Hi, I'm a 26yo male. 2025 probably have been one of the worst year of my life, I broke up with someone I loved a lot (after 6 months of relationship), I left my old therapist because he wasn't helping me anymore to seek help from another one that is just unavailable and dishorganized, I might be losing my job (because of my mental health and instability of myself and the job itself), last week I almost killed myself with xanax, lexotan, ketamine and alcohol. I blacked out 2 days. I'm heavily addicted to porn and couldn't quit after 10 years of attempts.
My therapist told me I might be having PTSD from childhood trauma, my mother was suicidal for a period of time and almost killed me one time by trying to threw me off of a cliff.
I have to take a decision before next week if keeping this job or to leave, which I cannot do for sure because I'm too fucked up and dissociated. In the peaks of my dissociation I struggle talking as well.
My new therapist was unavailable last week when I said I was suicidal, and wasn't available after my attempt, she just asked "how are you now?" From WhatsApp. This was my first attempt and it came after 5 fucking years of therapy and spent on my mental health which at this point I think was useless.
My last breakup lit the fire up, and it slowly and painfully destroyed everything around and inside me, but I'm not even disappointed at the breakup itself, I'm disappointed at the fact that I took it as the end of the world and have to start everything all fucking over again every single time, from the abyss of suicidal depression and addiction. I'm disappointed at myself mostly because I'm the way I am and I cannot bear anything without destroying my life and the life of others.
I feel consumed in the depth of my bones, fragile, needing some real rest from myself and the world.. I think there's a point if bipolar people spend a lot of time in bed, they are exhausted, I know that feeling, it's just their body trying to compensate, a biological response to their tiredness.
My only hope at this point resides into psychedelics because that's the only thing that actually did something for me, and I think I'm planning to take some LSD and face all of this once and for all. I would like to do this with a therapist, but it's hard to find one that does this and even harder after changing 2 of them already. But as I'm scared to do this alone and having a guide would be far more effective, I will try harder.. It's just that this whole situation feels unbearable and I don't really know where I'm going.
Today I also had the desire to take benzos like last week, but I knew it would end up in another SA.
I don't even know what I need.. To get out of the chaos? But chaos feels like home.. I would just want to sleep for 3 weeks..
My god you're being so sweet that my eyes are full of tears right now.. I really wish there was more people like you, someone who is there to listen and just give you kind words.. Thank you, thank you so much!
I feel like I'm definitely more willing to accept myself, or at least to do the best I can to feel better.
The thing helping me the most with dissociation is definitely microdosing, I don't remember if I mentioned it in the previous message but I did it for 2 years, than stopped, then started again a few weeks ago. It definitely helped me with being present in the moment, and turned me outwards rather than inwards when I'm with people. It's like it puts me in a "nonjudgmental" state of mind: I can have a shitty day, which usually would lead me into closing down and dissociating, but when I microcose it's like it keeps a door open for the things happening outside. Yes I can still feel like shit, and if I just go home and keep doing stuff that makes me feel worse, I will feel worse, but if for some reason I happen to be out and meet some friends, for example, I can just be there in the moment and understand what's going on, have a laugh, be there, feel normal. It's like it doesn't remove the feeling bad part, but it also leaves some space to the feeling good one. And I found that if it happens long enough, I just have to support the feeling good with the right decisions.
It's different from antidepressants: they just make you feel generally better whatever you do, both if you go home and binge eat your whole fridge, and if you're out with friends having an healthy and nice evening. I feel like microcosing is more helpful in making you understand what you actually need.
But also my experience with SSRIs is not that big, it's just a consideration.
It's definitely hard if you feel bad, than you keep feeling far away even in good situations, your mind feels like it's stuck in fear and chaos. When I broke up (wasn't microcosing) I did the best I could to accept, think and process the pain, but it just never stopped, whatever I did, for months. It expanded in every part of my life until I also lost the ability to enjoy pleasurable situations because I was numb and dissociated. And feeling like that was the normal thing for me until I was 22/23 or something, going out with friends felt like a duty more than something I could enjoy.
It's so true, once you decide to numb yourself from the pain, you just cut out happiness too, it's just a wide filter that wants to protect you.
But I've read in a book talking about trauma where the hypotesis of dissociation as a way to defend you from the pain was contested. The author says that dissociation main target is not actually defending you from pain: that is a secondary part which also usually fails actually, because the experience of dissociation is painful and scaring itself. Dissociation is the result of the meeting of parts of your brain which shouldn't have a contact with each other (like the need for attachment to members of the same species and the defense from predators). it is a disintegrations of consciousness, literally a broken circuit that the brain is not prepared to handle, and like a computer with a broken program, what the brain does is to shut down the system. Actually, he says, the brain feels the need to defend the body from the experience of dissociation itself, that's why we feel we want to step out from it and avoid it rather than using it as a crutch to ease pain!
