I have not been allowed to heal, nor have I been able to find any form of rehabilitation.

I’m 21 and have been struggling with attachment issues, abandonment issues, physical and emotional regulation issues as well as a few other things that have existed for as long as I can remember. All of these issues come from the absence of several fundamental foundational supports, experiences, and needs in my life that have consistently gone unmet.

All throughout my life I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere or to anyone, I’ve never had anyone who I could feel safe around who helped me feel grounded and I am unable to do those things for myself. I am in desperate need of physical co-regulation and the need for another persons safe containing presence and I’ve reached a point in my life now where I know that something needs to change because I can’t keep living this way as the dysregulation and profound emptiness that I am experiencing from these absences and lack of fundamental experiences has slowly been tearing me apart as time goes on.

I have been to therapists that specialize in childhood trauma and attachment issues, and I have been to psychiatrists as well, but nobody is willing to help and I have been met with a consistent rejection due to boundaries, ethics, professionalism, and all of that stuff. I have reached out to every system and form of help available that I could think of and so far I have been unable to find anyone who is able and willing to provide me with the type of experiences and help that I so desperately need in order to feel okay.

I don’t need to sit in a room three feet away from someone for a few hours a week and talk to them about all of the different ways in which I’ve been neglected and abused throughout my childhood, I’ve spent enough time talking through my depression and processing my trauma, what I actually need is the experiences that will help me to feel contained and regulated.

I need to have someone in my life who I can see somewhat consistently over time, even if it’s just for an hour a week it would be enough to give me the help I need to change my life. I need someone who can be physically present to help me to feel grounded, contained, comforted, and safe who I can hug, lean on, and simply exist around without the constant stress that I have been enduring throughout my entire life from always having to hold myself together. I need to find somebody who is comfortable around vulnerability and emotions, someone who has enough control over their own to the point of being able to allow me fall apart in their presence without being overwhelmed by me. I need to be able to let go and I can’t do it on my own. At this point in my life I am exhausted, burnt out, and my nervous system is completely fried.

I need someone who teaches my body that it can feel safe and comfortable in the presence of others, and I need somebody who can provide me with co-regulation and containment so that I can eventually develop these skills within myself so that I can feel safe and regulated on my own. I do not see any other way to heal apart from finding and being able to experience safe and consistently repeated interactions like this that I have never had.

Even though I have figured out what I need in order to be able to heal, rewire my mind, as well as reconfigure and readapt my bodies stress response, I have been met with the harsh reality that there is nowhere to go and no one to turn to for the kind of help that I need in order be able to rehabilitate myself. I feel stuck and lost in life due to hopeless and despair I feel with my situation in the sense that I no longer believe that I will ever be allowed to heal, I no longer want to live like this anymore but at the same time there is nothing that I can realistically do to change the reality of my situation. I feel like I have been left alone, confronted by two choices, and neither of them are good.