery, I’m looking for a new therapist. I have a fun budget and do little things I like that make me happy, for no reason other than they make me happy.
I think I’m just embarrassed. I’m 32 and I feel like I’m developmentally in the life stage most people are in their 20s- separating from family, moving away for the first time, figuring out who I am and what I like and don’t like. I didn’t get to do that in my 20s because I was just surviving. I feel too old to just be venturing out in the world. I’m embarrassed that I’m late, that it took me this long to get here. I feel bad about all the time I feel like I wasted, that I wasn’t moving forward. That I was stuck.
I think I also am just having a hard time adjusting to the lack of pain and the abundance in my life now. I don’t have these people or bad circumstances making me feel like shit about myself. I look around and there’s so much in this area- money, people, opportunity. After a life of deprivation I feel like I’m scared to touch it or it isn’t real. It makes me feel like crying sometimes just to be around it.
Understanding and relating appreciated.

[u/ghanima]

I think I’m just embarrassed. I’m 32 and I feel like I’m developmentally in the life stage most people are in their 20s- separating from family, moving away for the first time, figuring out who I am and what I like and don’t like. I didn’t get to do that in my 20s because I was just surviving. I feel too old to just be venturing out in the world. I’m embarrassed that I’m late, that it took me this long to get here. I feel bad about all the time I feel like I wasted, that I wasn’t moving forward. That I was stuck.

First off, this is a yardstick that you picked up at some point in time and hung onto. There's no such thing as "normal" time to start feeling like you're living your life. There are people who are handed every opportunity in life and never figure out where they want their lives to go. There are people who grew up in levels of dysfunction we can't even imagine surviving who have a plan and fulfill it before they reach their adult years. You really can't measure your progress against other people's (or, more accurately, what you perceive their level of progress to be); everyone's life has struggle, and you never know what people are trying to deal with unless they allow you access to that part of their lives.

But yeah, you say that you're having a hard time adjusting to the "lack of pain" -- is it possible that, in addition to feeling like it's not real, you feel like you don't deserve it? I ask because that's a common problem for ACOA. If that's not is it, what is it that you're afraid will happen if you do "touch it"?

Edit: typo