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Quite a while, I love this community. It's great to see everyone's recovery and active participation.

I'm alive! Honestly, even thriving for my standards. I thought it made the most sense to journal out some curiosities I'm living with and for some reason writing them in a journal isn't something I've chosen to do. I wanted to understand how what I'm wondering connects with my community members, maybe.

I have joined a program that is anonymous, it's a 12-step program, and we aren't meant to talk about it publicly by principal, but seeing that this is anonymous I'll just mention that Al-anon has been a bit of a life saver as long as I've been in the program. My program work there coupled with the pandemic drove me to reach out to my very favorite trauma based T who agreed to continue treating me, and I truly see so many of my CPTSD symptoms less in charge of me!

I think what I am trying to find the answer to relates to my feelings of self worth. Am I clinging hopelessly to someone I appreciate and who knows how to exist with me because ... why? Or are my dissatisfactions in the relationship purely internal. And this is what "real life" is like. I don't have any model to relate to, really, just what people say. Life is a series of choices. I can't tell if I have a future with this person, which just sort of makes me think it's because I don't. IT's not that I can't see one, I don't see them making one with me.

My bf goes to therapy with me, couples therapy, and I see my own individual T. We've been going for a year and a few months and really starting to get into some of the deepest work that's healing so many things we didn't see eye-to-eye on. It's been wonderful.

And yet, I don't know. I don't feel the sense of desire to build a whole life with me or a whole future with me like the one I longed for in my head or told myself existed or never existed. I had so many coping skills engaged for my whole life to deal with where I was at I don't know what's reality anymore.

With my T we uncovered a part of me that fantasizes about a future relationship having these three things: Someone who enjoys doing things with me and goes out of their way to do it, likes me, and wants to get to know me. Those are the three things I told myself I could find in adulthood and I clung to that desire so tightly because the world around me just didn't operate by those three principles.

I'm still grieving this discovery, I feel so sad for the young girl who just dreamt of this day because she was so alone. And now Im in a relationship with someone who doesn't have practiced access to their own feelings, healings, or desires. They don't know what they want much less communicate it. It's like we both want to be rescued by the other person's certainty and nobody will back down.

We were talking about building a future together and somewhere along the way those conversations stopped and changed direction. It's like I'm struggling today to invest in someone that I don't feel is invested in me actively in ways that I can understand, appreciate, and need met. When I just think about today, I feel great about his contributions. When I think about where we are headed, Im' so deeply uncertain if I'm wasting my energy in someone that doesn't see me and expereince me the way I'd dreamt of feeling.

I don't think this relationship will be the one I'm working so hard to make it feel like. Is that okay? Is that enough? Is that something I should be ashamed to be in? I judge myself for it. I can't tell if it's because I don't know what a real and healthy relationship looks like or if it's because this just isn't enough .

What I can say is that I feel the last three months alone have been huge for me to figure out how to fill these self worth gaps in all by myself, which always lifts the relationship up. I'm just really craving to be understood.

Hi Owl! Thank you for sharing this.

I shared once with my Trauma T that I had a hard time starting the day. She empathized with me, suggesting it's the critical voice I'm afraid of when I wake up. As in "oh ... another day of this" and I just don't want to deal with her.

Gaining that awareness really softened it's impact, for me!

Food:

I just looked in the mess that is this over baked sweet potato covered in mayo, hating it. I imagined cooking up this frozen pizza I have in the freezer, but that's for emergencies.
I'm looking at the potato, there are actual calories here. It just sucks, it's just sloppy, I just ruined it. I hate it. "but I have the pizza"

"You didn't earn it." somewhere said back to me

I knew I needed to retreat here.

I'm terrified about my financial circumstances right now. I have no money left. i haven't paid rent. i havent been getting by, i'm losing weight. the lights are on because i told coned to wait a month. but at least I had accepted my dream job offer. . . but it didnt start before covid. They confirmed a hiring freeze. the job doesn't exist, officially today. I don't know if it will ever come back around. it might. it might not. what's the point.

I literally told myself i didn't earn food. i work my butt off, and i take too much responsibility for everything. fawn fawn fawn fawn. flight. fawn.

but i just told myself i didnt deserve food. i didnt earn it. i didnt earn the money so i dont deserve to eat. it's my dad in there somewhere. i don't know how to fix it but i have a very serious problem.

[TW featured]

TW featured

Okay.

It's been nearly 5 years since I've written in this journal. I really loved being able to revisit parts of me I didn't quite understand yet, and feeling like I've untangled bits of it here and there.

