Messages

Armee, thank you - I wish that too.
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SenseOrgan, it's helpful to read your perspective and to consider that this will need time to settle and sink and process.
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San, I believe in it too and hope it will be a useful framework for my ongoing healing.  I am glad to be invited although the adults going will make me feel like a 3rd wheel.  There will be 6 parents and the school counselor is going too.  Honestly if the student that invited doesn't go for some reason I will probably bail.
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I am back to feeling more struggle.

I haven't been sleeping well.

Work was really awful yesterday and today my husband leaves for his trip with parents.  He's been trying to placate me which is making me mad.

I don't know what else to say right now.

Best wishes what saying what you want/need to say and having it understood and received.

I was glad to read your updates. 

I am thinking of you and your D.

Today I had an experience with a group of colleagues that gave me additional perspective on this one person.

I came to a meeting because I thought they wanted to hear my ideas.  Instead they talked over me, told me what they had already decided, and were overall just very disrespectful. 

It really was shocking to me that they showed who they are in this moment.  It also showed me a pattern that seems present in some of the people here.

One person said something about autistic people that didn't sit right.  I had already corrected their language in many ways and didn't say anything in response to that because I was processing how little they had listened to me over the past several weeks.

After the meeting I spoke with some trusted colleagues about how that meeting made me feel.  One who was present in the meeting said it felt off to her too.  So I decided to send a message to the team with a resource I made on language shifts needed when talking about autistic people.

I'm processing and disappointed in the mindsets I see here.  It will help me set boundaries with these folks.

Thank you for the care Armee.

I didn't expect to write again today but something shifted a bit.

Today was gentler than I expected.  I also started listening to a podcast whose guest was Dr. Mariel Buque.  She was speaking about intergenerational trauma.  The topic turned on a light for me. I think this is something it would help me to explore.

I am going to start reading Dr. Buque's book Break The Cycle.  I had to keep pausing the podcast episode because everything she said felt profound.

I also had some sweet moments at work.  One student invited me to go on a field trip his class is taking next week.  Last year he became so anxious about a field trip that he threw up before and wasn't allowed to go.  I don't know if that would happen again.  I told his teacher that I would be glad to go if it would be supportive.  So I think I will be going next week to a lake with this class. 

I also spoke with a kindergarten student who said to me "Before I lived in my apartment, I lived in my car."  I hope that I held space for her saying that well enough. 

NarcKiddo, I appreciate your thoughts and perspective. 

Thank you Chart.  I am really struggling with all the people and even though I try to take care it doesn't feel like it is working right now.
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I appreciate the support NarcKiddo.  I am feeling extra anxiety as his trip approaches.
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Armee, I appreciate the podcast recommendation.  I downloaded the episodes to listen to at some point.
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I am really struggling.

I am trying and trying and trying but cannot consistently regulate.  Even when I try to not try it is still trying. 

I have moments where I'm ok but right now there is more perceived threat than love.

I will keep trying moment by moment but I wish I could figure out what I need.

I appreciate that reframing Kizzie.  It is really compassionate and what everyone wants.

I would like for her and I to be able to talk through this and I also am not sure that is the right approach. 

I had more examples today of her doing similar things to other people and was again reminded that this isn't specific to our working relationship.  Other people today told me about communication challenges and feeling a lack of collaboration with her.

It does me wonder what is up with her.  For right now I think I might need to make some internal boundaries for myself with her. 

Thank you for the encouragement Kizzie.  I do have a list of phrases that I printed out earlier this year for navigating conflict.  I haven't had success in using any of them yet. 

I think it would be helpful to have a phrase I could say.  She suggests goals or approaches to working with autistic students that I don't agree with.  In the moment I tend to get flooded, so I will try to have a visual reminder or practice saying my phrase so I will have it ready.

As I write this I am reminding myself that I do navigate conflict with a different team of folks that work with preschool kids.  Even though I am really challenged by their mindsets too, we have cultivated a relationship where we can talk through these things. 

I think what bothers me the most is I felt really supported by this person last school year and now things are weird.  I mostly don't understand why she won't listen to me.  I do have a tendency to want to control others when I don't feel heard which mostly looks like me having obsessive thoughts and wearing myself out.

I am working on this but it is hard right now. 

This came to my mind when I was reading your post:  I wonder if the hunger cues and sense of panic are related.  Like your body and mind are "switching" between modes where you need fuel to be ready to fight or actively survive and where you need to expel everything from your body in order to be able to run or freeze or shutdown to survive.  This is just my wondering and mostly what I'm trying to say is our bodies and minds are doing so much to protect and help us survive that it is amazing and confusing and wild.

I had another difficult experience with this co-worker yesterday.

A lot of the issue is that I was exhausted before having to be in a meeting with her and because I pushed myself past my limits to show up, I was already operating from a less grounded place.

She continues to come from her less informed place and I leave the meeting feeling like I am somehow wrong for something that I know I am not wrong about. 

I am really anxious for a series of meetings I will be in with her coming up all for autistic kids.  I don't know how to feel protected or prepared.

Azul, your response made me think about ways some members of my family also spend time together with in this way.  I am not invited and the exclusion does hurt.  I don't particularly want to actually be there with them but being left out still hurts.  My family isn't safe for me either.

MountainGirl, I resonate with this. Last summer I took a mosaic class and there were two mother daughter pairs taking the class too.  It made me sad and I felt so complicated inside.  They were all really nice to me but it also hurt because I don't come from a family that would do that and even if we did it would be dysfunctional.

San, I appreciate the understanding.  It is really tough.
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Today was hard.  I pushed myself past my limits for work and am paying a price for it now.

I was in two meetings at the end of the workday that were so exhausting for different reasons.

I spoke my mind and my truth in them.  This felt uncomfortable for different reasons - in one because I worry I made a coworker feel bad (which was not my intention) and in the other because a coworker who always steam rolls me did it again.

In the first meeting, a parent also complimented me and I found my heart touched but also struggling to allow myself to receive her compliment. 

I was in an EF on my way home and for a lot of this evening.  Sharing my thoughts, causing discomfort to others, and pushing myself past my limits are big sources.  I think also someone saying something nice to me hurt.

Eating dinner, showering, and watching Stranger Things is helping some.  I will go to bed as soon as this episode of Stranger Things is over.

Aphotic, I relate to this.  Learning about alexithymia and interoception helped me.  It's really hard to listen and understand ourselves because we have been taught not to from so many levels and sources.