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JustExisting
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Default Feb 10, 2020 at 10:19 PM
  #1
In therapy, we are going through my life story with a fine tooth comb.

So far it has taken about a year and half to tell the story up to 23 years old. I am currently 38, and have SOOOO much more to tell.

I am honestly kind of shocked. i felt like i had a dull mundane life, but it was..... um.... WOW!


I am honestly exhausted just thinking about it. I was just preparing my notes for the next session and I started thinking about how uncommon this must be. No wonder I feel so different from most other people. My life is nothing near typical.

One survival struggle after another.

And I really do feel weary with life. That, and loneliness are at the heart of my suicidal ideation.

He told me that he has never heard a story like mine, where just bout everything in my life changes so dramatically, so often. Always getting used to new people, new stresses, and ill equipped to do so for lack of any form of proper upbringing, no education, etc.

It is like for my whole life, every few months to every couple of years, I am living a completely different life.

I think about people who have lived in the same house or two their whole lives. It seems almost supernatural to me.

Does anyone else suffer from "life change fatigue". Just want nothing more than a little stability for a while?
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Default Feb 12, 2020 at 06:23 AM
  #2
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Originally Posted by JustExisting View Post

I think about people who have lived in the same house or two their whole lives. It seems almost supernatural to me.

Does anyone else suffer from "life change fatigue". Just want nothing more than a little stability for a while?
I know what you mean. I moved around so much growing up that I don't know what my native language should be.

When I consider going to therapy, I just think I don't have the time and energy to explain all the things that led up to my current problems. My life went wrong before I was even born because my parents were reckless and unfit to have kids. My mom rushed into multiple marriages thinking she found true love and then went into victim mode where she abandoned parental duties and did things to me to spite my father (her first husband). My entire life is a mess of unstable family memebers, violent acts, and . . . . I'd better stop here.

Sorry I got sidetracked. I really appreciate this post by @JustExisting because it described something that has been on my mind. Good luck finishing your life story!
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Default Feb 13, 2020 at 09:02 PM
  #3
YES, I so relate to this. Life with my mother growing up was chaotic. We moved constantly. I had to adapt to the new and unknown, over and over and over. In early adulthood, I tried out stability for a time, in Chicago, and then ended up abandoning that for Saudi Arabia. Go figure. And then had all sorts of ups and downs and problems there.

Anyway... part of the reason I had to do intensive therapy this past fall was to have anywhere near enough time to tell the whole story.

A year and a half sounds brutal!! Hugs
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Default Feb 14, 2020 at 07:57 AM
  #4
Not as a child, my life was pretty stable then. I grew up in the same city, same home, never moved until I turned 19. It was quite obvious though about me already as a teenager that I loved novelty and trying things, even experiment with my own identity, appearance etc in bold ways. Then as an independent adult, I have moved between a few countries (including intercontinental)/states, changed my career field several times (developed brand new directions in each), never stayed in a traditional relationship and beyond a few years even in the more unconventional ones, had several really dark periods in my life and resolved all of them... the list goes on. I am in my mid 40s now and a few years ago I thought I would finally settle geographically and work-wise, but am just planning a bigger career shift again. Geographically more stable now but definitely still curious to try other places for shorter times, and I definitely think I will retire elsewhere.

I think part of this is a form of commitment phobia, but also a strong a novelty-seeking character of someone who just has this ingrained wanderlust. I have been up and down analyzing it, thinking that perhaps it is wrong, that I am constantly running away from things. I think a desire to escape is true and it has caused me problems for sure. However, after lots of consideration and examination, I also believe this is one of my best features: curiosity and openness that never seems to die, willingness to take risks, a pioneer spirit. The only kind of stability and security I really want, and think I need, is financial one - if I have that, I can do anything - why not? I have set my whole life for maximum freedom: never married, no family ties, no kids... Obviously I like and want this.

When I was in therapy, I told my Ts about all this wandering a lot. One of them didn't seem to understand it well and misinterpreted a lot, but he misinterpreted more things than not about me, so not a legit feedback. The other T seemed to get it and even relate, he told me how he settled into a stable routine for many years and my stories inspired him to start exploring again. I think it is a big difference if the desire for change comes from our own character (a love of freedom) or if it is the consequence of never having stability growing up (but wanting it).

