Sceal's new journal

[Deep Blue]

Sweet Sceal,
Sending you love and support.    The nightmares you described are ones that would no doubt make me wake up in the middle of a panic attack. 

A dear forum friend once told me that he sees nightmares as a sign that he needs to do some inner work around a particular topic.  Do you think that is the case? Or do you think your dreams were triggered by sharing feelings with your friend and the dread that can bring?

So much love to you.  I'm reaching out and holding your hand in this.   

[sanmagic7]

ugh - i hate those nightmares.  they really do interfere with being able to fully rest our minds and bodies.  sorry you're going thru them.

sending love and hugs, sweetie.  as much as you need.

[Sceal]

Thank you both, Deep Blue and San.

I've heard the same before, Deep Blue that during dreams the mind is trying to filtrate or work through. I have slight reservations towards that though, but that's just generally because I haven't experienced that myself yet. I have always had weird, crazy, imaginatory, and vivid dreams. But not all of them leave me with unease, anxiety and fright - even if the topics are similar. But some of them do, and they leave an imprint on me the coming day.

---
I saw Lady L yesterday. She's back from vacation for two weeks, and then she'll be off again. She said as she gets to know me more and more I always come back to talk about my family. And I suppose she's right, but it's only with her, and here, I do talk about them and my difficulties with them. They never abused me, perhaps slightly neglected or were blind to what I needed as a child, but never abuse. Yet I do have a difficult emotional relation to them. Although, I don't think they actually know. Anyway, I was left with a feeling yesterday that I'm a little uneasy letting someone see that side of me. The one that is needy of confirmation, and not always capable of being independent. I don't like it. But, as someone else wrote in their diary, we all have different parts that paints a whole picture, without the different individual parts, things would be different than it is. So, I will try to hang on to that.

Because we also talked about my seek of approval, or confirmation, in absolutely everything. Everything becomes something I need to perform. My diary here, my sessions with my Lady T and Lady L, hiking, my ability to choose and read books for enjoyment. My choices otherwise also becomes something I need to perform in order to succeed. And when I never have the fundemental sense of success or feeling of being good enough, I seek it in everything, in hopes that one day I will find it. In hopes that I will one day find that I am good enough in something, anything. Although, of course, i secretly hope I'll be better than just good enough - when I first find it.  My Lady L said it sounds exhausting, and I have to admit that at times it really is. It really is exhausting. But I've no idea how to change it. Or how to not do it. Maybe in time I'll figure out that too, but for now that's also something I have to excell at. Which I don't.

Deep breath.

I'm going to see my Lady T in a moment, I don't know what this week's topic will be, but I hope nothing too heavy as I wont be seeing her for 3 weeks again after today, and I'm going to spend a few days with my parents out at the cabin. They are really looking forward to me coming out, I got reservations, but I feel I can't back out now. I'm sure it'll mostly be fine. I can always just step away for a bit if I need to. It's not like that they will sit ontop of me all the time.

[Hope67]

Hi Sceal,
to you.  Wishing you strength for all these things.
Hope 

[Deep Blue]

Much love Sceal

[sanmagic7]

we're right beside you, sceal.  i hope it goes well with your folks, that you have a nice time away and find a bit of renewal and refreshment there at the cabin.  i love cabins myself, and i know you love nature, so maybe all around it will be good for you.

i understand the exhaustion part. having to be perfect was exhausting for me, too.  letting that vulnerability show, even a little, even if it's uncomfortable, is, i think, a good place to start.  being accepted as vulnerable, accepted as 'good enough', accepted as imperfect has helped me with these struggles.  i think you've already begun finding your way to your goal.

sending love and a hug filled with patience and acceptance of the person you are, with all your strengths and weaknesses.  they are all parts of what makes us who we are - i believe that, too. 

[Sceal]

I've decided to go back home tomorrow. I enjoy the nature here and the air and the quietness. But I find I brought the wrong things along for working. Although, I don't think I would have worked.

My session with Lady T circled around my feelings about my discovery about moms perception when I was a child. about my anger and hurt regarding that, and how it has affected me and is still affecting me. How I feel guilty about being angry at her. Because why not dad? Why am I not angry at dad?  And I know my mom was a "victim of her time and social generation". But I am trying to allow myself to actually be angry with her, and that that is okay too. My Lady T said perhaps I can work towards forgiving her, it won't be an easy road. And I will have to do it again and again. But it will be better for me if I am able to forgive her this. Lady T believes I am viewing my mother in a very dialectic way. I can she was several things at once, and I do know she never meant me any harm. And I most certainly don't blame her for how the rest of my life has turned out.  So I will work on this.

