Feeling trapped in relationships (CPTSD, OCD, anxiety)

So today I'm feeling awful. I'm in the process of changing medications - increasing venlafaxine SNRI and decreasing citalopram SSRI, as I couldn't stop crying all the time. I felt pretty relaxed on the first day of the transition and hopeful it was going to alleviate all my horrible feelings, but it doesn't seem to have done so yet. It probably doesn't help that I've also drunk a glass or two of red wine across the last few nights, which has disrupted my sleep and is never really a good idea. Evenings are hard to get through though and it's too easy to have a glass of wine.

To give you a brief overview of my most recent struggles, I feel immense fear and powerlessness in relationships. This used to be just romantic relationships but is relationships of all kinds now - friends, family and acquaintances. This has led me to immense isolation as I've had to cut people from my life or distance myself immensely, due to the terror being so overpowering. I have other fears too - intrusive thinking and obsessions, but underpinning them all, I know, is fear of loss, fear of abandonment. I've been very lonely and very afraid that my life will be like this forever.

Anyway, I'm under the NHS recovery team care, following three overdoses and a cut wrist two years ago. These were cries for help, rather than suicide attempts. Hasten to say, they didn't really work. Since then it's been a hard road, and I've often felt like giving up. Today I feel a bit like that again too.

My mum and her partner David visited on Sunday to help me with my garden. It was so nice to see them. My mum gave me some good advice and although I felt very bad when they arrived, I felt nourished and great by the time they left. However, since then, my fear and terror has set in, I guess following the connection we had. 

I feel like my mum is amazing and kind, and I'm not (I should remind myself that her actions are the cause of a lot of this, as I had horrible teenage years with her). I feel like her advice helped me and I can't live without it, nor her, now, but these feelings of terror mean I have to live without her, as I cannot live with her in my life. 

So I feel trapped in our relationship - afraid to be in it and afraid to be out of it. I feel enmeshed in her and obsessed with her and like I need her to save me. I'm frozen in a feeling of fear, of terror, and I want to curl up and cry and die. It doesn't help that I arranged to see her again on Sunday, when I should have actually given myself some time to recover and process the last visit.

This isn't a new feeling for me - it's been there before many times. It crops up with anyone who I care for, who shows care for me in return. Some of it is based on people's expectations of me, I think. If they care, I need to meet their needs. This is definitely a trauma response from growing up with my mum when I was younger.

Anyway, maybe my med change will work in time; I've also started with a new therapist who does parts work (similar to internal family systems) and EMDR, so hopefully she can help things along a bit. 

I don't want to be alone forever.

xxx