Messages

sending a  to you, D/U. glad things are progressing for you. 

you've done a lot of work by the sounds of it, gongfy, and come a really long way. which i can respect as i know how hard it is. 
fwiw, i wondered if maybe the relatively high level of functionality that you have achieved is actually making you tired at present and thus less able to cope with extra stuff?     which in my experience can lead to feeling frustrated, and guilty, and wanting to isolate and not have to cope with stuff that i don't immediately have to.  that's not such bad thing imo, more a self-protective instinct that i should listen to? maybe you could take some time off and just have some 'cave-time', do something nice for yourself or something? that could help forgive yourself for feeling struggly just now, and be a well earned reward  for the huge amount of progress you've made?
however, two things that also strike me:

i remembered the old image of the layers of the onion, and wondered if recently another area has begun to emerge in your life that is causing you to feel pain and stressed, but without really realising it.  that can make you feel overwhelmed and flashbacky and have an effect on the other things in your life that you've made so much progress in.   in which case, maybe this is a positive rather than a negative thing, and it's a matter of letting things percolate in your soul till you see what the new 'layer' is about and you can get a handle on it.

the other thing that occurred to me is whether the diagnosis of cptsd is a recent thing for you?  that in itself , just the discovery of it, and the combination  of validation and shock that resulted for me was very triggering, even if it was a positive thing for me.  even, after a 18 months, i still get those awful 'and the penny finally drops' moments where i see something else that i never saw about what happened to me. and then i get the shock/validation/triggering of pain that goes with it, yet again. 

whatever it is that's causing you to feel like this, much support as you work it out. you're not on your own.   

hope you're soon feeling better, Kizzie 

i think what you said that is the key perhaps, is 'without sacrificing too much'.  i have a similar situation with my dad.  i have had to step right back from any involvement with his care (complex situation urgh) but i ensure that i am in contact in the only way i (and he) can be, i.e. i write to him and send him the odd book i think he'll like, or small gift that i know will please him.  i expect nothing from him  but he writes me the odd letter back. all very  low key and pleasant, and i am not allowing myself to be sucked in and consumed again  by him/my narc B/family dynamic. 

maybe it's about caring about rather than taking responsibilty for caring for. the first is a moral imperative, the second i mean in the sense of being subsumed and destroyed. clear, firm boundaries, probably.
much support as you work this one out. it's never easy.

right, so it got bad, and i got into a bit of a bad way, so i basically stopped trying to reduce the meds.  and within a week i have stopped feeling so bad... stopped feeling much at all in fact. this is what happens. but it has to be better than being in a constant EF and having the nightmares every night and wanting to do something drastic to myself again. 

sigh. i tried, i guess. 

so i am back to feeling very blank, and sleeping loads. i am still having weird dreams, but the meds stop me from going into meltdown when i wake up. the GP said basically i seem to still need the higher dose to get through the days but said that when i have stabilised again, maybe we can try again but reduce even more slowly than i was doing.   i don't know if i will though.
at the moment, i just want to veg out and not have to feel anything.

it occurs to me that all the professionals seem to look at dissociation as an undesirable state to be in, something to be overcome.  but what the meds do is just a chemical means of dissociating. hopefully in a slightly less unhealthy way than booze, drugs, sex, gambling, gaming.... or is it? who knows the longterm effects this high a dose of antidepressant/anti-anxiety medication will have on me?  the only thing in its favour for me personally is that becos of the other physical problems i have i don't have to pay for them.  i get an exemption for my prescriptions.  i know that is really cynical but i am feeling properly p***ed off about it all at the moment.

will this ever end???

that's brilliant, Dee. you are strong, i will say that.  and very astute as well. congrats on getting right back up and into the fight again. it encourages me in my own fight against totally zoning out, as the last week or two have been pretty awful here too. thanks for showing me all is not lost!  it's funny isnt it, how it often takes other people to point out the crazymakers in our lives  even tho we can see the crazymakers in other people's so clearly?

