Messages

Sorry for the novel, thanks for reading if you got all the way through it!   

Out with the old... in with the new!  So... what's the new, here?

Has anyone else noticed, since starting and being well INTO their recovery, a heightened sensitivity to others' negative mood and tone of voice?  I italicize 'heightened' because in a lot of cases, going NC has brought down my stress and made me more able to let other peoples' stress slide off my back - I know what's theirs is theirs and what's mine is mine... but perhaps that is when I am easily able to remove myself from a situation.

Before going NC with my NPDmom, and before all the lightbulb moments and coming so far in my own self-education and self-care, I had a lot more resistance and defenses in place for dealing with angry, morose, self-centered people.  I felt like absorbing or deflecting a constant barrage of negativity and stress was just part and parcel of being around other people, particularly family because, you know, you can just be yourself around family (i.e. lazier and less accountable for your emotional footprint).  People are stressed, people don't deal well with their stress, people can't be expected to take care of themselves, people aren't responsible for their own emotional health, people aren't responsible for the emotions they put into a room, there aren't ways to take that responsibility, people hoist their negative emotions onto the people around them - these were truths so real that they weren't even examined, they were just the wallpaper and the furniture in the room that you don't even see any more you've been living with them for so long.

Now that I know none of that is true, and can see the lack of health in it, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to be around people who are aren't taking care of themselves and are letting their lack of emotional health come out in their tone of voice, like toxic fumes in the air everyone else is forced to breathe.  My cousin, specifically - her stress level is very high, I suspect she has rage issues, and it's always boiling just below or at the surface. 

(I'm out of the country right now, one week into a three week visit to my cousin and her two young kids, one of whom is very special needs - here helping her move, basically doing the work of a live-in nanny + mover/organizer, which I don't mind, she needs the help... it's just been a challenge because I've been in a c-ptsd recovery depression haze for about three months so jumping head-on into this has required a lot of mental upkeep and self-care...which my cousin is basically unaware of.)

More than half of what she says is in a high pitched, raised voice, ranging from emphatic to outright screaming, in an angry tone, worded in a way that expresses outraged incredulity at the person's behavior or just the simple state of things - a sort of mocking, criticizing, exasperated tone is the default.  She goes from zero to I'VE EFFING HAD ENOUGH in the space of one sentence.  I truly don't think she's aware that that's what she sounds like, or that she'd give any thought to the effect it might have on anyone else - 'you don't know what my life is like' would be the response. 

It's not that she doesn't have reasons to be stressed, it's that she ... well, sadly, as she opened up to me one night, she just wishes someone would come in and save her from her life.  She has no interest or knowledge in learning about emotional health - the second a suggestion is made, she's stopped listening and is making "But you don't understand" excuses.  She just can't hear it.  I don't think she's got a PD!  I think that life has dealt her a really difficult hand and that she's been a nervous person her whole life to begin with, and her mom wasn't - isn't - the 'tell me how you're feeling' sympathetic listener type, so I think my cousin sort of, simplistically put, feels the need to be loud so that maybe someone will make her feel heard.  She does deal with the demands of her life fairly well on the surface, getting things done, it's just the emotional run-off that is noxious to be around.

This isn't really about her, though - it's about being my being around her all the time (which I have to be, living with her for the next two weeks), and how it is soooo much harder for me.  Used to be, I could handle it with all the old emotional forcefields I've developed since childhood - my cousin is basically a sweet person who means very well, unlike my mother, and has actual real life problems she is having to deal with every day, unlike my mother who fostered her own misery and the misery of others, so comparatively dealing with my cousin was a walk in the park. 

But now I am having a really hard time being around the CONSTANT negativity and anxiety - she doesn't seem to understand that it is not my job to sooth her anxiety - of course I listen and behave in an appropriate sympathetic way, but sometimes I'm not able to be present and her anxiety amps up and up and up when someone isn't there to come to her rescue - I think being around someone who has and can enact boundaries is a whole new thing for her.  I have only been around her for a week and I am finding myself avoiding her in the apartment, and being reluctant to express any emotion around her at all.  Trying to have a conversation with her about 'the way she talks' would not go over well, she's just too hyper-sensitive to criticism (she's doing the best she can!!!) to hear that it's not me judging HER, it's me asking for something I need.

