Messages

Quick entry today. I've started doing some mirror work. As usual, I was very avoidant to this to begin with, but I think it has a lot of power in honest self-examination.

I've also realized that the barrier to me connecting to the 2yo is different than the 5yo+. It's not self-hate or feelings of not mattering I'm dealing with. It's fear, pure and simple. The 2yo didn't have resources to self-soothe or mitigate her environment. She just lived in it and absorbed it. And it locked away all of the spontaneity and joy because of the dangers surrounding her.

And now that I'm writing this, I'm wondering if that is part of what attracted me to my ex. I know I recognized it in him and as something that wasn't as much in me. I wonder if the 2yo bonded with this aspect, with someone who didn't seem to be afraid of the world. Hmmmm...

I adore this post!!!! Good for you, on all fronts. Being brave and vulnerable (at the same time) and recognising where that critical voice is coming from. All are huge things!

Jdog: I agree. It's so important to listen to yourself and let that be a guide.

Stella: My gut told me that pure cbt wouldn't be beneficial for me, either. I'm glad that your current therapist is working well for you.

Rr, I'm in awe of your perseverance! There is always so much focus on end goals and so little on the journey. How do you feel when you look at your journey, what do you see? I see a strong warrior, relentlessly pursuing the path, and each day rising to push forward.

  Keep telling your truth, Apples, it's an essential part of healing.

I'm so sorry your mother and father both couldn't love you the way you deserved to be loved.

Let me be the first to say it, if no one else has: I'm so glad you were born. You are very much wanted and ESSENTIAL to this world. You are worthy of life and worthy of love. Your value is not even in question, not one single piece of it, from when you were a baby, a child, an adolescent and as an adult. I believe in you.

"Do we want to or can we gain from walking away from the pain and shifting focus entirely on the present and changing current patterns. In other words, are we remaining in victim mode when we continuously don waders and muck around in bad memories?"

For me, the answer to this is that the present is changed only by healing what has happened in the past.

I hear what you're saying wrt staying in the past too long. If you're there continuously and unable to lift the darkness and find a release, it can overwhelm. It's a difficult balance and I'm grateful to my T for being on the journey with me as she can help me move things better.

Left alone, my natural tendency is to repress and avoid, focus on the present and shaping the future. But that hasn't worked out so well.   I really believe in the need to go through the pain instead of around it. To those on the outside, that may look like wallowing or self-pity, and it is hard for us to not absorb that viewpoint. But they are also not responsible for the healing that must be done. That rests with us.

So I try to accept that there will be those who have a misguided view of how I am processing and changing me, and try to be compassionate towards them when my vulnerability brings out negative reactions. But sometimes, in my humanness, I'd like to tell them to eff off.

  It's the freshest wound on top of very old wounds, so it makes sense to me that you would feel that way. I'm just getting to the point where I can see him and not lapse back into those emotions, and it's definitely not consistent. You are taking the time to heal which means working through all those painful emotions instead of ignoring them.

My ex posted a profile on match.com, six months after the split, where he claimed he had been separated for a year right after he said that honesty was his primary quality. It's pretty laughable in hindsight, but certainly didn't feel that way at the time. He also used photos from an anniversary and Christmas that we were together...so obviously he didn't have quite the same association with them that I did. I believe that he's just going through the motions and not even in a relationship with himself, and he'll never truly be in a real relationship with someone else until he can do that. I'm glad I can see that and equally glad that I can tell myself it's not mine to fix.

As you know, it's now about being on the same page from a coparenting perspective. I've been able to bring some of the stuff I'm learning about me to my kids. It's healing for them, too, and he can see that. I know you'll do the same.

Be gentle and kind with yourself, and recognize that the hurt is an echo of things from the past. As you heal little C, you will also start to feel stronger here, but for now it's about compassion and love for yourself, especially when the pain is heavier. Accepting the pain, letting it know it's okay to be there, and giving yourself a strong dose of love after.

No, no, you weren't overly defensive at all. I'm so glad you stopped and clarified.

Oh, I'm so sorry if my comment was off base, Jdog. I can see why it would bring about that ache. : hug:

I hope you're able to find your peace with the day and celebrate the good memories you have.

