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I had an interview for a job, it felt like it went well

I am posting

I breathed through listening to what I had done while dis-associative without succumbing to an angry outburst of physically attacking myself

I haven't read it yet. I am slowly reading Healing From Trauma by Jasmin Lee Cori. I can usually manage about a page before it is too much for me.

Thank you all for your kind words

thank you. I think I need more of the courage in your signature. and maybe some 

I am having a triage day, where my SO of 20+ years (mother of my children) has reached a limit of how much of my dissociation (that has been going on since Halloween) she can continue to cope with. Of course she saw it coming and talked to me as it was starting about self-care, and I promised to do  more to try to fend off the triggering that always comes with the holidays, because last year was so bad. I failed to do so, as evidently my own needs were more important to me than theirs. We had a family meeting over Thanksgiving, about how it was still going on. Now it is a week to Xmas. I emailed my sometimes therapist, and I am posting here, because I said that I would. I am supposed to be doing my meditation and Tai Chi everyday, but I don't seem to be able to find the time and space to do it. I can at least say that I posted, which is better than usual.

I was raised to be a critical thinker. Mostly I feel that was a blessing and I see it as one of my defining traits. Tonight, however, it's causing me to want "proof", empirical evidence, that I am not permanently broken

Awesome! Use It!
http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node6.html
What is the ``scientific method''?

  The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the truth from lies and delusion. The simple version looks something like this:

1. Observe some aspect of the universe.
2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.
3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.
When consistency is obtained the hypothesis becomes a theory and provides a coherent set of propositions which explain a class of phenomena. A theory is then a framework within which observations are explained and predictions are made.

Seriously, make lists and other logical-thinking stuff (I'm writing as an outsider here, I'm truly not a critical thinker)

write it out, go ahead, give yourself permission to have what you need :-)

to you, Three Roses.

so much

I can personally attest to the caring you have given to each and every one of my posts. I cannot possibly thank you enough.

and... don't laugh, but...

"ugh" is really a just an anagram for "hug", you know...

I find myself barely holding on, emotionally, recently because I have been feeling so alone. I'm glad to be here and hope to find some solutions.

Welcome!

[NOT]

i just keep posting, and i encourage you to as well.

because here it isNOT ... it's more like   

Then I remembered that my friend's distance was only the immediate cause of it and not the root of the problem.

For the longest time, I had the entirety of http://mwkworks.com/desiderata.html memorized, and I'd recite it to myself when I felt I needed to (which was fairly tbh), and what comes to mind in reading this thread is: "Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story."

The only respite I have ever found from the quasi-vampiric hunger my FOO left me with, was to disavow completely their narci behaviour. Simple, although simple is never easy. Part of my personal work is to attempt what they never have (so far as I can see), which is to know that all the people around me also[/] have their own pain and suffering

When I can manage it, I'm able to get outside of the EF loop-de-loop, and see other people's faces, see in their eyes, that they too have their story

It's the antonym of isolating, and it's terrifying, and it's wonderful

[must]

I have these all the time, basically any time that I'm not actively concentrating on something. As such there's no limit to them, and they often aren't distinct. It's normal for me that when I walk or bike somewhere I'm almost constantly having emotional flashbacks, and 'daydream' (more intensely than other people) as a coping mechanism. Like I'll feel attacked (because of some trigger that day that I really have to think back to determine, if I even can) and then I'll have a blinding image of fighting and defending myself, for instance. I can't escape the emotions that come to me (feeling attacked, unsafe, lonely, small, in danger etc) but escaping into my imagination can make it survive-able, because I almost commandeer the scene.

