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Topics - radical

#1
Emotional Abuse / It never ends
October 30, 2018, 11:34:34 PM
I'm feeling broken.

The bully who bullied me out of both my faith community and a community project we were both involved in, smeared me so severely that I have been planning to move to another city and start afresh next year (this isn't anywhere near a full summary because this is a small place and the damage has gone far wider than the membership of these groups)  - that delightful person - has managed to do me more harm.

Last month she and her supporters moved out of the faith community to worship separately, in large part because of the "slander" caused by my telling some people what had happened.  I left that community two years ago.  I felt it was a power play.  Almost all in that group and everyone in the other group have ostracised  me.  But I still have two friends from the faith community.  But it seems it wasn't good enough to have anyone still speak to me.

It was predictable given the close-knit nature of the group, just a matter of time really.  One friend tried to talk me into saying that my feelings from previous abuse had been projected onto the bully. She also hinted I had other reasons for unfairly accusing this person.   I was shocked but managed to politely reject that, but things have changed now in both friendships and I feel I have now been completely socially annihilated
#2
Successes, Progress? / showing up
October 04, 2018, 03:30:02 AM
Hi all,
I'm just back from giving my class presentation.  I can't say it went well, I hadn't slept all night and after spending hoursl reading, I knew I was in a mess.

Before, I would have stayed away and sacrificed a large number of marks rather than show myself in a mess.  Today I showed up and said I'd done far too much reading and I was confused so I was going to take a risk and 'wing it'.  so I did and I feel proud of myself.  They may all think I'm crazy now, but it did lead to the longest class discussion of any presentation.  Even if that was just pity, I don't care.  i faced a big fear - I'm terrified of public speaking.  To present in a mess then come home and not tear myself apart, but just think, well it was great I showed up - I think that counts as a victory.
#3
Hi all,
I've had repeated problems with writing a comment/question on Pete's blog.  I don't know why, but the writing keeps disappearing as I type.  I had the same problem when Pete posted his first blog.


The other thing is that I have  things set up so that I come straight into 'unread topics' in the forum.  I was amazed at the wonderful stuff by different authors on the blog.  I could easily overlook its existence due to the door through which I enter OOTS, (so to speak)  I was lucky that I caught a comment about Pete;s new blog in the 'unread' column.

This isn't to complain, but to alert anyone else who has similar entry settings to the great stuff on the blog.
#4
I'm feeling sad right now.

I went through a long ordeal.  It's over now and I'm glad for that.
I wanted more than just an end though, I wanted to be able to make a small difference in understanding the effects of trauma in a place that such knowledge could make a real difference.

I was naive to think I might have made a small dent in the wall of incomprehension.  Today, I realised that all my words were for nothing, no-one was listening.


At least I tried.  I'm still glad I did and that I was true to myself and the reality of to the effects of the traumatic experiences that have hurt me and so many of others, in doing so.   But right now, it feels as though the steady, potentailly lethal  drip, drip drip, of trauma and how that accumulation lives on in us long after we have escaped, is still soundless and invisible.  Maybe I provided a drop in what will eventually be an ocean made up of millions of individual voices, that no-one can ignore.  But it doesn't feel like there is a momentum building that might one day break though such an entrenched, collective willful blindness. It feels as though the problem will never been seen as anything other than individual pathology in all of us who bear witness to the harm done though our pain.  Those who cause this  harm will always find new people to put their own poison into.  Nothing will be learned, nothing will change.  if we are lucky, at some point we will find a way through to move onas individuals.

I can only do my best, even when my best is ineffective, even when I can't be heard.
I just feel so weary and powerless.
#5
i don't know if anyone remembers, but I was dealing with a nightmare situation last year.
It was an ethical problem and personal crisis rolled into one.  I got caught in the middle of something that I didn't know how to deal with and didn't feel I could manage.

I still can't say what it was without potentially identifying myself and causing myself and many others, problems.  But over many meetings, mini-crises, newspaper articles, legal briefings, intimidation and harrassment, angst and pain, the situation is almost over and has turned out better than I could have imagined - for everyone concerned.  Best of all, despite huge triggers, I coped, and acquitted myelf well, imo.  Luckily, as with everything in life, perfection was not required, but it was hard to perservere.

I had an issue which, because of the circumstances, became a part of opening a big can of worms.  I had fantastic support, most of all from my outstanding T, but it has been tough.

I thought I would wait until the ' final act' this coming week, afraid I might jinx things by writing that it is finally over, but I feel it really is and this week will just be the icing on the cake.

