A few nights ago, I was doing parts work and my little was sitting on the bed wanting to write in my journal. Through a series of events that didn't happen, but as I'm doing moar parts work, they started a journal entry, so I decided to make them their own journal. Because they deserve to have their voices heard.
:hug:
EA
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One thing to note, for anyone that reads these entries, the way I do "parts work" may be different than the way many of you experience/do parts work. My parts are closer to DID (dissociative identity disorder) - at least it seems different to me when I see other people talk about their parts and the research on parts work I've done.
Some of you that are familiar with my other journal have already been introduced to some of them - The advocate, Drama, My Crazy...all the things I have not let myself say because of conditioning. They feel it is really important that they all get to say what they want, and I want to honor that for them.
It may be hard, or confusing to read, because sometimes, they interrupt each other, or run away without finishing sentences. When more than one think a thing, they usually say We.
The story we tell ourselves is that even asking, just once is us being needy. Attention seeking. Imposing. Getting in the way. That is the message society/family/friends give me when they.
I have a book I am on the fence about reading. Each time I start, it makes me mad, I have something to say, I want that...exchange. To ask someone their opinion, perspective, sounding board, conversation. There are some days I'm just bursting with things to talk about...like a little kid that comes home from school and is so excited to share it's day with you...I want to tell you about every little thing I experienced, all of it, all the time, I want someone to share myself with. I've never had that, and when I have a friend, and I don't mean in an inappropriate, can't read the room way...but like someone I've known for a while and assume we have developed some sort of intimacy, and I always feel like I'm rambling, like I'm making the conversation all about me, like I'm talking too much....because people don't call ME. People don't do more than text, "I miss you!" but it's not ever followed up with, "hey, let's make plans to do xyz together!" I'm the one that always says it. So the message I get (rejection) is I'm too clingy, I'm too needy, and I take one of those "what is your attachment style?" quizzes and of course it says I'm needy, I have abandonment issues, because I'm living with a man that completely ignored me for 6 years. There was no "lovebombing" phase. He didn't need one.
There are no "these are the men you are attracted to" as in "you think nice is boring, you crave the bad boy" No, uh uh...these are the people I attract. I kept thinking, I need to work on changing my vibration, I must be doing something wrong, I must have been a terrible person in a past life, this is my karma, I am cursed...all I do is fight to get out of this experience and all it does is happen over and over until I think I'm going crazy because I see things happen before they happen and I can't stop them.
I don't know what functional is, I've only experienced dysfunction, so when I make friends, I learn by observing their cues and try to be the kind of friend I want to have, because all these affirmations told me for years, "make everything about them, ask them about themselves, focus on the needs of others" etc. so I try.
But now when I hear things, I automatically know they aren't true. Then the mother pattern slips in, where she never told me anything because she "didn't want me to get my hopes up so I wouldn't be disappointed" I get disappointed when I say to someone, "Hey, lets get something on the calendar, I miss you and want to catch up" and they respond, that would be lovely! But nothing gets put on calendars...or if they do, that day comes and goes and I don't hear from them. I tell myself over and over, it's ok, something must have come up, they have a lot going on, I am not taking this personally...but when I just....give up and stop texting, and then never hear from them again? And it happens with nearly every person I have interacted with in the past three years to the point where my total human interaction is......a very small number.
Even then I think on gratitude, because I do have very good (virtual) people in my life who have helped me tremendously, to the point where I had 5 people talk to me in one day and it...kinda overstimulated me because I wasn't used to it. I'm not walking around going "woe is me" but I am recognizing all the (lies) I've been told that I just accepted as truth, and a lot of gaslighting has been coming up, and the parts are having a hard time with things...so what I've been doing is letting them all tell the story the way they see it...sometimes, they all talk at the same time, and it feels...like we don't know what is true.
Also, all the BS about my "wise mind" having the answers, it makes anger come up the wrongness of the way most people that aren't on the same level of consciousness that I am on are interpreting things...but only because now I can see behind the curtain so I read it with my level of understanding, and I'm not saying that in a way that implies I assume I'm way so much smarter than everyone around me, I just see things DIFFERENTLY.
We are shy about starting a new journal where we all get a turn talking and hold the shame and being self conscious that not having positive interactions with others creates in littles. We never know if it's ok to have things other people are getting, because we are embarrassed at appearing needy.
Also, we miss Hallowe'en.
We don't understand why people say things without meaning them.
Don't understand when people lie to us and we don't question the lie, but accept the person for who they are they turn around and laugh and call you gullible and naive for trusting them, but you stupidly keep your heart open and continue to be accepting and forgiving.
Because we are a good person and we don't let the people that hurt us change us, they aren't worth it, and it is a reflection of them, not of us.
I have a new friend who views me through a lens of compassion and sees me as understanding and patient. She texted me today and said:
Thank you for always sharing your life with me even though I don't respond right away. I love seeing your name come up on my phone, I've just been struggling recently and when I do that, it's just hard for me to respond in a way I want to.
:wave:
@Armee - Shy little giggled at your wave and gives a shy :wave: back. - EA
:phoot:
welcome to all EA's parts. glad you're here! :cheer: love and gentle hugs for you all. :grouphug:
Appreciate you San :hug:
From a few weeks ago, when I was doing some parts work regarding my food insecurity that unleashed a little rant -
I literally see the filter of the college student who was telling her FOO she didn't have enough money for food. Father blamed poor budgeting, even though I EXPLAINED the stupid envelopes and just got an "oh" in response. Mother gave everything to the evil seed so there was none left for me.
Anger: Gee, tell me why my running theme is the little match girl? Everything went to him. I got bullied, I was told it was my fault, I was too sensitive. He gets bullied? He gets karate lessons, which he then uses to break my ribs. I SHOW you the pictures of my bruises, the police report and you tell Father if...
...And the smarmy look on his face when he did it, the stroking of her arm and I'd say, can't you see what he's doing? She'd just say what? What is he doing? Why can't you two ever get along? EVERY F-ING BIRTHDAY (end rant)
I'm actually doing really well listening to my parts, processing a lot of what's going on and being aware of things better. I still have a ways to go though.
My parts are out and Anger of course is at the forefront...Now that I'm "funemployed" lol, I am (in addition to re-reading the old journal) finding so many things I saved to "process later" and I just came across these "quiz" results: https://gretchenrubin.com/quiz/the-four-tendencies-quiz/obliger/
Now see, I always come up as a "caregiver" and I'm a fawning people pleaser...but the wording is triggering for me and I don't want or need to click on the more, because I probably did the first time, and this is from 2020...and I feel my life has just been in stasis...ugh parts...
"You can count on me, and I'm counting on you to count on me."
Obligers meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet inner expectations. Of all the Tendencies, Obligers are the biggest group, and the ones whom people count on the most. They put a high value on meeting commitments to others, but may have trouble setting limits and meeting their commitments to themselves.
There's just 50 shades of wrong and Anger won't stop ranting about it enough to put it into words, because Defensiveness has already started listing the "negative reel" of the people that have invalidated what I'm actually upset about in the past, so it's like, I don't even want to put it into words, and I don't actually have to.
How am I supposed to keep my commitment to myself when all I've ever wanted were things outside of my control? I don't know why I attract people that do not have my best interest, I do not know why I can't get my basic needs met.
I don't understand why I've gotten into a car accident with every car I've ever had and gotten my position eliminated from every job I've ever had. and none of this is my fault.
And I can't keep a friend to save my life. Literally.
None of this has anything to do with me, I just tolerate BS from people. Because when I don't I'm told I'm controlling, and I'm a perfectionist, and my standards are too high...and then the rant about L starts in with Righteous Indignation.
All we've wanted was someone to listen to us. But we get told we just need attention. We are too much. Too much to hope we are worth anything to anyone. Too much to hope someone might miss us when we are gone (but we are told that sounds "suicidal")
I laugh now to see how hard he tried to convince people I was a danger to myself...and oh the stories he used to make up...but now we have a hard time trusting people once they lie to us. Only everyone lies. Why am I so good at seeing things no one else notices?
Whew...that was a lot. It (the triggers) don't come up when I read about what I survived, but I'm STILL way too insanely sensitive to rejection and being misunderstood that I've been completely avoidant with anything work related.
But without that...trigger, the parts don't come up as much, and I need them to, to keep examining...but I'm out of practice, and have had a lot going on, and I'm finally settled back into no social interaction for the foreseeable future, so I can devote my days to focusing on myself, only...I've been doing it haphazardly. I pursued a distraction for a bit, and even though that's all it, I accidentally made it more important than I should have allowed it. I did good today, and I'll do good tomorrow. :hug:
I'm listening to Dr. Harry Barry: Overcoming Panic Attacks, and he explains it. Clearly I can say for certain I have never experienced that, but Empath can be compassionate for what it feels like. However, when I try to explain to "normals" what I'm feeling (with my sensory processing disordered brain) and everyone just dismisses it as "oh you're anxious, you're just panicking" So Wrong and Anger * up, but that's all justified.
Instead, I substituted the word trauma brain and amygdala hijack and he's practically explaining the same thing. So it starts getting mesmerizing that I can do this, that I can always see a way to adapt or modify to make it useful to me. To find the good in everything. But it's so exhausting that no one will do this for me. With me. I tried writing another newsletter email for the things that I'm grieving, and there's still too much anger in it:
Generally, people come to understand who they are through interacting with others. Freud referred to it as introjection. Although most psychologists have abandoned a lot of Freud's ideas about how the mind works, it's absolutely true that people come to understand who they are through interacting with others.
That inner voice and your understanding of yourself gets built from the interactions you have with your friends and family and the world around you—and sometimes the feedback you get isn't that helpful.
Humans crave connection. It's just how we're wired. Feeling unable to express yourself can make hard times worse. When you feel pressured to pretend, that you're doing fine when you're really not - it can be draining.
On the other hand, a friendship that allow you to acknowledge and respect the truth of how you feel (even if it isn't pretty) is one that's gently encouraging resolution. Plus, allowing yourself to be authentically not OK just feels good, and is directly related to more well-being.
So what do you do when you reach out for help and are met with only rejection and abandonment?
Let Go The first step to dealing with this level of grief is to accept that we can't control everything. You can not make people show up for you, you can not make people care, or be curious, or have empathy.
Instead of judging your emotions, accept them and be gentle with yourself. Let yourself cry and move through your grief. Your thoughts, beliefs, and expectations are the sole cause of the effects of your life. When the people around you have insisted on a filtered image of you, completely invalidating who you are at your core, it is ok to feel hurt, angry, and alone. These are all extremely valid.
When you don't have anyone to listen to you, you can listen to yourself. There is no one who understands you better than yourself anyway. The more you understand yourself, the more you'll discover these people that you thought were your friends and family are just leeching you of the energy you deserve to give yourself. The reality is no one really cares about your well-being but you and that is OK. It is not wise to allow your well-being to rest in the hands of highly flawed and self-serving individuals.
I leave TRIGGER WARNING at the top of a lot of my posts because I'm never clear on what might trigger someone, and we are all triggered by seemingly innocuous things to someone that doesn't understand us.
In the category of someone doesn't understand us, I came across this website I had bookmarked years ago and the parts started having a field day with it, so I decided to take it here and see where we end up.
Since I found it triggering, I'm not going to post the whole thing here, just the parts I want to respond to...may not make sense or still be triggering...unsure...
When you stop making (your parents) responsible for what you feel today, you access your power to really live. It's like my brain almost shuts down when I read this...at the wrongness of it. I didn't say they were responsible, but they ARE. Their neglect has left me ill equipped to deal with things, but that's just a fact of life, I'm not BLAMING them. Would I ask that they ACKNOWLEDGE - but I know they won't, and I've already had my peace with that, I haven't talked to my mother (or had any desire to) for 15 years. I don't have feelings of needing closure, I want what I was never given - proper parenting. Someone to look out for me. Someone to support me. I want to learn what it feels like to depend on someone. I want things I've never had.
Often we refuse to let go, and hold onto the anger at our parents because we feel dignified in doing so. Wait what, dignified?? What does that even mean?? I'm not holding onto anger dude, I'm for the first time in my life validating myself when no one else did. Learning to reparent myself and give myself what I never had (still don't) someone to listen to me.
However: "Do you want to be right or free?" OK Donnie Darko
"Is being right making you happy? Is holding onto being right changing them?"
Each moment you hold onto the resentment, you keep yourself stuck in a prison of victimhood. You are responsible for what you choose to do.
AAAH, here's where the parts start screaming BS. It's like...I keep being told I'm acting like a victim EVERY time I try to set a boundary, no one listens, even the other night at dinner, J was saying how my parents were *, but I shouldn't let that rule the rest of my life, I need to let it go? I'm like, let what go? I'm effing grieving here and reparenting myself...what part of that looks like.....Websites like this? Why are "normals" so blind to it? And it makes me want to rant and scream and...hahaha become the "angry spinster" I always knew I'd end up being. Even as a child. All I wanted was to feel like I belonged somewhere. It makes PERFECT sense why a human would disassociate from these feelings. Brains are remarkably protective like that.
It's just for me, I don't disassociate. I tell people exactly what I'm experiencing...and it's like they can't hear me. I'm so....different, always have been. And "normals" don't know what to make of me, so they tell themselves stories and explain me away...in a way that isn't me. No one really sees me. But then they'll ask, "so how's your summer going?" a week after you tell them you've just lost everything and have been in survival mode for as long as you can remember (in response to "so what do you do for fun?" These people are STUPID. Ignorant sheep. - Bitter, angry.
They are doing the best they can with the resources they have. Um, yes...I've been saying this pretty much my entire life.
If you are holding onto anger or resentment towards your parents in anyway, you are killing yourself. and here it is, right here - where they invalidate Anger. I'm not "holding onto" I'm "finally listening to" when no one else did. When everyone else told me that by allowing myself time to Attune to and Validate what happened, and allow myself to properly grieve for it...that isn't being a victim, that's asking you to be part of my support, and in your rejecting and abandoning me when I needed support most only proved to me that none of you were ever worth my time. That...um doesn't sound like being a victim...if anything, I'm a victim of listening to "society" and trying to fit in.
they didn't allow that to determine the rest of their lives. This is what people see when they look at me. That I'm allowing myself to be isolated, without friends and family, lol sheep.
See @San - weird how different things trigger different people. Overall, the message on his website was fine...the fact that everyone skips over the most important part - being heard, being believed, being listened to.
Eireanne is listening to videos and reading old articles she's saved from the before times, and we are also doing parts work.
Again - not to negate anyone else's lived experience, but in listening to "Overcoming Bad Inner Voices" The video says, "An inner voice always used to be an outer voice. We absorb the tone of others. These "other" voices repeated their messages over and over until they got lodged in our own way of thinking. Part of achieving happiness in maturity involves altering our inner voices, which means encountering equally convincing and confident but also helpful and constructive varieties of voices over long periods and taking care to internalize them." All well and good, until we get to the description of these so called "helpful and constructive" voices we should be listening to - They might be the voices of a friend, a therapist or an author.
But those are all the "other" voices that have been invalidating me for years and all the parts laughed. At how wrong everyone gets it. Because everyone (myself included) keeps hearing through the filter of their own understanding instead of what is really being said. Not stopping for understanding before barreling ahead with a fix. So now my "negative reel" is being told "You are enough". But enough about that, back to this uproariously funny video. /sarcasm
We found an old conversation that shows I've been doing parts work for 20+ years, I've always felt isolated, lacked a sense of belonging, and was desperate for someone to notice me. This may be triggering for ppl, so pls don't feel the need to read it. We need to read it, so we can understand what was happening...
1: I feel your energy tonight and it is pretty frenetic...like this a lot?
~*ME*~: LOL are you kidding?
~*ME*~: today is a good day!
1: oh sh*t.
~*ME*~: Most of the time I can barely function
~*ME*~: I'm like a sponge, I soak in everyone else's emotions
~*ME*~: I need training to help me to block stuff out, but I also need understanding for the things that are wrong in my head
1: you need a cleansing ritual
~*ME*~: totally
~*ME*~: but I'm very alone right now, and it drains me too much to try it
~*ME*~: I end up with blinding migraines
~*ME*~: I think there's a negative energy around me, that is preventing me from getting ahead, and I know it's my own subconscious, so I have to figure out exactly what it is, so I can face it and vanquish it
~*ME*~: I'm tired of being like this
~*ME*~: and I don't know anyone else who has more gifts than me
1: you are wide-open because you are over-generous with your energies
~*ME*~: I'm about to have a very bad year, and I need all the help I can get
~*ME*~: my goal is to make it to June with my sanity intact, but I"m so drained right now, I don't think I can
1: why is the coming year bad?
~*ME*~: oh, it's a long story
~*ME*~: mostly career and personal life related
1: hey, I have time
~*ME*~: I tried to transfer, but so far, I've not had any luck
~*ME*~: I've lost all my friends, I have no family
~*ME*~: so after a bad day, I come home to an empty house
~*ME*~: Even the months I spent away from AP no one seemed to notice
~*ME*~: all I did was lose readers, just those few who always read my stuff, like you
~*ME*~: so I've started by cleaning my house
~*ME*~: but the closer I get to clean, the harder it is to get me to move
~*ME*~: I've decided not to leave the house until it's done
~*ME*~: but I'm not making any progress
~*ME*~: and today is Thursday
~*ME*~: I wanted to be done 2 days ago
1: Making contracts with yourself, like that, is not always the best way
~*ME*~: yeah
~*ME*~: but I've no motivation
~*ME*~: nothing will drive me to do it
~*ME*~: I even promised myself I'd go get a massage when I was done
~*ME*~: it's not as if I'll have company
~*ME*~: I've lived here a year
1: you should try a combination of motivations...carrot AND stick
1: what area do you live in?
~*ME*~: it's a subconscious thing
~*ME*~: my head screams at me to finish, but something is blocking me
~*ME*~: I live in B
~*ME*~: Next to JC
~*ME*~: the ghetto
~*ME*~: woo hoo
1: lol I've worked in JC for years
~*ME*~: lucky you
1: I'm going to ask you questions in a moment, I want the first thing that comes into your head as an answer, is that OK?
~*ME*~: sure
1: what day is it?
~*ME*~: hahhaa, Thursday
1: where would you like to be?
~*ME*~: in bed
1: who would you like to be?
~*ME*~: angelina jolie
1: what would you like to be doing?
~*ME*~: meditating
1: if I ask you the same question, I want a different answer, OK?
~*ME*~: ok
1: How old are you?
~*ME*~: 29
1: How old are you?
~*ME*~: 105
~*ME*~: LOL
1: What number is this lifetime? (I realize here he thinks we are talking about past lives, but he's just talking to my parts, bc we thought it was fun when people noticed us)
~*ME*~: I dont understand the question
~*ME*~: you mean the one I'm in now?
1: yes
~*ME*~: I never counted the past ones before
~*ME*~: I have a very old soul
1: I know. don't search for answers....whatever pops up, ok?
~*ME*~: it wouldn't be the correct answer
~*ME*~: I'll just say 8 (because that's the age I was when *this* life went wrong - the first time we noticed it
1: What number is this lifetime?
~*ME*~: 23
1: lol
~*ME*~: that's just eris speaking
1: knew that.
~*ME*~: ok
1: thats ok too
1: whats blocking you?
~*ME*~: my mom
1: is she still living?
~*ME*~: yeah
1: does she live with you?
~*ME*~: no, she lives in vegas
~*ME*~: my parents are retired
~*ME*~: she calls and wants me to visit
1: her reach is long (yes, she's my first core wound)
~*ME*~: I don't like vegas, so I told her I'll go see her in Nov, when I have time off
~*ME*~: I've grown dependent on her recently
~*ME*~: we were never close when I was younger
~*ME*~: and when I finally decided I needed her, she moved
1: Whats holding you together?
~*ME*~: guilt
1: Whats tearing you apart?
~*ME*~: I'm not good enough for her
1: Who are you good enough for?
~*ME*~: no one
~*ME*~: I'd just like to be good enough for myself, but I"m failing at that
1: whats the first emotion you experienced today?
~*ME*~: I don't know, i"m mostly exhausted when i wake up in the morning
1: tell me about what you eat?
~*ME*~: eat?
~*ME*~: I eat carbs (it's triggering for me, because it's pattern recognition, 20 years ago was the...maybe second or third time I had lived this pattern, but at that period, I wasn't consciously aware of it, I just felt it like a negative energy in my subconscious that I kept trying to figure out, but I couldn't get out of survival mode long enough to do it...so I caved and went to my mom for help, and that's when they moved across the country - abandoning me....again.
~*ME*~: everything I eat is a carb
~*ME*~: and when I feel guilty about that, I don't eat (this is my food insecurity, no one understands it, bc it's the opposite of what people assume I'm experiencing, the same way we don't drink or have any of the other traits - because that's what everyone keeps getting - I'm socially isolated, and I go so long without what normals take for granted
1: do you check your blood sugar?
~*ME*~: my mom checked it once for me
~*ME*~: she couldn't get me to bleed
~*ME*~: it was funny
~*ME*~: I have low blood sugar
~*ME*~: I always have, I was born with it
~*ME*~: my mom is a diabetic though
~*ME*~: so I worry one day I won't be able to eat sugar, because I'm allergic to non-sugar things, aspartame
1: hypoglycemia?
~*ME*~: no, just get dizzy
~*ME*~: no energy
~*ME*~: no stamina
1: aspartame is nasty stuff - its good that you dont use it
~*ME*~: it triggers my migraines
1: have you tried splenda? (I literally just told him I'm "allergic" to non-sugar things...grumble grumble
~*ME*~: causes anal leakage, I read the package
~*ME*~: no thanks
~*ME*~: I like sugar
~*ME*~: my body rejects anything that's good for me anyways (this is still true, any time I try to eat "healthy" my body rejects it)
~*ME*~: I only get sick when I try taking vitamins or something This used to be true, until I lived with D and would get any sick he would get, and as socially isolated as I've been, my immunity has gotten REALLY low, so I have it in my head/a story a doctor convinced me is true - is that I'm very very sick...when really, I just am very, very alone
~*ME*~: I just stay away from any artificial sweetener
~*ME*~: I like my sugar real, and my milk whole
1: ok do you love yourself?
~*ME*~: sure, why not
~*ME*~: I love everything
1: what relationship do you have with your body?
~*ME*~: LOL we aren't on speaking terms right now
~*ME*~: If I wasn't myself, I'd never be attracted to myself, and I know that's horrible, and I've just got to accept it, but I hate looking at myself
~*ME*~: I don't like the way I look
1: What don't you like?
~*ME*~: I have an endless list
~*ME*~: there's something wrong with every part of me, there's not one part that I like, except the color of my eyes, and no one even notices that
~*ME*~: they all think I have brown eyes
(edited because boring - he suggested I have amber colored eyes - again, they are mood changing, but hardly anyone ever notices - it took my dad until I was in my twenties to notice. And I lived with him. People are ignorant and no one ever sees me. I want to be seen, and I've been saying that for my entire life...this was from 20+ years ago...)
~*ME*~: I figured out why I want to see a psychic...aside from all the other reasons
~*ME*~: I want to see why I'm so resistant
1: resistant? a fine electrical term
~*ME*~: there's a large part of me that's comfortable being isolated, and it's struggling to keep holding me back, because it's afraid it will die if I find happiness (This is a belief my dad had, I don't feel that way now, I was just blaming myself for my isolation, just like everyone else does...like suggesting I must be "giving off a vibe" or that everyone was convincing me I was the common denominator in all my misfortunes and like Cassandra, I saw the pattern starting to repeat itself and once again had no social support, and was just doing what I could with what I had, and at that point it was just trying to clean the house and rewarding myself with a massage - but not even that works as motivation when you get this lonely)
1: have you spoken with it?
~*ME*~: every time I am happy, it destroys a part of my life, and the only peace I ever find is when I don't try anymore
~*ME*~: like my poem catatonic (note to self, go look for that poem)
~*ME*~: that's what my head is like
~*ME*~: I don't know how to speak to it, it screams in my ears
~*ME*~: it uses my mother's voice
~*ME*~: it's very abusive, I'm not sure there is any talking to it
1: who doesn't want you happy?
~*ME*~: it doesn't have reason, just a tenacity to stay alive
~*ME*~: me, I don't want me happy
1: ok, thank you
1: who doesn't want you happy?
~*ME*~: the voices in my head
1: thank you
1: who else doesn't want you happy?
~*ME*~: everyone that's ever hurt me or used me
~*ME*~: oh, and my principal
~*ME*~: you can put her at the top of the list
1: tell me about being hurt, used
~*ME*~: what's to tell?