i feel very angry for you that you have had to deal with this, Dee.  it seems to me that sometimes even those closest to us need, whether they consciously mean to or not, to sabotage us when we are making progress. it's almost that for them, somehow it is more important to maintain the dynamic that has always existed in terms of the way the relationship works, than it is to allow us to be honest and change and heal.  that's what it feels like to me, reading your post. 

if you and your sister have always had these body image issues, i can imagine how hard she might find it that you are dealing with yours in a positive and fruitful way. and that your physical health is improving to boot. that will change not only your relationship with your own body but it will also challenge her with both with her relationship with her own and towards your body image.  it is a complicated thing, and i may be wrong, but if i am right, am not surprised that your recovery raises issues for her that she may not even be able to realise.

you are taking charge. i know it doesn't feel like it, but you have honestly assessed yourself, decided that to get better, you have to rely on someone with more expertise than you to guide you about your weight becos you aren't able at the moment to see clearly. and then you have gone ahead and done it. you have gained weight, and you are approaching maintenance phase.  that is huge!.  i know how hard it is to achieve in this whole battle with anorexia. but you have done it, you're nearly there.  that's taken enormous strength and bravery. people don't understand sometimes just how hard it is.

keep going Dee, you are in control of your life, not your sister. be confident that the decisions you have made and the actions you have taken have been the right ones for you.  i admire you to be honest.

just want to say i think you're doing amazingly well atm. reading that last post, in spite of the triggers you are coping. take heart! 

that is really hard to cope with, blues_cruise. echoing what Wife#2 said, is it poss to make your desk so that you can have two 'entry and exit' points to your space? just a little change might really help find it easier to cope with this. also the EF management techniques, cos i agree, it does sound like it triggers an EF for you.
hope you can find ways to help b_c, 

yes, the reason is that on the high dose (for me anyway: 30mg Citalopram and 50mg Trazodone) i am so exhausted all the time that it makes me feel awful.  tiredness, as i realised the other day, is a huge trigger for me. so it is extra hard to cope with. apart from wanting to sleep all the time.

the upside of taking the higher dose is that the EFs in general seem to reduce and the nightmares are less frequent.

ironic. if i take the full dose, i get EFs from feelings of tiredness, if i lower it, i get EFs from everything else.

sigh. i think i'll stick with it for a week more and if i don't settle down i'll just go back and put up with the tiredness. 

that is true. it helps, annakoen, thank you. it is hard to believe myself, but like you suggest, even if i got it totally wrong, it makes no odds, i don't have to feel guilty about not wanting to stay.  that is a novel concept, believe it or not, becos we were deeply indoctrinated to believe that if we left, we were backsliding and would come under God's judgment. 'Like a dog returning to its vomit is the man who puts his hand to the plough and then turns back' that comes out of the bible. it and many other sayings like it, were used like a tool to keep us in a kind of mental captivity through fear, shame and guilt. that kind of powerful mind control didn't leave a lot of room for deciding to leave 'becos it wasn't working for me'. phew. shocking how even though i can look at it rationally now, and even verbalise what was really happening, that is a belief that still remains rooted somewhere in the depths of me. thank you for helping me to re-realise that. now i feel a bit sick! it still shocks me after so long.

well today has been tough. the way my meds are means that to reduce them slowly enough i have to take one less tablet every other day.  i realised today that on the day following the one where i take the lower dose, i seem to be in almost constant EF which gets worse as the day progresses until i am desperate for meds time to arrive at 6pm.  on the other day, it isn't so bad.  foolish that it has taken a week or two to realise this as a pattern. 
so anyway, today was tough.  i just took my meds so hopefully the anxiety etc will calm down. it didn't help that i  had to go into Oxford for a gastro-entero checkup. the checkup itself was fine, as the colitis isn't flaring at the moment, so i don't have to go back for six months, but the little doctor (when did they all get so young?!) was concerned that i had cancelled my last colonoscopy back in november. when i sort of explained about the cptsd, that i was very ill and suicidal etc at the time and that this is the first time i have felt able to cope with an appointment, he was so sweet and started asking me if i had support, what i did when i felt tempted to hurt myself etc. and it was very kind of him but just him being kind and me having to talk about it threw me straight into flashback. bit of a different story to the other day when i couldn't keep my gob shut!? not sure what happened.