I'm posting this to highlight that there can definitely be many upsides to not wanting to be stuck and too settled. It can sometimes be tiring for sure, but I personally would find staying in the same conditions for years and years much more depressing.
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Default Feb 15, 2020 at 05:49 AM
  #5
I had some changes in life but not in a childhood. My childhood wasn’t the greatest but not much change there

As an adult I lived through major change of political regime, several years prior and several years after were absolute chaos politically/economically/culturally. Also survived periods of extreme poverty due to regime change. My house was robbed and no one even truly investigated. Bad times

Then I lived through immigration across the ocean, learning new language etc Divorce. Remarrying.

Never had a major change of career, always did the same thing in one way or the other

My daughter had major moves/immigration 4 times. From country a to country b as a child, to country c as an adult, then back to country b, then it didn’t work out so back to country c and it’s now her permanent home. But she still regularly goes to country a and country b, just doesn’t live there. She has 3 citizenships lol She also survived becoming a widow in young age at horrible circumstances, don’t want to trigger anyone so I’d leave at that

I’d say some major changes shape as in who we are but some changes we’d be better off not having

Oh and my therapist had similar changes in life as mine so she knows
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Default Feb 15, 2020 at 09:16 AM
  #6
I moved 12 times by the time I finished high school to different cities within the US and also to other countries. There’s actually an interesting article published in 2010 in the Journal of Personality (I think - you can google it) about the emotional effects of frequent moves during childhood on adults. The conclusion was that those folks are more unhappy as adults and have less satisfying relationships. Effects were stronger for introverts than extrovert.
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Default Feb 15, 2020 at 09:31 AM
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I moved 12 times by the time I finished high school to different cities within the US and also to other countries. There’s actually an interesting article published in 2010 in the Journal of Personality (I think - you can google it) about the emotional effects of frequent moves during childhood on adults. The conclusion was that those folks are more unhappy as adults and have less satisfying relationships. Effects were stronger for introverts than extrovert.
I have read that emotional effect of a major move (they were referring to immigration only) on a any age persons mental health is equivalent to experiencing natural disasters or some other major tragedy. Even if the move is positive, the blow is major
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Default Feb 15, 2020 at 09:52 AM
  #8
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I have read that emotional effect of a major move (they were referring to immigration only) on a any age persons mental health is equivalent to experiencing natural disasters or some other major tragedy. Even if the move is positive, the blow is major
Wow. Your story sounds incredibly difficult. I can’t even imagine. I never perceived my moves as trauma but my T has. In my experience, the positives are that I am able to easily adapt and am fluent in 3 languages. I got to experience different cultures which I think is mostly good. On the down side, I did not have consistency or stability with long term relationships and had no one to model that.
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Default Feb 15, 2020 at 10:39 AM
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Wow. Your story sounds incredibly difficult. I can’t even imagine. I never perceived my moves as trauma but my T has. In my experience, the positives are that I am able to easily adapt and am fluent in 3 languages. I got to experience different cultures which I think is mostly good. On the down side, I did not have consistency or stability with long term relationships and had no one to model that.
Oh no my story isn’t difficult at all, just a regular stuff people experience not being born in the first world countries, I don’t perceive my move as trauma. I just read it somewhere about the emotional impact it could have on people. I’ve no idea what and if it had on me, I am and was too busy living my life. I am trilingual as well.

PS there is also a lot of research on effect of immigration on memory, especially when need to learn new languages. One is more likely to develop memory problems. I wrote a paper on it at some point
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Default Feb 15, 2020 at 11:23 AM
  #10
The first 5 years of my life were, very fortunately, in the normal range. I was even joyful sometimes.

Because of certain circumstances life changed dramatically when I was 6 years old. That was the first change, and it was enormous.

My mother was severely mentally ill; I began taking care of her when I was 6. Nobody else took responsibility for her care. There was the range of every type of abuse when I was growing up.

Anyway, without reporting on my entire life story (I'm 57), I'll say that I've experienced 10 major life changes (and I'll say I'm proud of myself for coming through those changes and reinventing myself).

The most recent outstanding life change was 5 years ago. I was renting a little house and was the victim of a home invasion. The terror of that experience is ineffable. Thank the universe that I was not physically hurt. The following day I was able to safely remove myself and my pets out of the house. I had to leave all of my material belongings behind. The trauma of that was significant.

I left that phase of my life, moved myself and my precious pets to a new town, and I'm still having to rebuild my life.

Funny thing how we can survive, even if we lose all of our material possessions. This winter I've been re-creating my earring collection. I will never have the collection I had prior to the home invasion...some of my earrings were keepsakes from high school, for example. But bit by bit, therapy and my determination are helping me to recreate and rise above.

So I'll go with about 10 times. There were no shortages of opportunities to rise from the ashes and become the Phoenix. Although I'm pretty exhausted by now.