1: your personal story of it
~*ME*~: I went to a therapist the other day, for a consultation, and his big epiphany is that I"ve been abused a lot
~*ME*~: every time I let someone get close to me, they leave
~*ME*~: The last one, he was nice enough to take $2,000 of my money with him before he went
~*ME*~: I never get an explanation, no closure, so I figure it must be some failure on my part
~*ME*~: my mind jumps from one thing to the next, not realizing that it's impossible for anyone else to follow (actually, people that attune to what I'm saying have no problem following my train of thought)
1: have you looked in the mirror? do you have hurt me & use me written on your forehead (backwards of course)
~*ME*~: lol, I guess I must project that, because I am a magnet for those people
~*ME*~: that's why I've become a hermit
~*ME*~: there's never a happy medium
~*ME*~: I can't trust my judgment right now
1: you have a 'butterfly mind' I don't have a problem with it, in fact it's far more refreshing than others
~*ME*~: that's the exact word I use
~*ME*~: refreshing
~*ME*~: I'm more real than most people, and people aren't comfortable with that
~*ME*~: I feel like I only exist virtually
~*ME*~: I find people online that like me for who I am
~*ME*~: I have a great network of friends I've never met
~*ME*~: all time zones, so there's always someone up
~*ME*~: all struggling with some horrific personal demons, same as me
1: Who has all the power in your life?
~*ME*~: hmmm
~*ME*~: not me
~*ME*~: that's for sure
~*ME*~: I feel like a puppet, in someone's sadistic idea of a cosmic joke
1: Was there ever a time when you had it?
~*ME*~: before my brother was born
~*ME*~: I think I was happy (when I was 8)
~*ME*~: my mom told me she would get it right with him
~*ME*~: that I was just the guinea pig that she made all her mistakes on
1: tell me more about that, are you killing yourself to please your mom? (that's not the first time he's implied issues with my mom that aren't there)
~*ME*~: no, because she doesn't see the real me
~*ME*~: she lives in denial
~*ME*~: all she wants is to have this family she's created in her head
~*ME*~: and we aren't that family
1: Show me the real you
~*ME*~: the real me is very small
1: ok, my microscope is ready
~*ME*~: hahha, the real me gets very angry, and screams, but no one hears
1: You are right, I don't hear it
~*ME*~: she wants to tear apart at the seams, she's bursting with so many emotions, so many more than can be named, and needs to find someone that understands
~*ME*~: but she is invisible to the naked eye
~*ME*~: and not many people can see her
1: is that what she really needs? to be understood? just that?
~*ME*~: yup
~*ME*~: if she had someone that truly understood her, she could curl up in their arms and be solaced
~*ME*~: instead, the other parts of me step on her, and try to keep her quiet (because when we speak up, bad things happen. When we tell HR we are being bullied, we get our positions eliminated, while "normals" try to convince us "that is not the way this world works!" This...This is the way my world has always worked.
~*ME*~: and she's too small to fight or be heard
~*ME*~: so she sits and waits
1: how many parts are you, EA?
~*ME*~: 3, or perhaps 5
~*ME*~: we don't like to be counted, so we rarely stand still long enough
~*ME*~: we also pretend to be things we aren't, because we enjoy the confusion
~*ME*~: that's why I am comforted by discordianism
~*ME*~: it's the only thing I ever read that made sense
1: whatever you pretend to be, you are.
~*ME*~: but if i pretend long enough, I'll forget who I am
~*ME*~: I dont' even remember who I am anymore
1: Who are you?
~*ME*~: I don't know who people see when they look at me
~*ME*~: I'm nobody
1: you can't fool me, you are just pretending to be nobody...like Oddysseus
~*ME*~: I was someone once
~*ME*~: and I was loved
~*ME*~: but it was a lie
1: You are someone.
1: Now.
~*ME*~: he didn't have a heart, so he took mine
~*ME*~: and now I'm an empty shell of someone I used to be
~*ME*~: I"m mediocre at best
~*ME*~: I've not one thing that sets me apart from others
1: what are your birth details? time/date/place?
~*ME*~: hahha, we even have different birthdays
1: goodie, more charts!
~*ME*~: the real me was born on x
~*ME*~: I disagree with a lot of things my birthchart says
~*ME*~: so I wonder if it's me not seeing who I really am, or me just not being what the chart predicted for me at the time of my birth
~*ME*~: and if that's the case, where did I go wrong?
~*ME*~: a Saturday
~*ME*~: it snowed
1: what are your other birthdays?
~*ME*~: October 31st, a Wednesday
~*ME*~: I think I might be 19
1: october 31st is a special date for me
~*ME*~: I just looked it up
~*ME*~: 19 years ago, october 31 was a wednesday
(This is where the saved convo ends...even back then I recognized my trauma parts and identified them easily...because they've been a part of me for as long as I can remember, with no one else to talk to, I just observe the parts in my head, and get accused of "overthinking everything" but really what else is there to do when humans won't give me the context I need to understand the patterns? it's not my fault most of them don't want to look, but they're there.
Funny thing, even writing this I think most "normals" would say I sounded like a crazy person, but I was listening to a podcast and someone else was saying he noticed the same thing, the serendipity of things...and I understand it's just the way my brain is wired. That and the lack of being able to discuss things like this with other people, so maybe I'd learn more words about the things I experience? Unsure.
Hi Eireanne,
I read a lot of what you wrote here - thank you for sharing it. I love the word 'serendipity' and wanted to also say that. You've recognised your trauma parts and been able to identify them easily - I think that's really a big thing.
Hope :)
I appreciate you saying that Hope :hug: I'm spending a lot more time in this space with my parts, and trying to give them turns to talk, it's bringing up a lot of stuff that I've been trying to piece together.
Illness neurological differences developed through a combination of biological vulnerabilities and an invalidating environment.
Ugh, I feel like I am breaking open and it's so disconcerting but I ride it out (meditation is helping) and I start piecing together all the patterns of things I've been seeing my entire life. Talking about it with people that get it help SOO much but the more I understand...the more it feels like I'm on a life raft drifting away from the shore...
and it triggers the memory of the pool...
and my fear of falling
and all the nightmares of my mom not hearing me
of no one hearing me
because no one has, my entire life, I've been saying the same thing, over and over. Trying to reach people that....I suddenly realize (mid-conversation) that they just aren't following me.
And I have never felt I could depend on anyone, because I haven't. I do not have the memory of the feeling of "depending" - I completely understand the concept. So I grieve that.
I grieve that my inner child never got to experience that, and I understand my mother, that she couldn't give me what she herself never experienced, and didn't have with my father, and that made her a really unhappy woman. She taught me that. How to be unhappy, by telling me I was miserable. Instead of understanding how she kept me socially isolated by her own insecurities my entire life. That I never understood how to live, how to navigate, how to set boundaries, how to have an opinion, and here is where I get scared and reach out for a distraction, because here is where sitting alone with this, with needing to tell...but realizing....again....being triggered by this same life 20 years later, of not having any family, and losing all my friends, because of this...that the things I learned from my mother cause my parts to shatter and they ALL want to say a thing...and suddenly it's like screaming in my ears, only I feel it with my body....and it's sooo unpleasant.
That's why I leave myself articles (in the other journal) about how to rethink that feeling...as excitement. So instead of picturing cortisol and an emotional flashback and my sensory issues because of my touch starvation, which keeps me in the mind state of "omgs you're going to die alone and your body won't be found for months) I push through that feeling and realize it's just...the fact that I have always seen clearly all the things behind the reasons why people do the things they do...so I put up with them treating me like crap because not *ME* but like the message I get from EVERYONE, even my closest friends is all that BS of sorry...triggering, can't type, and that's when it just plays in my head like a movie and I want to say it, but it's not that it's "triggering" more so it's "branching" and it physically hurts to keep typing.
My head start playing it out like a movie because my parts take over and each one has a different story - like branches on the tree. I need to unpack it all, but to do it, I need to decide on a branch to follow, so (you) only hear part of the story. We stick to that branch until you listen, but meanwhile (a lot of the time) the other parts still talk anyway, so they all talk over each other and it gets louder, but my brain translates the din of all the parts wanting to be heard, to have their branch followed, because it's ALL important, it's all a piece of the puzzle, and all part of this pattern that I've been stuck in and talking about for my entire life.
Since I was 8. and 17. and 19. and then we completely stopped linear time. So there's college part - when the food insecurity pattern was established. there's 2012 and 2017 and 19 and now. and some overlap. and then there's anger, and hurt, and rejection, and the others that I've named because they are the ones that were most vocal. And I've always just accepted them as part of me, but never talked about them, because well, if I can't get a neighbor to understand, "I'm in survival mode, dealing with active trauma and I'm completely socially isolated. Can you perhaps, just have a conversation with me?" which leads....effing NO WHERE. But it's fine, like it's NOT, but it is, because I have this journal now, and my meditation group, and you know, other virtual things, which I've always managed to do.
My biggest (sounds like complaint) is how come I have no friends? Meaning, like, why does no one show up at my door and say, hey, let's go out for coffee. And I have to lower my expectations to the point I have to be satisfied with occasionally, one person remembers to text me (which is the part my therapist and I talked about). Exaggeration because you're not listening to me.
Yes, it is perfectly valid to be HURT/ANGRY that you don't have social support and most people you talk to are (redacted). It ISN'T fair, but also, these people are mind numbingly dull, it's not that small talk makes me anxious, it's that I understand things at such a deep level, having a deep conversation about BIG THOUGHTS is so interesting to me and all I get are people that...and it branches again, but it just goes like that...and sometimes I have to stop, and sometimes I realize my brain distracted me from completing the thought pattern of things about my mom, not because I'm afraid to go there, or it's unprocessed, it's because we know and telling us the same story over and over again is just...like a broken record? I read a funny word today - Junebugging. It's for people with ADHD but it's applicable. I just have to give my body a break and I know I do, but I also know I can't just keep pushing myself. I don't remember most of it anyway, and that's why I have to write down as much as I can as fast as I can, because when I read it back, even if it's from 3 years ago, I can just filter it through all my parts and learn how to....something something. We need a break now.
The looping is because all of my parts keep filling in details, like little editors sitting over my shoulder saying, "you should have said it this way" or just pushing me out of the way and typing what they feel needs to be said, and it leads to miscommunication when people are hurting me. Only they don't realize they are, and I didn't have the vocabulary to explain to them what was going on, but I go back so often and replay something, and see where the communication broke down...because language is messy, feelings are complicated, it's never just one thing, and if you had enough context you'd understand.
Only with the context will you actually understand me, only no one wants to understand, they just want to fix. So I end up feeling like I'm cursed, and I'm caught in a cycle that I can't seem to break because??? And here's where I am....again.
Armed with the knowledge of every other time this has happened and we are all comparing notes.
I start seeing where I've taught myself incorrectly based on faulty models. I've only ever experienced what I don't want. How would I have basis to understand what I do want if I never knew it existed. That I didn't know what I didn't know. There's only so much you can understand something by reading about it, and constantly being told that kind of thing doesn't happen in real life, so I ended up in a relationship where I worked with a redacted manual and had no clue what I was doing. All I knew was what I was doing wasn't working.
And the distraction said something interesting the other night. But I'd have to open his file to retrieve that data and he's in the no-no zone right now. Because we do not prioritize things that do not prioritize us.
Which contradicts what my actions are, but that's where you'd need context. And I have it. But now I'm going numb again. And I really don't think I should keep going, I've got too many tabs opened again at this point *headdesk*
The parts have been so triggered lately. I keep wanting to apologize for not spending more time reading and leaving thoughtful responses to your journals and the posts you leave for me here. I actually DO form a response in my head, but I need to prioritize me right now and like...get the thoughts out about what's going on in Part-Land and then I feel bad/guilty/fawning - don't actually need to apologize, and I know you all know, it's more that, I actually DO want to spend more time being part of this community in an active way. I only just noticed Kizzy's post about do we want to make our journals private...and I was actually thinking that I need to make this one private...but do I really? I don't know...I had a lot of thinking in line to what other ppl already said...and it's not a "now" problem, so I will come back to it. Just like I'll eventually come back to responding to all of you...
So book club is tonight, and I'm going only because #1 it's literally at the end of my block and #2 I already read the book. I don't have any animosity towards these people, but aside from the first meeting making me feel INCREDIBLY rejected on so many levels, like non-welcoming, not very friendly, and then (anger) starts ranting about the Farmer's Market - the point is, these aren't my people, my desperate need for belonging makes me resentful that I do everything all the self-help gurus say (the one I'm reading now is extremely like that....so I decide, ok, I'll listen to a meditation, I have a few of them bookmarked, and the first one I pick completely triggers me. Like to the point I want to write a transcript of the entire meditation just so the parts can pick it apart. and it's like I'm on the precipice of something....and I'm realizing more and more what it's not - it's like this friggin curtain I can see behind, like seeing the Wizard of Oz was just a fraud the entire time, you can't go back to believing they are emeralds after you see the glue and putty...it's all an illusion - me just believing my labels because my mother told me that's what I was, that's how SHE saw me, so that's how I must be.
My dad telling me I'm worthless...and I said, wait? Are you telling me I'm worthless? He said, "you're mother thinks I'm worthless, so you and I can be worthless together".....the context that I fill in (THE STORY I TELL MYSELF) is my mother was always disappointed in me because when she had the idea of me, she pictured what it would be like, her dream of me...and she didn't quite understand that she couldn't just WISH I could be what she wanted, verbally, in front of me, on a regular basis. That it's your actions that your children learn, not so much the words.
My mother complaining about my personality - and I was watching a video recently that said all personality is is someone mirroring what they think you think of them....or something. It's not important. No one ever liked "my personality" that I was too much like my father, and all my mother did was complain about how disappointed she was with her own life. Like I'm sure she felt like I did, invisible, invalidated...
MY basic need of communicating was never met - it makes me NEEDY - is another story I just tell myself, because I feel it, like a craving, like an addiction, I just want to talk to someone sometimes. But no one I know will meet me at that level, and so *I* feel disappointment...and I tell myself the story I'm turning into my mother, because I just sit home alone all day every day, and my dad could never figure out how to make her happy, to the point he became a non-person, he didn't know how to just be happy on his own....and I don't know how to be happy on my own...but not because I'm not content with the things I have around me, I practice gratitude more and more but all it does is highlight my grief...because I realize everything I've been reading is wrong (for me) and everything I've been saying has been misunderstood....ugh /end rant.
Book club in ONE hour.
So maybe my mom had an idea of the way she wanted her life to be and it wasn't like that. And maybe she tried over and over to get through to my dad about the way she felt, and like how A doesn't really listen to anything I say, and D surely never did, that people just have communication issues, and until the both of them sit down and have a BS free conversation about how they feel, then no one is going to get anywhere. And all I remember is the both of them coming to me, telling ME how they felt, letting me analyze it, explain it back to them, so they could then take that knowledge and...what? So my dad started going to therapy (on my birthday, so he was doing it "for me") and she wasn't a very good therapist, but my dad sort of had a crush on her, and she gave him free therapy in exchange for him bringing her lunch...but I think it was more for him someone to talk to that listened, because no one else did. He was largely invisible too...and socially isolated, but I don't know if he noticed or cared...because he had his routines, and he wasn't really good when things were out of place. My parents didn't even sleep in the same bedroom, they had different sleep habits, but the part that affected ME was that my mom pretty much took over my room the minute I left for college. Which my dad got angry about me packing up the car to leave because I was "letting all the air out of the house" (financial insecurity - passed on from generational trauma, thanks everyone)
BTW to spite my financial insecurity, I bought a $5 candle that I didn't need just because I could - and I don't care if it's cheap, I like the illusion that it smells good and it's a pretty color AND it's called Balance. #smallwins
The core wound of not belonging stems from them, I never fit in my own family. My mother was disappointed with her life and she was/is oblivious that all I learned was her actions, how her words internalized in my very being - not to mention the fact I have 50% of her DNA. I'm disappointed in life but for VERY different reasons, and her reasons just aggravate the....out of me because I want to shake her and say "you're complaining about NOTHING, you have no idea how much you have that you don't see" And I know someone could say the same thing about me...so I have been invalidating my feelings, and forgiving my parents that "they didn't know any better" but the truth is, there were things that any decent human being should have realized...
Like the time my car broke down and my dad had to finish cleaning the house before he could come and pick me up...the sheer fact that I was not a priority to them. Either of them. To help me fill out forms, figure out tax stuff, the basically showed me once and then just expected me to be independent, didn't want to be involved, didn't want to prioritize me as a human being. So (Drama) tells me that I grew up in a vacuum, but I know that's not true - but I've still been invalidating myself, because even though I grew up (redacted) I still want to have my experiences validated, but when I try, people accuse me of complaining and not having a good personality.
So I keep trying to be what everyone tells me I am, and have become a non-person. My parents never let me have an opinion about anything, so I grew up not having my opinion respected. Or even asked for. There's so many layers, it's all a lot, and my brain gets stuck on some points, but I lose track of what they are when it all comes out...and conversations in my head go exactly where I need them to go, but when I try to write it down, other stuff comes out. It's all lost in the merry world of trauma.
Every person with whom you interact, now acts as a mirror to show you where you are now within your mind. You are here to learn about your thoughts and emotions, and you will see them reflected not only in the reactions and actions of your brothers and sisters, but also in everything you see around you. There does not exist a person, place or thing in this world that does not reflect who or what you believe about yourself. When properly perceived, all people, places and things will teach you who you currently believe yourself to be. All people, places, things and moments reflect what you think and feel about yourself. - You Have Chosen to Remember
Reading things like that for me...used to be triggering. Because I would take it to heart, little empath that I was, and I *KNOW* that everything a person says is a reflection of the story they tell themselves about what they are experiencing, and rarely if ever do people reflect me back to them.
What I see are people that are so lacking in curiosity, or willingness to understand how someone else is feeling, instead, they tell themselves a story about what you are going through and when you don't do what they suggest (would work for them, based on the story THEY are telling themselves about what you are experiencing, and not what you're actually going through, because they never actually attune to you in the first place) they determine FOR you that you aren't trying.
The me I actually am is rarely reflected back in the people I interact with, because most people don't even take the time to really get to know me. I believe I'm am amazing person who has had sooooooooo many friggin not amazing things happen that it's affected the way I relate to the world in extremely valid and (coping skills) ways. I am STILL in survival mode.
(the fact that I literally tell this to one of my neighbors and the next time she saw me she asked, "so how is your summer going?" is a reflection that she is an oblivious, self-obsessed woman whom I don't really *want* to be friends with anyway. But it's NOT a reflection of ME. None of these people are reflecting me back to me - My parts have been.
I just finished having a thought about a thing and decided to listen to another one of my bookmarked meditations and immediately it's talking about the thing, so I decided to pause it and attempt to write a transcript of it to process later...
Today I want to spread awareness of narcissistic abuse and being a scapegoat. Just feeling totally abandoned, and isolated and alone and unlovable, because this is something that I personally have experienced a lot in the past and I do know the pain that goes with it. When it's never our fault, and the reason someone is being scapegoated, is not because we deserve to be punished for who we are, but because we are self-blaming. And people are always mirroring back to us, who we are and what we believe about ourselves. It was only when I understood this that I was able to stop being the scapegoat...(this is the point I paused it to write the transcript, because of what she just said)...and to really stay in my own power and my own worth without ever giving my power away.
This all starts with the need to stay small in order to get other's approval. The reason we are so worried about getting other people's approval, is because we still have an unworthiness wound. When we are really rooted in our own worth, we never give our power away and that means we never attach our worth to how someone is treating us. How someone is treating you is about them, but how you react is about you (I hear this all the time, but maybe it means something different now?)
There was a time when I was always playing small because my self-worth was dependent on the acceptance of others. I was always too afraid of making other ppl feel angry or triggered, because that means they would reject me and make me feel unloved. (I've never felt this way, the only time people reject me is when I try to set boundaries because I'm not getting my basic needs met and I'm being communicative about it) One of my favorite things is to see my clients rise from this. blahblahblah sales pitch. Afraid of being too much. Because you shine too much, you are too pretty, you get too much attention...(I'm not sure who this woman is talking to, but it's not me. If anything, I've felt that everyone was subconsciously jealous of how much I shined and was determined to hurt me, because society tends to react with fear and hatred towards things they don't understand).
What I understand in my own healing was I was scapegoating myself. I was blaming who I was for not receiving love. I was blaming my own light, my own beauty and needing to stay small...(except for me I've been blaming the fact that no one wants to listen to what I'm experiencing and really understand what I'm trying to say as being "too much, too needy" etc. I'm not Too anything, I deserve to have someone really attend to what I'm saying and for me to be able to get my basic needs met and for me to stop accepting breadcrumbs from everyone around me and call it friendship.
Worthiness on the inside so we heal our worthiness wound and we don't give our power away. Really understand that our worth cannot be given or taken, it can only be reflected.
I did do something along the lines of what she was saying in Elementary school. I was beat up a lot and called a nerd, which I didn't understand, because nerds were smart and I struggled a lot in school. I would look up the definition and see how un-nerdy I was. So I stopped participating altogether in school. I rarely if ever spoke or participated, and would often read another book (fiction) inside whatever textbook we had in class. Since I went to a really bad school, I was still able to pass, but even the teacher would give me bad grades for personality - needs improvement or unsatisfactory. Sigh. Scapegoated. Maybe if I wasn't picked on so much I would have done better in class, but the story I told myself was if I stopped doing well, they'd stop beating me up.
Hi Eireanne,
I was sorry to hear that you got beat up a lot at school and I think you did well to pass your grades with all those circumstances going on. I feel some anger towards your teacher for giving you bad grades for personality, I think that's inappropriate of that teacher to do that.
Sending you a hug, if that's ok :hug:
Hope :)
Thank you Hope. To clarify, it wasn't just one teacher, it was almost every teacher, every year. Yes, there were a few teachers who saw something in me and attempted to give me opportunities to nurture it, but without the support I needed from my parents at home...well the negative experiences, bullying and abuse far outweigh my memories of...having a childhood? It's part of the stuff I am trying to process in my relationships now, because I've never actually experienced being able to verbally ventilate my lived experience without having it immediately invalidated by someone. Thank you for validating the anger I feel at not having had the support I needed as a child to build resilience against bullying, perhaps the same behavior...I would have learned to stand up against as an adult in a way that doesn't trigger my feelings of rejection and abandonment so much? It's hard for me to understand, have compassion for, forgive and validate myself for all these experiences. I genuinely appreciate you are reminding me I'm not alone as I work through this mess. :hug:
As usual...something from my reading that I let my parts rip apart...although we are blessed with the knowledge of the power we are also cursed with it. The path is unclear, and the waters muddy. (A story I told myself)
The steps we take on the road less taken can isolate us from those around us and force us to look at a reflection of ourselves that takes time to grow used to. (a story I told myself)
We stand alone in our doubts and we know that even if we try to explain them to someone else, even if they have been through the same thing it won't make any difference because this is personal. (a story I told myself)
It would be nice to not have to think so much, to see the world as others do. Flat and explained.
But we also know that if we do this a part of us will die, not right away. (I don't feel this were true. I felt if I was just another one of the sheep, at least I'd be content with the level of sense of community they are offering and not be so disillusioned as to reject it as not being what I need, but I deserve to experience having my basic needs met, and I can't possibly be content with breadcrumbs.
although we may walk alone when the sun comes out you'll find that you are no longer where you were. (The story I tell myself is that I will be even more painfully alone than I am right now, because I keep losing more and more people the more I work on myself. It's not that they are being replaced with an even deeper connection with anyone, it's that I am learning to accept that I might not ever know what it feels to have the kind of connection with another human being that I crave. And I grieve so much. And this is where I'm stuck and cannot see another perspective, because no matter how many times people that are in my life now say YET, all I've experienced is loss. And parts of me want that validated.
we don't grieve this loss but celebrate it because the further it takes to travel backwards then the further we have come. (te story I tell myself is that once I fully validate and understand that it's duality that people that weren't being good friends to me still rejected me and the heartbreak akin to a "breakup" is still there, as it has every right to be, even though they were doing me a favor in rejecting me, so I can see they were never giving me what I was asking for, which was literally the bare minimum, and me excusing their behavior every time told THEM the story that it was ok to treat me that way. It's not. It never was.
Seek not that which you do not already possess within yourself. (this is just another invalidating message similar to "you are enough" that makes me defensive that I'm asking for someone to attune and validate my experience so I can hear that it mattered. It did matter, the way I was neglected mattered, because how am I supposed to reparent myself when no one has ever read the manual on How to EA? And I don't have the manual on "how to human" So how can I be expected to be treated with human decency when I don't know what that feels like? The people in my life tell themselves the story that they model it, but their actions were just teaching me to invalidate myself and my basic needs.