So this is a new stage in my recovery journey.  The old tricks aren't working - I no longer feel comfortable around unhealthy behavior - I need clean air.  I can recognize that her behavior is a result of her stress, her life, her habits and I don't take it personally, so that's good; I am emotionally detached enough that I don't feel like I need her to recognize my feelings because her behavior isn't hurting me, so much as it is making me uncomfortable to be in her presence.  Maybe this is a time when I need to stick up for myself more?  Because I'm living with her for another two weeks and so... I'm gonna be in her presence and that's a long time to be uncomfortable.  But I really don't think saying 'hey can you stop sounding so angry every time you open your mouth' even in a really 'this is about me not you' way will do anyone any good.  Maybe I just need to buckle down grit my teeth make nice get through the two weeks.  :/  This is part of the 'figuring out what's normal and healthy' without a role model bit, I suppose...

She talks that way to her kids all the time too, and it makes me wince.  We teach our kids how to respond to stress and I see how her kids are learning from her and it makes me think of me and my mom... yowee.   

I just want to let you know that I heard your story, and I feel for how much you have gone through. It sounds like there has been a lot of pain, loneliness, and physical pain to boot.

I hope you find peace and serenity bit by bit, day by day and wish you well on your path. The only advice I can offer is that you look up tools and activities for practicing compassion towards yourself - your deserve lots of it!!

RRecovery, thanks for your post - can I asked how you linked your meds to your IBS symptoms?

Thank you read your replies. I am feeling somewhat better. I slept (with nightmares).  I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing... i guess my 'inner critic' is drowning everything out. It's making me want to lash out at my partner. A disagreement we had triggered this - maybe more honestly I was triggered and we had a disagreement - and I am totly perplexed in terms of how to honor my own feelings, ask for what I need, speak up for my own boundaries when they're crossed, and be fair and say 'look I know this isn't all your fault' at the same time. Rather.... I'm only saying 'sorry, i shouldnt be freaking out on you' and freaking out on him.

Im so frustrated with me brain. I feel like i ahould just pack my bags. When actually i know i am loved.  !!!!

I can hardly breathe, i feel trapped, alone, like there's no place to go, no place where i will ever feel safe, no way to ever get past feeling abandoned. Sobbing shaking just want to disappear.

funny that you just replied - i was coming to this thread to remove the post!  between this and my talking about the board format being my 'intros' to the board, and this post not having any replies, i was feeling like i'd really gotten off on the wrong foot here    so i was going to try to have a clean slate.

i was thinking the above occurrence wasn't even an "EF" and i had misunderstood the concept. 

Hi Liliuokalani 

I just wanted to share with you information regarding consent - like that found at consentissexy dot net and consented dot ca

I do a lot of work with consent education and hope you will find these resources interesting and empowering! 

My very best to you. 

Lonewolf, I get that too. Nice things I can do for myself, and then somehow I put them off. Now, I'm not at all sure about this, but my working theory right now is: I got taught that any attention is bad attention. Anything that draws attention to myself also draws emotional abuse to myself. Anything REAL that I show anyone will only give them more ammunition - and their barbed comments and smirks are only going to hurt the more because it's hitting something REAL. So, ironically, the very things that are most "me" and that would please my Inner Child - those are the very things I learned to hide, hide, hide, hide, hide. Or to just stop doing them altogether, that was safest. Whenever I think about playing the piano or painting or buying myself some book I'd like, there's this strong reflex that tells me "oh dear me, no, don't EVER do that, it'll just give them ammunition, don't take that risk, not just now".

This subject is so hard for me. 