I feel you, or perhaps I only feel myself as usual, but what you write here is intensely similar to my own experience. For me, what seems to be useful is to embrace as an adult the means of surviving that child-me discovered, and then own it, as long as I can, as an adult. I don't ever truly feel that I can commandeer the scene, but rather that I am telling a story to myself, I give myself permission to live in that other, story world as much as I need to be. I permit the story to exist, within, behind, through and throughout the work-a-day world that everybody else seems to be a part of effortlessly. I suppose, what I'm writing is that for me, the storytelling must occur, so... would I rather it happen invisibly, so that I can't understand why I behave the way I do? Would I rather it be so completely forefronting that it obliviates any connection I might have to the banal? I have experienced both, and they result consistently in my harming those I love, continuing the great inheritance of abuse.

  Hey all.  Still trying to get back home in the fullest sense of the phrase. This online forum is great, but I'd like to also be able to *talk* , really talk and share a cuppa with

Even if it's just one person

Anyone interested?

Thanks :-)

I'm right there with you joeybird.

last night my partner woke me up in the wee  hours, because i was having a nightmare again, and make "that sound" which apparently is a kind of moan that she called "the saddest sound I've ever heard"

then I woke up at 6 am in terror and spent 45 minutes "spinning" walking back and forth trying to figure out how to leave a note for our 9-yr-old to call me on the phone, so I could take a walk with Buffy Darling at the park, and every time I tried to choose something I went back and forth and then on tangents and couldn't get anywhere with a simple set of decisions. but I couldn't manage it and it was so terrifying.

So I finally gave in and had to smoke my pipe, and it stopped me from "spinning" and running back and forth. It reduced the frequency and intensity of the waves of feeling, whose peaks are terror and panic and whose troughs are sorrow and regret.

the waves are there, but they are in my heart deeply and painfully, instead of crashing over my head and drowning me, and replacing me with a vicious fomorian changling. I'm my own evil twin brother.

I've had my pipe, maybe four, maybe even five times today alone, when it's usually only one pipe a week if that.

I have a mindfulness bell from http://dknapps.de

it's free and works very well. I have mine set to chime about every five minutes. then when it rings I have simple instructions: when you breathe in think, "i am breathing in", when you breathe out, think, "i am breathing out"

it's the most basic mindfulness.

(of course, irl I'm thinking, "i am breathing in, i am breathing out, I am breathing in, i am freaking out, i am breathing in, i am bre- wait  what?")

so i can joke a little about being lost in the Tulgey Wood, fwiw

so... i just kinda blebbed all over post :oops:

sorry,
James

oh and p.s. to movementforthebetter, i love love love The Last Unicorn :-)

p.p.s joeybird, hang in there and keep on taking care of you :-)

you know how when you're at the doctor's and they point at a row of faces and ask you to tell them which one is closest your pain level?

i wish there was one for my family to point at that says, "this is how dissociative you are right now"

I'd like that

I'm so tender today, and writing to you all may help, I'm working extra today to keep my peace. yesterday my long-suffering partner and our two sons and I were finally able to all sit together and openly talk all together about my dissociation and the ensuing episodes of domestic abuse. it's good, but painful; simple, but not easy.

but now we've given the toxin in our family a name, more can be done together to support each other on healing.

for me the best remembering is that i cannot fight the daemon with force, because it is part of me, and so it rebounds to my me-self whatever I throw at it; it eats and uses that, but can only use what I feed it, it has nothing of it's own.

If I give it the consideration of allowing it to be, with compassion and forgiveness, if I allow it to rage and feel like it's going to consume me, but I give it only breathing to eat, then it burns out without new fuel, and the charred charcoal of my childhood is smoking black embers again, but more swiftly.

for years the child in me refused to suffer anymore, so the daemon turned outward, and my little me hid in my fragile eggshell bunker, while the daemon raged without.

but now we've named it. right now i can allow it to rage in my heart, and not in my home. just for right now and right here. simply breathe here now, only that.

http://macandrui.blogspot.com/2016/06/selfies.html?m=1

hi Simon, it's wonderful isn't it? just knowing that it isn't only you, and then that it isn't all that you are :-)

hello theaquarist and welcome.