I don’t believe I deserve anything good. I don’t believe I deserve love.
I can deal with deserving pain and bad things. If good things happen for some reason, it causes a kind of dissonance in my head.
When I think of people or even pets maybe loving me, it makes my head hurt.
(Apparently this is fairly common with PTSD sufferers.)
Spontaneous ∂erivation 
I’m sorry that’s what the leftover tapes from Those Evil %!!@% say in your head.
They used to say stuff like that in mine, and I’m so glad it’s not constant anymore that I could cry with relief when I remember. I hope you get to that one day yourself. Meanwhile, I will hold the positive beliefs for you, in safekeeping.
*hugs* yeah. These’re pretty vicious mix tapes.
I found labeling each voice for who/where it came from, and additionally adding the label, “LIAR!” helped. But that was because I was feeling relatively safe at the time. I suspect that trying to do that in the throes would have been disastrous.
*hugs*
Do you mean intellectually, or viscerally? An intellectual belief might be counteracted by enough people contradicting it, but a visceral belief is… harder.
Ignore me if this makes you think about it too much. You don’t deserve to suffer just simply to satisfy my curiosity.
Hello Jane Nicholson,
You seem new to the site; otherwise you’d know that the disorder(s) and effects of past abuse that I talk about in various posts aren’t “intellectual” effects that can be argued out of a person. In other posts I talk about knowing that this stuff isn’t true, and yet it still is true to me; this stuff isn’t logical, and I know it isn’t, and yet it’s still there.
I’m not at all sure why you think this is an intellectual position of mine, unless you think I’m being purposefully or natually stupid; nor why you think posing the question at all wouldn’t hurt me. I can’t turn this stuff on and off just because someone says, “Oh never mind, pretend you didn’t hear that if it hurts you too much.”
No apologies necessary, as I know you didn’t mean it, but be careful what you say to folks in the future.
Hello there, I’m just new to the site and I’ve been absolutely moved by your struggles. I can understand this feeling so well because up until late January, I was completely untreated for 4 years of anorexia nervosa and depression. I was managing somewhat “okay” until over the winter break, my girlfriend was raped in her own home and everything came crashing down for both of us (she has a history of being molested as a child; physical, emotional, and verbal abuse from her last boyfriend; and being raped and abused by this person multiple times before). Both of us struggled and I found myself in the position of being the sole support for someone who suffered flashbacks and hallucinated so fully that when I spoke to her in the middle of things, she called me by the rapist’s name. For the rest of the year we fought to just keep one another from killing ourselves. However, after a healthy dose of antidepressants and massive therapy for the both of us, we realized that we survived from loving one another and being an emotionally connected team, even if it drained every ounce of energy we had for ourselves on some days. Things have gotten so much better for us, but to this day we both still struggle with thoughts of not deserving one another, or even any love. I know it’s difficult and that like us, you will face these thoughts and voices in your head for the rest of your life, but I hope you can eventually quiet them down to a dull whisper some day. For now, “Ed” (the name for my eating disorder) still has his fair share of opinions for me, but through support from therapists and most importantly my girlfriend, I don’t believe them as much as I used to. Hopefully someday you’ll be able to find love that you DESERVE, and come to believe that you never deserve pain and suffering. I know from my own experiences with my girlfriend that you have a long, arduous road ahead of you to reach full recovery, but I’m sure you can do it. Eventually the waves of panic and anxiety will come farther and farther apart, and you’ll find happiness, be it in a partner, a friend, or even just a pet is a step forward. You’re a strong and brave individual, and I wish you nothing but the best in finding your way forward from all the troubles of your past.
*hugs* Thank you. I wish you and your girlfriend well, too. That’s a long road you’ve come down, and I hope the rest of the journey is eased.