You'll find that people tend to be more comfortable once they've found a label to stick on you, a niche to cram you into......and they won't really notice if the label doesn't stick or if you slide out of the niche they've stuck you in. Just let them have their cherished and steadfast belief that THEY are the ones with all the answers......and let your spirit guide you further along the path you have chosen for yourself. You will be the richer for it in the next lifetime (The story I tell myself is I'll never know what it's like to be loved the way I need and I just have to accept the love I've been given and I shouldn't ever hope for more, because any time I do, I'm trying to "change someone" and they will find any reason to reject me.
When I grieve the fact I've never gone on a "girl's trip" even though I've craved experiencing one since I was in college – I wanted to go to mardi gras, I wanted to go to Italy, I wanted to do something with my life, have experiences, feel like I belonged and no matter what I try I don't, and people say, "but you don't have to be co-dependent, you can take yourself on a vacation!"
I don't think anyone realizes I live every aspect of my life alone. Going in for surgery, I was terrified, I explained to the anesthesiologist that I had to hold onto my phone because I was so scared and since all my friends live in my phone, holding it helps me imagine someone is holding my hand.
Had anybody attended to me with empathy and compassion, it wouldn't have taken me this long to discover the truth about myself. (Is a story I tell myself).
To experience self-image transformation, allow the negative thoughts in your unconscious habitual belief system or ego to surface. For it is in their surfacing that light will shine on them, and you'll be able to finally see and understand what they are truly offering. When you understand that you truly do not want what they offer, you will release these limited beliefs. When you release them, you will let go of all you thought you were. (all I was repeatedly told I was). Finding out who you are in truth, many times, begins with the realization of who you are not.
The more you realize what it is you do not want, the closer you come to finding out what it is you do want.
It is wholly normal to feel sad on a regular basis. But there are also always a sufficient number of things that remain beautiful and hopeful, so long as one has been allowed to understand and known one's pain and anger - and adequately mourn one's losses.
When you lose something, don't think of it as a loss, but as a gift that lightens your load so you can better travel the path that was meant for you.
Never stop ignoring the naysayers. – When someone undermines your dreams, predicts your doom, or criticizes you in any way, remember, they're telling you their story, not yours.
Never stop giving yourself a chance to soar to new heights. – You'll never be able to fly if you hold on to what holds you back. So respect yourself enough to walk away from what no longer grows you.
I have been doing all this research to understand my trauma better, I realize there are all these adaptations I created, where my brain makes projections of people so I can have someone to talk to, because my basic need of communication has never been met.
I spent half of this year terrified that I was going to end up bitter and angry and that's why all my friends were abandoning me. But the more time I spend without them, the more I realized my neglect as such a young age, to have never had these life experiences everyone takes for granted I have, to just be learning things now, by watching other people parent their kids, I'm like...reflecting back on what childhood experiences I remember, and it's all just me sitting in my room, and occasionally taken to one of two friends' houses...I've lived a very isolated life and I don't know what I don't know because I've never experienced it. And people that I called my "friends/family" wouldn't even hold space for me to try to put themselves in my shoes, they simply saw my situation through their own lived experience, not understanding I've never experienced the things they are taking for granted.
Most people, any time I try talking to them, give me some variation of invalidating what it is I've been trying to say, and I accepted it because no one has ever treated me like I've deserved more.
Before you can let go of any emotion, you have to feel it fully.
There is value in taking the time to care for ourselves and give our bodies what they need.
Here's something I read that I've been doing...before I read it. So it's a bit of validation that all the things I've been reading that make me feel invalidated are perfectly valid.
The entire concept of "routine" doesn't take into account that every day is not like the one before it. We wake up differently each morning, with different things ahead of us and different underlying moods. Strict morning routines ignore this fact entirely and ask you to apply a single behavior across all types of days.
Forcing yourself to go for a run if all you really want is a giant garlic bagel is not self-love, it's just another daunting commitment on your calendar.
Upon making this realization, I decided to try a new kind of routine, or rather, an anti-routine. I began waking up every day with no expectations or agenda for how that time would be spent, and instead let my actions be guided by how I felt in that exact moment. It's time that is mine to spend, time where I get to listen to my myself and be driven by my desires from a place of non-judgement and spontaneity.
We, on many occasions, have told ourselves stories about what people abandoning you means but what has this ever offered us? Pain, sadness, disgust, envy, jealousy, anger and many other negative emotions have resulted from our believing the story you told yourself about other people.
Making up reasons for people abandoning you based on the last thing you said to them is not only a bad habit but also an addiction, for what else would we call something that causes us pain over and over again?
When I try to get my feelings of abandonment validated, it invalidates the feelings of the person I am telling my pain to. Causing them pain. And them telling stories about me who are then told things from THEIR friends, cementing their decision that the story they are telling themselves about me is correct, never once just coming directly to the individual and saying, This is what I'm hearing you say.
For if we have ever experienced judgment, pain, scarcity and sadness, it is because the reality within our minds made us believe that these were proper, fair, and correct responses to whatever we thought we were experiencing. In the end, these were choices we made. We have been taught by the world, our families, peers and society how to react to circumstances. But look to see where most of the world, our families, peers and society physically, spiritually and emotionally live. They predominantly live in a world of confusion, chaos, anger and judgment, and yet they want us to believe that if we follow their rules and laws, we will find peace of mind and joy.
It is now time for us to recognize that we are powerful beings. It is time to put aside all rules and laws that have resulted in judgment, pain, scarcity and sadness. For deep within, we know this is not what we want. And if we don't want something, does it make sense to pursue it?
You currently have in your life what you consciously or unconsciously want. But I offer you that if you have the power to bring to your life things that do not give you joy and peace, then know that you also have the power to bring to your life things that do offer you joy and peace. You have an active imagination, and you have created what you want and think you need to experience.
I've often felt like maybe because of my mistakes, I should be more forgiving of others' mistakes as well. This is completely normal, but the problems start to arise when you start justifying people's negative influences / actions by blaming yourself.
If you are not being treated with the love and respect you deserve, check your price tag. Perhaps you've marked yourself down. It's you that determines your worth by what you accept from others. Get off the clearance rack and get behind that glass case where the valuables are kept. Value yourself, and accept nothing less.
It's really hard to walk away from people, or cut people off – especially if you love them. But you have to recognize that they are negative influences in your life. Whether they cut you down, make you feel ugly or incapable, tell you you're not good enough, or refuse to love you or be there for you the way you would for them – LET THEM GO. Tell yourself over and over again that you deserve better, and you'll find the strength to walk away.
It may seem scary to be without that person people, but there is something more wonderful waiting for you on the other side.
That false sense of hope where if I just keep working on myself a little more, keep remembering my worth, keep telling people what I need and one day, things will be DIFFERENT...is really hurtful, but I shouldn't let that invalidate the rest of the message.
I am in a period of undoing my old thinking. Don't fight the obstacles. Just bless the obstacle and keep moving toward that what you were seeking.
Over time, as your course becomes more direct, you will begin to recognize an obstacle before fighting it and he will master how to maneuver through life. Over time, your obstacles will be used as stepping-stones.
This could be a hopeful thought, or just another story I've been telling myself.
"We can not know what we have not experienced." Such is the truth of life that we become not by chance but by experience. Each experience opens a window into ourselves, into who we were, who we are, and whom we are choosing to become.
What most of us want is to be heard, to communicate. The self we are presenting to the world is negated each time we speak, yet goes unheard. Let go of all extraneous thoughts when we are in a conversation with someone. We cannot expect to get from others what we are unable to give. The beauty of hearing each other is that it helps us to hear ourselves.
you may choose not to see me, but I am still here.
Dealing with feelings of abandonment, rejection, shame, and worthlessness are excruciatingly difficult in isolation. Many people avoid pain at all costs, someone who chooses not to spiritually bypass their pain will learn very easily that it takes a village – so you become a village.
Let go – let go of the idea that there is going to be someone to support you outside of yourself. Again, don't spiritually bypass it. Grieve the loss of your support system, and realize that it was all a deck of cards anyway, you lied to yourself to keep yourself safe, but now is the time to stop invalidating yourself.
Learn to stop asking for help and help yourself. Finally coming to terms with the fact that people aren't going to show up for you when you beg for help, when you're "going through it" and letting them go hurts. But after a while you come through the other side and realize that they weren't giving you what you needed to thrive, you were just focusing on gratitude, and accepting the bread crumbs everyone around you was feeding you.
it doesn't matter if you are right—because the other person simply isn't open to hearing it.
You may think that persistence wins the day, but relentless effort does not always work in your favor. When someone suggests something you really need, don't take them up on their offer. This leads to false hope. Remember you are enough, so if you have a need outside of your own ability, it's a reminder that you're asking for too much again. Learn to let go. Learn to let go of the need to have things outside of your own ability. Let go of the idea that it takes a village, and keep reminding yourself that you are enough – because you are all you are ever going to have.
Consider taking the path less traveled, going within, and getting quiet. Being yourself and shining your light.
I want someone to tell my story to, and to talk about the things that come up while I'm journaling. When I am bringing up all these memories and I'm realizing the things that are triggering my core wounds, when I look into how to heal from core wounds I'm told the same things over and over - none of which works for me.
I want to get my entire story out to someone so they can help me re-write it. I need someone else's perception to heal MY filter of events. I want to tell my story to the point where I don't have to tell it anymore. I feel like I've never been heard and I want that, I want people to know what I've been through, to validate. I need validation - is that wrong? I want someone to talk to all the deepest fears that I have, and realize WHY I'm afraid, even if it takes me a while to get to the why myself. I need someone who GETS it.
And I realize, I have to be that person for me. I am being that person for me, and at the same time, I'm avoiding doing it, and avoiding so much else because the rejection and abandonment is still there. So right now I'm just listening to myself and pointing things out...hopefully I'll get there and remember to stop stopping for distractions, no matter how shiny they are.
Like a dog with a bone, I am giving in to my parts need to rip something apart and putting this invalidating information about anxious attachment. I knew on some level and my therapist completely validated for me that attachment styles are being used incorrectly and I had it right all along.
frustration anxiousness and fear are often expressed as anger
(shoutout to anger, hi anger!)
I've learned my anger is pointing out I'm not getting my basic needs met.
The basic need of someone responding to a text.
Answering a question
Responding to a suggestion
Not closing a door in my face and then not answer the doorbell and make me feel anxious
Hearing "I'm in survival mode, I've literally lost every facet of my life" and responding with, "So what do you do for fun?" and following it up next week with, "so how's your summer going?"
See? There's Anger. Anger is justifiable. Valid. Absolutely appropriate. You are seen Anger. I hear you. You are not CRAZY.
You are not having a temper tantrum. You do not need to be escorted out of the building by security. You just need to be heard. Acknowledged. You're right. It should not have taken you 15 times of saying the same thing before I paid attention, it isn't fair to you that I wasn't listening. You have every right to raise your voice when I'm ignoring you. I will work hard to show up for you, because you are important to me.
These are acceptable things to want to hear. Instead, I was walked out on. Any time I said, "you're hurting me by doing this, I need you to understand my triggers better" And I literally gave him the blueprint to abuse me. I told him every weak spot, every vulnerability and he tortured me for 3 years....that a part of me was aware of anyway. I didn't know. No one told me. How was I supposed to know this was wrong? To want to have intimacy with someone I'm living with and not have them hurt me, see they are hurting me, and then blaming me for it, ignoring me, tuning me out and gaslighting me. For sooo many years, until I saw it, and I just...survived, until I was able to get away. Then my landlord took his side and took away my psychological safety, during a pandemic. Triggered my financial insecurity....and then gaslit me right in front of his wife to get me out of the apartment 3 weeks before my lease was up, even though he threatened me to get me to pay full month's rent when I asked could he possibly take partial rent out of my security deposit (I know I'm going to get the full thing back, I'm a perfect tenant)...it was horribly traumatizing and no one has ever once even let me talk to them about it. What I went through. And see, here's where I could go on, and keep explaining what happened but I want to back away from it, so during therapy, I need to practice....not backing away from it.
I keep telling her, I have no conscous awareness of what I am saying during our sessions, and could i please like, have it recorded so I can remember what I talked about, and she jsut keeps telling me she's taking good notes. I find it mildly frustrating, because even these word documents I'm reading is helping me piece together things faster, and giving me (and a lot of you) things to think about, but I feel like she's got that part that I can't continue talking about - like what happened with my landlord, M & J were right there, and they just sat in the next room, didn't stand up for me at all, and I just accepted that, because I was desperate to understand why I am constantly bullied and gaslit by people..I was so (still am so) triggered all the time I can't trust people, because literally everyone lies to me, and not in a paranoid way...but it's just....what happens, I start talking about my landlord, then I start talking about M & J and what sh*tty friends they were, but they thought they were being such GOOD friends, and then Anger loops around again and I can't seem to just tell a story. Get through it all...accept, validate, rinse, repeat...it's all so much. And all that triggered by an article I started reading, couldn't get one sentence in without being triggered by how much I've been lied to.
\ to help yourself you can start by identifying trigger points for anxious preoccupied tendencies fight-or-flight Ok, I just want to stop here to point out, I literally just identified my triggers, I am best friends with my triggers and their root causes but...
remember that we don't see the big picture when we are in fight-or-flight mode we easily catastrophize when Activated Ok, so I just finished telling you half a sentence ago that I can't remember what I talk about when I'm letting my parts talk to my therapist, and I wish she'd record it. That's why I let my parts type, so I can go back (eventually) and listen to them. Right now I'm hearing them, but it's literally an entire conversation with a room full of people, you want me to remember every single thing everyone just said for the past hour? my memory isn't that good. I get the overall gist, but sometimes I make REALLY GOOD POINTS and I miss them because it's literally building castles out of air, I keep saying over and over, Joy? I don't know that I've ever experienced that emotion....and people hear, "Oh, you're just depressed, remember all your friends!" UGH where is the want to vomit emoji? No wonder I was feeling nauseous.
I tried explaining to my therapist at this point, I don't know anyone IRL that could....follow me this far down the rabbit hole. Look at how many FAILED attempts at therapy I've had, Anger...ok
remember that we don't see the big picture when we are in fight-or-flight mode we easily catastrophize when Activated it's going to take me forever to get through this great wall of text if I keep typing every single thing the parts think....#reparentingftw
I keep trying to use that word...catastrophize...it's one of those words I can't say, my tongue trips over it EVERY time, but the point is, I pointed out to her that THAT...isn't what I'm doing. I'm literally being very reasonable in my asks. Can you come over and help me feel less isolated so I can build up a little bit more resistance to do all this HARD work in isolation. No, I'm not isolating myself, but now I have to isolate to protect everyone against anger...because this is where ppl will get a side of me they've never seen - Erinyes
I need to get out all this anger because even though they mean well, they aren't listening and haven't been good friends to me, at all. But I need to like rise above all that and get to all the new stuff I'm reading, just all the old stuff...
it's basically letting me know, Hey, you know when you cry and you say, how did I get so old and kids that are in their 20's already have this all figured out? and I tell myself that you've pretty much had to raise yourself since you were 8, then start taking care of your parents when you were 16, and your brother....and your grandfather...so of course people said you're a CAREGIVER and you've taken on all these thankless caregiver roles where you are constantly bullied, because you've literally never been seen, by anyone and so when someone is the least bit attentive to you, you kinda just....accept it, to survive, because A) it ABSOLUTELY SUCKS being isolated and B) all that sh*t you were reading 6 years ago was lying to you and telling you this was your fault. You didn't know. Now you are starting to understand and pretty soon you'll really know what to say when ppl (redacted) and you can't trust them, you have every right not to trust anyone - that's called setting boundaries and if they can't do what you ask ONCE, then you do not have to continue talking to them, even though you really really like humans and you want to be one too...they aren't your people, your people wouldn't hurt you and be clueless while they're doing it. Your people will ask.
(some context found in my other journal..._
I've been a caregiver my entire life. I took care of my brother when my mother was too sick to do it, which was most of the time. I was eight.
In college my family decided for me it was best I check in on my grandfather, who was suffering from Alzheimer's, due to my proximity. I tell people the story of how I was the first person in my family to graduate from college, but I leave out the part of what it cost me. I worked three jobs to be able to maintain the funds I needed to be able to pay for tuition, rent, utilities, and car maintenance, so when I wasn't in class and wasn't working, I was driving from S to W to check in on my grandfather, who didn't even remember who I was.
I missed out on all of the developmental milestones I should have had in college to give me the backbone I needed to survive in society. I missed out on so much. Then, when I graduated from college, I went straight into working as a teacher, but because I was a new teacher, I hadn't developed the strategies that great teachers need to be able to reach all students. I was working 12-hour days, barely connecting with other teachers, not fitting in, and not being well liked by the administration, because I was an advocate for my students and you aren't supposed to rock the boat while I'm sitting in it.
There's like a bunch of context for the stuff I'm angry about and my therapist is encouraging me not to have to explain it, like don't give the context, but in the context is where the parts are, and it doesn't come up until a sentence...starts it. I understand in the manual on "how to people" you cannot do this, and the suppression of me being extremely unsure, blanking out, not processing - misread as panic/anxiety - the parts are all saying different things and sometimes someone asks a question and my mind goes blank, not because I'm in fight/flight mode but I have no data...
and no one gets it because no one asks the right questions, everyone just makes an assumption. That's why I'm constantly saying things like, "but not in a paranoid way" I've been invalidated so often by everyone, and everything I've read and they just keep saying (guru talk).
...research methods of how to form healthy secure attachments\self-reflection allows you to understand and see things from a different point of view I am REALLY good at assuming things from other points of view, so I make excuses of why my only friend in the entire city stopped texting me for 8 months before I really evaluated our friendship and realized it wasn't what I needed it to be.
taking time for self-reflection leads to greater self-awareness which in turn leads to self-improvement I think I can say with all fairness that I am the most self aware person I know...lol. I want to say in existence, but I know I have more work to do...but still
having a strong sense of self also improves your confidence and your self-esteem you can achieve this by stopping take a step back from the situation look identify and get perspective on what you notice and what you see listen to your innate wisdom what would you tell a friend if they were in this situation so triggering, ok...I have all the sense of self, and absolutely 0 confidence and 0 self esteem because of valid reasons. My innate wisdom? It doesn't know, it didn't have any data and it asked everyone else we knew, help and it got us fired. That is the pattern. I'm not afraid to ask for help, I asked HR, people gasp in shock when they hear...but this happens so frequently, I of course have maladaptive behaviors of being hypervigilant for a bully because that's all I know, and I don't even have to do anything to attract them. What I have to learn is how not to react to them, but without being able to recognize them, because I'm filtering everything (rightly so) through the, "how are you going to hurt me" filter. and I literally asked all of my friends and they either gave useless advice like "have you tried going to HR?" or "you should have a come to jesus talk with her" and this other thing I literally read and did and got eliminated for it....it shouldn't have happened but it DOES, these things happen every day, to a LOT of people, and the thing we all have in common is we are invisible. All the online gurus tell their story of hardship and "overcome it if you just do what I did!" life isn't like that. life is the bystander effect and people victim shaming.
is this advice that you could be listening to yourself right now (thank you, next)
act identify the steps you need to take moving forward to adjust change or improve here are some questions to ponder when you reflect on you what are
my core values what are my beliefs what is important to me what are my priorities what are my unique gifts skills strengths or talents what are my weaknesses or blind spots who do I want to be what energy do I want to bring to everything I do what is the impact my actions are having on others how do I serve or contribute or add value what are my passions what do I love what gets me engaged and motivated and excited are there any beliefs that I have that are limiting me what do I want for my life and Who am I at my best
The parts are exhausted at even reading those list of demands. I'm just going to leave this block of text here for later dissection.
when to communicate if you feel that every communication you have with your partner just leaves you feeling exhausted and confused and any conflict is far from resolved it's safe to say that this communication is not proving effective of course you will need to express the ways in which you're anxious preoccupied behavior is affecting you and how it's affecting the relationship but this communication should become non defensive and non-critical focus on what you do want rather than what you do not want when not to communicate there may be moments when you decide that sending your partner a quick text would be such an easy way to get rid of this uncomfortable desperate feeling for connection that you're experiencing but this is seeking outside validation and reassurance and it's not an effective long-term solution instead try to identify what exactly is it that you need in that moment and see if you can seek ways of giving this to yourself instead of demanding someone else does it for you what are you reaching for are you scared overwhelmed worried taking the time to specifically name your emotion gives you more power over the situation and yourself what are you hoping will happen if you initiate contact be honest with yourself and what your expectations are when you make contact when you are feeling overly anxious distressed or stressed we can assume you're hoping your partner will respond back offer you the reassurance that you need and this will make you feel better sometimes this might be the case but again this is a quick fix and does nothing to address the issue at hand which was your need to reach out in desperation and fear and not love what if they do not respond back immediately however or they respond only with a quick message to let you know that they are too busy rights now this will only feed the insecurities that you are already feeling at some point you will need to accept your part in the attachment style feelings of guilt and blame and shame have no space here and will certainly not help you only you can take positive steps to change the emotions and behaviors that are part of this attachment style you need to pay attention to your behavior your trigger points and develop effective coping strategies you will struggle to do this from a place of shame and guilt if you want a healthier attachment style you need to be willing to make the changes necessary for that to happen from a place of wanting positive change ask yourself are your responses proportionate to the situation when you find yourself feeling insecure and distressed say your partner has informed you that they have made plans without you for the weekend or they haven't replied to your call for several hours or they are late for a date or the last time you spoke they felt distant and distracted take a step back and ask yourself if the intensity of your emotion regarding this matches the situation is it possible that you're overreacting there could be many reasons why they have been unable to call back they may well have been distant the last time you spoke through reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with you and if you haven't discussed this yet you just don't know and so creating some terrifying story of rejection and abandonment is entirely destructive is your panicked reaction truly warranted wherever possible do not involve yourself with someone that has a dismissive avoidant attachment style this one is particularly important for anyone that finds themselves dealing with a partner that has an avoidant attachment style there is a video on this channel to explore coping methods if however you feel you are anxious preoccupied being partnered with an avoidant can be truly damaging unfortunately however there does of course seem to be a pattern of anxious and avoidant people being attracted to each other and forming relationships for the anxious preoccupied being in this dynamic will create feelings of being unheard unwanted and unloved they will feel dismissed devalued discarded and unimportant because the avoidant attachment style is contradictory to the anxious relationship style and the anxiously attached tend to suffer significantly more in anxious avoidant relations any of the trigger points and responses will just feel magnified in this relationship dynamic you may find yourself attracted to an avoidant partner since the avoidant presents themselves as self-reliant and reassured and these are attractive qualities for someone who feels this will give them reassurance the anxious preoccupied is already sensitive to rejection and slights and will take any signs of distance from their partner extremely personally the reassurance and closeness an anxious partner needs will rarely be given by an avoidant partner who keeps their distance and is uncomfortable sharing their emotions the anxious partner responds to relationship issues by trying to create more intimacy craving connection and vulnerability from their partner and this in turn only pushes the avoidant even further away and this can happen over and over in a cycle of push and pull which leaves both feeling hopelessly misunderstood and miserable some people just cannot heal on their own and the people in their life are not necessarily qualified to offer help either in that instance it is important to consider seeking out a therapist if you feel you need one seeing a therapist or a psychologist is a sign of strength not weakness it shows that you want to become a better person and improve yourself and your relationships attachment styles are complex because they are developed in childhood if someone had parents who weren't very attentive to their needs and or were absent then it is possible they might develop an anxious attachment style later in life that is why it's important for self-reflection and ultimately see a professional if you need one who can help you sort through all the years of emotions that have built up once you do you will be much happier and emotionally healthier do you feel you have suffered from this attachment style or somebody close to you if this is the case and you feel comfortable enough please feel free to express some of your thoughts in the comments section please do share any strategies that you have learned to cope and any success stories as this may well just help someone who is learning about this kind of attachment style and how to deal with it
5 Things that Happen When You Embrace Being Alone
WRITTEN by MARC CHERNOFF // 75 COMMENTS
An astounding number of people in this world hate being alone. Perhaps all of us do at some point or another.
We fear being without friends, family, or a partner. We get anxious about traveling alone to strange places, and being lost without anyone to hold our hand. We fear taking on life without a shoulder to lean on, for fear that we're not strong enough or good enough to stand on our own two feet.
This is natural – this resistance to being alone. We've all felt it deep down in our own way, though we often try desperately to ignore and deny it. And this is one of the greatest causes of our stress...
To avoid being alone we'll socialize endlessly, online and offline. We'll date, and even marry, someone who isn't right for us, just to have someone to cling to – someone to fill up the empty space in our lives. We'll watch hours of TV, or stuff our faces with junk food, or buy toys we don't need, because these things are replacements for love... especially self-love.
The secret to turning things around? Awareness and acceptance.
We have to open our minds to the empowering nature of being alone.