Today I just have an urgent need to express a growing part of my psyche as it nurtures relationships. Out of the relationship I was in when I last wrote, with tons of blindspots and healing mechanisms, growth, learning, peace, love, grief, and yes I am still pretty bitter about some of the huge lost time and money. Working to let that go.

I experience identity-crisis in relationships. My fawn ramps into super-drive.

I came out as non-monogamous in that relationship and the relationship suffered. Non monogamy really aligns with my values and identity for now, and it doesn't go without mentioning that it aligns well with my intimacy boundaries. But more than anything, I love giving myself a chance to avoid holding myself to a standard I don't even want to participate in! These ideals I was simply spoon-fed as the only way to be alive, and I'm wrong if I don't fit in. I'm out and proud today, and happy to take space for the things that work for me even if it's not the easiest or most convenient experience. (I realize if you're reading, that doesn't mean I can't see that it works for you. I just realize what works for me. I ask for simple respect of this current truth of mine I'm exploring.)

Two relationships have developed since being out as non-monogamous; not overlapping, if it's worth noting.  Right now I'm experiencing a relationship that's been ongoing for about a month and it's teaching me in real time some of the most progressive experiences which I'd like to unpack. In fact, it's  a great friend turned SO and I have a lot of feelings based on a violation of trust I displayed last night. I'm not sure this post will be linear or informative... I prefer to let the intuitive flag fly today.

I already struggle with the concept of relationships, ownership, possessiveness, space, hence my insistence on non-monogamy. I recently realized through a great convo with another friend, which in good trust, unleashed my realization::

"I don't want to offer anyone enough of me not to love me."

So this concept, explaining so much of my fears, has been tested against my attachment to a securely attached man. (For the record I just scored 48% avoidant, 26% anxious, and 26% secure! An upgrade from previous years! Anyway---- back to Safely-attached.) He is really present, patient in my life in seemingly the healthiest of ways. He really respects my space when I need it--- as just one weekend ago I had an EF in his company over the span of a weekend. After that week I needed (forced) space, and he honored that, lived his life, as did I.

REVERSE, REVERSE
Last weekend and my EF:

I had the episode of crying on Saturday night, he held me and cried too, and didn't try to fix anything. By Sunday, in total emotional hangover style, I told him a story about my mother. ***TRIGGER WARNING*** She once had a friend over and I came up to her crying while she sat at the table. She completely ignored me,wouldn't look at me. This made me cry to hysterics, I was not even table-height yet (2? 3? language wasn't a tool I had a stronghold on.. I can't remember if I still wore a diaper, come to think of it). I'm crying the kind of cry that keeps you from remembering how to breathe.
By the time her friend uncomfortably noted that I needed her, my mom finally turns to me. She grabbed me from the spot and stormed me off into my flea-infested, always-treacherous room complete with holed mattresses that've never seen sheets. She screamed at me that I was so embarrassing in front of her friend, can't she ever just have one friend. [to this day, i empathize with her frustration. i'm a fawn.]
She left me there to cry. That pain I can still feel in my chest for that little girl right now. So lost, so ached, so alone.

FAST FORWARD TO :: this Sunday evening, one week since I tell him this story.

Sunday night he falls asleep before me, and I took some pictures of our place we left in a book of poems we were reading as he fell asleep. Next, I'm taking a video of him sleeping, playfully getting him to itch his own face. I graduate ..... this was the problem, .... to logging into the phone itself, justifying it by use of an app-only camera function. . . . You see where this is going. If you've been there, please reach me about it.

Within 30 minutes, I've completely done a heavy number of snooping...  in complete violation of his trust, succumbing right into the snooper's temptation.
(!!!!!!!) (I've never done this before in my life. I keep asking myself why. Still absorbing it all, mostly angry with me!)

I'm reading messages from his long-term ex and someone else he's speaking with---- and I checked his call log history. There was one really long convo after I'd spilled my guts to him that made me sink. It's like I kept looking until I found something to hurt myself with.

The truth is, feelings of resistance aren't there, it's not about feeling "threatened". I've always known his relationship with his ex is very important in his life, and I have a lot of respect for it. In no way do I want to make that small, make myself a priority--- I can appreciate that both things can be true in a person's life. What makes me most regrettable is knowing I'm not the same friendly resource compared to a compromised one, since things have progressed romantically with us. I give him the space to be, he understands that, but it's still always going to be different.

