Messages

ooops, lost my page.

armee, thanks so much for the phrase 'without disabling' me.  i didn't have those words before, but yes, that's exactly what happens when i have/expel such strong emotions/feelings.  i do become disabled, just never thought of that term before.  it would be nice to find someone who will take that seriously when i tell them about it.  slower/smaller really is better for me. 

hannah1, thank you for that validation.  i do believe it affects all those little goodies we have inside, down to the cellular level.  whew!  that's a lot! 

NK, i agree, now that you mention it, that it is very easy to overlook if we aren't at a funeral, something tangible, that we have losses to grieve.  i like your comparison.  thanks so much for that. 

in a few hours a chat w/ a new T.  i have a good feeling about her.  and next Mon., a whole session w/ another one.  we'll see how it goes, 2 down, 2 out so far.  as my D was reading a list of candidates she'd found, one mentioned she was trained in EMDR Level 1.  i had to immediately nix her off our list.  there are 2 levels of EMDR basic training, (i've gone thru both of them), and for someone w/ complex trauma, i don't think Level 1 is enough experience and knowledge to deal with dissociation, DID, the complexities that come w/ my alexithymia. 

so, i've been culling the herd in this manner as well.  i'm watching out for 'parts' people, too.  maybe someday, but not now.  i think the one on mon. is big on attachment theory, and i can go along w/ that, except for the experience i had w/ the first T i contacted, where he was trying to guess and label my attachment levels.  so, i don't know.  there's so much stuff out there that wasn't around or being looked at when i was in practice, such as c-ptsd itself, i guess i'll have to wait and see.  as always.

hey, hope, i know you take breaks away from here, maybe from all things digital every so often, and it seems that when you return you're always glad you did it.  good for you.  and well done picking and choosing about your books.  if it made you feel lighter, it must've been a good thing,

it seems to me you've become quite adept at knowing what you need and don't need.  excellent work you've done to reach that point.  keep it up, ok?  love and hugs

thank you for stopping by w/ a hug, armee.  it felt good.

PC, thank you for sharing your empathy.  grief is such a big deal, and yes, we'll get thru it together.

TBB, those big hugs are my favorites.  thank you so.  this is a lot.

hope, thank you for that big hug.  i know what's behind it, and i can feel it.

PC, yes, yes we are.  and it's wonderful.  thanks.

hannah1, thanks for the validation.  and all those lovely hugs.

just thinking about grief, and how many of us have so much of it inside that we haven't been able to feel, let go of, or continue to carry around in our bodies, on our shoulders, in our hearts - i wonder how many bodily illnesses might be connected to the amount of grief inside us, wreaking havoc on our innards, on our brains and minds.  if i think of that, i get a sense of urgency about letting it out, getting rid of it.

i mean, grieving means feeling the pain of the loss.  w/o grieving, we are carrying huge amounts of pain inside us.  and pain carries with it it's own type of neg. energy, does it not?  maybe i'm reaching here, but it makes sense to me, that our feelings/emotions are energy-charged.  that can be the only explanation i can think of as to why anticipation of a happy event, like a visit or a gathering or something meaningful can cause me stress.  for many years i've learned that i have to tamp down my feelings of excitement and anticipation or i get sick.  i've even had to cancel a trip to the states when i lived in mexico because of being too sick to travel.

so, to me it doesn't matter what position a feeling takes, so-called pos. or neg., it still has its own energy.  dang, i can't wait to find  a T and be able to start working on this.  i'm too scared now to do it on my own after my last experience.

what an amazingly pos. response you have to the whole credit card thing, PC.  i don't know that i would have come to that in a million years! 

this whole thing of 'allowing' life to happen rather than rushing around trying to make it happen the way we want is very interesting to me.  i've done it myself.  i think it's a control thing - the more we feel in control of a situation, including 'life', the safer we feel.  and, that's all we're looking for, is safety, that feeling that we can just be free to be w/o having to worry about getting killed.  i think the more we become sure of our own confidence to use our tools and skills (such as reframing theft), the less fearful we can become. 

not an easy or quick task, necessarily, but sometimes it just happens.  like someone talking about feeling completely present as a person in the now, or finding that peace of mind for a few minutes.  we are such marvelous creatures. 

Hannah1, that your children can grow and bloom was a breath of fresh air for me.  i'm grateful to you that they have that opportunity, one you didn't get, yet, like frank, you don't run.  you stay there, knowing where you're needed, needing what you're knowing.  well done on ending that cycle of abuse for your kids.  there are too many parents who don't.

and i'm guessing frank says the same to you - thanks for making it thru no matter how hard it was, cuz now you're here w/ me, my own lovely human. love and hugs

i wrote this before your next post came on.  just wanted to let you know i agree about slowing down, stopping at times to let things catch up, and that so many of these masterpieces of our lives, like becoming fully present, or, for me, feeling an emotion, do happen on their own, in their own time.  rushing seems to brick them up somehow, and often doesn't work.

it's ok, as you know, to take your time.  we're still here for you no matter what.  love andhugs

this was so much for me, i need a break.  thanks to all of you.  more later.

i agree w/ NK that the fastest way is thru rather than around.  i know so many people who have problems, and they use various means to avoid looking at them, feeling the feelings, etc. - shopping, cleaning, working, screentime, exercise - you know the list goes on and on.  i myself have a hard time slowing down, being still.  my D and i were talking about meditating the other day, which i've had low to no success with, unless it was a short guided meditation for relaxing.  she went to a zen retreat once to see if she could quiet her mind, it was terrible for her and she felt like a complete failure until the leader told her that if she simply takes the time to stop 'doing' and sit, even if it lasts a few seconds, she has reached her goal.  the goal being stopping doing things, even if for a moment. 

i took that and went with it yesterday.  i was only able to sit still for a minute, maybe 2, but i was able to come away feeling satisfied.  i think we accomplish a lot more than we give ourselves credit for cuz we only see the big picture and think that's the only one that means success.

so, yeah, stopping during our day for even a minute may not be a bad idea.  small steps, right?  love and hugs

chart, i cry all the time, especially about love and children.  the idea of feeling loved is still kind of foreign to me - the lack of feelings thing - and i can't watch shows anymore where children are being hurt, abused, manipulated in bad ways, etc.  or people, for that matter.  there was a show called 'doll house' - joss whedan - and i watched one episode before my nervous system went haywire w/ what i was seeing.  too close to home.

i think most of us have a lot to grieve, but it's painful, which would be my guess as to why we tend to shy away from it. to me, it's very distressing, all those feelings coming out at one time.  it easily gets me sick the next day or three.  so, for that reason, i avoid it whenever possible. 

if the level of EMDR you're doing or the subject you're targeting is too much for your system, you can ask your T to do the eye movements more slowly and with more breaks, or break down whatever you're working on into smaller bits.  i've done that, and it helped not to get overwhelmed at the same time i could let the tears flow.

well done on helping your body re-regulate itself.  keep up the good work!  love and hugs    

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