Then we turned the topic onto radical acceptance. For those who have followed my journal here might remember that this is a topic and a theory that I struggle deeply with understanding. I have a hard time grasping how the concept of radical acceptance is different from forgiveness or accepting that bad things happen and not do anything to prevent it and/or how radical acceptance does not mean giving up. People have tried both here and in group to explain it too me. She gave me homework for the next 3 weeks that she will be away on summer vacation. I have to explore and read what I can find about radical acceptance and see if there is something out there that will help me gain understanding of the concept.
She used an example of a man who has been imprisoned, but who has not actually committed the crime. Every time he tries to appeal he gets rejected. That he can in a way choose to accept that the next.15 years he will spend in prison, 15 years taken away from his life. And accept that fact to reduce his suffering but without giving up fighting, by for example studying to become a lawyer to understand how to get out of there.  This example, of someone having lost so many years of their lives to the hands of others is the first example while people trying to teach me what radical acceptance is that is relevant to me. I don't feel I need to radically accept when the bus is late ( so what? It's always late. Prepare for it and it won't be a big problem).
But I still struggle with accepting certain things. I can accept that I can't change my past. That I can't change what my abusers did to me. But I struggle with accepting that because of what happened I my life, financials and future is broken to what it could have been.. Lady T says "could have been" thinking is bad for me, it increases my suffering and prolonges it. She's is probably right, but can I change my feelings about this before I've worked through the abuse?

[Sceal]

I might come back to this later, but I feel I have to write it down.

I picked up a book about the brain by a brain-researcher. And quite early on in the book she's describing group-mentality. Which is something we are dependent on for survival, how to cooperate and to follow orders and rules we've collectively chosen. But the danger comes when we suddenly find ourselves in an environment where the norms are destructive and the leader is even more destructive, what do we do then?
She brings out the examples of how the american history teacher had trouble teaching his school students about the powerful effect that Hitler had on the community in Germany, and how it became such a huge wave of influence that he decided to show them. It's a widely known experiment that has been made into a movie called The Wave. It gets out of hand, and the teacher regrets starting it. In the book she also mentions how there were a few people wanting to double and triple check the systems for both Challenger in 1986 and Colombia in 2003, but because the main body of the group didn't want more delays they got the doubting people to shut up - due to group mentality, and in some cases brainwashing.

The brain researcher Irving Janis has said that you should be extra careful if you work closely to a tightly knit group that means alot to you. Then you can unconciously avoid opinions, thoughts and information that can upset the others. If you add working under stress, is isolated from outside opinions and have a very dominant leader - you'll be more vulnerable to brainwashing.

The red warning light should light up as a christmas tree when you observe that those who carefully voice their doubts are being hushed down and asked not to disrupt the group. It's unhealthy for the group if you notice that what you're doing is self-censorship. Because that might mean that there are others who might object too, but they aren't because they fear they'll get excluded. Self-censorship is creating an illusion of agreement that can lead to that no one else is protesting.

Loosely quoted from my translation

This section of the book hit me fairly hard. Because the group that I was a part of for 4 years or so became a huge part of my life. Although they couldn't keep me from being in contact with outside people, they did their best to talk trash about them and their opinions  in such a covert, and cleverly way that made me believe them at times. And I did self-censor myself. Alot. Because I was terrified, I was terrified of being thrown out. Of not belonging. And I had to hide my own, real, values, thoughts and opinions. I ended up hiding them even for myself for a long time. I didn't dare speak up, I nodded and I smiled, and I listened.

I've had a hard time explaining to others what it was like for me, how I felt I lost my identity and who I was when I became so intergrated into the group. Because they did treat me well too. They welcomed me with open arms. They would listen when I had trouble with outside people. They gave me possibilities I otherwise didn't have. They gave room for growth - although, into certain areas only. And they would hug me. And they told me they cared about me, they told me I mattered. They told me I belonged. All things I had been searching for, and looking for for so-so long. It broke my heart when I realized I had to cut the contact with them. I still feel like I can't explain it properly, what exactly it was that they did that was so toxic. Other than the one man who R* me, and SA and harrassed me sexually. But I am not able to talk about that yet - so I never mention that part.
They weren't a real cult like Jonestown. But I see in afterthought that it has very cult-like tendencies. And I'm happy I got away, eventhough it doesn't always feel like that.  It's taken me 2 years to feel I got away, 2 long years to stop looking over my shoulder or scanning the streets in town constantly. Although, I still avoid places, and I sometimes do scan the street.