i got out fairly fast, but drove home just managing not to cry. i went to bed this afternoon becos i couldn't face having to cope with all the horrible emotions without being able to take my meds. so i thought if i spent most the time asleep it would be less awful. which it was.

so it all makes me doubt. if it is this difficult to reduce the meds, maybe i should just accept the constant tiredness and go back up.  but then i feel so bad becos of that.  so maybe i should carry on and hope that i will acclimatise to the reduced dose.  i just don't know what to decide.  it's like as ever i am faced with the choice between two unworkable alternatives. i have to chose one. but whichever i chose is going to make me feel awful.  ho hum. what to chose... i hate this.

 sending you a hug  and to what Three Roses said, annakoen. this is treacherous waters indeed and you are doing your best with a difficult situation, and that is good enough.  times like this, it's like you're having to navigate the past along with the present in these relationships which makes feel impossible to cope with. but... you are coping. you are doing good. so take heart and follow your heart. lots of support to you. 

don't know if this helps, but for me, flashbacks, tho not often visual, (more often come out of nightmares, or triggers like certain music, etc.) cause me to dissociate. not intentionally, but it's kind of a reflex like quickly drawing my hand away if i burn it or something.

i relate to the hearing your dad's voice, tho, i hear the cult leader's at times, not literally, but in my head.  these are all mixed up for me... but they all cause emotional flashback in one way or another, no matter how they started.

when i am in flashback my first instinct is to dissociate to get away from the awful feelings that take me over.  so maybe the dissociation is a coping strategy, albeit a maladaptive one, that we use to try and get rid of the feelings evoked when in flashback.

i am so relieved i am not the only one who has done this Three Roses! thanks for sharing that. makes me feel a bit less foolish.  i guess it might be the meds change. time'll tell perhaps. 

this morning i woke up from a dream where i was back in the JP, and weirdly my sister was in it. (she was never part of them at all so i don't know where that came from. but she was incredibly hurtful to me when we had the baby so maybe that's it). anyway my sister was telling me (very kindly) that she and my dad didn't think i had been abused and that i didn't have cptsd at all. i asked her what she thought might be wrong with me that i was the way i am. but she wouldn't answer me. so i woke up kind of believing that i was making all this up, that i was wrong about the JP, and that it wasn't a cult, but a good church and i was therefore wrong to leave them.  and that i must be simply attention-seeking or something in being how i am.

a couple of hours in i realised how weird that dream was, but for a while there, i was believing it, and going down into an EF.  in the end i just got busy and had a nice time cleaning out the rats' cage and giving all of them a bath (always fun, they hate the water but love the towel and being dried afterwards and then they go all lickey and affectionate!) after that i thought, maybe i am not making all this stuff up.

i wondered about reading back over some of my journal pages from around the time when i left, when things were really bad and intense and horrific, just to remind myself the reason why i couldn't stay. but i bottled out, becos i know it would be too upsetting.  it seems daft to still doubt that what happened to me was wrong and it's not me that's wrong, faulty, whatever.  and it's very hard becos no one can really know what it was like in the JP unless they have been in a similar situation. there are certain things about the cult experience that are sort of unique and very hard to get your head round.  which makes it weird trying to share it with anyone outside. i don't know why i still doubt myself. it's been happening a lot lately. 

it really is tough. and i understand what you say about it being unconscious. and about the end result being you with an empty tank.  am thinking of you so much.  be nice to yourself today. you deserve it.