It was hard to not be able to share my tribulations here, but it meant a lot to me that OOTS was here and you were all your wonderful, supportive selves.  This community was still a sanctuary and support for me throughout.
Thank you all for being here!
#6
Don't know how to start this with so many different parts of what I want to say swirling around.

A while ago, things were going great and I believed that despite the fallout from calling out abuse and being mobbed, in a pretty small, gossipy place, I could repair some relationships and ride out the worst of the fallout.  I felt positive and I was taking bold and positive action.  Then something awful happened.

I couldn't discuss it here then or now, because there was no way I could do so without potentially identifying myself, and outing a very tricky ethical situation, which would have had a negative impact on some people who didn't deserve that kind of grief, (including me). 

I stuck it out trying to find a solution in a horrible situation.  It took a big toll on me and my confidence. Again, I was trapped and being bullied.  I couldn't have believed the * I was subjected to.  I find it hard to believe that this could have happened just as I was getting back on my feet.  It has been hard to not see it as being about some fatal flaw, in me and evidence that things will never get better.

I walked away because there was no solution that didn't involve lawyers and the potential for even greater harm.  Also, that route would cost me dearly, not just financially but in time I can't afford.

It was unfair and that's hard to swallow.  I had the misfortune to have gotten caught in the middle of something.  But now I know I have to leave my home in order to be able to start again.  I love where I live, and have a strong sense of place and of home.  And I can't seem to take the actions I need too take.  A horrible paralysis has set in.  I know it is because I'm afraid and I don't want to go, and equally, I know I need to go.

I feel hurt and alone and so afraid of letting go of the place I love and the security this place gives me.  I don't feel the confidence to take this leap into the unknown.  All of this has settled into a kind of paralysed depression.
#7
Questions/Suggestions/Comments / little coloured icons
January 22, 2018, 05:04:16 AM
Hi all,

I have a feeling I might have once known and forgotten, but what do the little pink, blue and yellow 'pages' on the far left next to each topic in the list signify?
thanks
#8
Reading another person's post this morning gave me food for thought.

An unhealthy effect of CPTSD for me has been taking on everyone else's feelings (from my own perspective) and feeling responsible for others' feelings when I'm being badly hurt.  I realise how unhealthy this is, and how it has been hard for me to see because it has felt like the right thing to do, even though it has caused confusion and indecision.

As an example, when I was being bullied, and as a result was becoming progressively more ostracised by people in a community project, I felt torn up about the possibility that if I was believed about being bullied, it would cause enormous pain to, and financial loss to all the members of the group.  No-one was lifting a finger to help me, even a couple of people who I had great respect for, and who weren't involved didn't want to hear, when I tried tentatively, and carefully to do no harm, to speak about it, and yet I had this crazy loyalty in a situation in which there was no loyalty or kindness directed towards me, no attempt to draw out what was going on.

I effectively made it easy to discredit me because of a misguided feeling of concern and responsibility for others, including people who had been friends and were badly hurting and betraying me.  This strikes me as a classic scapegoat behaviour.  I was trained to put everyone else's feelings ahead of my own, even where doing so would beggar belief in onlookers.  This is not virtue, it is dysfunction.

I recognise a lot of factors causing this, but the one that may not seem to be related, but which I feel is central for me, is not feeling deeply rooted in my own body - a kind of depersonalisation.

I said to my former therapist that I had realised that when I'm with other people in just everyday situations, that I felt they were present, but that I was not able to properly feel myself being there.  (It was the beginning of the end of the relationship.  She didn't see it as having any importance or relevance, and actively discouraged me from talking about it). 

Having since then experienced being solidly grounded in my body and experience (I wish I felt this way all the time), I feel this problem to have been foundational to my CPTSD.  When I'm firmly grounded, I don't become oblivious to other  people's feelings, the difference is that I'm not just weakly aware of my own interests and responsibility to myself.  I'm solid rather than sketchy to myself, and it makes all the difference in every context.  I don't feel confused all the time and have trouble knowing what to do.  I don't feel scattered and torn.

This isn't some kind of personal perfection, but it is very different in experience.  It's so much easier to feel that I matter, when I feel my own physical reality and experience in relation to others and also to myself.