I suspect it will take a while still before I do feel safe. Proper safe. Actual safe. But it's alot better than it was.
I have no idea what I will do if I do see them in town. I suspect it depends on if they see me too or not.

[sanmagic7]

sceal, thank you for sharing all this.  you are so precious.  i see you becoming stronger and stronger by what you say and think, and especially by what you continue to do.  you wrote to me about personal growth, and i want you to know that i'm seeing that in you as well.  these last 2 posts seem to show that very clearly.

delving into concepts such as 'radical acceptance' is huge.  i've only heard of it here on the forum but was unaware of it before.  the example given about the man in prison makes a lot of sense to me re: this concept.  it's like we keep fighting, but somehow change the direction so as to make our fight productive in an otherwise seemingly hopeless situation.  that's how i interpreted it.   i really like that idea.

i think that anger toward caregivers who have had their own problems in their past, and the difficulty we can discover about feeling and/or expressing it somehow is fairly common.  my parents i know did the best they could with what they were taught, how they were treated as children, and the family dynamics they came from.  i found it easiest to categorize some of this in order to get my anger out.

one category was their own woundings, what they went thru and what they were taught.  the other category was what they did or didn't do to me, how that affected me, and how i felt about it.  i did have to get thru the second category first before i could rationally deal with the first.  i had to feel the hate and the anger first, just on their own, as if these 2 emotions were directed toward any random person who caused me pain, a skewed perspective of personal expectations, boundaries, and behaviors, as well as an overall distorted worldview.

it wasn't till i worked my way thru this part that i could have room for seeing them as wounded people and feel some compassion toward them.    it took a while to sit with those feelings, allow them to be, but i've come out in a different place for doing so.  forgiveness, as a construct, i've decided to give over to a higher power.  in this way, i don't have to struggle with what it might mean.  i have a problem with that, so giving it up has helped me a lot to move on from the negativity.

i had a good friend who was part of a religious cult, and what you wrote about losing your identity rang true for her, too.  there was a lot of pressure on me to conform to the mores and behaviors of the part of the country in which i lived.  not quite the same, i know, but it was tough breaking thru even that to go my own way.  i can't imagine how tough it must've been for you to leave the group you were attached to.   those pressures weigh heavily on our psyche, and i agree with that author that brainwashing becomes easier thru self- censorship.

these are some mighty concepts you're tackling, sceal.  well done, my dear.  sending loads of love and a hug filled with strength and determination to keep on doing what's best for you, sceal.

[Sceal]

Oh wow! I had no idea you had replied to me. But I must have read your reply because it didn't pop up under "updated topics" for me, but I don't remember. I'm sorry, San! I must have forgotten.

I still have questions in regard to radical acceptance, but I will research a bit more before I write a post about that topic on it's own. So I'll get back to you on that.

My biggest problem with the anger-emotion is that I don't know what to do with it, I don't know how to act or react, I don't know how to channel it, I don't know if I'm allowed to be angry (generally speaking of the emotion, not spesific example) and I also don't know how it will actually help me, being angry. So I usually push the anger away. ( I seperate Anger from irritation and frustration - because those I can deal with. That's when I pick a fight. Not when I'm angry). But in the case of my mother, I am allowing myself to be angry. Not seethingly. But acknowleding that I am angry at her for certain things, and that's okay. It's perfectly okay, perfectly normal to be angry with your parents. Even as an adult. And this is new for me. I'm not going to tell her, because it doesn't serve me or her any good. And I think also, I'll just let it be like this for a little while so I can experience it before I work towards dealing with it.

Losing ones identity is hard. For me it put my reality filter in a skewed way. I stopped knowing what was real and what wasn't. At the worst of the times I had no idea if I were asleep and dreaming, or if I were actually awake. I still don't, for the memories that comes from those parts. But I try not to think so much about that.

----

But I want to complain about something else today. And this is non-trauma related.
I have a side of me that I really don't like. I am trying with everything I got to be open minded, and to not be so negative about other people's way of doing things.
I was trying to find a clever way of explaining all of this without actually saying what it's about - but that just made it too complicated. So here goes!
I play dungeons and dragons. I love storytelling, I love books, I love adventure. I always have, and DnD is perfect for this - although fairly nerdy.
I'm playing in two different groups, and I'm starting up my own adventure for people to play in. There are some overlapping players in the three groups. But I am finding it hard how some people are solving obstacles - to me it feels as if I suddenly have to be alert and clever and have to come up with my own sollution, and then for me it feels as if we're all together but playing seperate games - when what I want is that we work together. It seems though as if I am the only one bringing up the topics and complaining about it. Although I am trying very hard to make it sound as observations I've made that intrests me in how people do things differently. And although, I am really putting in an effort for that to be true. There is also a big part of me that is so frustrated that we're not working as a team.