So when completing a self-evidence inventory, everything I found perfectly aligns with how he treats me, and the way we've negotiated our relationship.... but I am having a horrendous time forgiving myself for peeking. Well honestly I'm not even really trying to forgive myself yet. I told him immediately what I did, he asked if we could talk when he's not dead asleep, (fair!) and we patiently revisited it in the morning. This experience has so far opened up some really lovely conversations.

Though we are talking it out well, we're on a time crunch. (It's Monday, we each have full days planned.)  I gave him keys to lock up behind him at my place, which happened instinctively for me and is just as much telling, because I was worried I'd hold him back from leaving when he really needed to go and I couldn't trust myself not to get in the way. I wasn't emotionally ready to let the conversation, him, everything go, but moreso, I didn't want to make it worse, and I felt I deserved anything I got.

So at one point he's about to leave, so I took the covers fully over my head. Goofy, but honest.. My nature is to try to make the pain a laugh.

He immediately joins me in bed and holds me, asked what's wrong. The freedom to ask helped me find, "I feel so alone." He responded with, "I'm never going to leave you when you're sad."

So simple and so powerful, I just grabbed onto the sincerity of the moment, stifling tears, holding my breath, just trying not to disrupt that connection from absorbing. In that response, he reached the really triggered girl in her dump of a room, all alone, so scared, and no idea how to self-soothe but to self-blame. I just thought,  "my mom couldn't even do this", and through tears reminded him of my story. He understood, and just held, and it helped me so much.

Here is someone present, kind, and treating me with so much respect. It brings me so much pride to feel like I've ever come this far, and it also makes the inner critic really loud because I don't want to "F it Up". I want to get in front of my insecurities and somehow avoid the healing process and all the mistakes all together. What, I want to be perfect? It is sweet. We remind each other we're not perfect often. He's really important to me.

The more I realize how important he is to me, the more afraid I feel. I think it's going well, of course, but I don't want to reach too far into an uncertain future and exacerbate the present. So many feelings about this, but for now, I'll leave with the original writing I'd photographed to insert in his phone for his finding anyway::

i am trying to not
make you pay for their mistakes
i am trying to teach myself
you are not responsible
for the wound
how can i punish you
for what you have not done
you wear my emotions
like a decorated army vesy
you are not cold or savage or hungry
you are medicinal
you are not them

(Rupi Kaur, the sun and her flowers, 2017)



--- Advice from those further along than me? Concurrently working?

I'm here with you, applauding your steps to self-discovery!

I am completely also totally unsure what that means, I'd love to see what test you're referring to. I know there is a book called ATTACHED that breaks down amazing connections between attachment, and I love Pete Walker's CPTSD Surviving to Thriving Guide. They may be useful resources to start to understand attachment, from a bit more of an expert than myself!

Bravo, bravo either way for working yourself through this. There's so much info on this out there, and without being a social scientist I don't feel strongly enough educated to help. But you have my high-five and my empathy as I, too, am trying to work out my attachment styles. I had a test (attachment book) that rated me 47.8% avoidant, 26% anxious, and 26% secure. I take that as a huge step, because once in my life I had a 0% secure rating. I'm proud of you for your discoveries and curiosities!

Holding your hand around the world-

Hello, thank you for sharing.

Without prying, may I ask, how long have you had your CPTSD or otherwise diagnosis?

I ask only to try to helpfully share my experience, though I know everyone is different. It took no fewer than 5 years after my diagnosis to begin to feel like some of my traits would unwind in my mind, connect, and even be able to identify some of my unhelpful behaviors "in the act"- so to speak. Much like you're describing with your awareness now.

I'm only 7 years diagnosed, and there's such a long way to grow from where I sit today, I'm too aware of that. But we're on this earth anyway, time passes anyway, I'm only here to tell you that truly this bad feeling never ever lasts forever. You will always unwind for this- I mean, you're awake even right now.

My favorite quote is from Charlie Chaplin: "Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles." Helps me sometimes. That's where I begin.

I know how beautiful it would be to rip off the band aid and find yourself fully healed, or snap your fingers, because you've already taken more than you can bare. But if you can start, practice being patient with yourself. I always like to think about how old I was before I was diagnosed, and how many years it's been after. I think of it, playfully, like this: I'm 7 years old, after 22 years of learning an entirely different way to express and communicate myself that I am working to unlearn. I'm going to feel like I'm 7 for a while! I'm going to want to grow right up into healthy adulthood, but hey, I got my training wheels off my bike last week. I will have to see how I feel when I'm 22 years diagnosed and see if that version of me has been able to course-correct into a healthy place, because for those years I was responsible for raising myself. You can do this. Be patient with each step! XO

A "P.S."

