Coping with Pain (Contains potentially triggering content. Read at your own risk).

More emptiness, fear and frustration to deal with. It feels like severe depression that won't go away. Another part of this is trying to keep some clarity in-between horrible dissociating. Speaking of dissociating, I need some help from you. This isn't trying to intentionally trigger anybody. Instead, we have readers here from almost all 50 states and over 40 countries. Think of it as collective problem solving.

It's taken me a really long time to get to a point of being able to focus for more than 15 seconds and not dissociate. Not normal daydreaming. Instead, non-stop not feeling in control to hide horrible pain. I know it's a normal survival response. Having said that, being a normal person, imagine fighting this all day every day for years with no break. You can't sit back and do nothing. If you do, you'll literally dissolve, and nobody will care.

Now, at times it feels like there's some clarity. When there is, it's total emptiness. This tells me that for whatever reason(s), I never totally faced the total horror of what happened. Also, feeling abandoned. You literally feel like you can't trust anybody. Almost every times you see a little kid, at first you think they're okay. Then, what if they're not? What if the parent(s) are pedophiles?

How do you save every little kid from psycho pedophiles? Especially when nobody saved you?

You feel empty and paralyzed. You wake up in the morning, and everything feels black. You try and focus to feel somewhat normal. Despite that, you still feel empty. We won't go back on medications, because that only made things worse.

Now, what helps you to cope? You don't want to hurt either yourself or anyone else. On really bad days you just sit and try to focus so you don't snap in a crowded place.

If you have any ideas, please post. You don't have to do anything. All I'm doing is talking honestly about what it's like to be a trauma survivor. We all have different stories and rates of healing. Also, we all have fear.

At times, I'm scared. Will I always have this?