Hello there. I have been actively avoiding feeling and reflecting out of wanting to avoid the unbearable pain that such activities lead to. However, I cannot continue this behavior, I know this. Not only is it not helping me heal and causing me to simply wallow and grow stagnant, I am burdening and hurting the ones I love, and I need to stop this selfish behavior. 

Before we continue, I wish to get this out of the way. **TRIGGER  WARNINGS BELOW**

Some background on me - I am naturally very empathetic and have had to adapt to that in my lifetime, since childhood. I attended and graduated from Massage School and enjoyed a career in massage therapy for 10 years. With the pandemic and my recent bouts of grief, I have had to remove myself from being a massage therapist. I am currently at a loss of what career to seek. My job seeking has grown stale. I have changed drastically and my resume funnels work references and recommendations to jobs that I feel would no longer suit me. It is difficult to move away from those recommendations when I do not have careers to direct myself towards, however. So am have sought careers tests and explored other career choices, but have not found any perfect fits.

I recently ordered a simple sewing machine and thought to teach myself how to use it through YouTube and try to create things that could be purchased. 

All of this is in my mind, but my mind tends to veer towards my focal points of grief. It seems my list of triggers continues to grow. I am not a stranger to triggers. I am a childhood survivor of emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse and neglect. I have coped with a variety of methods, including self-sabotaging and self-injurous methods. Thankfully, I have not self-harmed in over 2 years. I have been struggling with intrusive thoughts that have brought the behavior to the forefront of my mind, however, so I am actively trying to avoid falling back into that cycle. I have worked incredibly hard to not fall back into those actions. My current relationship has been the prevalent and primary reason.

During our short-lived relationship of 2 and a half years so far, I have experienced the loss of my mother, only brother and sibling, my ex-fiancé, and the unexpected pregnancy that was extremely short-lived and unexpectedly resulted in a missed miscarriage right before Christmas.

It has been nearly a year since the loss of our pregnancy, and my partner inquired about trying to get pregnant, as I recently turned 39 and he s a couple years older than me, and as the pandemic seems to not be going anywhere any time soon. 

I still feel raw from grief from the loss of our last pregnancy and this conversation prompted me to return to counseling, where my counselor directly me towards support groups. 

I looked at a few topics in forums on this platform and am reticent to share on the forum as of yet. In the past I have utilized blogs and am familiar with sharing in that manner, so decided to start here. I hope this helps me, and perhaps even another person. thank you.