Selena Gomez Says She Has Difficulty 'Enjoying Things' for Fear Joy Will 'Go Away': 'I Got Married and Then I Was Sobbing'

[u/Playful_Wonder_5205]

https://people.com/selena-gomez-hard-enjoying-things-i-got-married-then-i-was-sobbing-11830434

[u/tew2109]

Also C-PTSD, anxiety, depression, and a chronic condition (in my case interstitial cystitis, likely caused by the never-ending UTIs I started getting as a toddler at the hands of my father). It's a real fun mix! LOL. I have therapy twice a week and a standing bi-monthly appointment with my psychiatrist. I don't think I've EVER trusted anything good. I don't know that I've ever actually felt safe. I'm not entirely sure what that would feel like. It's like seeing someone have a good relationship with their father. I want that for everyone, and I truly mean that. I love seeing good fathers. I want nothing more than for everyone to have parents they can trust and rely on. But when I actually SEE it, or hear my friends talking about it...it's kind of like a language I don't speak at all.

[u/popdrinking → u/tew2109]

You put that so articulately, I complete relate to that feeling of a language I don’t speak at all

[u/Curiosities → u/tew2109]

Oof, this is relatable in many ways. When I started seeing my therapist, one day early on he asked me to think about something that made me feel safe and I basically said "what's that?". Been working on that, but it's still kind of as you say. I'm genuinely happy for others who have good personal relationships, and get things they need. And it's like the least understandable thing while I'm here with my vigilance waiting for the next thing to overwhelm me.

[u/tew2109 → u/Curiosities]

I was just asked that by my therapist! I’m working on EMDR and she was talking about my safe place, somewhere I always felt safe, and it’s like… ::footage not found::

Honestly one of the funniest and most ridiculous things is when people try to tell me to start online dating. LMAO. I’m glad when it works out for others but for ME? Have you lost your mind? Do you know how much trust I need to have in a person to even allow them to touch me? And how long that trust takes to build? You think I’m going to just go…meet some rando from the internet??? You could also suggest I jump into an active volcano, since that’s about as likely. Also, I never said I WANTED a spouse, so I don’t know why it keeps getting suggested, lol. Self-awareness is thankfully something I was blessed with, so I’m very aware I would not make the world’s best partner.

[u/tew2109 → u/[deleted]]

Ugh. It’s the worst, isn’t it? I’ve known since I was…I think 12, that he was probably the reason why I kept getting UTIs. My mom (who divorced my father when I was a baby) was told by my doctors from when I was very young that while they couldn’t prove it, there really wasn’t a better explanation - I didn’t have a shy bladder, I regularly bathed and wore clean clothes and clean underwear, and the list goes on. The box that checked for me was “father is abusing her”. But you can’t explain that to a toddler. So I was a little older when I found out, but I was certainly still young enough that once I found out, even the FEELING of a UTI can set off my PTSD. Which I kept getting, of course - once you get them so often, they’re so difficult to permanently kick. And now here I am - with what feels like the worst UTI of all time except I don’t have an infection and there is no cure for IC. There are treatments - unfortunately, I seem to be on the more extreme side of the spectrum (last cystoscopy showed severe inflammation and lesions) and already I instinctively hold all my tension in my pelvic area so my muscles are SUPER tight - which then can translate to severe back pain! So that’s fun. I’m scheduling PT, changed my diet, all the things, but I am bitterly resentful and angrier at him than I’ve been in a long time. And with nowhere to put it, as ever, because I have no relationship with him and that is 10000000% the right call. No one should have any relationship with that man.

It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t been there, isn’t it? And I don’t wish for that, of course - this is one of those clubs that no one asks to join and that has an exceedingly high price to pay. At the same time, more compassion and less “suck it up buttercup” would be more helpful from others in general, because if one hasn’t walked in shoes like mine, you have no idea how much I suck up every day to just…basically be in the world. My father intentionally and at points almost gleefully terrorized me for the first at least ten years of my life. (That was when I stopped regularly speaking to him and moved to a place he wasn’t familiar with so he wasn’t doing as much stalking where he made sure I knew he was there) One of his favorite phrases was “You’ll never see me coming.” What was I supposed to do with that? How do you think that forms a person? My world wasn’t so much rocked with a trauma that changed me because I was born into the trauma. I didn’t know another life. I have one good parent. I’m so grateful. That’s so much more than others have. But he terrorized her too. I was literally terrified of RECESS as a kid, and usually had teachers attached to me, because he kept threatening to kidnap me. I couldn’t enjoy recess! It doesn’t rewire your brain - it’s how your brain gets wired in the first place.