It is a trait of mine that I don't like, because it is sounding an awful lot like "I'm right, guys. You should listen to me. My way is better. Then we'll all have fun", but when the truth is, they might not enjoy the way I want to play. I should adjust, I should be more curious. And I will work towards that, but I fear it'll take a long time as I've got so many other things I'm trying to work out and figure out that's kind of more important.

But only kind of. Because it is part of a whole, it'll be part of my identity of who I am. This behaviour. It'll also be part of how I work alongside others and connect with them, and see things in a dilectic way. Their way is both good and bad, and so is mine. It can be both at the same time. It really can.
Now, I just have to stop being such a perfectionist. 

[sanmagic7]

you made me smile at the end, sceal. 

you know, i think your observation on how you play and think about playing d&d (a 'game') and what you said after about how this can be transferred to real life was astute.  i've found that often i learn about myself or even others thru seemingly random experiences or situations, and i don't think that's a bad thing.  (my d is a d&d aficionado as well). 

as far as your anger goes, sweetie, it sounds like you're actually on your way.  what you said about being angry with your M, and that anger (as opposed to irritation or frustration) being ok seems to me to have answered your own questions to some extent.  you are feeling anger, you're letting yourself just be with it, you are allowing yourself to feel ok about feeling it - yep, that's a great start.

i do believe that this is part of taking that step into a place where you haven't been familiar or comfy with in the past.  you've broken thru a barrier that had kept you from feeling this emotion.  what good does it do us to get angry?  to my mind, it allows us a greater range of being ourselves as humans.  besides, keeping such emotions inside us, pushing them down into ourselves, is against our being true and real with ourselves.  plus, it ends up hurting us - the body keeps the score.

so, i'm very glad for you that you are allowing this anger.  you go, girl!  one giant step for the recovery of sceal.  love and hugs to you.

[Hope67]

Hi Sceal,
I've never played Dungeons & Dragons - but it sounds like fun, from how you described it.  I'm just popping by to say 'hi' and that I am thinking of you and wishing you the best and here's a hug, if you'd like one.   
Hope 

[Sceal]

Today I'm just eating, eating, eating. trying to fill a void.
A void of not knowing what to do. Of nothing in particular. everything seems meaningless today.
I was with my friend and the twins yesterday it exhausted me. Truly did.
Tomorrow I am meeting up with a friend and firday I got an appointment with Lady L. So I thought I'd take a rest day today. but it feels useless.

[sanmagic7]

hang tough, sweet sceal.  these days will come and go, and i know you'll get thru them.  standing with you, you're not alone.  this, too, shall pass.  love and hugs to you

[Sceal]

Thank you San, for always being here. Listening and supporting. During the really heavy and hard days, the better days and the pointless sulky days like today.

I take contraceptions due to an hormonal disorder I got, but whenever I go off them for those mandatory 7 days, it has such a dramatic effect on me. I get sulky, moody, withdrawn, I give up more easily, more vulnerable - and there's nothing that helps. Some months it's worse than others - and this time around it seems to be one of those really dramatic changes. It's tiresome. Makes me want to stop taking the pills altogether, to see if the pre-menstrual days will be less dramatic. But I know that's just frustration and desperation talking. It's not life-saving medication, but it's potential preventable towards both diabetes and cancer. So, I think I'll choose my moody, sulky days over that. They will pass, even if I feel unable to do much of anything to change it.
I've tried mindfulness, I've tried distraction, I've tried just pushing through, I've tried self-care, I've tried avoidance.
But what sometimes help is whine. Hence why I'm writing about this here. I don't like whining to other people, I don't like showing this side of me. But everyone whines, right? Everyone is in need of getting their tiny, insignificant thoughts out in the open once in a while - even if they'll regret it later, right?

I remember my Lady T said to me during the first 6 months of meeting her - when I brought up this at the time. That it just whacks me completely out of center sometimes, and I don't know if it's that or other things (cPTSD). She said that she had also had such big troubles with this in her early years of being a psychologist she started doubting how she of all people thought she could help others, and what the * was she doing.  It took her a while to understand what was happening was simply hormonal overload/underload. I am very happy that she decided to not quit her job and stuck it out, because meeting her has changed my world, for the better. And it also shocked me at the time, that it affected her in such a degree. I'm not sure why it shocked me, thinking back on it... but it did. I'm glad she told me.