Welcome to Gaia! ::

Is this post in response to our AIM convo earlier? because you should know that I understand what you are saying.
But I don't necessarily think apathy is the way to go, since if you don't set goals for yourself, how do you know if you have accomplished anything in life, how do you know self-worth? I'm not even talking big goals here, all I saying is maybe apathy sounds like a good idea becuase you can effectively guard yourself from the pitfalls of life, but you also miss out on things like accomplishments, self-praise, and the like. Not having expectations at all from life ... does that not sound bland?
I'm not looking to put you down or anything, but I understand what you are saying, but I also think you deprive yourself out of the true experiences life has to offer you if you go down this pathway forever.

hey h3rsh3y!

Since I don't know you too well and I don't know what's going on in your life, I really can't relate to your situation. But I can tell you that I've gone "numb" before.

I'm not bipolar, but, as you know, my daughter was recently diagnosed bipolar and it's been a frightening experience for all of us. And I'm trying to be as strong and helpful to her as I can. And no matter how much I try to be there for her, I bet she still feels a lot of pain that I just can't seem to make go away.

Sometimes I find that going "numb" and letting go of all the sh*t that's bothering me can actually help. I'm not saying that its good to stay "numb" - but to just let go of all the stress that's eating at you. What I'm referring to is more of a self-protection numbness that you can go into - where you just "let go" for a little while, a brief moment. There can be so much chaos surrounding you - sometimes you can control it, sometimes you cannot, sometimes you don't know what's hit you and you get p-ed off because you couldn't have imagined things to get any more difficult. Yes, it can really suck - but don't let it eat away at you.

When I wake up from my numb-state, I feel slightly better - still stressed but a few breathes better than before. Hey, I don't know if I'm making any sense at all but I hope in a small way this can help?

So maybe I'm reacting to the trauma from being in crisis? I've been numb since I had the huge hallucination crisis episode. That was pretty damn traumatic.

I think PTSD is with more life-threatening situations for yourself or for someone you knew, or situations of extreme stress. Take emergency personnel working the WTC on 9/11. People though lots of them would have PTSD, but only a really small percentage have gotten it (i think 14%, i may be very wrong on that).