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Default Feb 15, 2020 at 12:27 PM
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Wow. Your story sounds incredibly difficult. I can’t even imagine. I never perceived my moves as trauma but my T has. In my experience, the positives are that I am able to easily adapt and am fluent in 3 languages. I got to experience different cultures which I think is mostly good. On the down side, I did not have consistency or stability with long term relationships and had no one to model that.
I think I went to 10 different schools before high school. Most of these were cross-country moves, but one was just a school change without a move and one was an inter-city move. Thankfully, I only went to one high school. As an introvert, I found these changes really difficult. I think my therapist thinks of these as traumatic and has commented several times about how unstable it was. And although there were positives, like you pointed out, I also agree that to some extent it was traumatic for me. I would definitely say that some of my current issues are directly attributable to not having any long-term relationships when I was a child. My parents often chose to live in a rural setting where there weren't other kids next door or down the street, which didn't help much either. I was a lonely kid.
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Default Feb 15, 2020 at 12:55 PM
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The first 5 years of my life were, very fortunately, in the normal range. I was even joyful sometimes.

Because of certain circumstances life changed dramatically when I was 6 years old. That was the first change, and it was enormous.

My mother was severely mentally ill; I began taking care of her when I was 6. Nobody else took responsibility for her care. There was the range of every type of abuse when I was growing up.

Anyway, without reporting on my entire life story (I'm 57), I'll say that I've experienced 10 major life changes (and I'll say I'm proud of myself for coming through those changes and reinventing myself).

The most recent outstanding life change was 5 years ago. I was renting a little house and was the victim of a home invasion. The terror of that experience is ineffable. Thank the universe that I was not physically hurt. The following day I was able to safely remove myself and my pets out of the house. I had to leave all of my material belongings behind. The trauma of that was significant.

I left that phase of my life, moved myself and my precious pets to a new town, and I'm still having to rebuild my life.

Funny thing how we can survive, even if we lose all of our material possessions. This winter I've been re-creating my earring collection. I will never have the collection I had prior to the home invasion...some of my earrings were keepsakes from high school, for example. But bit by bit, therapy and my determination are helping me to recreate and rise above.

So I'll go with about 10 times. There were no shortages of opportunities to rise from the ashes and become the Phoenix. Although I'm pretty exhausted by now.
Sorry to hear about horrible home invasion. I am so glad you weren’t harmed. I can relate as my house was like literally emptied within like an hour frame. Thanks G-d I and my daughter weren’t home.

The only precious things that survived was a ring and a broche that were my late grandmothers. And I never ever wore them let alone together. It was really for a reason that I wore them that day to work. Since then I’ve been wearing them to important events like job interviews and I literally never didn’t get a job I interviewed for. I believe grandmothers jewelry plays a role

Oh yeah it’s amazing how material possessions turn out not to even be that important in a long scheme of things.
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Default Feb 16, 2020 at 06:31 AM
  #13
@BethRags It seems you have had a lot of adventures. Though there is a difference between having wanderlust and having to move around because of unstable family members, crisis, and financial problems. I'm glad though that your travels seems to have been something you enjoy.
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Default Feb 16, 2020 at 11:33 AM
  #14
I would say my life has changed dramatically about six times in my life and I'm in late 30s. Some were through choice but most were forced on me and even the ones through choice turned out in ways that I never envisaged. Unfortunately most of the effects have been very negative which is why I've been in therapy so long.
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Default Apr 03, 2020 at 06:23 PM
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I have read that emotional effect of a major move (they were referring to immigration only) on a any age persons mental health is equivalent to experiencing natural disasters or some other major tragedy. Even if the move is positive, the blow is major


I have moved about 20 times in my 37 years of life.

One of them was to another country because I had the misfortune of falling in love with a man not from my own country.

It took years to finish the paper work. Lived there without any status for about two years, with health problems and no help...

By the end of it I developed severe mobility problems because of my ill health. Life long. I used to be able bodied. Not any more.

I absolutely suffered something as traumatic as a natural disaster, or war.

I never really thought of it like that but I can tell you first hand it is true!
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Default Apr 04, 2020 at 10:34 PM
  #16
I understand with regards to taking awhile to discuss past and present struggles. I endured child abuse, domestic abuse, illness, injuries, and several surgeries. I was suppose to be scheduled this June for a major ( not life threatening or urgent) surgery. Due to covid it will definitely be delayed. I do wish for some peace and stability in my life. I know it will happen at some point
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