Move your body in whatever way feels good to you. Negative emotions get stored in our bodies on a cellular level. Moving is one way to release stress and negative energy. It doesn't have to be intense; you can dance, practice yoga, or go for a walk. (I do this, and what feels good to me is laying in bed all day every day, on my computer going deeper and deeper inside myself)
Keep a gratitude journal. Gratitude is one of the simplest ways to raise your positive vibrations. When we recognize our great fortune and appreciate all our blessings, it automatically puts us into a "feel-good" energetic vibration. (no, it doesn't. I grieve the loss of everything I've never experienced, and recognize how I've spent my entire life accepting the bare minimum and being grateful for it
Write down your goals and connect to your "why." Writing down a list of your goals will help you get clear and take more inspired action. Be sure that when you do, you connect to your "why"—the feeling that you hope will come when you achieve this goal. (I'm still working through this part, which is why I spend all day every day working on this stuff)
8. Visualize what it will look like when you achieve your dreams. Once you've written down your goals and connected with your why, read from the list first thing in the morning and right before bed every day. Take a few minutes to visualize and connect with the feeling of achieving your dreams. (I haven't been able to do this yet, I'm still working through everything I've never had)
9. Feel like you already have what you want.
Feeling is believing. Let these visualizations transport you to a world in which everything has gone your way. Pay attention to the details: What this world looks like, feels like, and sounds like. Doing so will help generate more excitement and positivity, and encourage you to continue taking inspired action towards your dreams.
This helps, because I see where I am, honestly, and I see what I think I need to work through, and I try not to think about how long this might take, or how much more of my life I won't get to live because I need to heal from this.
The problem can't be solved at the same level of awareness that created it
I haven't done "parts" work in a while, and they ended up coming out this afternoon. I tried looking up online "how to reparent" but none of the stuff is relatable, because a "normal" part is an inner child, whereas my parts are emotions and projections of people that stand in for people I've never had in my life. None of them can give advice, because they are literally projections, they aren't going to know anything more than I do. And I don't have answers. I do however, have tools? I don't want to worry semantically about that word now because I have had a headache all afternoon that is turning into a migraine, so cognitive stuff is out the door right now (end disclaimer).
A loose idea of a plan is perhaps a better way to say it. Not adhering to linear time, enjoying the perks of being completely invisible (today what my "parts" needed was to sit in the community garden and sob...and people literally walked by me walking their dogs...it's amazing how invisible I can be, and so I just started singing out loud to what I was listening to and crying as loud as I wanted to until the invalidating word "performative" popped in my head, which I ignored, because it wasn't what I was doing. After I felt I was done (there was no sense of catharsis and of course no sudden inspiration from the "wise mind" whose idea it was in the first place was to just let myself feel my big feelings for a bit with as much support as I was going to get...from the sun warming my skin, the breeze wiping my tears....the cicadas aggravating my headache....lol
I went home and talked for a few hours (linear time) with an online friend I've made who was explaining about co-dependency and this person she knows, and I was like, wait...but literally everything you are describing sounds like me...only without context, and since my friend has taken the time to know me (so she has context), she also agreed that was not what I was doing, but it was so interesting to me that a majority of people have only ever seen me through this filter, since no one has ever just stopped and taken the time to say, "what do you mean by that?" or have been even remotely interested in my lived experience.
The parts had a bunch of things they wanted to do (hence me starting this post here, instead of my other journal) but my headache is winning, so there's always tomorrow and the promise that we will work on it.
We are very happy we were given what we needed today, even if we still don't have any answers. And a small voice in the back says, "yes we do and we're already doing it"
I've been batting around the idea that I'm not actually an introvert, that I am extremely socially isolated and have sensory processing issues, so being around loud/crowded places makes me both physically uncomfortable and at a disadvantage because I can never hear what is going on. But all my life, people have just dismissed my discomfort, never allowing me to be curious about it and labeled me as an introvert.
So I'm exploring the concept...
Introversion is a personality trait characterized by a focus on internal feelings (well what option do I have when all I am are my thoughts?)
Introverts tend to be more quiet, reserved, and introspective. Extroverts gain energy from social interaction (how can I gain energy when every time I'm around people I feel invisible, which leads to me feeling like I'm in the way...the only time people notice me is when I'm standing in the wrong place and we do the awkward "excuse me dance" which leads me to just stand up against walls)
I put so much energy out there begging someone to notice me, to come talk to me that by the end of the night I'm completely drained. If someone does take an interest in me, my lack of knowing what to talk about usually creates an awkward silence which gives them the excuse to leave. The countless times I've joined a group of people, only to have them one by one migrate away, leaving me standing/sitting awkwardly alone...and then the one time I put all that aside and had the best night of my life, it caused an entire group of "friends" to completely disown/stop speaking to me...telling me it's never safe to be myself....the amount of strange looks and "that doesn't sound likely" from people I share things with.
Introverts prefer to stick to deep, long-lasting relationships marked by a great deal of closeness and intimacy. Yes...I want to experience this. I accept being an introvert if it means I can experience closeness and intimacy.
Also in the article is a bunch of stuff that parallels always being alert for danger and wanting to be in situations that minimize that (duh).
Self-awareness and self-understanding is important to introverts, so they often devote a great deal of time to learning more about themselves. Um...well how else am I supposed to find out what's "wrong" with me?
introverts typically prefer learning through observation, preferring to observe before attempting something new. Introverts like to watch others perform a task, often repeatedly, until they feel that they can replicate the actions on their own. When introverts do learn from personal experience, they prefer to practice somewhere private where they can build their skills and abilities without having to perform for an audience. Valid. Shame, embarrassment as well as inability to actually process what is going on unless someone models it for me...yeah, ok. If you like to learn more by watching rather than doing, there is a chance that you have a more introverted personality.
Introverts do appreciate being around people with whom they are close. They find engaging in "small talk" tedious, but do enjoy having deep, meaningful conversations. Introverts also tend to think before speaking. They want to have a full understanding of a concept before they voice an opinion or try to offer an explanation.
Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone.
According to estimates, extroverts outnumber introverts by about three to one.
Introverts often find that other people try to change them or even suggest that there is something wrong with them.
There's also a quiz attached, which I took and You got: Ambivert because most of my introverted tendencies have more to do with rejection and not having anyone willing to talk to me than actually not wanting to be around people.
People who receive constant feedback from peers that something is fundamentally wrong with their personality just might start to question themselves.
The things you've been told throughout your life aren't necessarily true. "There goes my brain, interpreting feelings of rejection as rejection again". So you go into things worried it's happening again, and maybe you aren't your best self.
First, ask yourself: "Is there anything I could do to ensure or increase the likelihood of a good outcome?"
Yes, I can put on a show and be fake.
It's not so much being fake as not giving people consent to share your lived experience with them, which means you can't actually have any form of communication with them. And I'm trapped in this limbo.
ask: "Is there anything I could do to prepare for a bad outcome if it occurs?" Understand that these people aren't your people anyway, so eff them.
Studies show that people who wrote about emotionally charged episodes were happier, less depressed and less anxious.
Cool. So if I keep writing everything down, eventually I'll learn what happy feels like?
Something snatched from my old journal:
I have no one to hold me accountable for anything. If I do something, if I don't do something, who cares? That's always been my thought, and my mum reinforces it. She says, so? If you don't get it done today, you'll get it done tomorrow...I have years of putting things off ingrained in me, and I really want to change my habits...but with any habit, good or bad, it takes time to change, and I know baby steps, and good days and bad days and what all else, but grrr...it's a struggle.
And I still am doing that now, because I have to, because I can, because at this point who cares? I need to get to things when I get to them and not feel guilt or any other kind of emotion about it, I'm doing what I can with what I have. Sure, I could push myself more, but why? It's about to be winter and I'll have all day every day of this for months on end with no distractions, so why push so hard?
here are six types of negative stories (called maladaptive schema) that you can come to believe and let guide your behavior.
Number one is the abandonment story.
do you have unrealistic expectations of how relationships should be? No, I don't.
In what ways could you practice being vulnerable so that you can open yourself up to experiencing more joy in relationships? I don't think it's possible for me to be any more vulnerable, I am an open wound.
Because of your early experience, your reflexive reaction is to close down and protect yourself from being hurt. No, it's not.
Next is the dependent story.
You need to learn to be more comfortable with yourself so that you can be able to sooth yourself and break away from this pattern of being dependent on someone else to meet your needs. I'm working on it, but social isolation and touch starvation are brutal. It would be really nice if I just knew what it felt like to be able to depend on someone.
Number three is the unworthy story.
whose voices do you hear when you say I'm flawed. I'm unlovable. I'm damaged. I'm less than. to yourself? Literally everyone who has abandoned/rejected me. Not bothered to really listen and then suggest a "fix" that has nothing to do with what I need.
think about how that voice their rejection of you was really an expression of their own issues.
The negative things that you believe about yourself are based on other negative beliefs that someone else passed onto you.
The next story you can tell yourself is the disconnection story.
Nothing in this section said anything useful, just "are you the one pushing people away?" I'm pushing people away by answering their questions about myself honestly and basically not knowing how to make "small talk" since I don't have anything in common with the people I meet.
The fifth story is the mistrust story.
This also excuses all the neglect, abuse and rejection I've experienced and insists I find something I should trust about the people who have all abandoned me.
The last story is the failure story.
Your reaction to failure shapes your long-term outlook.
Yes, I am incredibly sensitive to rejection and abandonment and so far the only thing I've figured out is to give up hope, so I can accept and surrender to what is actually happening, instead of wishing things were different.
Today is such a hard day. I've been having EFs all day long, since 9:15am ET which is where it started for me. It just replays and feels like I can't breathe. I figured I'd use it to my advantage and do some parts work, but everything feels like a jumble. It's easier for me if I just go through the old journals than write about how I felt that day...I'm already feeling how I felt, I don't need to write about it too.
I'm disappointed that she basically diminished everything I have been feeling by implying she's been desperately concerned about me and she "finally" heard from me. She could have at any time tried calling me once since April. "Sorry you are having a rough time, let me know if you need anything" is right up there with "having a great time, wish you were here!" Aside from all the things I've directly asked her for since April. I'm just being selfish. And I'm tired of everything always being about me. Wah wah wah. Whatever. I am so tired of not knowing how to feel my feels and process them without a sounding board. Sorry.
It's funny to read that back now and see I know exactly how to feel my feelings, it's everyone else telling me I needed to feel them.
Telling me how the feelings wheel worked. I'm like, I already know how to NAME them, what I can't name is this...sensory processing disorder/touch starvation sensations. Like fireworks under my skin and a burning feeling in my neck and ears. The same feeling when K crushed me with his sociopathic tendencies. How D crushed me with his gaslighting. How everyone triggers it by invalidating me. By telling me how I feel instead of listening to how I actually feel. But because therapists and doctors and well meaning friends were all convincing me it was my fault, I bought into all of it and now I have to unlearn all of it, plus processing all the traumatic things I've experienced, plus undoing the damage my parents did to me.
Ready to let go of jealousy (not getting my basic needs met), fear (not being able to get out of survival mode), guilt (accepting the blame for everything wrong, blaming myself and constantly being gaslit), grief (loss/abandonment/rejection), worthless (how I've been treated with both words and actions), not attractive, missed the best years of my life, and should have taken the time to appreciate it, but I'm doing it again....I need to enjoy the now.
Health pro asking the wrong questions
EDMR
Grief
I need to figure out how to sort out the talking points from the drama. The drama makes it sound like I have ADHD and need to be medicated, or depressed, or something that I'm NOT instead of listening to what I AM so I can work THROUGH it we spend all our time wasted trying cognitive behavior therapy.
It doesn't WORK,
So mad when I found out the therapist sneaked that in there
Took me a while to find out
Told me I would need years of therapy to even understand
KT notes
Acknowledge regulate choose not to put other people first
Put you first and know these people are adults
I take away their agency taking their choice away
Mental filtering
Try to look for evidence and consider
I'm deciding what is best for others
What is best for KJ because she's L's only backup but I'm taking the choice off her plate not giving her the chance to say no.
Because I don't know how to say no
I take away their agency by not allowing them to decide for themselves
So after that, I made sure to give everyone the choice to decide for themselves, and they all decided not to be my friend. Even those that stay don't understand how to be my friend and haven't tried. Which just means my definition of friend is not the same as theirs.
Letting go of labels – victim, narcissist, let go of "used to be" – used to have attention to detail, used to remember everything, spelling, grammar, should, letting go of reacting, trauma, PTSD, defensive, anger, fear, dysmorphic sense of self, gaslighting – perception, putting myself last (taking the time for self care, healing recharging – being there selflessly for others, not venting so much, journaling more, remembering the past and reframing it. Getting the tado list DONE).
I am not who I was, and not who I will be, I am on the path this time, on my journey to find and heal the broken parts and learning to be whole despite my fears
In psychiatry, when a person comes to you with a problem, it's not your job actually to solve their problem. It's your job to develop their capacity to solve their own problem.
I've always had a problem with this, I feel the world expects me to just "figure it out" and they don't understand I literally don't know how.
Pay attention to how often you hear yourself telling yourself your story. Whenever you catch yourself using your life story as a reason for something, say to yourself, "Cancel" or "Not helpful" or "Let that go".
I'm stuck on this, I have a need to have my story validated, so I think it's very helpful for me to tell my story, as it adds all the context everyone needs to understand why I respond to things the way I do.
This is what I told myself that manifested my current situation:
I'm trapped in my current way of thinking and I'm trying to do too much but getting trapped in the every day. I need a reset, a way to help boost my healing whether that be finding someone willing to be my sounding board and validate my broken past so it can stop being my story. I don't want this to be my story, but I need the resilience, healing and down time away from the things trapping me in the every day so I can start prioritizing the deep work needed to fully change the vibration I'm currently giving off. I'm attracting people to me that are attracting the broken parts and I want to do the work necessary to heal those parts so I can start attracting the right kind of people to my life, so I can have the experiences I have been craving my entire life, getting my basic needs met so I can finally start thriving.
mindfulness practice - accepting both positive and negative emotions and letting different feelings coexist is a key component of resiliency.
We all fit into the place that we should fit into. If you are a circle then why try to fit in where a square is? All that you can be is you and the more that we try to please everyone else and try to make them understand who we are, the more that we are truly trying too hard. I would rather spend a large amount of time alone and waiting to meet someone who will understand and accept me on their own, then to spend time with fake people... People who have no idea who I am and can never really respect me. You should never try to fit into a square, yet be happy with being the circle that you are and before you know it there will be more circles around you and that will make you more happy than any square ever will...
This is something I forgot and need to remember again...except so many thoughts come up...
"a large amount of time" it's been 48 years...why do I fit with so few people that I feel like I've never been able to get my basic need met. I've had to settle time and time again, believing people when they say that I just needed to lower my standards. I re-read this thing I wrote, so many things I wrote...and D checked off 3 of the things I was looking for and was better than anything the universe had offered me, so I tried to have that be enough, I'm always saying, "it is enough" Dayenu...I should sink myself as small as low as I can to just find a place that will accept me. And all it's left me is alone. Still. So I need to read and re-read these things until when?
I'm not sure what will fill this need.
TRIGGER WARNING
Sometimes I try to record as much as I can with the intention to at some point go back to it and listen to myself. There's just so much to go through. Right now, I'm re-reading a trip I took to Europe and I recognized so many things. I tend to summarize an experience to just one sentence. Even though it was a largely magical trip (if you completely overlook the fact my opinion didn't count, I was being excluded, and I was with an abuser who beat me and threatened to kill me, but to talk of that time, people wouldn't...hold space for what actually happened, you can't just dump that on someone without their consent, so I keep it to myself and then I summarize the event by saying, "It was very unfortunate that what sounded like such a good idea, xmas in paris, turned out so bad. The weather was terrible, and everything was closed." I can hear in my writing how many times I tried to focus on the positive to really remember the best parts but I was so physically uncomfortable, sleep deprived, my opinion was overruled multiple times (but you have to go along to get along, amirite?)
I remember the trip in fragments, so it's nice to re-read this, I write as if I'm talking to someone, so it's like sitting down with myself and having a cup of coffee, just listening to me talk, and noticing things. I talked about it with my therapist today, then we focused on generational trauma. I thought of asking for a journal in the private section to write about things like this, but to keep it here is fine.
Generational Trauma - TRIGGER WARNING
My grandmother was a twin, and the way people described her was to say her fraternal twin was the good looking one.
Their mother was a tall stately woman and their father was, "very short, strange odd little man"
My grandmother was described (by my aunt, her daughter) as "not good looking. She didn't come out of her shell" (which is how people view me) she was so sick all the time, had meningitis is a child - rheumatic fever. My grandfather was described as: L fell in love with her, she was dating a cute boy who was going into the army, whereas L was home. She wanted him to go with her girlfriend. He was good, nice, bought her presents, was very romantic and pursued her. She wasn't too happy in the beginning, she was in love with the army boy, but he was nice, personable to the mother, had a good job. He was a quiet man but had a lot of character. L helped her girlfriend when she needed it. L said something like if you ever feel something, let me know I'll plan the wedding right away.
I feel like my grandmother resigned herself to marrying this man, or maybe grew to love him. But he didn't talk, and my dad didn't talk. And my mom felt invisible, they didn't communicate well with each other.
I'm piecing together this is everything my aunt R told me about my family, but she's mostly talking sh*t about my mom's family and not really telling me much about my grandmother at all - which may just be she was a closed minded, neurotypical woman who was in denial and completely focused on material worth (and that's my judgement of her).
So she's saying stuff about my aunt C (my mom's sister, whom she barely knows) as being very closed, never talked about her problems, saying the whole family was completely dysfunctional (mass amounts of dysfunction is how she worded it) that my mother's mother's sister's husband had a strong temper, and had problems controlling it.
My mother's grandmother was from Austria - her parents died, they were orphans. Her sister and others hired themselves out to wealthy families as a nanny. She joined a travel/girls club to London on vacation, met grandfather - he was from Poland and they married had aunt R and then my mother's mother - 5 to 7 years and then had Aunt R - she was given task of babysitting and she had uncle H less than a year later - miscarriages between first to my grandmother was busy with baby and they neglected my grandmother...parsing this together when it's barely legible - I was a teenager being told something verbally and trying to write down as much as I could, then transcribed it years later and trying to make sense of it now...
TRIGGER WARNING
There have been periods of time where I've been told I should "write a book" so I started to write out my life as if it were a book, so I'm just going to share bits of it to try to parse things out now...there's a lot of Anger and Drama voices in the things I wrote, and then I hear the voice that tells me it's performative and I'm just seeking attention, because I don't mean it to be so people "validate" me by saying, "oh what a horrible thing to have happened" I just want to be attuned to so Drama can say and then I can parse...writing it here is good, so I can really sort out what happened...
I was born on a cold, wet winter, (redacted). I don't remember much of my past. I grew up in an area of B on the border of B and C. I guess I was sheltered, I know I was abused. It's not my mother's fault. She never knew any different. I know different. I know why I am this way and I refuse to treat anyone like this. I see all the mistakes in hindsight. I was hit or things were thrown.
My mother's negative self image radiated off her and landed on me. I didn't want to go through life feeling, down, unwanted. I did not ask to be born, I did not choose it. Why am I here? I often ask myself. I am here to learn. To end the cycle. My life begins and ends with me. I will not take my own life. When I need to vent, you will be here to listen.
This is me, over and over being invalidated by people I tried to connect with, by being rejected and reminding myself I keep being too vulnerable, too open, too sensitive, too attention seeking, too negative (all the actions people show me to make me assume this is what's happening or being outright told, repeatedly) growing up being told I'm ugly and worthless and never given anything I can use to develop a sense of self esteem. I was never suicidal, but always felt cursed, like what did I do, or do in a past life to feel such overwhelming rejection from everyone my entire life - because when my mom looked at me, all she could see was the parts of my father she didn't like, and if she were really honest with herself (which I doubt she can be) she saw parts of herself she didn't like, so she tried to shame it out of me. Or at least, that's how I felt.
My earliest memories are from public school, and my first taste of public humiliation. I have been working on scrapbooks, which would probably be the source of this upheaval of emotions and thoughts, and I look back at the pictures of me in my youth, not as myself, but of that of an outsider. Like she was my child, someone I held dear, but not myself. I remember my childhood in flashes, not as a whole, and it has made me realize something. My existence now, these very days, will be nothing more than a blip to me in years to come. What do I remember from my childhood?
Funny, because I never did work on those scrapbooks, I tried when I was with D a few years ago, and will try again as soon as I get to a stopping point in all these 'reading my journals' stuff.
I can remember before public school, to Nursery school, and Miss G, who I think I only truly remember due to the fact she was my younger brother's teacher as well. I remember arts and crafts projects we did, and being bit my JL. The teacher sprayed something on my arm, and called my mother downstairs (the nursery school was located in the lobby of my building). That was the first time I became aware of a strawberry birthmark on my upper right arm. It seems the teacher didn't notice it either, and thought it was caused by the bite. I remember my public school, and being happy. We had a good principal, Dr. D, and I had a wonderful teacher Miss G. My mother tells me she only taught us half a year. I also remember third grade, when Dr. D left, and SP took over, that was a dreadful time. All of the teachers left, save 3, and they scrambled to find a staff. He was a mean man, and he ruled the school like a tyrant. I remember no talking in the lunchrooms, and having your lunch money taken from you if you dropped it after they signaled for silence.
I remember DC trying to trade for a Grape Hi-C, because she said it tasted like wine. I remember being picked on and teased, although I will probably never know why they singled me out. I remember the humiliation of being punched, pinched, teased, and taunted, among other insufferable acts. I recall a day in 4th grade, staring at the clock, trying to figure out just when my brother was being born, and C, who flipped his eyelids inside out. Do I remember learning? Honestly, no, but I do know how to read. I was a voracious reader, opting to read over any other activity. I would attempt to hide books behind my books, to read during every lesson. I was tested as reading on an eighth grade level while in the fourth grade. Yet still, I was constantly abused by my tormentors. I withdrew, which wasn't difficult. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, and well, I didn't squeak. I was shorter, paler, quieter, slower, and less graceful than my classmates. But I could out read them, and out read them I did. During CLOZE tests, I out read all my peers, as if it were a race. I almost always finished first, if not beat by JC, who was not at all related to DC. He was also the shortest boy in the classroom.
I recall the teachers, year after year, and how they put needs improvement, or worse yet, unsatisfactory on my report cards under the heading of 'gets along with others', as if I were the one to blame for being picked on. I can still feel my anger and resentment for not being protected from the pain I felt every day in that four story building. Weren't you supposed to look up to adults for guidance and nurturing? I found out at an early age that this was not the case, sometimes, you just fell through the cracks. All the adults in my life were fed up at the all to frequent tears, and resignation to my fate. I was not a fighter, no siree, and it seemed I was a big disappointment to all. I don't recall every having a friend in school, not in my school anyway, although I did have two close friends outside of school.
The main document I started reading...there's only 2 pages left and the completionist in me wants to talk through it here, even though it brings up stuff I don't want to share in my journal, because I worry it'll make me be misunderstood, but I'm misunderstood anyway, plus this journal is primarily for me to process trauma, so I'm just going to go ahead and do it...
With the ever present TRIGGER WARNING....
In one of the other iterations of me being completely socially isolated, I spent all my time in an online chat room with other Pagan people. It's potentially where I learned I was Discordian. I ended up making a bunch of friends, and meeting some of them IRL, and attempting a relationship with one that ended so badly I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest and crushed...and felt like an empty shell for a long while after.
I put together a web page, and in it I say it replaces the previous webpage I had made 6 years prior - and that, "I no longer speak to any of the people that I did when I first built my website some 6 odd years ago."
A time when I was feeling invalidated and full of anger at being bullied, not heard, rejected by people I thought were my friends...using the website to tell my story, in my words, so people could see the "real" me and not the story they tell themselves about who I am, a story that once I realize that's how they see me, causes me to be so hurt, insecure, desperate for them to see me as I am that I reinforce their thoughts of me, because they don't listen to understand, they listen to confirm the bias they have of me, so they can justify that I'm in some way not being a good friend. A good employee...a good daughter.
I'm told and re-told the story I make everything about me (well, I need to, I've never had a voice).
Over and over I write in various ways things like, No more crying, saying, " I don't now how to do this...show me how
I get pissed off by my own limitations. I hate having to depend on people and hate even more when they let me down.
Because I'm invalidated so much by people when I ask them for help. They want me to figure things out, like I need to learn how to be independent and they can't grasp the concept I have never had anyone to depend on, so they show me "tough love" that is really just extremely hurtful to someone that has never experienced other people really being there for them in hard times. Or that I should just know to hire someone, and stop having so much "learned helplessness". Society has so much wrong.
