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DNA Donors

I struggled with this immensely in my teens and twenties, now to a much lesser degree. It has been a primary source of anguish for me my whole life. I don't really have any advice to give you except to commiserate. I am so sorry because I do understand how you feel.

Hello, I happen to be finishing Pete Walker's book right now. I am so sorry that you have found it triggering in many ways. But I'd like to encourage you to keep reading because redirecting those feelings of abandonment, fear, and depression are the point of the book. I am not sure how far you've gotten, but learning to redirect those feelings toward our family of origin, instead of inward toward yourself, is very very important.
 
Another potential piece of advice would be, perhaps skip ahead to the chapter on grief temporarily. This chapter talks a lot about crying and why we do it and why it can be freeing. I just got through this section myself and I think it could help you.

Myself, I am having a hard time crying. And I'm trying to cry. I wish I could take all of your tears and maybe split them between the two of us to help lighten your load.

Trace, thank you so much for taking the time to read my update and respond. I do not mind at all if people talk to me in my journal. And I do appreciate your encouragement to take the joyful moments as they come and go with it. I did return to Pete Walker's book recently to finish it. And he is driving it home over and over, that we need to love ourselves and be compassionate toward ourselves. This fits exactly what you were saying as well. Thank you again.

Life is a little bit of a roller coaster for me the last few months but I'm feeling better over the last couple days. I was successful twice at thought stopping and redirecting my anger toward my mother rather than inward to myself.

I'm about to start the chapter on grieving and Pete Walker's book. I do OK with the inner critic, most of my problems appear to be with the outer critic and I hope to find some practical advice about keeping myself motivated. It seems I'm so tired from all of the mental anguish that when I do have a good day I just want to stop and enjoy it. But if I don't get anything done that day, I never know what the next day will bring and so I am in an endless loop waiting for three or four good days in a row before anything substantial gets done in my life. I'm not sure what the answer to this is but I am seeking truth as always.

Hi Pam,

Welcome back. Just a few days ago I made a very similar post and I am back to after a long hiatus. I am also struggling with knowing I need to be plugged in, but not feeling plugged in. So we're both kind of in the same boat, and as far as I'm concerned you have a friend in me.

I think you should relax and don't feel confused. You are right if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is probably a duck. I'm sorry you're going through this but your credit is really important and I think you should do whatever you need to do to get her off the loan. Just a few words of encouragement for you. If it were me I would tell her if there is one more late payment, you will repossess the car. & I would follow through on that threat if she is late. Then if that happens you could probably file with the credit bureaus to get it off your record. People like this usually never change unless there are severe consequences. Be strong. You were trying to do the nice thing. You are the one who is in the right.

I joined the forum a while back and then I became pretty reclusive for the last few months. I don't have any friends but I always think of this place as a safe place even though I haven't visited in a while. I am making a new commitment to socializing more and that includes being around more. I hope you're all doing well and I'm looking forward to catching up with what's going on here. My heart aches for everyone with this disorder.

I got about halfway through Pete Walker's book when I took a break to read another book, understanding and treating dissociative disorders. I'm sort of at a standstill in that book for one reason and another. So just visiting here again remind me maybe it's a good time to go and finish Pete's book.

About 2 months ago I started taking an antipsychotic which helps a lot with my depersonalization disorder. But then it took me awhile to realize it also made me super depressed and I missed the connection for a while. So now I have stopped taking the anti psychotic and my depersonalization and anxiety is through the roof. But I'm not nearly as depressed so that's a good thing. I see the doctor in a couple weeks and I hope she will try a different antipsychotic which will help me with my DP hopefully.

In the meanwhile I'm just trying to get through this time and not be so terrified. I hope it's still the drug wearing off and I will feel better in a few days. Thank you for having me back again. I am going to try to stay in touch because I really need people. And I hope to be a good citizen of the forum for others also. Cheers

Time for a little update.  I love knowing this place is here.  Even though I took a long break, I thought of OOTS a lot and knew it was here to come back to.

I am on a new medication, Saphris.  I personalized tremendously, especially emotionally... again, when I started taking it.

I want to write more but I am so short on time.   I just forced myself to make this post though, even though I'm not really in the mood.  It will get me back here, to OOTS and I will read up what my dear CPTSD friends have been up to.

Much love
Jenny

Yes, I thank God for my therapist every day. One thing he has shown me is how good, imperfect people interact and get through life. My mother instilled that everyone must be perfect or they are fatally flawed. The only way for her to accept a person is to trick her own mind into blacking out the flaws (idealization). it is taking me decades of being around normal people to undo the thinking that was instilled in me. Even now when I see it, it amazes me... But its thrilling to me and makes me happy that things are not really the way my mother sees them.  It also breaks my heart to imagine what it's like to ACTUALLY BE HER. what a horrifying thought.

