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glad you're feeling better for having written it out, hope.  we have beautiful snow here, it's been a very pretty winter, but i also look forward to the spring flowers.  i agree w/ the feeling of cozy while it's below 0 outdoors!  enjoy!  love and hugs - those flowers will be here soon! 

hey, PC, yep, i agree, violated is a good word for having something taken w/o permission, no matter by what means.  i've had that happen w/ 2 pianos as well.  it's all loss.  needs to be grieved.  waiting to find a T before i tackle that in a meaningful way.  doing it on my own was just too hard.  thanks for being with me. 

DF, i so appreciate you stopping by and giving me a hug.  thank you so. 

i'm on a grief kick this morning. have been seeing how much grief i have that's never been resolved.  i think a lot of that is cuz i couldn't feel the feelings that go w/ it, such as hurt and pain.  the incident not too long ago, feeling the pain of my doll disappearing, knocked me out for at least 3 days.  very sick-y feeling, could barely walk.  the usual stress flu thing.  i know i have a lot i've lost, a lot i've never gotten, so haven't had the chance to see what life might've been like if i'd had it, which i register as a loss.

i've also probably got a lot of grief around getting things that weren't healthy for me, like the way i've been treated by too many people.  those things caused me to lose my sense of self, confidence, self-assurance, knowing myself, who i am, who i present, who i am w/ others or the world in general.  lots and lots of loss.  but way too much to deal w/ on my own.  and first i need stabilization anyway, and i chance to be heard and understood, cuz i know i don't react to some things the way the majority do.  meditation, tai chi, yoga, certain music and sounds, and the like.  my energy does not correspond w/ that type of energy. 

at any rate, just knowing how much grief i still hold inside is a biggie.  feeling those feelings of pain and hurt that came out of me a few weeks back - wow!!  how much more of that is still inside me?  is it any wonder, then, that my body can't function the way it needs to at times?  that i collapse when there's too much of one stress or another in my life?  i'm already full up, and adding more causes the water to overflow the glass.  maybe someday . . .

hey, PC, quite an incident.  i'm also glad you were able to go back to sleep.  and i do hope your credit card thing gets  straightened out sooner than later.  finances stuff is so messy.  and can be so triggering.

just a question, you don't have to answer - have you grieved any of your past?  for whatever reason, while i was reading your post, the idea of grief came to my mind.  grief for what was, what wasn't, what was lost, what was pushed on us w/o permission - we have so much to grieve, and it keeps coming at us, i don't know how many can keep us with it.  i know i can't.  but i recognized, when the pain i finally felt at an incident w/ my M o those many years ago, was part of grieving.  and it really helped, as painful as it felt at the time, to actually feel it (as you mentioned here).  it seems to have lessened the weight of it quite a bit.

i'm glad for your nervous system you were able to forego the 'meds' to get back to sleep.  that's a biggie, to my mind.  love and hugs

i don't know what happened - had a whole big reply to what you wrote, lost it, i think, but then it turned up in some zombie way and i can't figure out how to fix it.  at any rate, it's all fascinating. o, here it is.

well, chart, that's a lot of info, and i'm sure i didn't 'get' all of it.  i do understand that we cannot learn healthy relationship patterns when we're in the midst of an unhealthy relationship. even when we're trying to make sense of what's going on, such as the brain predicting safety in an unsafe environment, and therefore failing via prediction error, it's gonna mess up our minds, our perspectives, even our perceptions of what's wrong w/ this picture.  i think we often answer that last question with 'me - i'm wrong'.  it takes us a long time to realize the reality of a dangerous/unhealthy relationship cuz for the most part, as we were growing up, those were the only kind we were exposed to.  hard to recognize a complete stranger.

interesting stuff.  and i see our brains and minds as 2 different entities.  i think of our brains as the processors, and our minds as the holding areas.  the brain does all the electrical work of connecting, adjusting, recording, while the mind then holds onto it all in the best way it can.  i think that's why we say 'i'm losing my mind!' cuz we're losing the info which was stored there. 

as far as traumatic incidents, i think the brain records them, but because of the trauma involved in the experience, they get stuck/frozen in the brain as such, so when the mind goes to hold the experience, it ends up holding the original version and its impact on us (physically, emotionally, mentally).  that's why there's no getting away from it with talk therapy unless something like emdr, progressive counting, flash technique, or any of the others that actually help the brain to 'unfreeze' the image and its resounding original effects, put it into a more reasonable perception, and diminish it so the mind isn't holding onto the original effects of the trauma anymore and can instead hold a true reality of what the trauma was about.

whew - i overworked my brain there, i think!  anyway, all this stuff is fascinating to me.  thanks for posting this - it really got me going this morning.  and, no, i didn't use chat gp, or whatever - i personally don't like the AI stuff, even tho i know it's taking over.  just like so much else, i'll resist it.  maybe i'm just stubborn that way. love and hugs, chart

thank you so, chart, for the love and care you send me.  it helps so much.

on another note, i read in one of your posts about feeling/not feeling pain and how it may be connected to healing.  it brought up the memory of not too long ago when i finally felt the pain of having my doll disappeared from me by my mother, and how, 70 yrs. later i finally felt the pain of it.  and awful it was, too,  several days of it.   it may just be, tho, as you suggested, that w/o feeling that pain, it simply stayed inside, causing a ruckus w/ my innards in some way, maybe down to a cellular level.  now i've felt it, it's come out of me, even tho the feeling of it caused major stress responses, i do think there may be a healing element to it.  thank you for bringing that up.