In other styles of attachment, like the avoiding one, the brain actually succeeds in defending the body from pain by keeping people at distance for example. But in the dishorganized one, dissociation is the way attachment is managed, it's not just an insecure attachment, is the attachment itself that is broken.
I feel it's so good from you to be going in therapy to better deal with your son, and also definitely a very good thing you talked him about the bad sides of the porn industry and the potential for addiction, I wish someone did that for me when I was younger, and I also wish I could find someone supporting me with that, as you did with that man "you're not gonna watch porn if you are with me"..
Of course my porn addiction is something I wanna deal with, I've been trying to stop for 10 years! But what I've found out is that what prevents me to do it is these difficulties dealing with people.. The opposite of addiction is connection (and this is especially true for porn), but when connections are so painful it's so hard to say "this is gonna be my new life" and stick to it. I found out that in order to quit porn I have to aid my attachment.. But I'm to a point where I think I might prefer to take drugs but being with people if it facilitates it rather than being closed down and watching porn, this very solitary drug.
I read a ton about it and about the digital world in general, I ended up being a digital minimalist, and the only reason I still have an internet connection at home is because my family wants it, I would have banned it years ago.
I just can't help myself noticing how several people (like my ex) navigates relationships in a easier way, don't feel such a strong pressure when it comes to everything involved like competition, jealousy etc.. they can have relationships with many people, they can enjoy sex much more, we broke up and she already is in another relationship, while for me it's been months since I felt like even touching someone in a flirty way. And whenever I would be with one, I would probably feel numb and detached, because a part of me really doesn't want to be there at all.. But of course, since of course we were really similar, she had her own way to cut down pain: she was a heavy drinker and did drugs very often.. It's just that at least she could be physically with people at least this way...
The more I watch porn the more I feel sexually detached and (also physically) numb. But the more I seek attachment the more scared I become because all a new shitty world starts to come out, but the less numb I feel and I can try to rely less on porn.
That's why I think help groups like AA wouldn't help me that much, I focused a lot just on "quitting porn" itself, but it doesn't bring me anywhere unless I learn how to be with others in the first place, which is far more scary because it means it will take way more time and effort.
I feel like I cannot be with someone and really really liking her unless I live in a situation of insecurity and chaos mostly.
The people I've fell the most with were always people who would be very present and then very distant, and also kind of evil towards me, all of a sudden, or dangerous ones. My ex would say she would come living near me, and 5 minutes later she would say I had been too much at her place and she was starting to get tired of me. She kept me in this pendulum of super strong love (she said things nobody ever said to me) and super strong rejection.
She could say "I'm here for you" and then say "I didn't want to say I'm there for you, it's just dumb and you have to deal with yourself on your own".
Which of course kept me in the middle, and of course being in the middle means dissociation: she even triggered an intense episode once where I would feel out of my body, I felt like I was floating somewhere else, and everything around me, even her, was fake and distant, I felt like our bodies were just two big bags filled with sand. I had cried all night long, shifting from hating her so much I would take my stuff and go away and feeling the need to hug her the strongest I could, then at one point I stopped: I couldn't cry anymore, I couldn't feel, I couldn't do or think about doing, everything around me didn't have a meaning anymore, I was just turned off.
I would say it was somehow relieving from what I felt all the hours before, but it was also scary as fuck, I really felt like I was out of my mind. I thought:"shit this isn't normal, with this I've broken something, I've gone were most people would never go in all their lives, I don't think others feel like this in relationships, I feel like I'm on a drug".
I think there's a very clear reason if I'm attracted to these kind of people.. It's because I'm like them.. Another girl claimed the same with me, that I could feel very near, and then very distant all of a sudden or even just bad at her.
I think avoid dating is a great advice too, but also I'm so tired of being alone, I've spent so much time away from people and not enjoying my sexuality that the thought of being like that for even another month is unbearable. I've spent my adolescence and part of my twenties without being able to fully enjoy my sexuality, with having sexual experiences where I would feel numb, I hardly could even orgasm at times. With my ex I learned I can feel and I can be sexually present, and now I don't wanna hold myself back anymore. I want that.
If that means I would have to numb myself in other ways to be with people it's okay for me, I just cannot stand to be sexually numb anymore, or to isolate.
Switching my addiction to something else seems more doable than getting a real cure right now, but that's not of course what I want. I would want to just be fine...
You're right, the road is long, I just hope I can find my right way of being, but as soon as I feel stronger and I find myself in front of something difficult I just fall down again.. Everyrhing gets just too ontense. So a part of me doesn't even wanna try being stronger. Maybe therapy + microcosing will help me again in that, maybe macrodosing with a therapist would help me find a new faith and to actually be resilient to defend it, maybe changing my job will put me in a better place, maybe living on my own can also give me more tools, I really hope so!
I've written a lot. Thank you so much again for your words and your presence, you helped me.