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blueberry, your post warmed my heart in more ways than one.  thank you so much for saying all you said. the blankets were an extra gift, as well as that big hug.   

i won't write it all here, wrote lots in my other journal, but i'm now looking at some of my physical symptoms as psychosomatic manifestations of feelings/emotions that had never been released in the past.  so, i'm going to go about dealing w/ them in such a way that i think will help.

i'm afraid to write too much, afraid the glitching will catch up to me, but i do believe this 'brick' feeling i've had both in my head and now in my gut is a calcification of feelings/emotions that had never been released.  it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

thanks, kizzie.  i certainly appreciate it.

thanks, marcine, you made me smile! 

well, therapy, i don't know.  i want to blame this on the T but thinking more about it, i believe my mind is simply ready to puke up feelings from the past when triggered.  i told her about an incident w/ my folks, she remarked something about how much pain and hurt i must've felt, and i denied that.  i felt the pain and hurt of the problem i went to my folks for help with, comfort or something (which didn't happen while i was crying an ocean in front of them - rather my F mocked me, humiliated me, my M stood like a cold stone) my T still isn't getting it that i haven't felt feelings/emotions like most people have.

at any rate, after i ate lunch, my gut got very sore - gut-punched came to mind right there, and maybe that's what it was - and i ended up feeling very sick the entire rest of the day, that night, couldn't sleep well, aches, chills, stress flu kind of stuff, but also this gut thing, which seemed new.  been thinking about that ever since.  a few weeks ago when i had an overwhelm, it was like a brick in my head.  maybe this was a brick in my gut.  maybe that's how these pent up feelings are now showing themselves.  bricks of dried emotions.

so, i'm feeling better today, but i think i want to do some FLash on myself, focus on that brick - i can still kinda feel it - see what happens.  maybe i need to cry.  but i do believe i didn't feel it back when it happened cuz i was already overflowing w/ feelings about being lonely, and i think having to feel pain and hurt because of how my parents acted toward me would've been too much.  i can already, right now as i'm writing about it, see myself falling to the ground, laying down cuz i can't stay upright under the weight of too much feelings.  yeah, a protective device there, working to keep me safe.  can't imagine what my F might've said if i'd collapsed under the weight of pain and hurt at that moment.

ok, so i've got my work cut out for me.  i'm seeing a pattern, tho - mention feelings that 'should' have been there but that i didn't feel, and my mind is ready to vomit them up, or the aftermath of them, a few hours later.  this is not a fun way to live.  my gut is roiling right now, tho, so there's something in this, i think.  it's ready to go.

hey, hannah1, truthfully, i was exhausted reading your posts.  just a thought - are you racing to 'do' things? it felt frantic.  maybe it's just me, cuz i tend to be slow-ish about doing things.  if that doesn't fit, please ignore.  i do like the idea of drawing animals, tho. that sounds both productive and somehow restful at the same time.

reading is what helps me go to sleep at night.  i do my screen stuff, sure, but when it's time to sleep the screen goes black and i find a nice, not gory nor too intense, book to read.  a fun, light book.  something by wodehouse or maeve binchy maybe.  just a thought.

i hope you find a balance that fits for you like frank has his own balance.  he is a good role model.  love and hugs

TBB, thanks for your thoughtful post.  it's amazing, isn't it, how easily/quickly we can go to a place we didn't expect, but it can be so difficult to leave it.  as far as clarity and calm, i didn't recognize that, but thank you for doing so and mentioning it.  that kind of thing seems quite automatic to me - get into a tight spot, figure out what needs to be done to get out of it and what's needed not to get into it again.  i think i've had a lot of practice w/ that in my life, so i never recognized it as something to be recognized!  i appreciate you pointing that out.

thank you, as always, for your support, NK.  much appreciated.

seems that for several weeks now that 'shift' that i've felt has taken hold and is doing its thing in a good way.  i seem to have more energy, less exhaustion, and very much less feeling miserable.  don't know exactly why or how this has happened, but it seems like something that hasn't happened before, not since i began feeling sick-y most of the time.  this feels rare but good and i'm trying not to look at it as waiting for the other shoe to drop kind of thing, but just go with it as if it's simply my new now, rather than a tiny break from my old then.