This is what I wrote earlier today, when I was prepping my trauma for therapy:
I am so often misinterpreted. I need someone to understand the stories of my previous experiences so when they are experiencing something with me, know that for me it is possibly the first time, or that I'm trying to unlearn a previous experience.
It's so important to me to re-write my story but I think I actually need to have a good experience for it to work. And so many "advice" is based on "this is common sense" "this is something you should know", and I'm made to feel shamed. But HOW can know what the experience is, or if I'd like it if I've never had it?
But people assume and people take for granted and people don't listen to understand. I want to be understood, I want to be seen, I want to be heard, I want to not be invisible to everyone.
For a new beginning, by John O'Donohue
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been gently forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
I watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered, would you always live like this ?
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening,
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is one with your life's desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure,
Hold nothing back. Learn to find ease in risk,
Soon you will home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
Letting go of M.
It's a new moon, and I read somewhere it's a good time to let go of things that no longer serve you, so I want to return any energy she gave me under the illusion that we were friends.
I can understand, the idea of having a friend who had lost everything, was barely surviving and doing everything she could to keep her head above water would make anyone feel "icky" it ruins the illusion you try to convince yourself that the world is a good place and D is a good guy.
You rejecting and abandoning me when I had absolutely no other social support was the best thing you could have done for me. Although, I think it's more accurate to say that deep down, you knowing you being a terrible friend to me was what made you feel icky, so you projected the issues you have with your mom onto me. I forgive you that I was naïve and I believed you when you said your house was a safe space I could process the trauma and heal from the psychological torture that I had experienced. Sorry if not wanting to do that in front of other people made me "weird". Sorry you couldn't actually show up for me like a genuine friend when I needed one most. You did me the biggest favor by teaching me exactly what a friend is NOT.
I'm sorry that the thought of actually holding space for me, attuning to what I was saying and validating my experience made you feel icky. I'm sorry that you felt defensive when I was kindly disinclined to take your advice when you clearly made a judgement about me without even communicating to me about it. I bet your therapist confirmed your decision to abandon me after telling me your house was a safe space to process the trauma and abuse I had experienced, and was still experiencing to the point I was in survival mode and you were one of the extremely few people who even still spoke to me, I lost everything when D was abusing me. Of course it would make you feel icky to turn me away, knowing I had no other social support, so you justified your decision by deciding for me what you assumed I...
Thank you for showing up for me in the least way possible. Thank you for not only not being open to reading the four agreements with me, but for keeping my copy of the book. Thank you for offering to help me use my hot glue gun – to finish the wreath I laid out for you (thanks also for just adding all my flowers to your own arts and crafts for other people to use, but not actually ever bringing up that you still had my wreath unfinished). If you didn't feel comfortable assisting me after you offered, you should have been honest with me.
Thanks too for taking my entire magnet project and I don't know, discarding it, along with all my hot glue guns. It was fun sharing those memories of things that were so important to me and having you completely discard them, just like you did our friendship. Thanks for not showing up for me when I asked if I could borrow your steam mop, which was the exact one that D took/broke. It was great not having you to depend on in my isolation, when I was completely at my worst to know that you got a dog to fill your own needs, which I completely invalidate by the way, since you told me you didn't even want children, so you have your own manifesting issues to deal with, good luck with that, I hope that dog filled your every need.
Thank you for overlooking my ideas to fill my needs, to dangle your friends, your social circle, your connections with me so I can feel more rejection and abandonment.
Thank you for simplifying my abuse and relating it to your own because you now have J, so obviously I should just do what you did and expect the same results. Thank you for showing me your own need to people please, and make me realize I do not want or need that. I don't understand your party favors or themes and all I wanted was to bond and connect, but you made clear I shouldn't hope for that with your circle of friends. Thank you for being a friend I needed for a short period of time so I could learn what I don't want in a friend.
Thank you for not understanding my food insecurity, for making me incredibly complicated dishes full of weird textures which may be YOUR love language, but definitely isn't mine. Thank you for making me feel unwelcome in a place you said was safe. Thanks for misinterpreting me working through my trauma and lifetime of abuse. Perhaps the ickiness you felt was me actually working through my issues instead of only focusing on my problems at a surface level. Thanks for making me endure your ridiculous dieting and drinking problems, and for inviting me over mostly when you needed someone to watch your cat. Thanks for not including me in the intimacy I wanted to feel, but instead only wanting to watch TV shows I wasn't interested in, thanks for not having deep conversations with me, and thanks for taking away the tradition that you said of us all opening the presents under the tree together, so I could feel less lonely. Thanks for taking J's present and claiming it as your own, who the f cares anyway. Thanks for giving me things I didn't want or need.
I was beyond grateful, as K's penultimate act as my friend, he not only picked me up from surgery (they wouldn't have allowed me to have it, and I had no one else to ask). But when he realized I was going to spend my birthday alone, he invited me to come back, have him treat me to the dinner I was going to buy myself and to watch a movie with his son. It was the last time I saw/spoke to them.
I told L I needed help and she told me everyone feels depressed and anxious (I feel neither, I am trying to process trauma while dealing with social isolation and I could really use some help) so she started sending me memes with invalidating phrases on them. The filter I read them through is rejection/abandonment and it was really hurtful to be cast out like that. When you were the only family I had. When you were the only friends I had in C, so when I asked, hey, there's a new restaurant opening up and I'd really like to go, and you text me every time you are there, but don't think to invite me...it hurts.
I don't know which way every way I reached out was interpreted, but I wasn't invited to their kid's birthday party, so it's clear that we are no longer friends. And eventually I will put together a scrapbook of all 15 years of our friendship and let that go too.
I'm part of a virtual community and every Friday they share their highs and lows. A few weeks back I said I was no longer going to label the things that happen as either high or low, they just are, and today I was so looking forward to listing everything out and sharing it, but didn't feel I should share in the community...I've been reading too many things with invalidating words "complaining" "Trauma Dumping" "Cry for help" "Attention Seeking" that I just don't know if I'm even allowed to share my thoughts with people without them labeling me as negative, depressed, needy....even the stuff in psychology today is invalidating, nothing is filtered through a "hey, social isolation isn't actually your fault - people just SUCK" so I'm posting them here, for me:
- started the week with a lot of physical pain, so I ended up spending 3 days in bed (shoutout to privilege) so the irony that it was on my calendar to do absolutely nothing that day...my body just took it a bit too literally, LOL
- Used that time (and that day) to really try to let go of all the loss I keep experiencing. and read through all of my journals and journal about them (how Meta).
- So much serendipity, over and over is completely unbalancing, literally...there's such a correlation...There have been so many direct links between my physical sensations from my emotional flashbacks, and my physical symptoms - no wonder I have sensory processing disorder. Now at least I have words for what I'm feeling (yay research!)
- I've been manifesting way too much recently...today's bit of magic - I had plans to have a neighbor come over and help me make a recipe (I haven't been able to cook for myself in a few months - no spoons) but I woke up with a headache and was struggling to find the energy to get up and prep the food (but I literally was going to do it as soon as the pain meds kicked in) and she texted and asked if we could postpone. WOO HOO.
- A friend that I've had since one of the OTHER layers of social isolation called me today and we talked like people do. I haven't made small talk in a really long time, so that took a lot of spoons but at the same time...gave them back? haha.
- Yesterday's new moon was perfect timing for letting go of things that no longer serve you, so I've been writing letters and confirming addresses to send people that used to be my friends things...which aligned perfectly with letting go of all the loss(yay closure!)
- Since I'm getting packages together, I'm also taking the opportunity to send out fun things as well...the only problem is getting my body to cooperate with the idea of spending more time finishing projects, and less time feeling crappy. Regardless, I'm using all this downtime to do all the fun trauma processing - so so so much stuff coming up, it's really fascinating.
There's a letter I've been trying to write for 3 years, and since I woke up with a headache (and I attempted to read through it before bed), instead of cleaning I'm going to see how far I can get on this letter, pulling out the parts of it that are Drama/venting and do not need to be in there. There may be triggers in here for some.
I had so much unprocessed relational trauma that it took me this long to be able to understand it enough to even put it into words.
I have been chronically isolated since childhood I've had CPTSD from relational trauma that goes as far back as I can remember. I have never felt a sense of belonging blah blah blah but I didn't even know what I didn't know because that's all I had ever experienced.
In these moments of dark despair, when I crave for just one person who would help me share this burden, I think of you. I think of how fiercely you advocated for M. How you lovingly taught your children compassion and empathy and how you had the intelligence to verbally run circles around others....I wish in these moments for a fraction of of what you possess, because I truly don't know how I'm going to survive this. I remind myself that I've survived 100% of my days so far, but I can't see a way out and I'm so scared and alone.
I fully embrace the mindset of understanding how to let people grieve. This time is about them and their challenges. But more importantly was the thought that there was absolutely NOTHING to grieve yet about M. He wasn't gone YET. I thought back to the time last summer when we drove out to "say goodbye to M...end of life papers...I kept repeating the word in my head Imminent' and then the big Psych! He's gonna stick around for a while longer. From that moment, something in me was triggered. I suddenly had this clarity that every breath he took after that, every time you were able to have one more happy memory with him, one more milestone, it was a gift.
I sometimes wish I had been allowed more time to build a connection with you, that we could have developed a friendship where I could ask you to hold space for me. When I try to remember what human touch feels like, I close my eyes and remember the way you hugged me via the shower curtain during the pandemic. I so do miss feeling that loved. I could feel the love any time I was in your house, and my inner child aches for you, because I never experienced that. She cries out how she just needs a mom....I cry that I just need an advocate. You are everything I need right now and I wish there was a way I could tell you that....a way I could have you understand. Then I remember our first meeting....when the girls asked where A was, and I knew in that moment that was all I was...so I didn't write. I kept waiting until I was out of survival mode, when I didn't feel such an ache of scarcity. When I was finally getting my basic needs met.
I want to share the good with you, How your holiday newsletter updates inspire me when I work on my own newsletter, which is what I had been focusing on, and still may eventually send out (Christmas in July) but that you continually inspire me with the loving way in which you turn even the darkest tragedy into an opportunity to change your perspective and try to focus on the good, even though depression is so challenging to tune out some days. When I have days where I feel I can't go on, I think of you, and channel my inner L...I wished so much to get an opportunity to connect with you and forge a deep and meaningful friendship with you. I genuinely wanted to be part of your tribe, not just as someone I can go to for advice, not just as an attachment to D, but me, in my own right. There are times I feel...
how much I've missed you. Whenever the missing gets too bad, I can close my eyes and savor the memory of seeing you and able to hug you through the shower curtain, I didn't want to let go, it felt so good to be held after so many months feeling isolated...Every time I really wished I could just get in the car and drive straight to you, but I felt it wasn't my place, so I gave you the space you needed to spend as much time surrounded by your loved ones where you wouldn't have to feel as if you needed to be hostess. So let me tell you what I did.
I have such a story to tell you, I hope you've got time to sit back and spend this time with me, it may take a while. I'm not sure if you remember my birthday wish to M, I spent so long worried I would just be an imposition...
Seeing you with M and how strongly you advocated for him is what I desperately needed and I didn't even have the words for because all I knew was I needed a mom. And I saw that and you as well and how you were raising your beautiful daughters. And I was so resentful D kept us apart, when I desperately needed to have an intimate relationship with you, on so many levels. Because I have had to be the one to advocate for myself my entire life there is never been one person in my actual life that will help me advocate or give me a sense of social connection so I don't have the sense that I'm going through everything alone. But I couldn't reach out to you because I was just The girl that was not A.
Everywhere I went, he paraded me around and I didn't understand, because I have never even been in a relationship before I didn't understand that that was an intimacy, until I saw you and your relationships and your friendships and I craved it so badly but I couldn't understand how to get it because I have never been in a healthy relationship before so I didn't know what it look like, and all I wanted to do is spend more time with you and then I realize that this is the ramblings of my inner child.
I have reached out to every single person I know that I thought what is my inner circle, I didn't have one during the pandemic at all, every single person I know I was going through something horrific and I had space for all of them but none of them hold space for me they've all moved on and healed and gotten better with the support of their bubbles and I haven't had one in my whole life the closest I ever came what is the periphery being allowed to come to some of your parties I needed I needed that so badly I needed a sense of connection with anyone and then I didn't know how to get it and nobody ever realized that I had never even experienced it all I did was kind of experience it through other people I always feel like a little match girl I've never not felt like that and every time I get close people just stop talking to me and I don't understand why
The words, the vocabulary, how do you know exactly the right thing to say I need but I have no I can advocate because I can't form thoughts anymore I've been trapped inside my head for so long but I don't know what to do
But I don't know how to separate out sorting through my trauma without bringing up D. And I don't want to do or say anything to change the way you view him. I understand that he is a big part of your life, and your kids, and our relationship really didn't amount to much more then me not being A.
That's just it, I wanted so badly to be able to connect with you I tried so many times and there was always so much going on, just needed you so bad but I felt horribly selfish for even thinking it with everything you were going through and continue to go through so who was I to ask you for help.
It brought into stark contrast what has been lacking in my life and what I didn't want my life to continue to be that way anymore I just can't seem to get out of it
So D says it's all my fault and I make everything awkward and this is why no one likes me.
I know I'm probably the last person you expected to hear from.
I was abiding by D's rule – I wasn't allowed to communicate with his friends or family, which I largely ignored when it came to his aunt and his cousin, but they aren't really my friends and his Aunt stopped talking to me.
Met with such opposition, how can you not talk to your family?? Family is the most important thing, even D would push on how important his family was, only I never felt like I was a part of their family and I would tell him, I'd say, "I'm just the for right now girl, Like how the kids were like "where's aunt A? Then there was aunt EA, now there's...really not sure which one he's leaning towards at the moment, or possibly he found a completely new one by now...he's "living his best life" and "focusing on his needs" It makes me think that something inside him snapped, or...
I just thought that was a relationship, you stay with someone willing to put up with you that you can put up with, and then complain about them to your friends. My mom would always complain about my dad, K always complains about J, it's a thing, and then I saw your relationship, m's and j's, l and m, j and B...and I saw these kinds of relationships DO exist, and I cry because I don't know if that kind of love actually exists or if I just see it like that because I don't see what happens behind closed doors.
Every time I tried to put into words everything I want to express to you, it started to devolve into being too much about ME, and I felt horrible shame at even considering my grief was valid compared to your loss...but since you were also a part of my own loss, I just kept changing my mind about reaching out to you. When you sent me an invite, it must have been forever ago – please forgive me, I cannot understand linear time...I was thinking something happened just the other day, and it turned out it was May 3rd. I didn't realize so many years have gone by, because I've been stuck in a loop caused by trauma...unfortunately, I can't think of a year of my life when there hasn't been some sort of traumatic occurrence to further shatter my ability to heal.
I'm fighting back now though. You taught me that. I always thought doctors were the experts, and you had to listen to them. Do what they said without questioning. Your updates informed me, it made me realize that I was hiring these professionals to do a service, and if they weren't providing me the service I needed then I could go elsewhere...I'm learning to advocate for myself. I'm learning I am allowed to put myself first and not keep trying to be what everyone else is telling me I have to be. That I'm allowed to have thoughts and opinions, and I deserve to be acknowledged, respected, and truly being seen and heard, valued, appreciated...I saw the way you taught your children those things, through both your words and actions and I envied how easy it was for words to come to you...I hoped I would be able to have you listen to my feelings and emotions and have you put them into words for me, because that is your gift. As I was saying, I saw the invite as well as the guest list and realized I wouldn't be safe if I attended.
I think my subconscious fought to keep me unaware of the depth of the abuse because I knew how much I'd be losing when I was finally able to get away from him. With him went all my hopes and dreams of a life with other people. Without him, I went back to utter isolation, even the friends I made before I met him sided with him and invalidated my experience. So I haven't really ever had anyone to sit down and really hear what I went through with him. But you my friend are definitely not that person.
The hardest part for me is that everything I read, every resource, every person I spoke to told me the same thing – find someone to talk to. Only, there was no one. Everyone I talked to invalidated what I was experiencing and I was misdiagnosed so many times and being gaslit constantly put a strain on my mental health, which I couldn't attend to because I've been in survival mode.
To even consider comparing my challenges to yours, my brain echoing the voices of the things that have been said to me throughout the years, that I'm exaggerating, I'm making a big deal over nothing, I just need attention, I am a magnet for drama...
I crave being in the company of someone I can truly be myself with, that allows me the grace to feel seen and heard...I think that would be so energizing. I also think I need to learn how to be that person for myself, so that I can resonate at a higher frequency and attract those kinds of people to my life.
Now that I have that information, I understand this is the way I want to be treated, and I won't settle for less, which further isolates me. So I recognize I probably will spend the rest of my days like this, and should spend what is left of my energy befriending all the parts of myself that were never allowed a voice. Since it's only me listening to them, it doesn't matter if I don't have the words, it's only when I don't know the answers that it's especially difficult. It would be so nice to get someone else's perspective or have the shared knowledge of a tribe. But that just goes back to you, so much has been linked to you, and so I just wanted to thank you.
I don't want you to think you need to read this because you happened to receive it at this moment. If now is not the right time, please put this letter away and wait until a time when you can sit down, grab a mug of tea, and settle back reading this as if we were finally able to sit around and have a conversation. I can wait. After all, you waited over a year for me to write it. I have started and stopped countless letters to you. Over and over, I've tried to put into words...how to semantically select what it is I want to say, how I want to say it so that what I want to share with you is clear – which is something I struggle with.
In some versions, the letters were similar to your end of year newsletters, a snapshot of accomplishments and a "where we are now and what we are working on" type things – I have a place to live, my basic needs are all met, I am still gainfully employed (1 year 10 months and counting – the longest I've ever held down a job since I left teaching) and I'm doing all the hard work to learn how to heal from my past trauma and abuse. Woo hoo, go me...painting this picture of this well-adjusted adult who has a good handle on everything, no worries!
Sometimes I write letters that my PTSD/depression/anxiety/aching loneliness leeches into, and then I'm disgusted with myself and delete the whole thing, vowing to try writing you again, "when I'm in a better mood". But to be honest, I haven't been able to handle this whole work/life balance thing, and haven't been doing all that well this past year in the vein of self-care. I wake up, start work, work until I can't even see straight anymore, and go to bed.
I took today off just to be able to go to the grocery store, and run some long put off errands and to finally carve out some time to research doctors and start making appointments. If nothing else, you have taught me that having access to health care is SO important, and while I've been spending all my down time (what little of it there is) focused on my mental health, I haven't had the capacity to do what is necessary to be an advocate for myself where my physical health is concerned.
Another reason why I procrastinated in writing - I'm intimidated. You're so good with words, whereas I tend to misspeak often, and it takes me a long time to sort out what the root of what I'm trying to say is. You're really good at prioritizing a message, and getting the point across in as little words as possible, whereas I tend to ramble, because my neuro-diverse brain doesn't understand where the priority is, and to it, everything is a priority. What's right in front of me at this very moment is the priority, as is every other thing that I have on my plate...squirrel! Semantics are so important. I've always admired your ability to be well spoken and it's something I carry around real shame about not being able to do the same for myself. But I digress.
This is so hard for me to share with you, and each time I tried, I put it off, I let the inner gremlins of, "why on earth would this woman care about your feelings, she was just kind to you because you were in a relationship with one of her friends, you only saw her what, maybe 4 times in 6 years? She is surrounded by family, and her inner circle of friends, you weren't anything to her but someone to extend her kindness towards as a hostess. Because that's the reality of it, with all of my relationships. I want so much, I feel so much, but the people I want and feel towards already HAVE their own inner circles and perhaps I am not as important to them as they are to me. So I have to temper my neediness and push down my own needs to be loved, to be wanted, to be accepted. People that have had that throughout their lives cannot fathom what it is like to have never experienced it. I still walk a fine line between desperately wanting to not be alone and not smothering those around me with how needy I am. The pandemic took care of all of that, because reaching out to others no longer became an option. So while my heart went out to you and I repeatedly let you know that I was here if you needed me, I saw you had your village. Not that it made it any easier, just that I knew my presence wouldn't have made much of a difference, because at the end of the day, I really don't have a lot to offer someone else, when I have so little of my own needs met, it's really hard for me to see outside of my own pain.
Also I realize even in writing this how incredibly selfish I am being, telling you about my pain, my struggles, my loneliness when I empathize that you are going through all of this and so much more. Like it's valid for you to be dealing with trauma, depression, anxiety because you actually had multiple traumatic things happen to you this past year, whereas mine are shallow in comparison. It's not the trauma Olympics
I've saved and re-read your emails often over the past year and time and time again I wish I could reach through the computer and just give you a hug. I know however that you were (and probably are) surrounded by love and support...even though I send you loving and healing energy often.
I didn't have a good dad. I didn't know he wasn't a good dad, I just knew he was MY dad, and he's the dad I got so there was no use thinking about the kind of dad I wanted. But then I saw your dad. I saw not just that there exists a different sort of dad, an involved dad who genuinely wants to be part of their child's life, not in an obligatory "what do you need signed?" What obligation do I need to fulfill? But I also saw the kind of husband I didn't know could exist...one that genuinely treated his significant other as just that, significant...a partner. I'm so sorry, it tears me up to think about the impact you and M had on my life. I wish to god I was able to express that to you sooner. That I had finally recognized my years of abuse, and trauma and neglect and anxiety and depression were just that, and I could choose not to let those things control me any more. That I didn't have to stay in an abusive relationship - that there were actually other options. That I didn't just have to wish I could be a certain way, act a certain way, respond a certain way...that I could actually become the person I wanted to be in my own head...I could actually embrace my authentic self . I did the best I could at trying to express that in my birthday video, but I'm not sure I was able to truly express the extent to which I meant, I am still working on exactly how the past year has been for me...Which is basically like my own personal trauma unfolding, coming to light, being realized for what it was compounded by the trauma that was affecting us all on a global scale...Not that I'm even trying to for a moment compare the losses we've both suffered through this year, it isn't a competition of who lost the most, but loss recognizes lost even though each person goes through loss in their own unique way, it's still a shared grief at the loss that has been endured. Much like 9/11 was a shared tragedy, we are now living through a life altering experience on a global scale. Wow, if that isn't a lot to unpack.
More from the letter I'm still trying to write
This is as much to M as it is to you, and it's something I've been wanting to share with you both for months. It takes me so long to get my thoughts together, I'm still not sure they are "right" in the sense that I'm fully expressing what I intend to communicate. I'm not sure I could ever convey how deep of an impact you've both had on my life. To see the love you have for each other, the strength you continuously give to each other, how you are truly partners, and make no illusions on the fact that it was and continues to be a work in progress, that it took two people that wanted to be partners, that received energy from each other in both good times and challenges you gave each other the strength to face them together.
When I talked to J and she let me know that she had problems with B, and things didn't start to get better until B took to heart the work that M put into his relationship with you...I knew that was what I wanted and I was going to stop letting my past abuse continue to get in the way of getting that, because that was what I deserved. It was like a switch was flipped, and everything around me was different, I saw things clearly for the first time in I don't know how long, and I realized I wasn't going to be able to get the changes I wanted in the life I currently had. I needed to change. I needed to learn what it was I actually wanted, and once I started realizing that so many things started clicking into place for me. Each day I would have a breakthrough and I would be so excited, it was like finding a missing piece to a puzzle you long gave up on finishing...more and more things started to fit into place, and as that happened, suddenly things I thought were supposed to be suddenly seemed....wrong.
Again, I realized that I couldn't control anything but myself, and focus on me and the things I could control and trust once I maintained that, things would fall into place. It was hard, and a lot of work. I was faced with so many challenges during this time, things that previously would cause me to give up any attempt to change, things were much safer with the devil I knew, and change was hard....but that didn't happen this time. I was determined that this time I was going to fix the broken parts, do the deep dive, find the source of my trauma and face it.
And in that moment I realized I didn't want to waste any more of my life being afraid to be myself around people and not have so much anxiety around me saying or doing the wrong thing and all of a sudden, so many things made sense. Once I saw them, I couldn't unsee them, and I realized I wasn't satisfied with what I was being asked to put up with. I knew the person I wanted to be, I knew the life I wanted to live and I knew that the road to getting there would be hard, and I would need support. I would need my village.
I had many long conversations with J, and in such one, she told me a story about how things were going very badly with her and B, but B spent time with M, and learned from example of how to be a better partner. She said their relationship got exponentially better after that. I had been saying for years what I wanted in a partner, and I didn't realize that if you ask for it, and you're not getting it, it ISN"T YOU. You don't need to waste your time and energy trying to think of new and inventive ways to try to get what you want, asking for the bare minimum...you can leave and find what you want elsewhere. I wanted what you and M had, and there was NO way I was going to grieve a moment before it was absolutely necessary. I not only was not going to come to you and make it about the loss *I* feel, my loss is a drop in the ocean compared to yours, and I need for you to understand I pushed down my feelings of loss. With every picture you posted, I thought of all the memories you all were filing away, each day a blessing and I refused to be sad. I knew there was going to be time for that later.