I think I experience problems with food and my belly, including the reasons I'm gluten-free, have some sort of relationship with the fact that I'm prone to internalizing my problems.

I think that gets in the way of my body's full understanding of a hunger trigger. We repress or control our natural instincts for certain needs and it manifests to us in very interesting ways.

Something to consider!
-HV

[is your brain]

I just found this category, and I'll go through it in more detail when time allows in the near future. I was wondering if any one is out there that has a story similar to mine, if not, that's okay too. I know I'm in the minority being on the "under" side of the weight problem, which makes me really hesitant to talk about it, but it has bothered me all of my adult life.

I expect it came from my childhood being told "eat what your given, or eat nothing at all". People don't seem to understand, but I really can't eat things I don't like. It's more like my body rejects it rather than "I don't like it"... so most of my childhood I ate "nothing at all". So, of course, this is what I/my body learned was "normal" growing up.

As an adult, I really don't get hungry for the most part. I get tired/cranky/low energy, but rarely hungry, and I've had to do a lot of work to associate those feelings with lack of nourishment. Even now, every day, I eat because I'm supposed to, not because I want to / need to / feel hungry.

Anyway, it's left me scrawny and small, in a body I don't like, and with no feelings of hunger, it seems impossible to fix. It just seems so basic, eating is a requirement of living... how can I not "get it right"? The reason this bothers me so much is because it feeds my self esteem/personalization problems, which I'm really trying to improve. There seems so many pieces to the puzzle. If anyone has similar story/good info on the subject, I'd really appreciate it.

Jazzy,

I'm grateful you're sharing your experience. In no way is your experience illegitimate because there's a cultural approval of "thinness". I intimately understand your struggle with your body's response to food, your lack of weight gain, and the feeling of being "small".

My experience is slightly different, but the effect feels similar to what you describe. Money is a huge trigger for me, as I would go hungry as a neglected child and have bouts of meals that were routinely never made and complaints of money always piling up. (In retrospect, it seems more of an equation of value, but these are things I haven't exactly found and mastered yet.)

I actually have been gluten free for 8 years now because I used to have terrible stomach pains with any meal I did have. A lifetime of this, and I can't tell when I'm hungry or when I'm full... I just can tell when I'm cranky and need some calories.

Here's note number one that helps me decide to eat sometimes; the first place your body saves calories when you're hungry is your brain. Functions are naturally more difficult when done on little-to-no food. If you find yourself having a difficult time with something, see if you can recall that little mantra/idea and try a snack to get your gears firing. See if the break takes you to a new place when finding a solution to whatever it is you're working on.

I will buy food and skip meals or stretch them for fear that I will not be able to replenish it. I experience shame spirals with my portions based on the financial aspect of consumption. I notice that when I'm most triggered, I am the least likely to eat food or I'm upset at myself for being wasteful.

So when I'm the most stressed, I'm the most thin. And it's a counter-equation because people would comment on my thinness as if it were on purpose but really it's a trigger for me in the other direction as it tends to comment on my lack of security.

I hate when my body shrinks or I start to wither away. I am still gaining weight back from a dramatic triggering event last fall. It's hard to not have a positive relationship with food intake, and it doesn't have to do with the way you look. But listen, it's perfectly acceptable for you to address this problem and try to understand the source of it, so you can begin to nurse it. It is no less important because someone else experiences a negative relationship with food in another direction. Keep your heart healthy and beating; that's the goal. You have a right to be nourished by your food and supported by your eating habits. You're only in this body, what, every day for the rest of your life? Try to experience food intake that you DO like with practicing gratitude. Maybe that can fire helpful synapses to begin practicing a relationship with the food you eat that starts to become habitual, and maybe grows to new outcomes.

I don't have the answers, but I do know I'm always asking questions to better understand the root cause, as awareness always feels like the most helpful first step toward untangling the tape. Once you're aware of triggers and start to observe them by slowing down your body's response to them, you're more likely to find more opportunities for positive or neutralizing self-talk.

Taking any questions if any of my words came out abstract! I have this tendency.

With love and solidarity,
-Hypervigilante

Please excuse how far this reply is so out-of-date.  I was compelled to mention that trust building (with your T and in life!) is an important and time-consuming (deservedly!) process. I hope that you've had time to build some trust and get closer to meeting some of your needs since we last spoke. How are you?

