I want to go home...

[HollowedShame]

...except that 'home' is long gone and in the past. I constantly feel this longing to 'go home', even though I know I can never have back what I had when I was a kid. Knowing that a lot of eating disorders stem from a desire to regress into your childhood, I know that I can't possibly be alone with this feeling.

I mean, even when my family, my friends, everyone I love is with me... Even when I'm physically at home, I still get this way. It's like the illusion of having no problems as a kid sticks with me, and I want to go back there. It hurts so much. I just want my Mom and Dad to both be there, and above all, be there for me. But my Dad is schizophrenic and pretty much dead to me at this point, and let's just say my Mother is too wrapped up in my sister's shit for me to burden her with mine.

It's such an awful, painful feeling. Some nights, I just dwell on what I had, and wish that I could have a family again. I can't cry about it anymore really. I want to, but no tears will fall. I'm sobbing inside. My head is screaming. They say that's the worst form of grief, because it comes from your soul. Does this mean I'm beyond help now? Will it ever stop? I thought I was getting a bit better at dealing with things, but I find myself overwhelmed again.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense to anyone. Feel free to ignore my crazy ramblings. But if I don't get my feelings out somehow, I just feel like I'm going to snap. I don't want to be here anymore, I don't want to live, yet I don't want to die. I'm so confused, and frustrated with myself. I know it takes time, but it all seems so hopeless right now. It's gonna get so much worse before it ever gets better, and I really don't know how much more I can take...

[Jacklinger]

Makes sense to me. My mother is schizophrenic, my parents are divorced, and the house I remember growing up in belongs to strangers now.

You want something that no longer exists, so it's making you sad. I want my home back too. I want the sound of my grandmother's pressure cooker percolating every weekend when my cousins came over to visit. I miss the big tree in her yard with the tire swing my grandfather hung from the branches. I miss the big hill her house was on and I miss tumbling down it, crushing and dispersing all the dandilions in puffs of white. I miss having loving parents and grandparents that would always make everything ok as long as I did what I was told.

The only thing we can do, is either change our environments, and go make a new home somewhere, or change ourselves, and learn to eschew these longings, leaving behind a sense of serenity. I've chosen the latter, myself. I will meditate, just try to sit somewhere for a few minutes and be silent and think about nothing in particular. If those old desires for my home come to me, I just let them, they stay for a little while and then leave again, like the tides.

Maybe one day I will make a new home for myself and it will feel like a home. It wont be like the one I remember but it will still be a home. But I'm not sure when, if ever, that can happen. So I'll just sit through the times I'm feeling particularly sad and remember that my unrealized desires don't have to determine if I can ever be, if not happy, then at least content with what I do have.

Maybe you can try something similar. There's no secrets or tricks to it. Just sit somewhere quietly and think of nothing in particular. Desires will flow in and flow out like water and you will find you have no particular need to hold on to them or try to prevent them from happening.

[HollowedShame]

Wow, that's insane how similar that sounds to my own childhood. Were your grandparents like secondary parents too? I think maybe having two sets of parents is another of the reasons I'm so sad about it- maybe I just felt too secure as a kid. And now that I'm an adult... well... like you said, there's no warmth anywhere, just snow. Or that's the way it seems.

I think I will try what you said, getting some quiet time in. I had actually been waiting up at night for everyone to go to bed in my house, just so I could go downstairs and have a few moments of peace. Maybe it would help if I did that more often, and instead of blocking my thoughts, just let them come. I suppose I'll never come to terms with them unless I do, right? Thank you for your advice. I really appreciate it. =)

[Jacklinger]

Yes, my grandparents were like parents for me for a while. For 2 years, while my mother spent a lot of time in bed being schizophrenic, my grandmother and grandfather took care of me. I called my grandmother "me-me" and my grandfather "paw-paw" (like pa-pa only with southern drawl). It was the best 2 years of my life. But then my pa-pa died, had a heart attack one day and he was gone. Nothing was the same after that.