I'm also nc with my mom right now. And I know she's martyring herself because of that. But that's okay. I'm allowed to make decisions about who I want to be in relationships with, as an adult.

As for mother's day, the only hiccup I'm anticipating is that my siblings and I have pitched in on a gift for her for the past few years and I may get asked to do it again. I'm not making up my mind on what I'll do until I get asked.

  I get that, entirely. The taking and taking...and then I question myself on how much I gave, and whether his taking was my giving. It can really mess with my head.

But here's what I try to remember to bring back sanity and hope: he couldn't give what he didn't have, because he wasn't whole. And his lack of wholeness, his lack overall, is what led to all of that taking. Because he didn't think he was good enough, he had to find those things outside of the marriage and he had to find fault with me to justify it and make him feel that he wasn't in the wrong.

Until he does the work himself, he won't see that. But now I have the opportunity, the gift, to do my own work and to fill my own holes. And if he hadn't done those things, chances are that I would have stayed stuck there.

So while I'll never thank him for hurting me, I am thankful for this gift of freedom and clarity to improve who I am.

Mother's Day truly is a Hallmark holiday, isn't it? Other holidays, like Christmas, Easter, even Valentine's day have a bit of varying shades to them, but Mother's Day seems like it needs to celebrate a certain type of relationship that is predicted on something not even within our power.

I say, * Mother's Day. I'm not going to hide from it or feel badly for not having that Hallmark life. As a mom, it is a joy and delight every day to celebrate my kids...even when they remind me of my own imperfections. Maybe especially when they remind me of that. I feel more alive around them. But I am more than happy to toss that day in the garbage and just celebrate whenever I want. And as for my own mom, I would do the same for her if the relationship was there. But it's not, and that doesn't change based on one day of the year.

I'm freeing myself from the expectations of the messed-up society we live in. And I couldn't be happier about it.

I'm feeling compelled to put something down about my session today. But at the same time, feeling odd about journaling the whole thing. So th flow of this may be a little off.

My T continues to be one step ahead of me, which I am thankful for. I had anticipated we would talk about my breakthrough noted before, and we did but in a different way. As I mentioned when starting this journal, I've begun in the middle, so this will not make sense to anyone else reading.

Today, my T asked me if I had any pictures of me as a very little girl. The IC I am most in touch with is around 5. She wanted younger, though, and I had one of me and my dad at around 2. She asked me what I saw when I looked at myself, and I felt mostly that it wasn't me I was looking at. I also felt that the me at 5 wasn't 3 dimensional. She pointed out the similarity to my mom who is one dimensional.

When I thought more about me at 2, and my own kids at that age, I realized that there isn't as much a sense of self because they just are. Honest, spontaneous, curious, demanding, and the centre of their own world.

So the work we did today was merging the 2yo and the 5yo. We brought both medicine woman and my dad in. I loved that my dad was there, too. I'm hopeful that this will work.

I'll likely come back and revisit this again. Need to give it some time to process and land.

I'm back on sleep meds and adrenal response. Although I had always continued on adrenal response, I had backed off the sleep ones. Some part of me thought I could get additional work done during my wake-ups. While it happened occasionally, it wasn't enough to justify it. The other thing I realized is that it works in conjunction with adrenal response because it's a cortisol manager.

So of course, when I get that starting to balance again, one of the kids gets sick and we end up in emergency. And though my ex knew and expressed concern, there wasn't any offer of help. Actions speak louder than words, right? Kid's okay now and despite the worry, the change in pace was maybe a good thing.

I also had a breakthrough today. Or I'm hoping I did. I came to the realization that I'm denying the feelings I had as a little girl. I can feel compassion for others who have been abused but not myself and I think it's because I refuse to associate this attributes with me. I started a list of words I might associate with me in the face of abuse: helpless, weak, dependent, hurt. And the antonyms are what I tend to think of myself as: strong, independent, capable, okay. When I see someone else in that position I have boatloads of compassion for them. When I see myself in that position, I have so much self hate, it's overwhelming.

I'm not sure where I go from here, but I'm talking to my T about it tomorrow.

Try googling "Adrenal Fatigue" - there's a lot of interaction between cortisol levels and your adrenal glands that can cause extreme fatigue.