For me, it's like, play time, anything that's just for fun, is like I'm just effing off again.  Why am I not in university getting degrees and makin' careers?  Singing is one of my passions - I used to study opera - and I would LOVE to get back to voice.  My T right now is even telling me to do something for myself, 'behavioral activation'.  Just to get out of the house and be around people and do something that feels good.  But I feel like any a)expenditure of money is irresponsible b)recreational activity is a waste of time c)fun is something i don't deserve because all i've done so far is 'goof off' and it's time to buckle down and start doing something with my life. 

but if part of the treatment for what i'm dealing with right now is to have fun.... *?!?!

Annegirl, thanks for posting that.  I relate to it SO MUCH.  I do that ALL THE TIME.  I'm emailing the content of your post to my boyfriend and adding 'THIS, THIS is what I'm talking about.'

This DEFINITELY happens to me.  I'll walk into the next room to grab my phone to call Fred, see another task I was in the middle of earlier, try to get some headway done on that, remember I haven't had any water that day, go drink some, remember I don't know where my phone is, go find it, go back to the living room and realize I have made no headway on the laundry, start folding it, realize I might calm down a little if I turn on a tv show while I fold, go on like this for two hours, and then realize I never called Fred.  The whole time feeling generally hazy, foggy, tingly, vaguely guilty for not being more on top of things, vaguely silly for probably appearing to an imaginary onlooker to be totally disorganized, like, where is my brain?!  Trying to find a sense of humor about it... trying to find an explanation for it... like, maybe I should take a vitamin... maybe I should eat something healthy... maybe I should have more structure in my day...

Is this ctpsd? Couldn't we call this a bunch of different things?  The

I bought Nancy Drew books for my IC

I love this!!

I'm reading "The Emotionally Absent Mother" by Jasmin Lee Cori (has anyone read it?) and I'm only on the third page and I'm having a big "Wait a second..." moment.

It's talking about how the 'good enough' mother has to have, more than the natural capacity to be in sync (defined as in a harmonious state together, with the mother attuned to the child), is the capacity to repair out-of-syncness so as to reestablish optimal connection. "The good-enough mother needs to repair the inevitable ruptures that occur in every relationship. She is not always going to behave just right, but she has to know how to make it right when she misses. ... For a child to be able to rectify the inevitable disruptions in this relationship is empowering ... Conversely, to not be able to get Mother's attention, to not be able to reconnect after there has been a disconnection, can leave the child feeling profoundly impotent and discouraged about relationships and about getting her needs met."

Um... You mean it was my mom's job to make things better the thousands of times there was a rift between us?
You mean all those times my mom's feelings got hurt and she stomped off and threw a tantrum, it wasn't MY job to make HER feel better?
You mean all the times she was only cold and distant no matter how many times I apologized and explained and pleaded, and I felt like she was damaging me... she WAS? Like, science has proven it?
You mean all the times she wailed at me about how much I was hurting her, and I raged back because I didn't feel like it was my job to make her feel better - it WASN'T?
You mean all the times when I was a kid, just a little kid, and she told me I'd embarrassed her or hurt her feelings and withheld her affection from me, she was doing the opposite of what a mom is supposed to do? And feeling sad was a healthy response?
Sometimes she could be so loving... she would tell me she loved me more than anything else in the world.

Anyone relate?

Hi Redd.  I'm new to this forum too, and I'm right there with you - NC with my npd mom.  10 months this time, and neverrrrrr going back.  Hope you're taking good care of yourself. 

I'm so sorry for the pain you endured then, and the aftershocks you're dealing with now. 

I experienced nightmares every, single, night from October '14 until February of this year about my mom.  EVERY night.  Really bad, always different, they always interrupted my sleep, sometimes I could get back to sleep, sometimes not - sometimes I woke up sweating, shouting, crying - finally when I started experiencing actual symptoms of exhaustion I went to see my doctor and she prescribed a PTSD medicine calls prozosin.  It's technically a blood pressure medication.  It TOTALLY nixed my nightmares.  I had to stop taking it after a couple of weeks because of the BP aspect of it, but the nightmares never came back! 

Hope you find something that works for you.