therapy today.  i may talk to my T about this, see if she has any thoughts.  i know she's really scared of pushing me, so doesn't want to do too much.  i also want to talk to her about my yearning to be taken care of. 

hope you had a lovely time w/ your friends, blueberry.

and  yes! yay! for your mastery over the dishwasher.  well done! just fyi, i use mine for storage - have never liked the things, used them a couple times in the past but they just never did it for me.  but i think it's wonderful that you are now able to use it.  you've worked hard to be able to do that.

keep it up!  love and hugs

Early memories may often be traumatic, but it doesn't mean they ALL are.

i agree, mia. I have a wonderful memory of walking with my M to a store about 2 blocks from our house. I must've been quite young, maybe 3 or 4, and she bought me the most beautiful doll i'd ever seen.  that was a happy memory, one that i can still picture, including the doll sitting on the shelf in the store.  there's a trauma memory about that doll at a later point in my life, but having my M buy her for me, something i chose for myself, always has an inner smile to it.

i also have one from when i was younger, probably around 2.  we had a record-making machine at the time, and my folks allowed me to record my voice. i still recall what i said, which was really nearly pre-verbal, and i can still hear my little girl voice saying my made-up words, and i remember feeling very grown up doing that.

so, yeah, not all family memories have to be traumatic.  i think it's good to find some of these that made us smile when we were so very young, whether they were FOO-related or not. at least it's one thing we can look back on and feel something pos. about in our life.  love and hugs

hannah1, thanks for your support.  so, you think it's big enough to be a chasm?  hmmm, will have to think on that.  so very glad you've found ways to get taken care of.  wonderful- it truly is different than doing it all yourself. 

blueberry, thanks for the 'grr' on my behalf.  loved it!  i agree, i wouldn't have gone looking for a T is i didn't think i needed one.  it's been too much of a struggle for too long.  i want that extra level of help only a T can give.

TBB, thank you for that support.  much appreciated.

thinking about this whole 'need' thing, maybe i don't 'need' help - no, i do.  i was thinking maybe it's just a 'want' type of thing, but no.  i can feel the struggle going on inside me, and how much it's lessened lately.  that tells me something valuable, something i need to pay attention to for my own best welfare.

i believe this T got scared after i told her of my terrible aftermath from the 'attachment' statements.  she mentioned she wasn't sure she could help me, and was afraid of causing such a neg. reaction in me again, and that's when she said ('cause i've referenced this forum so much) that maybe this place is enough.  i really do think she was scared of doing harm - i don't believe she's worked w/ c-ptsd before, at least not to any great length - and certainly not w/ someone w/ alexithymia.  it's a lot. but she's also not pushing me to go places i'm not ready for, and i'm grateful for that.

at any rate, we'll see.

i realized that the idea of wanting someone to take care of me must come from not having that feeling from a very young age, and i want to ask my T about that, see if there's anything we can do to mend that.  it feels like a rift in my being.  on the one hand i've taken care of myself my entire life, getting very little in the way of support or healthy/helpful encouragement from my folks or, later on, from significant others in my life.  i've done some remarkable things, some of which are very adult, yet that statement came out and i could feel myself regressed as i said it to her. 

so, i'm guessing there needs some mending to be done.  a rift.  the more i play w/ that word for this, the more it feels right.  a tear in my personality.  no, i can't picture a chasm, that's too big for this.  a rift feels right.

holey schmoley, hannah1, soooo much!  congrats to you for either beginning things, finishing things, or having a direction to go to for more things to do.  very impressive!  best to you with all of this.  i think it's amazing!  love and hugs

hey, PC, i'm glad for the shift as well.  simply a better sense of being, more energy somehow, i don't know, but i wrote about feeling that shift a week or so ago in my journal.  maybe it's a shared something that's hit us all at the same time.  maybe it's as you say a deflection of the chaos that is the world today.  maybe we've had so much of our own stuff to deal w/ that the rest of it is overload so we've just decided to power down for a bit.  maybe it's simply a shift w/in us cuz we have been working hard at this and we are now reaping the fruits of our efforts.  i don't know, but i like it.