finally had a good night's sleep. i think i'll be able to continue writing on my third myth and magic book - i've got 2 done, and this whole writing thing is feeling like the third iteration of my life.  hairdresser, therapist, now author.  besides, of course, wives and mother along the way, college, trade school, work, while the rest were happening.  i guess i've had a pretty busy life.  a great life, actually.

and coping, struggling, confused - all that went along w/ the c-ptsd, learning about that, about myself in relations to it, the other issues that have caused me pain, anxiety, floatiness, following others in order to know where to go and how to be.  bucking the 'norm', battling to be me w/o even knowing who i am.  weird by wonderful in some ways.  lots of adventures, lots of stories, a life fully lived.  a belief system no one else can quite follow, even i can't follow it sometimes.  people afraid of me cuz i'm spontaneous and unpredictable.  can't be controlled, i guess, as someone once told me.

just some reflecting.  sometimes it's good for me to look back, see where i've come from, what i've come thru.  i think it's a grounding thing.

still thinking about parts.  some responses to one of my posts mentioned my parts, how they're feeling.  i truly don't know if i have parts, except the gray lady, who is the one who endures whatever situation i'm in that i want to run from but know i have to stay, see it through.  i'm definitely not aware of any part like i've heard so many people talk about here.  i feel rather nebulous most of the time, do things w/o much thought or planning, couldn't ever answer that job application question - where do you see yourself in 5 yrs.?  never had a clue how that could even apply to me. 

i can relate to having inner children, can see them when i look inside.  at least, can connect them to certain incidences throughout my life.  but parts?  nope, can't pinpoint anything like that.  i just don't see them.

PC, i was so moved by all you talked about.  i know about things being taken from me when i was young - they were disappeared and i had to make up fairy stories to explain it to myself because not to do so  . . . well, my little mind could not fathom or cope w/ such a reality. 

yeah, using illness as an excuse to be non-productive, as if we need one.  we have all the excuse we ever need, no, not excuse, reason, we have a verifiable reason to take time for ourselves, read, play on the computer, read, watch tv, whatever it is that helps calm and soothe those frayed and fragile nerves.  they were ravished in the worst way, and thank the stars you have been able to now know that.

this isn't on you, never was, never will be.  the people who did this are the ones who deserve the shame, blame, guilt, all the bad gunk we carry ourselves on their behalf.  what you deserve is peace, comfort, love, and caring, all the things you didn't get but have always deserved.  i have no doubt that 8% is a testament to you taking care of you the way you've always needed, and w/o an excuse.  it's just because that's what is best and healthiest for you.  standing by you thru it all.  love and hugs

thank you so, TBB.  i appreciate all the healing sent my way.  i just need to rest off the stress of last week.   

hannah1, i forgot to thank you for your validating words - haven't been thinking straight, foggy brain and all.  thanks for the extra hope coming my way - much appreciated.  i think i've been thru this ordeal enough times to know i want a T who wants to take care of me, not the other way around, and i'm no longer afraid to say so.  i was, very much so, in the past, but it's been a long road and a lot of practice w/ much encouragement from people like you to get me to where i am.  thank you so.   

hangin' in.  cutting way back this weekend.

chart, your thanks are profoundly and gently received because a lot of us know how very difficult it is to take in the good stuff.  we know, with bells on, how to take in the bad - lots of practice with that.  here, amazingly enough, there are a bunch of honest, caring people who, as far as i've known, do not lie when they give out compliments.  for me, it's been part of the reprogramming, getting pos. stuff over and over until it finally finds its way to sinking in, even if only an inch at first, but eventually all the way to the heart, cells, and soul. 

we wouldn't say these things if we didn't mean it.  with our experiences, we know what pos., healthy parenting looks like, and i, for one, absolutely want to celebrate it.  you deserve it, chart.  i hope you can begin taking it in as real.  this is what we all wish we had.  love and hugs

thank you, DF - i could feel your presence as i read what you wrote - very warm and soothing.

still feeling crappy, had like fever sweats last nite, so shower and sheets changed this morning.  can't wait for this to run its course.  again.

hey, DF, i'm on the cusp, and i can see how that played out as i look back on my life, how it still plays out at times.    good luck when you see the psych.  and well done talking to the doc and getting that all straightened out for yourself. 

keep taking care of you, ok?  love and hugs

aaaah, grief.  i don't doubt that a lot of us have a lot of grief that needs to come up and out, so i'm glad for you, hope, that you're noticing some of yours.  we have lost so much over our lifetimes, on so many different levels.  i know i still have tons of grief somewhere inside, but i don't know that i have the time left anymore to get at it.  still, i can appreciate when others tap into it.  you're doing so well, hope.  keep up the good work.  love and hugs

i'm suffering from stress flu today, it came on yesterday, so i don't have much energy, but i do want to thank DF, TBB, NK, and HannahOne for your cheering me on, giving me all that support, and letting me know this is what 'being heard' means, which any trauma T should already know and practice.

    so glad for you!  love and hugs

 

and for frank - 

mindful can be a healing thing.  love and hugs

  i echo everything NK said.  it can be so disheartening to not be able to predict, to ride the wave at a high only to be crashed in the next minute w/o knowing how or why.  love and hugs