I thought back to every moment I didn't let my anxiety get in the way of the person I wanted to be. I truly meant his birthday wish to M, and although I know I still have a ways to go in my healing journey, I need for you to know that I owe it all to M, he made such an incredible impact on my life, and I'm not sure how to express that to you, because again, it wasn't about ME.
There was a post on J's Facebook that said something along the lines of If I'm friends with your abuser, PM me and that will change. And I am stopped by the knowledge that J and D have been best friends since grade school. And he's "Uncle D" to everyone, he's part of your inner circle. As much as I know you are not the type of person to blindly believe one person's side of the story in a breakup, I am so conflicted.
I would need you to think of me as a person in my own right, and not just as an extension of D. I was in an abusive relationship. I'm not sure if we ever talked about that, but you were at my dad's memorial, so much has happened since then.
Belonging, connected, desired, cherished these are concepts I've never experienced. Just saying the words open up a wound in me that hurts so bad I need it to stop and I reached out and I get nothing and it's so empty I never had the modeled for me I would see it when I would go out and it would make me sad because that's what I wanted I just I wanted and I didn't know how to get that for myself
I saw you have that partnership with M, and for the first time I realized there were people out there that offer freely to others love, companionship, advocacy, to be fully seen and accepted, flaws and all. And I understood it was all hard work, every relationship is...I can't jump into a friendship and bare my soul to a casual acquaintance, it takes working through the layers to get to that level of intimacy. Each time we would come over your house I would see the connection you had with your guests, and I wanted so much to be a part of that, but didn't know how...it's so complicated, and I hoped for an opportunity, but it didn't come.
The video I sent M, that you compiled while he was in the hospital? I was feeling all of those things then, which is why I teared up, you meant so much to me and I didn't know how to express that to you – the timing just never seemed right. I grieve over the window that I had to feel that kind of love for myself, but I'm content to know that for a brief window of time I was exposed to it, so I know it exists.
I just remember how socially isolated I was back then. How I tried so hard to make friends and have a social life. How hard it is to make small talk when you're in survival mode and you have no ability to make small talk. How everyone misunderstands everything I say.
Now I'm just learning how to embrace the social isolation. It's all I've ever known really.
Allegedly, it makes us better/stronger, with increased emotional intelligence, ability to...
The question isn't what are the stories I told myself, it is, what is the story your mother told you? Your aunts, your cousins, You were unwanted, repeatedly. Over and over, a pattern I'm trying to break, but can't seem to understand how. Reading so many invalidating things like anxious preoccupied which doesn't take into consideration survival mode.
I've always been overwhelmed by emotions and events in my life because I've never experienced support. I was just rejected, over and over again. I try to imagine what the concept of love is, but all I can come up with is seeing it. Seeing it all around me. But growing up, I knew my mother said she loved me out of obligation, mother's are supposed to say that. Their actions on the other hand, those tell you how she really feels about you. A disappointment. A guinea pig. A failure. Worthless. Just like your father. No explanation of genetics ever managed to get through to her. No explaining to her now that she modeled the behavior I grew to become because that's how I learn, through modeling. I picked people I thought had what I wanted as a model, and they rejected me as well.
Mom,
I hope S was right and you were able to enjoy your life once you didn't have me to worry about any more. I hope D gave you everything you wanted in a child, I know I was always such a disappointment to you, and now that daddy isn't around to make you miserable you are truly living your best life. You deserve every happiness, I'm so sorry you didn't experience it sooner and decided to imprint me with that misery. Saddling me with all this generational trauma to heal.
I keep on going through my memories. And each life experience was overshadowed by a traumatic event so that all I remember is the traumatic event and it cancels out any good that there might have been.
I attempted to talk to myself and create a transcript so I can then "listen" to myself because I haven't had anyone else to talk to that will give me the feedback I've needed to hear. Every time I try, I hear what I've been TOLD instead of what I wish was being said, and I understand I need to do it for myself. This is from March:
21:26:50 So I have a thought, and I think oh, I should record this so!
21:26:54 By the time I.
21:26:59 Hmm!
21:27:06 By the time I get all of this setup I've already forgotten what the thought is. I'm like.
21:27:11 Well, what's the solution for that? Writing it down and then opening it up because like the thoughts, don't stop.
21:27:16 So it's like the ones that I don't get a chance to record right?
21:27:22 They're gone and then I don't know what to do, and they literally just had the thought 3 s ago, like, Okay, I'm exaggerating.
21:27:30 Not 3 s, but 30 s, like literally 30 s ago. I can't keep a thought in my head.
21:27:36 And that's a concern.
21:27:39 I can't get through the day. I can't sit through a meeting and be able to take notes, because I don't have the ability to focus my attention on anything outside of my own head right now.
21:27:52 And I feel it wouldn't be that bad if I had somebody to talk to.
21:27:56 But I don't. And then I start feeling bad that I don't.
21:28:02 And I don't know how to make friends right now, when I can't get outside my own f-ing head, just to show up for somebody else.
21:28:09 I don't even know how to show up for anyone anymore.
21:28:15 I called my friend, and I told her, and I thought her reaction would be, I don't know to check in on me every day, to text me every day to check in.
21:28:23 I keep on doing that for everyone else. I want anyone check in on me.
21:28:32 I wanna be able to feel my feelings. I wanna be able to feel bad.
21:28:35 I wanna be able to tell people. I feel bad. I want to be able to tell people I feel bad.
21:28:39 I want to stop feeling bad.
21:28:46 Hello! No. How to stop feeling bad. If I can't get my thoughts out of my own head coherent enough to do the f-ing work, cause it's taking too long.
21:29:00 Everything is taking too long, and I don't have any more time.
21:29:07 Why couldn't I have taken leave 6 months ago, when I wasn't this bad?
21:29:11 Why? Why?
21:29:56 Everyone I know is letting me down.
21:30:00 Because it'll be something simple like not understanding health insurance.
21:30:05 So when I realize I might be in crisis, like actual crisis, like impatient want to behave like crisis. And I call up a treatment center.
21:30:14 And I'm really iffy about their treatment in the first place, and I call up, and I ask them how much it is and they tell me it's $5,000 a week well, I can't afford that and I was like maybe I can, because I don't really understand how my insurance works.
21:30:26 Can I ask? I can ask, but I already asked N, and she had said she would take the time to explain to me health insurance, so that when it was time to choose the health insurance she would help me figure it out, and I even let her know and I said hey,
21:30:36 It's coming up. Can you be there for me? Can you help me?
21:30:40 Can you talk it through? And she didn't answer, and again I reached out to her, and I told her, I'm in crisis.
21:30:47 I can't even anymore. I can't do the simplest things anymore.
21:30:51 I really think I need help. I really need you to step up and be a mom and help me advocate.
21:30:56 And she just listened, and then she told me to tell the doctor that I had this thing that I don't even have, because it wasn't for her mom and I'm like, well, thanks, N, you know, and I called A, and I told him, and he said well, I'll make sure you go, to
21:31:10 your therapist like. No, it's not even the help I need why can't you guys just give me the help that I need? The *?
21:31:21 I need help to get things done like I don't understand why people can't hear me.
21:31:28 Can I get mad? I get sad, and I get scared.
21:31:36 And then all my core wounds are triggered, all at the same time.
21:31:41 And I just feel like I have this open wound. It hurts so bad that I just wanna wear my robe and stay in bed.
21:31:56 And I just hold my phone. And I think, why, who can I?
21:32:02 Just text and say something to just to get over there and then they don't. Or if they do, it's because they're dealing with their own f-ing crisises, and I don't have that
21:32:13 Many people do choose from. The first place, and then I get mad.
21:32:18 Emily's dog has a f-ing. GoFundMe, and she has tens of thousands of dollars because everybody f-ing loves her.
21:32:26 And why doesn't anyone love me like that?
21:32:30 But isn't anybody love me enough to just call, oh, come over and hold me!
21:32:40 Hi! Wouldn't my mom just hold me?
21:32:44 They just need to be held.
21:34:36 I don't feel really good.
21:34:40 About.
21:34:43 Hello! Therapy session. What? Because I wrote down everything I needed to tell you.
21:34:50 And then I felt that I needed to bullet point it, only I don't know how to bulletpoint it, because it's not a communication style.
21:34:58 And instead of trying, I started not working on it.
21:35:04 This is too much.
21:35:08 And then I just assumed that I'm doing all of this work.
21:35:12 And there was gonna be some sort of intake, and then there wasn't.
21:35:14 And then I was just rambling, and I need to express to you that even though you're like accepting that, that's the way therapy goes.
21:35:24 And I could have just said, based on previous experience.
21:35:32 I feel as well. I've been.
21:35:37 Misdiagnosed a lot.
21:35:41 Here are the reasons why.
21:35:45 But each reason brings up another story, and then I get so bogged down in telling you stories that I waste all of this time and wasting time is the biggest fear that I have right now, because there's nothing I can do but waste time.
21:36:03 I can't work on a resume right now. I don't.
21:36:06 I don't have the tools that I need to do anything more than get out of bed.
21:36:11 And even that has its own risks, and I could have just said that, and we could have started from there, and I could have told you about my childhood, or I could have read you the f-ing thing, and I'm like, well, I'm not paying.
21:36:25 You to have me read to you. And I get so confused about what we should be focusing on because we need to focus because I need to focus because I don't have focus because I don't have focus because I start rambling.
21:36:42 So this time I'm laying out f-ing bullet points and we're sticking to them, and I will tell you all of the stuff that it brings up, and we will write them down and go back to them another time, and that's the how we should we should be efficient because I don't have enough.
21:36:55 Time, because we have to get me from this point to being able to talk about what happened at work and using the right words.
21:37:06 And right now I don't have the right words, and I'm not going to get the right words by journaling and talking about my feelings.
21:37:11 I have to get to how to say certain things in order to get to how to stay them.
21:37:17 I have to talk about how they started.
21:37:20 So that I have the tools that I need, because I need the words.
21:37:26 And then I'll explain to you what happened with C, and I'll explain to you how I shut down, and I'll explain to you that I keep on shutting down with everything, and it's too much for me right now, and I can't go back to work and I don't know what to do because
21:37:39 I don't understand health insurance, and I don't understand where the money is coming from.
21:37:44 And I don't understand what's gonna happen if I run out of time before I feel better.
And this earlier one from February - I don't think it's as helpful to read the transcript because there's so many talk to text errors, but when I talk to another person, I'm not getting the feedback I really need and I'm not really hearing what it is I'm trying to say, so I have to keep working through things until I find a format that is more effective...I still don't want to lose anything, so I'm leaving this here:
21:10:39 A, and I think about what I wanna say. And then I think I'm over thinking because there's so many things I wanna say that I just are writing him emails.
21:10:47 And then I don't send them, because I don't wanna bother him, and I know he's got his own s**t going on so I'm like, Okay, well, I'm not gonna bother, A.
21:10:59 Who else can I bother? And that's literally how I frame it like.
21:11:00 Who can I bother? Because that's how I view myself as a bother.
21:11:04 I'm just a bother, because if I wasn't a bother then people would want to be around me.
21:11:09 My phone would ring. People would text me. People would check on me.
21:11:12 People would want to spend time with me, but they don't. Nobody does.
21:11:17 And people keep on reminding me of how great my friends are, but I'm literally calling them and I'm telling them, Hi! I'm increased.
21:11:22 Right now. And I really need someone to talk to. And they're they just don't get it.
21:11:29 They don't get it. Nobody gets it, and I know it's like, Okay, well, let me explain
21:11:33 It then, and then I realize I should just start at the beginning and start with my parents and start with explaining to you what growing up for me was like, or what it was like when my brother came and what it was like with school, and what it was like at home and what it was like with my friends and what it was
21:11:54 like with my friends, and what it was like when I moved to N, and what it was like when I had depression, and how, my mom said, Are you just planning on being miserable like, how long are you planning on being miserable like how long are you planning on being
21:12:03 miserable like. It was something I was just doing. I couldn't she say, I realize something is wrong I realize you're not eating.
21:12:10 I realize that you can't get out of bed. I need.
21:12:12 I'm not equipped to handle this. Let me get you the help you need.
21:12:16 Let's do it together. That's what I needed to hear.
21:12:22 That's what I still need to hear, and nobody hears that, because they all just think I could figure this out on my own, and I'm not figuring out anything, because nothing is making sense to me, I read things and I don't understand them and I get phone calls.
21:12:39 And I'm stared because I don't understand what they're saying.
21:12:43 And it's not that they don't understand English.
21:12:45 I understand all the words. I just don't know what the words mean, and I get trust, and then I don't know how to articulate how I'm feeling.
21:12:54 And then I get panicked, and you can hear the panic in my voice because I don't know what to do, and I don't know what to say, and it happens at work all the time.
21:13:03 And it happens because I ask for.
21:13:07 C's. See, I it took me that long to figure out what her f-ing name was.
21:13:13 Like I blank out on things. Things are missing, things that I used to just know.
21:13:20 And then I worry that I have Alzheimer's, and I think, how am I supposed to know? I I it is another doctor that I have to figure out how to make an appointment with, and I got I'm so * up?
21:13:41 And all of this started because I'm trying to tell you one story.
21:13:46 And then I realized, there's all these stories I have to go back and now tell you so.
21:13:51 You understand? Because it's so important for me that you understand, because I just need to be heard.
21:13:58 And then, I wonder, are these the things I'm supposed to journal about until I just figure it out.
21:14:03 I don't know. I don't know what the right answer is, all I know is, I keep on trying to journal, and it's not working.
21:14:09 So now I'm trying this, but I don't know if this is gonna work, either.
21:14:14 I really I can't figure it out like I don't know if I'm supposed to stop now and read back and say, Oh, yeah, the Catherine's story or if that's a story, should we to talk to you about and like maybe these are the bullet?
21:14:27 Points. I don't know. I just. I know I was supposed to be watching a movie.
21:14:31 And I know the first thing I said to myself was that I have to start taking notes before I get too far into it.
21:14:37 So why don't I just pivot and do that?
21:14:40 Because that's what I said I was gonna do and I think I'm already too far into the movie.
21:14:44 So let me take a bite.
21:15:38 Okay, see, I get distracted.
21:15:42 Distracted, because now I text Adam, and he's not texting back, and I knew I should have waited but I don't know how to wait I don't have anyone ask.
21:15:52 Should I have waited I just want to do it feels good, and I don't know if it's okay or not.
21:15:57 And then I worry, worry about everything.
21:16:09 I don't see how I cannot worry.
21:16:12 Everything I do is drastic consequences. I should have worried that I was bothering R.
21:16:21 I should have worried that I was bothering M.
21:16:24 I check in? I ask, and I think I'm approachable.
21:16:27 I don't understand why nobody wants to just talk to me.
21:16:34 I'm like, Oh, yeah, because when they do, you sound like this?
21:16:39 And I wouldn't wanna talk to me, either, if every single * conversation was like this.
21:16:41 So!
21:16:44 It makes sense why people avoid me because nobody wants to be around me when I'm like this. And I'm never not like this, because there's always something wrong.
21:17:08 And I get it. There's always something wrong with everybody.
21:17:15 I just think that my problems are harder for me to deal with because I don't have resources.
21:17:20 I don't understand what's going on. I can't make sense of the world around me.
21:17:24 I mean, and then, of course, it's gonna sound like I'm codependent because I can't even I can't even get out of bed.
21:17:32 I can't even remember how to brush my hair, or how to cook or.
21:17:41 Hello! Do my taxes like it's all just too much for me right now.
21:17:47 It's all just scary. Wanna be taking care of.
21:17:52 I want somebody else to take care of me. I want somebody to just do anything. I don't have anyone.
21:18:02 Poor people they do have. I just smother with this crazyness because nobody knows how to what to say.
21:18:21 So again, the movie.
21:18:25 I have to admit I am not a big studio, whatever.
21:18:41 I don't know how to say it like.
21:18:52 They respect that she likes it. That's not right. But I I like her, and I know that everybody has different things that they like, and.
21:19:05 I get enjoyment from her enjoyment of it. Let's put it that way.
21:19:09 So I've watched them because she wanted me to watch them, and I I have to get past a lot of things have to get past their voices like, especially the dad's voice, and the kids voice is really annoying.
21:19:27 And then I start wondering how old she's supposed to be.
21:19:32 Gives me feelings of rode Doll, because that's so funny.
21:19:39 I knew it was gonna not know how to spell it.
21:19:46 Because the way they talk they're like, Oh, you're stupid and ugly and skinny, and scrawny, and you know we're not supposed to talk to talk to kids like that anymore.
21:19:58 So it's sort of dated because I know that they're going back.
21:20:05 And they're like being more woke about rodeo books now, and taking out the offensive parts.
21:20:10 But it's like it wasn't offensive. And then that makes me think.
21:21:30 It makes me.
21:21:34 Think about stuff like Jenna marbles, and how she had to apologize, and how there's all of these shades of.
21:21:46 Words. I don't even understand how to explain, but it's like what I'm experiencing now.
21:22:00 I don't have the names for the types of people they are, and that's the thing I think I need to talk to owners do about.
21:22:09 But.
21:22:14 And then I just think about all the people I wanna talk to, and how I have no one to talk to, and I'm not even talking about the movie anymore.
21:22:21 I'm supposed to be focused on the movie, and I can't.
21:22:22 I can't, because everything we think about goes back to talking about me.
21:22:28 And then I start reading about narcissist. I'm like, Oh, my God!
21:22:31 I, of course I'm a narcissist, cause all I can do is talk about myself.
21:22:34 Of course it's driving all my friends away.
21:22:45 Now understand how all of these thoughts can exist in my head at the same time to the point that I can't think at all about anything, because they have too many thoughts, too many conflicting thoughts, all at the same time.
21:22:57 And I need somebody to talk to I don't need to be medicated.
21:23:01 I need. I need to figure out how to get it out, because it's too much.
21:23:07 It's too much that journalism and helping, because journaling doesn't tell me what the answers are.
21:23:12 It's things that I can't grasp.
21:23:15 It's concepts that I don't understand. It's it's things I can't put words to.
21:23:29 Every single thought that I have makes me think something else until I'm like 15 thoughts away from the thing that I was just thinking of.
21:23:39 2 s ago.
21:23:41 And then I go to write it down, and the thoughts already gone, because I'm already moved on to something else.
21:23:58 So once I got past all the things that bothered me in the movie.
21:24:03 The part that I.
21:24:09 Related to.
21:24:13 Was when the one Girl.
21:24:19 Was pulling out the right size shirt for her when she started crying, because I felt that way.
21:24:27 She? Of course she doesn't even understand what's going on.
21:24:32 You know her parents are pigs and she didn't even wanna be there just probably wants to be home.
21:24:41 She doesn't know what's going on. She's listening to what everybody is is telling her to do, and she's doing what everybody is saying, and nothing is working out the way it's supposed to, which can't make sense of anything. So of course you would.
So much parts work this week.
Reading the old journal, came across this: Why accept a friend I don't like? I talked to my therapist about it today, and read it myself after our session.
I never fit in with anyone in my family. I couldn't relate to them in any way. They never included me in conversation except to ask surface questions, "how was school? What grade are you in now?" and when I was older "so are you dating anyone yet?" Plus, I only saw my extended family once or twice a year.
I never understand when people say, "remember how easy it was to make friends as a kid?" No, no I don't. I always struggled to make friends, and the few friends I had, I loved them like family, not realizing none of them really felt the same way. Maybe they did in the only way they knew how. I didn't dump them for better friends because a) I didn't HAVE any better friends, so I was never in a position to dump anyone, but b) because I had SO many flaws, I thought, it someone is putting up with everything wrong with me, then who am I to say that I deserve more.
That's the story I've been told/telling myself my entire life is that people just tolerate me, that I impose, that they are only inviting me because they know I have nowhere else, I don't want that, I want to make friends that want to be with me because I'm fun to be with, easy to talk to, where we don't ever run out of things to say and I want to know if the people I talk to can be that person for me.
I've tried to be that person, over and over, a good friend, there for other people, someone they can count on, someone they can talk to and I just get ghosted and rejected and abandoned over and over, always a scapegoat, always bullied and it's exhausting. Is the trick to making friends the same thing you do to find a job? Just apply to as many people as you can until you find the one that accepts you?
Be happier being isolated so when you're rejected it doesn't sting so bad?
I was surrounded by bystanders and onlookers who all turned their back while I was in crisis.
I read somewhere that the only way to get over an experience is to go through it completely. I knew the person I wanted to be, the life I wanted to live and I understood that the road to getting there would be hard, and I would need support. I would need my village. Time and time again I hit walls and was made to feel that I couldn't recover unless I had support, so I kept focusing on trying to find the support I needed, but the more I reached out and asked for help, the more I realized it wasn't there. During the height of the pandemic, it was justified – we were all in crisis, and how do you support someone else when you are dealing with your own crisis. It made sense to me that no one had time to be there for me. But as time went by, slowly everyone around me moved on and away, and couldn't understand why I wasn't also moving on.
Birthday Trauma
Antisemitism Experiences
Hallowe'en sadness
People don't understand that in order to date someone (*, in order to just have a conversation with someone) you NEED ANOTHER PERSON. I waited my whole life for one person. I read things that said if you don't know what you are looking for, how can you ask for what you want, so I put this together:
What are the chances I will meet someone 22-26 taller than me, sexually attractive, open to anything I want to do sexually, caring, likes to cuddle, run their fingers through my hair, watches movies, cook, clean, sew, is neat and orderly, intelligent, has goals, is healthy, exercises, can teach me things, and has a good sense of humor? I'm looking for a man that I am attracted to, but more than that. I want him to be supportive of me, and be sensitive to my feelings. I would love for him to be neat and clean, well groomed, knowledgeable in many skills and interests. The ultimate thing he could do for me would be for him to cook dinner and have it ready for me when I come home. We could share in the responsibilities of the household, and have intelligent conversations. I would like him to be like minded, and yet, not exactly like me. Because if I'm stubborn and he's stubborn, then we could never settle a disagreement. But I would never want him to back down either. He would have to be vocal of his opinions too. If something is bothering him, I would hope he'd feel comfortable enough with me to say something about it
I thought they were reasonable things to ask for, I thought I'd just keep being positive and patient...but over and over again I was told to lower my standards and accept the love I am given. I settled, because I couldn't decide which was better, being in a relationship with someone that isn't giving you what you need, or not having anyone. I still go back and forth and am still distracting myself with the hope I'll meet someone.
'Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Be Resourceful'
Everyone telling me what I should be. How I should act. What I should say, How I should dress, and I just Don't. Fit. In. Why not ever tell me And That's Ok TOO, you don't have to change, you are fine just the way you are, it's the world that needs to change.
Old journal entries of being excluded
They are going all out to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday next week, so of course I'm excluded. Do you have the oath...I vaguely remember reading it last year, something about promising to read each day and night...blah blah blah. They are making hats, and getting books, and drinking cocoa. I didn't realize it was a nationwide thing, and I am kinda resigned to the fact that I am excluded as usual. I wish instead of looking at is like I'm getting out of work, and I should be relieved to have less to do they would realize that it just makes me feel like an outcast, and not part of the team. Especially when they plan things and don't even let me know what's going on, and talk around me instead of to me. Oh well. Everything else is fine, I don't want to jinx it, so I'm not saying anything.
It's rather sad, that at the end of the school year, I still feel so shuffled around. My position was never fully explained to me, I feel as if I am a classroom teacher, first and foremost. I went to school to be a regular teacher, I have a class, unlike a regular teacher. For this irregularity, the staff is in conflict. Some treat me as a specialist, others as a supplement to their teaching. The administration doesn't know what to do with me either, I miss half the workshops I should attend and attend others I should be missing. It's rather frustrating.
And some more recent ones:
I'm in such an insecure and vulnerable place right now that I'm triggered so easily because I view everything as a form of rejection, not because everything is amplified, but because I'm actually seeing things for the first time as they actually are. I kept giving EVERYONE the benefit of the doubt and ANY time I didn't, even well-meaning people like N, whom I consider the closest thing I've ever had to another half, even she didn't get it, but the difference is, not that they don't get it, but are they willing to try to get it. Will there be follow up questions, to ensure understanding, or will there be snap judgements based on faulty understanding, which is so isolating, for people to just not get it. To be curious, questioning, making sure they understood fully how the other person may be feeling, but to like...