I'm attaching one of my favorite photos because I think it relates to this revelation you've had.


I am a very illustrative communicator as well- with others, sure, but I really mean with myself mostly. It sounds like you're like me in that sense.

Sometimes pictures or images say more about how you're feeling than words can formulate accurately. It sounds like you imagining yourself in your therapists office balled up refers to your feeling of needing to protect yourself, even if it's with defenses we learned when we were young that aren't always very helpful to us as adults like they were when we were children.

I definitely think that could be your inner child at work, or even you nursing your inner child while s/he faces all the scary stuff you're facing as an adult.

I like this picture because I think it shows us how we can be sometimes. As adults we may turn away from one another when deep down we seek connection. Innocent and without criticism.

I definitely don't think you're weird or that this is weird!

Twinkletoes!

Congratulations for getting through a very deep conflict in such a constructive way!

It sounds like you faced something that made you uneasy head on and the end result was that you got the listening and attentiveness you needed.

I'm very proud of you!  And I'm glad she validated that it's been YOUR CHOICE to come in each time, and that you made a choice to say how you felt despite the discomfort, and that you saw that there's an opportunity for balance to come after some emotionally difficult sharing!

HOORAY for you!! Seriously, enjoy your day. You are definitely doing something right if you're listening to yourself when you can. You did GREAT!

 
Thank you both deeply.

Thank you for reaching out, Dutch Uncle! Such a speedy response as well makes me feel warm and connected.

Hope your days are well,
-HV

Hello Everyone,

Today I have learned fully and truly to let go of a withering, unhelpful relationship.  I'm rationally classifying this as a "win," but the hurt of a deep loss of someone important to my formative years lingers on.  I'm trying to be patient with that mourning process.

***POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING***

I lost a sibling four years ago, and it shook up my whole family (dysfunctional family at that) dynamic off it's hinges, and me many steps toward recovering from something I didn't realize how deeply I struggled with. (CPTSD)

Slowly but surely, as each and every one of my relationships before the date of my brother's untimely passing, I have noticed the unhealthy nature of these existing one-way relationships.  I was only comfortable giving and never taking, so I did not make very good friends, in retrospect.  Today, I let go of the very last one.

One by one, I recognized in all of my past relationships that I was not being treated as equally as I felt my worth deserved.  This is a sad and somewhat lonely process, and lots of my identity comes into question... But at the same time, it's a testament to gaining self-worth little by little. I just wasn't willing to let go of the final person, because I felt like I was letting a former me die.

I struggle with finding this a good thing all the time amidst the deep sense of loss I experience.  I worried that I was responding in a way I'd regret to everyone I ever knew.  I just changed so much.  I will never be the same again, and that makes me sad.  But I also feel a lot of shame. Realizing that this person was who I'd call my biggest, most influential friend... my dearest friend... the one above all friends who treated me the best I'd ever had in my formative years... it really eats up at my self-esteem to finally recognize that not even she is not a kind enough friend for me.  It's a mix of loss and of self-disappointment, embarrassment, humiliation- these are all just the words at the tip of my tongue.  I vacillate between degrees of worthiness, worthlessness, sadness, pride, calm, rejection, hurt, anger, defiance, and ever so deeply so quietly and fleeting I'll find a degree of peace somewhere in it.  But the tears come charging in quickly as these emotions go.

I was going to post this in my journal, but I wondered if more people might see similarities in this... losing friends on the road to self-discovery.


Thanks, friends,
-HV

That's very helpful, CC.

I am not quite sure that this has progressed positively yet for me, but I'm not going to stop trying.  Do you have a regular sleeping schedule? I rarely do; I never learned the value of sleep-routines.  I wasn't very supervised as a kid, and the importance of sleep was really lost on me.

I do understand that my mental performance and preparedness increases with regularly scheduled sleep. I say this now, of course, while I'm on the night shift at work, haha.  But I do find that this part is helpful.  Sleep and water, somehow.  It's good to remember the parts of you that are easy to fix if they're physically achievable.

So, I'm working on trying to establish a better routine (tonight not included, haha) to see if this improves. 

I also know the feeling of having no space with someone - correct me if I'm mistaken, but to me it seems like a war zone in my mind completely unbeknownst by the talker.  I'm so focused on avoiding emotional disparity that the daily details lose their priority in my mind.

How are you doing since your epiphany?  I find your discovery very groundbreaking and I want you to know I appreciate working alongside you on this.
-HV