The belsomra is definitely good! I have been playing with the dosage and have pretty much settled on 15mg.  then I started night by night taking away some of the other things. To see if I would still get a good night's sleep and also wake up fairly alerts. So now I cut out the prazosin. when I cut out the Klonopin, I was still getting nightmares even though I didn't wake up as often. So now I'm taking klonopin, belsomra, 100 gabapentin, and metropolol. It's been good! I fall asleep within about 40 minutes. Which is a huge improvement. & I sleep through the whole night. I hope this help somebody!

so today I'm not feeling as great as I was two days ago.  today I became very angry with my mother, because I am finally starting to realize how incredibly mean and horrible she has been to me my whole life, while I still continue to believe in her and couple kept coming back, and she knew the whole time that she had screwed me over, it was a big inside joke for her how she erased me from the planet and took away everything I loved. and I still had faith in her and I still thought she had goodness in her heart and over and over and over again she let me show that and believe it, while on the inside she knew she had totally screwed me over.

so even though it's been almost a year since I talked to her last, I just left her a voicemail and told her that I still really want some pictures of my father, and the things my grandmother left for me when she died, and told her that my father would be furious that she had done everything she did to me. I really shouldn't have done that. Then I called a lawyer and left a voicemail because maybe I should just get a lawyer to help me get these things.

I talked to my husband, by messenger, who is out of town. Now I feel a bit better. When he's gone sometimes I get caught up in thinking about all of this. It's easier when he's gone because I'm a little lazier. but I feel better after talking to him. I have a lot to be thankful for and I love my life.

thank you be! obviously, I have trust issues... Who here doesn't? But I definitely feel a sense of safety here. 

in the past year so much has happened with my family, after my mother contacted me and for the first time in 8 years I responded. this began a roller coaster ride of hope, misery, rememberence, flashbacks, attempted forgiveness, etc. It ended, as I feared, in a total breakdown of reality on her part... Everything I always fear, which is that she won't be anything like I hope she is. but now she's a lot older than the last time, she's 70 and her control is really failing. But I had an awakening of sorts, coming out of a 30 year dissociation that I didn't even realize I had. I had learned to cope, and plans to cope for the rest of my life. & I was okay with that. But fate, God, karma, whatever you want to call it - it had plans that I didn't know about. And now I find myself in this great season of healing. it's often like two steps forward and one step back, and it's emotionally exhausting. But it's SOMETHING! its life! It's me.... Leaving it behind and striking out on my own! for 30 years I realize now the word is I was frozen. I was just waiting for her to come back. The other her, the one that loved me. It's really obvious now that I should have seen it. Because I do things like cry out constantly words like"mama please come back" and "mama where are you?" Yea, duh! my four F is freeze. And that's what I did I waited. I waited and didn't figure out what I liked. I didn't clean my house. I didn't do anything for myself because I was waiting for her. Since I was around 14 years old. That's what kids do. That's what I got stuck doing.

I don't remember why I started with that, I was leading towards something else. But I think that's enough for right now, and I'm finding I want to look for a new dictation app for my tablet. So I'll leave that there and continue later. Today I'm feeling thankful. Thankful that I am my very own person, & I have someone that I can rely on. Me. I'm very reliable, & I know myself and care about myself more than anyone else.

For anyone struggling with this question from the religious standpoint (I know many are not, but some probably are), I sought truth about this for a long time so I will share.

Jesus' forgiveness is the model Christianity gives. Even God cannot forgive us unless we 1. Repent, 2. Publicly display our repentance (baptism) and 3. Accept the forgiveness offered.

How many of us would love genuine repentance, public apology from our abusers, and be able to partially genuinely forgive in those circumstances? I would.

Well if God won't do it without genuine change and repentance, how could He expect me, a mere mortal to? Ridiculous.

These forgive and forget kum-ba-ya Christians need to read their bibles and use the logic that God gave them. And they make God look so unreasonable when they add ideas that were never in the Bible in the first place.

I no longer struggle that I should forgive. At times I have compassion for my abusers, but that is my own heartful gift to give (mercy) if and when I am feeling it."

Trees, yes what I left off the list is paroxetine, I take it at night too. Your explanation is great, thank you for it. What I'm always hoping is, remember or not, that I didn't HAVE the dreams. I'm so sorry you're in this position too. Thankfully, ithas gotten bbetter with age. Early 20s were the very worst for me.