People assume that I'm single because I want to be alone. That if I didn't want to be alone I would've done some thing about it and the truth is it's devastating for me that I'm single not only single but that I don't even have a circle of friends that I can count on to help me from losing my mind and just be there for me when I need them and I'm not saying I don't have that in my life I do but everything I have in my life is virtual and I literally just want somebody that would be here and just actually be there for me instead of doing things I'm not asking them to and just making it a stressful situation so that I would rather just do it myself but there are things here that I can't do myself and I—
I have a problem with time management. My entire life is either or I can't seem to get everything done in one day. It takes me 14 hours to do the work that I should be able to get done in eight. But that's self-imposed that's a negative real that's not true you can't get work done the expectations that you're setting for yourself but I'm not clear if I'm selling them or if L is and I can't talk to her about it.--
Probably something I wrote when I was in college - which is why when someone tells me NOW "oh look how far you've come, now that you are starting to do the work....it's literally me doing the same thing for 30+ years and still living the same way as I was then, complaining over the same things, re-living the same patterns...
I've been doing a lot of thinking, and reading what I've written confirms it, my life is too cyclic and it's time for a change. I see myself as whiny and complaining and needy. This all has to stop. I'm always looking for someone to talk to when the whole time this person is right here. You. I don't need advice, I need to take control of my life. That starts with you. You will be my ears and T will be my shoulder. It's time to quit whining and start becoming the person I wish I was. It's going to be hard, but I can do it. If I can change my inside, the outside will follow and I can achieve anything. Well, I went online and talked to J. It seems that after 4 years and 4 months of not speaking, he hasn't changed. I told him flat out my decision to change and how I wanted him to stop using and hurting me. Our relationship just wasn't meant to be, somewhere out there is someone waiting to be at the right place and the right time for me. I just have to work on me. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Goodbye to everything in the past. They will all have their 15 minutes of fame in this book, and then I will turn the page. They will be lifted from my soul and I will be released from this self made prison. Gods give me the strength.
It's so hard for me I feel so outside of everyone, on the periphery wishing I could fit in, be a part, belong, but my own inner dialogue -these inner demons tell me that I don't, so I sit, filled with a longing that's almost palpable sending out the signal please talk to me like me be my friend is this the signal is the signal somehow being distorted? Why do people feel that they need to react so negatively towards me? I'm so scared I don't want to be turned away, I am afraid to share my pain because I feel as if it's coming off in waves, as if I can transmit my negativity to others, and subconsciously they can sense that and I recoiling away from me. I realize, as I said balance. But then did some more searching, it's really release. I need but even as the realization hit I am terrified of letting go - what do I think will happen, that I will lose myself? I'm already lost so how do I find the me are used to be almost was?
Still working on closure, still finding things I question...
According to Jeney, our core insecurities often stem from attachment wounds, which is a way to describe any time there was a significant relationship that has ruptured our trust in the past. "This can create defensiveness that pushes people away and robs us of the opportunity of ever letting anyone truly in," she explains.
Except whenever you don't have defensiveness, and you let people truly in and they either use that knowledge to manipulate you or just straight up reject/abandon you...which leads to rejection sensitivity and being even further away from the person you want to be - the person other people want to be around.
This is where being insecure in your relationship and wondering whether you're with the right person comes in. "You can be insecure in your relationship and absolutely be with the right person," Jeney explains. "You may just be self-sabotaging because you are afraid to let anyone in too closely." When this happens, it can be because of the fact that you're not aware of (or just don't know how to handle) your insecurities, projections, assumption, attachment style, and behaviors. Jeney says if you find you're insecure, she'd suggest counseling as well as self-awareness work to determine if it's coming from external sources or you are just in an incompatible relationship.
Yes, I am often insecure in my relationships, because people often simply completely stop speaking to me for no apparent reason, and no amount of me asking why they aren't talking to me has ever let me know if it's something I said or did, and it never is, but it's just so easy for people to reject me I have to keep in mind that anyone that says they are a friend will somehow, in some fashion, end up abandoning me. People misread that so easily and say things like, "well if that's the attitude you have, no wonder you're driving people away/self-fulfilling prophesy - um, no, it's just something I have to resign myself to, to stop getting my hopes up every time I allow myself to believe that this time, things might be different. I don't think I could be any more self-aware than I already am. I'm just surrounded by people that aren't willing to be self-aware themselves, and do not spend any time reflecting on their own behaviors, or have the capacity to have difficult conversations.
I've been told I'm weird (and not in a good way) my entire life and no one has ever been receptive to wanting to hear about the things I think about. So I just assume my thoughts are safer in my head and shouldn't be shared.
That insecure part says, see? You are a freak. This is why no one wants to date you. And I know that's just in my head but I wanted to let you know. Not so you'd feel bad, just so you know. It's hard for me to share. I lost someone that meant a lot to me bc he said I held everyone at arms length and never let ppl get close to me. But I've also lost everyone I let get close to me. *shrug*
And I just came across an even longer entry on something I read a few months ago on c-ptsd >:(
I didn't write this. I did the thing I do and put it aside to process later, and now that I'm reading it...
I don't think it's possible to be still incapable of seeing the goodness and beauty of other people and yet see goodness and beauty in yourself. One comes with the other. And here's why I say that.
When my life was miserable and I was isolated and struggling, it was somewhat driven by Childhood PTSD and what had happened to me as a kid. But mostly I was miserable because of problems I was having with other people in present time, as an adult. A good part of why I was having problems with people was because I wasn't very good at caring about them – or paying attention to them, feeling empathy for them. Have you ever been in that place where you couldn't give that?
Um no. That's all I've ever done and to make me feel bad for actually focusing on myself now is implying that's why I have no friends - not helpful.
That extreme self-focus is normal for adults with unhealed trauma, often because we're in pain and this naturally sucks the focus away from what's going on around us. It affects the social dynamics, how other people are feeling, what their needs are – because our own needs are demanding everything we can possibly do just to hold ourselves together.
Yes, my own needs are demanding, but aside from the word vomit I often do because I barely talk to humans, then feel incredibly guilty I may be monopolizing the conversation, but begging people to have more regular conversations with me so I can regulate myself doesn't seem to work, so then what?? Also, I probably am spending way too much time invalidating myself and WISHING the other person would monopolize the conversation, so I can feel engaged, but no one says things!
And you know that self-centeredness, which comes from hurt and fear and anger – it's a symptom of Childhood PTSD. It's a universal symptom. It's not our fault we got that way but each day that we're still not able to form mutually caring relationships with other people, we love ourselves a little less. Maybe you do OK for a spell and then your PTSD flares up and drives you to lash out at someone and damage that relationship. Even as the words are coming out of your mouth you're thinking, "Oh no! Here it comes! I'm doing it again! I'm overreacting. I'm being harsh. This person's never going to want me in their life again!" And sometimes that's true. It's a terrible kind of shame if you've ever felt that.
Actually, what I've felt continually is rejection/abandonment and THEN feeling - I must have done something. And maybe I have rejection sensitivity, so WHEN it is happening (not when I'm imagining it) I do feel my emotions bigger than they are, but I'm having a VALID reaction to being abandoned AGAIN, not an overreaction.
When you feel that way, you'll sometimes find yourself among people who advise people like you to "just love yourself". I'm sure it looks like that's the thing missing and that if you could just manufacture that self-love, everything would be great. But how, right? Nobody ever tells you how. I'd always think that if I could "just love myself" I totally would. Really! It's such a maladaptation of childhood trauma to NOT love yourself.
I read this: When you are ok within yourself, you'll find the person you are meant to be with, and if not, at least you're content with yourself, and I feel it's more on the same lines, that people take for granted it's nearly impossible to gauge how to interact with other humans without PRACTICE interacting with humans and if all they are going to do is reject you until you "learn to love yourself" or "learn to be ok within yourself" there's still a huge part that's missing.
But here's the secret.
Self-love is not the FIX that's needed, it's the BYPRODUCT of the fix that's needed. Something definitely needs to change, and when you change THAT, the self-love will come. But you can't go straight to self-love and expect everything else to be solved. It doesn't really make any sense, does it?
When you don't love yourself, it's a cry for change. And change can be hard. Changes that stick – especially changing the hurts that are installed in you at a deep level – these changes are rare because they take a lot of focus and consistency.
How do you learn to love yourself when you aren't sure if you've ever actually experienced love. I'm not clear what it truly feels like.
Humility, on the other hand, is something you can think of like acceptance. Humility is the ability to face a problem without defensiveness and without blame. Normally, any kind of loss or failure triggers people — and not just people with CPTSD, but all of us – when we feel like we've done something wrong we will often be tempted to start pointing fingers.
I haven't done anything wrong except do my best to survive and raise myself as best I could with no resources or understanding how to do it. I learn everything the hard way, by trying something and failing and then trying again and again and wondering why I'm still failing, and listening to everyone else when they told me I was just doing it wrong, but not modeling for me how to do it correctly.
Humility can also involve a step UP, where you stop seeing yourself as this pitiful loser who is hopelessly damaged by childhood trauma and who can't possibly be expected to recover or change or show up for other people. Because that's not true either. So, humility is a gentle acceptance of reality. It's a beautiful state, where you just drop all the BS and the blame and the self-attack, and just be with the truth of your situation.
I am completely at acceptance of reality, that doesn't mean I don't know how to show up for other people, they just don't know how to show up for me.
This is a powerful antidote to shame – just facing the problem humbly. We hurt people. We make mistakes. And we are strong, resilient, kind-hearted people who can make good on that, we can heal and bring more of our gifts to bear in contributing positively to the people around us. That part feels good. Humility goes a long way toward making it possible for us to make that change and to change the things we didn't love about ourselves.
I don't feel any shame, just grief and loss for things I never had, or things I may have had briefly, but couldn't figure out how to hold on to, and couldn't figure out why people just wouldn't have conversations with me instead of just bailing. It happened so frequently that what else was I supposed to do but beat myself up for failing once again to make a friend, to have a group of friends that actually invited me places, and not just ask me to watch their house/pet because they knew I'd be home without anything to do anyway.
But here comes the third and hardest condition for change, and it's EFFORT. If we're going to change, we're going to have to work at it. There's just no way around it. A desire to change, the courage to face honestly where we are now, and the willingness to work consistently, daily, deeply (sometimes), and beyond our comfort zone — these are the things that work.
And when this is happening – I'm feeling it because I'm doing it – everything changes. And I discover that I love myself. And when I love myself, I'm a lot more at ease with other people. So, it's a positively reinforcing cycle. I couldn't love myself when I was focused only on MY feelings and MY hurts and trying to just stop being self-hating and just love myself. I had to take steps up – look outward.
Loving myself sounds a lot more like forgiving myself for blaming myself all these years when it was never my fault to begin with.
And I will say, when this started to really happen, this is when my spirituality went from a vague idea into a well of strength within me.
I needed strength not just to imagine change, but to hang in there with the changes I was making and not give up. Cause there are always times when you are trying as hard as you can, and it just seems like it's going nowhere. And you think... "what is the point of all of this?" And then out of nowhere, something good happens – you get lucky, you get a burst of healing, and then you have more capacity to pay attention to your relationships, to hear people, to be good to them, and then the good cycle continues. And you find you love yourself.
If you're not loving yourself yet, and you can't see this yet, I'm going to tell you: You have precious intrinsic worth and you are worthy to be loved – even when – and this is true for every person alive – even when you can't love yourself.
It's magical thinking like this that kept me stuck in people pleasing mode. I pet being patient, paying attention to others, being good to them, waiting for it to circle back to me so I could feel good things too and being told I wasn't feeling them because I didn't LOVE myself.
Don't get too wrapped up in the struggle. Don't go hating yourself over mistakes and things you can't help. Keep your eyes on who you aim to be, the best part of you, and keep working to liberate that part of you, out from under the layers of all you've been through. A lot of CPTSD behaviors developed to protect you – checking out, being defensive, isolating. That's what the layers are for. They are how you protected yourself when those were the only tools you had. Now you're gradually adding new tools, and you can release those layers and come back to who you really are. And who you really are is very, very loveable.
All the times I've felt defensive is because I was being invalidated and feeling angry for being treated like a non-person, not being allowed a voice, not being allowed an opinion, or autonomy and standing up for myself just made things worse, so I was meek and didn't fight back.
Maybe some people can love themselves at will, but I can't. When I cleaned up my life, I became more considerate of other people and that helped a lot, to feel better about myself, to approve of myself. There were certain people I loved hugely, even when I hated myself, but it wasn't the kind of love that did them a lot of good. It was complicated love. I wasn't very present. I'm better at loving other people now, and that helps me BE loved more. That makes it possible to love myself more, and that's how this good cycle continues. You can start exactly where you are right now.
We're all learning to love, some faster than others. And just in case you fear that being loving and caring will just make you vulnerable to being taken advantage of, or even abused, that's more what happens when you don't have boundaries.
Yeah, no one really teaches you how to actually HAVE boundaries, they just tell you things that worked for them, but what kind of boundaries do you set with people who have no interest in you as a person?
You can love and have boundaries. As both aspects of yourself get stronger, the love and the boundaries, it creates something like a force field around you. You don't get messed with so much. You don't get mistreated so much. You'll have a natural radar for hurtful people and if they are unkind, you'll see their mistreatment for what it is very quickly. You'll get a better sense of who to trust, who is solid. You'll grow these qualities yourself, and this will make you more open-hearted because you can afford to be. And it'll make you even easier to love right back. Your positive actions make you feel more REAL, more a part of the world, more a part of the forces of good. That's what you really want, and what'll make you feel good about yourself.
Even reading this now just fills me with sadness, because I come across unavailable, married, non-interested in me people and I see them giving their friends and family those things, but not me. So I continue to feel unlovable, and reading this implies I haven't been doing all these things all along. I'm still vulnerable to abuse, manipulation, being taken advantage of because I am vulnerable and isolated and alone and people see that, once they get to know me, they see how innocent I am, how trusting I am, and If I'm not they tell me how standoffish I am...it's all a mess.
So, you can't love yourself yet? No problem. Try just taking positive actions for yourself. Do what you can to help others feel safe and loved too. I'm not saying be codependent or put up with abuse or just forget yourself and give all your energy to other people. I'm saying start taking positive actions. You know what to do. You know already. This is the part of you that you couldn't feel before.
Sigh. Unhelpful post was entirely unhelpful.
I wrote this a few days ago, but I'm behind in posting...
I've literally tried everything to try to find people to talk to, but no one knows how to listen. I've been socially isolated pretty much my entire life. I mean literally, my childhood memories are all of me sitting in my room, looking out the window, wishing I had friends and reading books to not feel lonely. The isolation I experienced during the pandemic caused trauma, so looking back on my childhood layers the trauma.
But like not in a "I'm so depressed" way. I literally...can't process things that have happened on my own, with just the echo chamber of my own thoughts. And everyone I try to talk to (about ANYTHING) just brings up the trauma but won't listen to me enough to let me explain it so *I* can understand, and then I use nearly all my energy to just be understood...so it's like a catch 22 of sorts. Needing to talk to someone who can listen, but not having anyone willing to listen.
So when the guy from 15 years ago (before the trauma - I refer to everything pre-pandemic as "the before times" I literally think of that as a completely different person. Me, pre-trauma - I wanted to talk to him because he still saw me as I was then, and I wanted to remember pieces of her. I would meet him for coffee, or in the library, and we'd talk about the times we worked together, and the things we used to do together, and I explained to him, that's all I wanted, and activity partner, someone to DO things with...like go see a play.
When I would meditate, all the parts of something traumatic that happened to me would talk to me. Like Crazy Jane's parts
It takes me feeling like I can open up to someone and share, a non-sexual intimate relationship (I didn't even know that was a thing before my research), a platonic relationship that is literally just text. That's what I'm looking for. Someone I can talk about movies and tv shows and show each other pictures of random things kind of friend, but most people are so used to in person getting to know someone, they can't comprehend you can get to know someone just as well virtually...sometimes even better. I've made most all of my friends virtually...since college. 25 years living as a non-corporeal person, just thoughts inside my head, circling around and around.
I get so far down in thinking of the "why's" about everything that I see things at a level no one else does. So I have no one to talk to about anything that matters to me, I've never been in a relationship with anyone that ever even cared what I thought. I've always just had to put up with being abused just to survive...because I've never experienced thriving?
I've been invisible for most of my life. I've been in survival mode since I was about 17, I have been abandoned and rejected my entire life, I've never really had anyone I could depend on, and yet people still insist on asking me stupid questions like "what are you passionate about?"
In an attempt to make friends, I keep encountering so many people that try to relate to me through their depression and social anxiety. One night, it got to be too much and I wrote a little rant:
I'm really sorry you are unable to connect with me on the level I'm needing, but at this point in my life, I'm really only concerned with my recovery, and less concerned with ensuring you're not experiencing feeling rejected and holding space for your depression. I already empathized with you and imagined how YOU felt, so I can relate to you, you may not see it, but you aren't giving me the same courtesy. I appreciate you sharing your beliefs with me, rating things as good or bad, positive or negative - that is not the space I live in and honestly, I'm here to connect, not feel like I'm trapped in a debate because you think different perspectives are interesting.
It's because you are neurotypical and you've spent your entire life fitting in and having people that relate to you. You were social at work, you had a group of friends and the hardest part of your life was when you were depressed and unmotivated. But with diet and exercise, you suddenly were able to be social again! Success story, and if I'm not living that life, it's because I'm not TRYING hard enough!!!
I've found a few resources for social connections, so when I process trauma it's easier...I am talking to "them" instead of just listening to myself talk, and in doing so, better understanding the things I'm upset about...Putting them here and then coming back to them later may or may not help?
When I try to explain to you how freeing it is to have radical acceptance and let go of the believe that there was going to be someone there for me, you keep trying to remind me that I should still live the fantasy that "I have to be "positive" and hopeful that there will be someone to help me!" I live in my reality, where I am using all my energy to help myself. I am trying to explain to you that I currently have NO social support. That I was attempting to use this site just to have a conversation with another human...
It's so annoying how much grief keeps coming up as I process all this trauma. and then the added layer of grief (that I'm in right now) - grieving that I still haven't managed to make one friend here, not one person to talk to about the thing that's traumatizing me...right now, because everyone says, "in order to heal from your trauma, you need to rely on your community! Only I still haven't been able to find one, not even one person I could ask to join me for dinner, some place *I* would like to go...or have fun with...or laugh with...or be able to tell how horrible I feel right now, letting go of all this grief by telling it to myself. Then having to "re-parent" myself and tell myself what I'd most like to hear if I heard someone else tell me this, which is too hard to do at the same time as actually feeling it.
All the neighbors hear when I ask if I can have a conversation with them is that I'm looking for something to keep me busy. I am sick to death of having it be suggested of all the ways I can provide a service to them...I literally want to get to know someone, but all of them know how to do is talk about their jobs, and their kids, and their mortgages or their dog and I'm like, Hi, I haven't had a conversation in 8 months, do you mind talking to me about ANYTHING? hahaha
The way I am processing my trauma right now (or when I wrote this, a few days ago)...is illustrating exactly why CBT doesn't work at ALL on me, and occasionally, I think there are other people like me, because I run into them virtually...but every time I make a potential friend IRL it turns out they can only think at the CBT level - and it doesn't mean they are bad people in any way, but...I realize they are "bad for me" (if that makes any sense) but for years I've been writing in my old journal that I have to put up with being friends with people I don't like because they are nice enough to put up with me, so I have to go along with whatever they want.
I'm in recovery and I could really use the social support. I'm not saying, let me trauma dump on you, I'm saying let me practice modeling the behavior of the person I want to be, but I spend so many weeks, months...without anyone to talk to that as soon as someone talks to me I end up trauma dumping on them. And it's not because I mean to, it's because they ask me a neurotypical "small talk" question, because literally everything in my life is trauma and grief right now, but I'm working on it at such a deep level...whereas most people are too busy displaying adverse behaviors to deal with the root cause. So they filter everything I say through the way THEY perceive the world, and I want a relationship where the other person has enough context to fully understand me, only they don't...time and time again. and it's such a lonely feeling...and I literally have no one to talk to about...anything really. I feel the only people that are in my life are those that put up with me, because they
This is why there is no trauma support group, because people who are healing from trauma aren't in recovery from trauma, they aren't dealing with their root issues, they're dealing with the adverse reaction they display from the avoidance of their traumas. Meanwhile, the rejection I'm experiencing NOW, is triggering my grief which is causing me to verbally ventilate because I haven't been able to process most of it yet, without social support but people misunderstand what that means because they have a different definition of friend - I need an activity partner, not just someone who uses me because they don't have a car
I'm not pessimistic. I frame everything through grief, because my grief hasn't been acknowledged by society...I've heard it referred to as disenfranchised grief, and I've posted a few things on it, but like...months ago. I'm literally grieving everyone who didn't understand me and stopped talking to me without me ever understanding why. No matter how much I reached out to them, I just never got the resolution I needed for closure. But I'm accepting my grief now, and honoring it in my own way. It's extremely harder that I don't have the social support required to properly heal, like...I think
This is where I stopped...so just posting it here as is to process later...
More ripping apart articles I disagree with in a safe space that won't contradict me with my "inner voices".
You're thinking negatively when you fear the future, put yourself down, criticize yourself for errors, doubt your abilities, or expect failure. Negative thinking damages your confidence, harms your performance, and paralyzes your mental skills.
Except when you're in survival mode and you aren't given any guidelines, or feedback so you have to be hyper critical of yourself to not allow any margin for error, because the slightest mistake (such as simply suggesting you prefer a different restaurant) leads to rejection/the end of a relationship/the elimination of a position/the lack of being able to support yourself because if you can't do it, there's no one else that will help you. So while yes, I agree that it harms my performance, paralyzes my mental skills and makes me so anxious that I'm about to lose everything (again) that it IS damaging...but so is criticizing me for not being perfect when we all know there's no such thing as perfection
Log your negative thoughts for a reasonable period of time. This will include negative thoughts and anxieties, difficult or unpleasant memories and situations that you perceive as negative.
You should be able to see the most common and most damaging thoughts. Tackle these as a priority.
Thought awareness is the first step in the process of managing negative thoughts.
Ok, so here's a thought. At my old job, I was the only person who managed the entire office. Everything from security to supplies.
I was the ONLY point of contact, so occasionally, I'd need to go into the office. However, the woman that hired me didn't care about the office because SHE didn't go in. I'd mention to her that on X date, they were repairing phone lines and they needed me, the point of contact to be on site. She'd counter by telling me it wasn't important, and therefore shouldn't be a priority. If I TOLD these people that my manager said I can't go in, they'd ask, but isn't that my job? I'd say yes, I agree - it was...They'd ask if I had a backup - I didn't. And again I was told, I needed to figure it out. How to be in 2 places at once, do all the things with no help...it got to be too much. I was doing the job of eight people at any given time, and expected to just do it all. But apparently, if I just managed my negative thoughts about the situation and just been a more POSITIVE person, it would have ended better?
Next up, the article suggests I challenge my thoughts to see if they are rational...
Feelings of inadequacy.
Worries that your performance in your job will not be good enough.
An anxiety that things outside your control will undermine your efforts.
Worries about other people's reactions to your work.
Yep, still 100% rational, and any time I asked someone for advice, or suggestions on how I could talk to her about how to be more reasonable about her expectations, I was labeled as a complainer.
When you challenge negative thoughts rationally, you should be able to see quickly whether the thoughts are wrong, or whether they have some substance to them. Where there is some substance, take appropriate action. In these cases, negative thinking has given you an early warning of action that you need to take.
Well, let's see. I asked for help, telling people I've reached a point where my health and wellbeing was in serious jeopardy and escalated to the point I needed to go on medical leave, knowing full well that unless I had someone to help me advocate for myself that my position would be eliminated. I was told repeatedly that what I was asking for I was legally entitled to and that I should go to HR if I felt my rights are being violated. I did and was told that me bringing it to people's attention made them uncomfortable, so I was written up, then when I came back to work I was stripped of all my duties and responsibilities and told that since they had already replaced me during my leave that there wasn't a position for me, and my role was being eliminated. If anywhere in there the negative thinking gave me a warning of what action I needed to take...I guess I missed it what with all the desperately going to organizations asking for advocacy, or just someone to talk to about options, or an attorney that would be willing to help, or anyone at all that wouldn't turn a blind eye to the retaliation I was experiencing
It's often useful to use rational, positive thoughts and affirmations to counter them. It's also useful to look at the situation and see if there are any opportunities that are offered by it.
Affirmations help you to build self-confidence. By basing your affirmations on the clear, rational assessments of facts that you made using Rational Thinking, you can undo the damage that negative thinking may have done to your self-confidence.