since i was 15, suicide has always seemed like a problem solver to me, something to either make my parents sit up and acknowledge me or just, like you say, to get out from under the overwhelm, the great amounts of pain we've carried for so long that we just can't bear anymore, rather than simply a wish to die.  i'm glad you've had that turned around for you.

NK, a side note - i've also heard those reports, read about the kids that died because of them.  it may be that age difference, an interpretation by an unformed mind, that causes those kids to get something different out of their AI chats than what PC has gotten.  i don't know, just guessing, but i'm leery of kids and the internet to begin with, and this just adds another highly elevated level to that.  my opinion only.  and a pretty biased one at that!

PC, i'm glad for you to find anything that helps, especially when it can change a neg. perspective into something more positive for you.  you so deserve that.  love and hugs

well, i agree w/ you, blueberry, about the debilitating part.  however, even as you mention 'well, you did this and that so you *should* be able to do that and this, i know there's really no connection there.  just cuz we manage one thing doesn't mean we have the will, energy, or mindspace to do something different. just before coming here i did my door stretches, and as i'm writing, i'm wiggling my feet.  lol!  doesn't mean i'll go out and walk today. that wish is flying away from me right now.  we'll see about later.

good luck getting to your cancer screening eventually.  i don't know how important you think it is, or if it's of any interest to you, but i do know even those reasons aren't always enough to motivate us to go do it.  a lot of times those things feel like work to me, and i'm just not up for it.  you've got my support whatever you decide.  love and hugs  

sorry, blueberry, i misunderstood.  it sounds much more intense and difficult than what i was thinking, and i didn't mean in any way to diminish what you were saying or needing to do.

best to you, tho, with getting everything you need unblocked.  i don't like the thought that this conversation is bringing up FOO dynamics.  that's not good for you, for certain.  I do understand the personal need at times to go against someone else's wishes in order to bring order to your own house.  i support you all the way.  love and hugs

thanks for the support and validation, armee.  i think so, too.

NK, i agree w/ the 'good enough', at least for now.  we'll see what's happening a few months down the road.

i did remember eventually - it was about attachment, specifically emotional attachment w/ my babies, since i couldn't feel love.  so, that's been taken care of and thanks to you all, i feel good with it.

my T did mention that maybe this forum is enough for me re: therapy, since it's composed of people who can relate.  while i agree w/ her to an extent, i told her i also needed a professional to help me w/ this stuff, someone to take care of me, to help me get to where i need to go.  self-help can be great at times, but i know that i need more, at least right now.  there are too many issues unchecked, too much anxiety un-dissected, too much confusion as to what direction to go in when i can't feel what i need to feel to show me the way.  too many times i feel like i'm teetering, still struggling to stand upright which leaves me exhausted and i have to cut things short because of it.

we'll see.

hey, bach, i get it about anger being scary, depression feeling safer.  for me, part of the anger fear was the pain i also felt at realizing, knowing, and feeling what had been done to me, what i had to go thru, what it ended up meaning for my life.  lots of pain there, and pain hurts.  so, it makes sense to me that depression is easier to deal w/ - it just doesn't hurt as much.

my thought on 'what good would that do?' as far as feeling the anger is that you'd be releasing a whole lot of neg. energy, something that may be limiting you, holding you back from feeling unstuck.  there may also be grieving to be done, another painful thing.  along w/ your anger, you may be holding onto sadness for yourself, for what you went thru, also painful.  so, lots of pain inside, i'm guessing.  depression can help cover that up, i think. just my thoughts/opinions.

your own pace, your timing is yours, too.  when you're ready.  this doesn't have to be rushed, or according to someone else's schedule. wishing you the best w/ it all.  love and hugs