I see. So easy. Rational thinking told me I had best find another job, but the simple fact I can't even find one person that will help me frame my experience into a marketable sales pitch that screams, "don't you just need me to work for your organization! I've been on bed rest for 8 months and can still barely function, please give me a chance! But yes, obviously I just need to do more affirmations.
Excerpts from the book - Do this sort of reworking with all of the items to which your responses were obviously self-limiting, and use the information you draft as a basis for a conversation with yourself.
This reminds me of the book I'm reading currently, in it I recognize that everything we tell ourselves is a story, so I just need to tell myself a version of my story that makes ME feel good, even if deep down I know the truth and in knowing the truth I can make different choices, while still telling my self a story that enables me to have self esteem.
Once you've created your script, embellish the process by creating images of yourself feeling and doing exactly as you would like, and of your life working just the way you want it to. Be unrelenting. Create positive images, then conjure them up and give them a concentrated look-see every chance you get.
This is a very personal and private process, so milk it for all it's worth. You can use what you write as the basis for an internal program designed to fill your life with more pleasure and less pain than you thought likely. You can do it. And it's well worth the effort.
This reminds me of the isolation journal prompt I got the other day, the one I wanted to write, but didn't have the focus...chose not to prioritize it until I was in the right mindframe.
Shattering old concepts and replacing them with affirmative inner talk and images toward the goal of sweetening your very own life not only feels good, but is good for you. Used in conjunction with common sense and planning and doing, it can make for a noble transformation.
Settle into some affirmative heart-to-hearts with yourself, if only briefly, every day for ten days. Center yourself and then give the process a wholehearted go.
Even if you feel phony for a few seconds at the beginning of each stint, just stick with it. Soon you will feel yourself.
When you hear can't or the phrase I can't rumbling around in your head, breathe and center yourself. Consider rephrasing the words you have just spoken or thought, replacing can't with won't or will or will not with choose to or choose not to. This will remind you of your responsibility for the limitation and in some cases your ability to remove a limitation.
When you have done this you might consider adding the words "until now" at the end or beginning of the thought or spoken phrase.
If your choice is to continue to do as you have always done until now, that is neither good nor bad. Simply notice whether your choice is based on a feared consequence or on a past experience rather than on the present situation
Hi Eireanne, I hope you have a great day...
Thank you so much Larry, I wish the same for you :hug:
I haven't done parts work in a few days, and reading the articles brought up thoughts that I had already been having, so I decided that's as good as any place to start...This is from 20 years ago...
He said he would rather talk to me over many other people in his life and that he wouldn't ask other people for advice, but the part that I can't recall was the most important. It was something like how when he first met me he didn't know how good/nice of a person or the aspects of my personality were so valuable and special and how when he first met me he didn't take the time to see it, to see what kind of person I really was, because you really have to work to get to know me. And I told him that the person I wanted to be showed the good qualities right up front, so I wasn't so guarded and people would like me, and he said that it was special, those qualities, and not everyone deserved to see it, and they had to earn it, and that just touched me so much to hear those words. Even though I can't remember them exactly.
I told him that had to have been the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me and how no one had ever taken the time to get to know me before, and he thanked me for allowing him to see those sides of me.
I haven't even done the conversation justice, and if I've misquoted, It would be awful because I would hate for him to read this and say, uh, that's not what I said at all.
We went on to talk about how I must be an awful person for me to be alone for so long and he said I just meet the wrong people. I accept that up to a point, but after x amount of years you have to start to wonder if it's something wrong with you. He said, why should you have to change to make someone else happy? If they don't like you the way you are then screw 'em!
But if you don't like yourself, then how can you expect someone else to like you? So he made me list the reasons why I thought people wouldn't like me, ie. The parents of the boys I would want to date, and he said all my reasons were BS.
Unfortunately, that was 3 years ago, and M and I are no longer friends. But I still think of him from time to time, and realize that he was one of those reason season friends, and not a true friend. I just wanted to remember the lessons he taught me.
I am so adaptable and flexible, and it's not because I'm co-dependent and I'm trying to be someone I'm not to please someone else, it's because I have such varied interests that I COULD go fishing and camping, and I COULD go to see a ballet, and I would LOVE to go to museums and art galleries, and go horseback riding, and I love dressing up as well as wearing my favorite sweatpants and old t-shirt. I'm tired of being insecure, worried that someone will see something about me that they don't like, why? Oh just because that's what always happens, but anyone that can't wrap their little brains around the fact that (sorry, I'm not perfect), has to take a good long look in the mirror, because none of us are, and the main problem is that while I see flaws in others, I tend to overlook them and accept people, flaws and all.
I want to know where all the people are that see ME the way that I am and accept ME, flaws and all. So you want to know about me? I'm wicked talented. I sing, dance, am into art...I draw, my favorite medium is pencil, second only to photography. I have a great eye. I love reading, I enjoy watching movies. I find architecture appealing, and love walking around the city just admiring the buildings. I don't have strong viewpoints or opinions, because I don't believe one should make a decision without getting all the facts, and more often than not, I don't have all the facts.
I can't carry a tune and I'm woefully uncoordinated and have no sense of rhythm, but it didn't stop me from listing the things I enjoyed, even though I have no skill. I no longer work on my art, haven't...probably since I wrote this, but I have craft projects to finish and photos to look through. Now when I go for walks, I look at the trees, not the buildings. I still have no strong viewpoints or opinions.
I'm intelligent, but not educated, I make up for this by becoming autodictative...it's a pet peeve of mine that my word processor feels the need to auto-correct words it doesn't recognize. I don't care for fancy things, I'm a down to earth sort of girl, and am easily pleased. If that makes me mundane, then I'm incredibly sorry, but that's me. If I had access to a washing machine, and dryer...if I could get an apartment with a dishwasher...if I could live in a neighborhood where I wasn't the 'white girl', and I could go out night or day and NEVER have to think about parking, I would be blissfully content.
I finally do live in a safe neighborhood where I am no longer the minority, I have a washer/dryer and a dishwasher and I never have to think about parking. I would say that I'm content and not blissful. Thoughts of my mom popped into my head just then, who always wanted more, and wasn't content with what she had, but honestly, the only thing that could make this apartment better is a different faucet in my kitchen sink, a different light fixture (both of which I can eventually adjust if I had help) and to have hot water faster - I am truly blessed. There are a few thrift shops in the area should I need "new" clothes, but I'm perfectly fine wearing the few things I have every day...I dress for comfort, not style.
I want to be able to go shopping and buy whatever I wanted, whenever I felt like it, and not worry about it going bad. I want to be able to dress like an adult, and have clothes that make me look like a professional. I want a close-knit group of friends that I can be myself with, and one that doesn't exist solely on the internet. I'm tired of settling, I want to be happy dammit. Don't I deserve it? Am I really asking too much?
Still asking for the same things, 20 years later. Sigh.
A year goes by (now it's been three 23), and you forget...you get lulled into a sense of monotony, thinking it's ok, there will be time for this, I'll remember...but the memories overlap, and some are weighed down by time...others lost forever. I lie here listening to the driving rain, and I think...it's November rain, the way it does, each and ever November...for every November to come...then I start to think, was it always so? Perhaps I should keep track of the weather, follow and chart it's patterns, as I should be following and charting my own. For these past few days have been an epiphany, where there is so much realization, and everything is so much clearer. I want to take the time to savor it all, but I also want to get it down to make sure I remember it all, for surely there is a message and a lesson that is screaming to be learned. I am ready to learn it now.
I'm not so sure I'm ready for anything now. I seem to be so out of focus here, and instead of searching for me, I've been searching for clarity, because each time I almost get to the surface, I let it get covered back up by the mundane. Today I'm making a real effort to get to the bottom of a lot of things, and hopefully be able to find myself somewhere in it. To find the person I was when I wrote that.
So here goes...
Catcher in the Rye, the first of the classics I intend on reading this summer. Overall, I really didn't like it-except for the very last line, "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you'll start missing everybody." That's very good advice, and I think I'll follow it - no one but you my diary.
I wrote that in 2003, and not only do I not remember most of Catcher in the Rye, I strayed from my advice. Somehow, I have to find my way back there.
I am still trying to find myself...college was the biggest setback of my life Funny, bc it was just one in a long line of setbacks that basically did NOT set me up for success. Oh well, nothing I can do about that now.
I have no redeeming qualities. I am worthless. In all the years I've been on this plane of existence, I have nothing to show for it. I have not made any sort of positive imprint on anyone I've come in contact with. I have not amounted to anything. I am not attractive, nor am I talented. There is not one thing about me that you can say I can do better than anyone else, unless that thing is to fail.
I am a remarkable failure.
As per usual, I'm really falling behind in things I should be doing. M keeps reminding me that it's a work in progress, so slowly but surely I will see the end of this mess.
I've been very depressed and frustrated lately. So much so that I just haven't been progressing. I remind myself so much of characteristics that I loathe that I hate myself, and can't imagine anyone else being able to tolerate me. I have very little patience for anyone these days, and have become, once again, quite hypocritical. I shoot venomous anger out at others for no apparent reason. I withdraw into myself, but not to seek solace, simply avoidance. I seek to find the answers, when I already know what they are, I'm just too afraid to face them. I feel adrift, and unsure of myself. I've veered off the path and don't know how to find it again. There are things coming up that terrify me, and I've no one to confide in. There are things approaching that make me feel helpless and alone. I've grown bitter in my solitude, and yet I wish to be alone. I just can't seem to make heads nor tails of anything these days. As per usual, my horrors remind me...
I don't remember writing this, or what was going on when I wrote this, so instead I'm just holding space and my parts are validating all the ways people abandoned me to cause me to hate myself, allowing them to tell me what a failure I was, until I believed it myself. Society does it's best to show me there is no comparison between the path my life has taken, and I measured myself against their expectations, of course I have no inherent worth - I'm not a productive member of society!
Even the pandemic showed me that society has deemed me an acceptable loss. How else am I supposed to feel about myself? Silly humans.
I'm an amazing, articulate, talented person...but there's so much more to me than that. There's the self-depreciating part of me that is more whistling in the dark than anything else. There's the sarcastic side, which I account to living so long in N. There is a part of me that tries to let everyone around know how much they are valued, simply because it doesn't take much to increase someone's sense of self worth. I have a simplistic strive for happiness.
Overlying every part of me is a suffocating blanket of insecurity, that I doubt myself and my intentions at every turn. When things are fine, I overlook them, I ignore the whisperings of doubt that linger right below the surface. But then they get louder and I have to stop and question my actions.
I just can't tell who I am anymore.
When ppl talk about doing inner child work, I struggle, because I have no inner child. This is what I have, an inner 30 year old who was so lost and struggled to just fit in, so she could have friends, be accepted, have a job where her manager didn't hate and abuse her, have a relationship, know what it is to feel love...and I have such compassion for that person now who was told for so long she was wrong to want and feel these things, simply because no one took the time to see her ask was reasonable, and it was they who were misconstruing it.
I'm supposed to be doing all this soul searching, but I'm not even sure where to start. There are so many layers to delve through, I feel like an onion. If I keep peeling away, eventually...will there be nothing left?
Here's something that came to my mind...
Looking back over the past 3 years, the first year, I made 23,225.97 the year after that brought home 27,839,97. The third year I took in 16,643.98 before I realized that no amount of money was worth what I was going through each day...especially the no amount of money I was bringing home. The funny thing is, the more I made, the less I seemed to have, and it wasn't because I was living the rich American life, buying well past my means...it was something that I just couldn't define, something I couldn't put my finger on, something that exceeded the cost of living.
I just can't seem to see straight any more. I can't clearly see what my goals are. I feel stuck, and I feel like all of the people I thought were my friends are holding me at arms length for fear I'm going to act like a sponge, because I'm down and needy right now.
Maybe that's all I am, and I'm not a good friend, and that's why I feel so alone. Maybe I'm not a good teacher, and that's why I can't find a job.
I can barely breathe, and I'm so very down right now. I can't imagine anyone hiring me. I mean, why would they, I'm a YANKEE, an outsider...they want to hire one of their own, watch out for your kin, that sort of thing around here. I mean, I'm that desperate that I'm applying in LV for gods sake. I LOATHE it there. So I'm sitting around beating myself up, why didn't I put in an app sooner? Why did I sit around and wait for the job I was TOLD I was getting.
Now if I don't get a teaching job, it's going to be near impossible to explain the lapse...I mean it's hard enough trying to explain why I left my job mid-year, and if that isn't a red flag screaming, Don't hire that girl, she's a BAD TEACHER, I don't know what is.
I thought for sure well hey, if I don't get a teaching job, I'll just go back to school, but guess what, that costs money, and if I don't have enough money to even support myself, how am I supposed to find the money it takes to go back to school?
I realized that no amount of money was worth what I was going through each day...especially the no amount of money I was bringing home.
So many times I've been in this position. It's called survival mode. Lack of social support. Lack of support at work. The difference my life could have taken if I had experienced support. Sigh.
More from my old journal...20 years ago
I had dreams about my parents last night, so I guess it's time to write them, but I fear that bridge is already burned, and I can't think of anything to say without sounding bitter and angry. 30 years of bitterness, anger, resentment...hard to cover up in a letter. I myself don't feel anger, but apparently it shows in my writing, as friend of mine pointed out not too long ago. Since then, I've just been distancing myself from everyone ...being as all she seems to bring me is nightmares, I think I'll hold off on calling her for that tidbit. I'll just experiment until I figure it out. It's so funny, I mean, aside from the nightmares (which I've had all my life) I feel free from her, I don't have her disappointment in me looming over every little thing I do. I finally figured out it's her disappointment in herself, nothing to do with me, so to be blunt, she can go f- herself, I've been on my own for so long, I don't think I ever needed HER, I just needed the idea of her, and sorry folks, but she falls way short.
I told her once before about the nightmares I've had. It was around the time I tried explaining to her about my psycho abilities and the things I can see and do. She was upset that I didn't tell her sooner...because to know that in every nightmare I have that she plays a role in, she betrays me in some horrific way would be GOOD for her to hear, right?
In effort to tie up loose ends, I've been making phone calls and writing letters. I'm NOT liking the things I'm hearing, and basically all I can keep calculating in my head is the $1,000's lost over the past few years...Now I find out that I am not eligible for my sick leave money...which means that all those days I went to school instead of calling out sick? Well, I don't see a dime of it. So much for integrity.
I keep beating myself up, if I didn't quit my contract, I could have called out every day for A MONTH and gotten paid for it. I could have gone in every day and READ A BOOK and gotten PAID FOR IT! *sobs*
This is what taking chances gets you, this is what sticking your neck out does, and this is what standing up for doing what's right leaves you with.
What are the stories you tell yourself about what is going on in your world right now?
I'm focusing on finishing up old projects in hopes that I fill my mind up with enough positivity, I can withstand the rejection sensitivity I know is probably still there, right under the surface.
I tell myself I'll be lucky if I manage to find a job by this time next year. I embrace the thought of prolonging my return to work, so I can better establish good habits...I'm still stuck in good intentions, wasting time doing things that aren't in my higher good. But it's funny, the things that I read, don't coincide with the way I feel, never have, so I decide, well let me read through them all and sift my way through ideas I want to keep, vs. ideas I want to through away.
As I read through them, shadows of relationships I've had with people who are no longer in my life float to the surface, and I wonder, if I were to write them a letter, how would I frame it? Sometimes parts come up, sometimes observations.
The stories I tell myself about those relationships come up as well.
There's a fear I have now, in finally making new friends, I want to make a list of the things I consider doing with them, and how that list gives me hope, but I recall every time in the past when my stories expose patterns of traumatic experiences. The hoping for the best, but anticipating the worst - the part that reminds me of every time I've needed to be attuned to, I've been told it's because I'm too negative. That I have to believe it to see it! That I'm pessimistic for wanting to verbalize my fears and have them validated.
How might those interpretations be keeping you from learning how to be happy?
Still anticipatory grief and thinking I need to be a certain amount "done" building a foundation...still needing my training wheels...Like in the realization (cart before the horse) I need to be/have platonic friends before I'm ready to be in a relationship again...and using the relationships I have now as practice, but needing to keep reminding myself not to get my hopes up too much, because everything is temporary.
Synchronicities can also be people, places or events that our soul attracts into our life to help us evolve to higher consciousness or to place emphasis on something that is going on in our lives. The more consciously aware we become of how our soul manifests incidents, the higher our frequency becomes and the faster we manifest positively.
I don't know, I had been seeing them for a while and I don't think it signified or correlated with anything. Like having A text the moment I realized I was "breaking up with him" or anticipating the pattern he'd stop speaking to me once I lost my job...which happened...but since I had knowing it was, just not known how...It's too hard to explain...I don't think my cassandra complex in pattern recognition is tied to noticing synchronicities.
Our fear is an overinflated response to the psychological conditioning people-pleasers have learned
We fear the backlash that comes from expressing an independent opinion that differs from our what our family believes or what society defines as the norm. Our conditioning has us believing that being unique is less safe, and that belief holds us back from fulfilling our potential.
Realizing we are moving in the wrong direction is the foundation to becoming self-empowered.
I'm going through these articles and feeling a sort of way. At first, because the previous article lumped everything into anxiety/depression category, as if there are NO OTHER explanations for not being able to focus, and of course isolation was presented in a way that it's something you are choosing - turning down offers to hang out, for example.
This article is on people pleasing, and it again, makes me feel a sort of way for people to minimize "the fear of thinking this will happen" and the years I was dismissed each time I pointed out it WAS happening. It's not that I went along and behaved a certain way so people would like me.
It's any time I tried being self empowered and standing up for myself, I WOULD lose everything. And grappling with that loss now is so hard. Especially with my therapist, because every time I try to go in linear order, I end up skipping all over the place at all the times the same thing happened. Especially since the same things are happening now.
For years, people kept telling me to "Stop worrying what other ppl think of you" and I never DO worry about stuff like that, I guess it's hard to describe when you're in survival mode. I never needed people to "like" me, I needed people to accept me. I needed ONE manager who supported me, or had my back, so I wasn't always the first to be eliminated because I wasn't part of the clique. I needed a group of girlfriends who I could learn how to be social with, so I understood things like banter and small talk. How to do my hair and makeup. Feeling a sense of being cared for by others. It's what I've wanted...someone to help with things so I didn't always feel so adrift and alone. I didn't want to be LIKED, I just didn't want to be actively disliked. I just wanted to be one of those people that if someone mentioned them, no one had anything bad to say about them. But that's not the case when you are being bullied. Where everyone around you would rather talk about you than to you.
Reflecting on how I ask people for the help I need and they give me the help they are willing to give, but not what I need/ask for.
For example, how to simply express what I'm working on now, how to get to a place where I can reframe what happened in a way that will be palatable to HR and recruiters, which is where I was in March and asked for a coworkers help - specifically, can he just co-work with me, either via chat window or I'll sit down in the cubicle with him at work, so I can have him to brainstorm ideas with, and he responded:
Instead of trying to write with any sense of coherence, keep plugging away at those ramblings. Take time to process them. Perhaps work through them with your therapist and see if you can read through your thoughts and then pick out the things that you need to convey later.
Um, my therapist is not going to help me work on my resume, that's what I was asking YOUR help with, thanks for nothing.
I followed up with him, telling him I needed to cognitively rehearse...and not having ANYONE else to ask, I once again asked him for support, but he didn't have the capacity. About 3 weeks later, I had a really bad day and msged him: I'm feeling very invalidated and isolated today. Stupid recurring theme in my life, and I'm sure you're swamped. How do I get people to listen? How can I make this feeling stop so I can get done all the things I need to today? Can I just pretend I'm sitting next to you like we did that day at the office?
Couldn't even bother replying to that one.
I feel I can have friends as long as I never have any needs and everything in my life is 100% ok and ask long as I ask someone else for help (but never them) then they'll talk to me, but as soon as I'm like, hey, I could use your help with something, they bail. I was watching a TV show earlier, and this woman was texting this other woman relentlessly, "hey, even though you don't want to talk, know I'm here for you" and I thought, hmmm THAT is self isolating. When I say, "hey, I'm feeling really isolated and I really need someone to talk to" telling me, "I can't even imagine" and then never texting me again? Pffft.
Anger wants to say a few things, because we're watching a YouTube video about Best Practices for Anxiety Treatment | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and right away I knew I was going to have some problems with it, but I keep thinking "open mind" so I'm TRYING. I'm even taking notes.
My social isolation has caused me to have ineffective interpersonal skills - I am taking steps to work on that.
I don't have effective current social support - difficulty bearing the weight of everything on their own shoulders.
Challenges and opportunities for growth and learning and not hardships and obstacles
I'm being given language to frame the things I'm struggling with*
But then she starts talking about...irrational fears
survival is not an irrational fear
she says focus on exceptions
I've literally been eliminated from every position I've ever had, there are no exceptions, this is not irrational, this is something that happens to me that is out of my control.
Well now, something happened to you is victim language, quit acting like a victim and do something.
See? How is CBT helpful? I don't see it...it goes on...
...if something is fearsome let's look at the evidence for and against it instead making excuses
Let's break that down, shall we? I've been under/unemployed for the past 15 years. In survival mode. Trapped in a pattern. These are not excuses, this is a fact.
I get a job and everyone at that job loves me, I become indispensable and then the direct manager, the one in charge of whether or not I get fired doesn't like me, I do everything I can to make them happy, but nothing I do works, and then they find a reason to eliminate my position. I lose my job. I lose my friends. I have no social support because work took up all of my life and I had no social life because I was just doing everything I could not to get fired, so I'd often work through lunch, or I'd work positions where it was expected you work from your desk, the list goes on and on...this is the only life I KNEW, I've never had an exception to being treated like an asset and not a human. I was taught from a young age you need to be of service. But my body and brain started to deteriorate under the strain of bearing the weight of everything on their own shoulders
What did I fear? Being eliminated Is that an irrational fear? Let's see. Lose your job, lose your income, lose your health insurance. Lose your ability to obtain medication. Lose your ability to be able to get adequate health care should you get sick. (let's add in a healthy dose of we don't know how bad we're going to react to covid symptoms, because everyone is different) Still irrational? Previous experience tells us it will take us years to find employment again, which means we'll run out of money...to pay our utilities...so we keep the air/heat off...we stop eating....we'll eventually run out of money to pay rent and get evicted.
Each of these things sounds like catastrophizing, yet all of these things have happened to me, multiples times before. To the point it became a trauma. To get my position eliminated meant I would not be able to survive without effective current social support.
But I've been here before. It's a pattern, you see. So I prepared for it, like a domestic violence survivor prepares to escape her abuser. Because that's what I did. It just took me years to see it as abuse. Because for years I was told by therapists that I had black and white thinking and irrational fears.
Let's continue...
social interventions - improve their relationship with their self (which goes with self-esteem) improvement. people are going to feel less anxious about getting their needs and wants met if they know what their needs and wants are. so part of that is becoming mindful cuz a lot
of our clients don't know what they need and want...
I knew what I needed, what I wanted. I asked for it continuously, but no one has ever taught me the successful way to get the help I need. I don't understand how I'm supposed to learn it myself, in isolation - these people take it for granted someone must have taught me by now...I did everything they told me to.
I went to my manager who wrote me up
I reported her to HR who didn't get back to me until after I was eliminated
I was told to call EAP they told me it was a conflict of interest
I talked to attorneys they said my case was too complicated
I made endless calls to organizations and was told they couldn't help
I went to all of my friends and learned they weren't actually my friends
I lost my job, my income, my health insurance, my friends, and the pattern repeated itself down to the people that were a part of my life during previous loops. So odd and interesting. Fascinating.
So this time I study it, like a scientist. I research, I listen to god awful videos that trigger me. So I can find the vocabulary I need to better advocate for myself, to learn how to build my interpersonal skills up again. I keep making plans and they keep getting cancelled. I keep trying to make other plans and then there's weather and illness and busyness and life.
I keep worrying the things I'm doing to try to "put myself out there" are insanity because I have tried the same thing over and over again and expected different results, but it's all about mindset or something. And besides, I plan on bringing my journal. So if nothing else, I have taken myself out on a date :disappear:
This is the worst:
develop assertiveness skills so they can ask for help when they need it. anxiety - that's the body saying there's a threat, well if there's a threat maybe you need some help dealing with it, people need to be willing and able to ask for help and not feel like that's going to lead them to be rejected.
Why yes, I agree.
The message I receive is that I was rejected because I'm not assertive. That L bullied me because I wasn't assertive. Dan abused me because I wasn't assertive. So where exactly am I supposed to learn assertiveness, with NO interpersonal relationships to practice them?
I don't even know what to say...still...about how to explain anything, let alone figure out how to say it with assertiveness.
CBT makes me feel like I'm not taking responsibility and I feel the negative reel kick in when I spend too much time in this space. Definitely not empowering.