I don't know if others here know what i mean by this.
#9
Therapy / feeling betrayed
July 30, 2017, 04:48:13 AM
My response to someone else's post has made me realise that I still feel injured and betrayed by my relationship with my previous therapist.  I don't know how to process it.  After the last sessions with her when I tried to reconcile the problems between us, I had a long period of confusion and hurt, of trying to make sense of what had happened, of grief and anger.  I wrote a lot in my journal.  I wasted a lot of sessions of a treatment I was undergoing, having that therapy relationship tumbling around in my mind.  Inside myself I was veering between wanting to find a way to find peace and believing in her and going over the most destructive things that had happened and feeling anger and betrayal.

I thought I'd gotten over it, but my new therapy relationship has brought it all up again via the contrast between the hot and cold treatment that kept me trying harder, the telling me what to think, telling me what it was okay to feel,  the undermining, the encouraging idealisation of her rather than confidence in myself  -a therapy  straight jacket of  the old, and the calm, supportive, coherent, accepting, planned therapy I have now.

It was so familiar, the feeling of tying myself in knots to be good enough, contorting myself into a shape that was acceptable, feeling shamed when I tried to express my authentic feelings and in a heartbeat changing myself into what she wanted me to be in response, and being patted on the head for doing so.  I don't know if it had always been that way or if it became crazier over time.  I know I was harmed by it.  I'm glad I tried to resolve the issues with three final sessions, because in those sessions the gaslighting, the lies, the lack of any kind of treatment plan, the complete lack of interest in what I wanted to achieve, the hot-potato, the stone-walling, the lack of care or empathy, the haughty indignation, the inability to hear me, the deliberate triggering as diversion, the other diversions, the absolute refusal to answer any question - it pulled me out of my denial.

I remember telling her about six months before those sessions that I intended to kill myself over the summer holidays, that I had everything planned.  I told her I felt it was unfair to continue therapy without giving her the option of ending it, under the circumstances. I had decided the previous New Years Day to continue to try for another 12 months, to give it everything I had, but if nothing had improved, nothing ever would.  I felt it was dishonest, not telling her, like it was false pretences and I didn't want to hurt her.  She said she could handle it (my death).  I thought she was so enlightened.  I was so grateful that she was prepared to continue seeing me.  She never talked to me about it, never asked about the distress behind my decision, never expressed any feeling that she hoped I would want to continue to live, that she cared about me, no compassion, no exploration, no suggestion that my decision might be a result of my depression rather than a rational decision.  Zilch.  And I was grateful, I felt respected, I felt she understood that it was "euthanasia".  Maybe she did believe it was the right decision.

I found a treatment that pulled me out of that depression.  In fairness to her, she supported me in exploring it, helped me access it.  But she didn't suggest it.  She didn't suggest anything.  I was not allowed to talk about the events or the resultant feelings that led me into that pit.  In the three sessions in which I tried to heal the rift between us, she said that hearing my feelings caused her pain.  So she stopped me, shamed me if I brought the subject up, and I paid her to talk about things that didn't matter to me, things that didn't make her feel bad.  I fawned.

During those 12 months I explored a whole lot of things.  I discovered Pete Walker's site, and found this site.  I took in his book to show her.  She raised  how offended she felt when I showed her the book, during those last those sessions.  I never asked her to read the book, I just showed her, because it mattered to me.  Apparently taking that book into the session and telling her how it related to my situation was demeaning somehow.   I had hoped it might lead to me being able to talk about CPTSD, to being able to talk about the things in myself that I understood.  I misjudged.

Ironically, it was being lifted out of that depression and back into my feelings that led to my having questions about my therapy.  I was concerned for her feelings and tried to be as sensitive and non-critical as I could when I first raised them. I was apologetic, I back-tracked.  They were a few small questions at first and I felt so guilty about asking them.  I had been in a narrow tunnel of despair for so long and I saw daylight again.  I was waking up, it wasn't easy, returning to my senses.  Her response was to immediately say that she thought I was more disturbed than she realised.  She never answered the questions.  I persisted, even though I was desperately afraid of threatening a relationship that had become more important to me than any other.  I had lost myself in it.

I don't know how to make sense of all of this.  I just know that I still feel wounded.  I could write about how she might have been feeling, about reasons she might have had for not being able to respond adequately.  I could make excuses for her behaviour.  The fact is, she ended-up attacking me in all kinds of manipulative ways and that's how it ended.  A therapy relationship that had lasted a decade.

#10
General Discussion / Holding onto the positive
July 23, 2017, 06:34:19 PM
I've been away from the board because of some problems that I didn't feel able to talk about here.  It was a complicated situation that I didn't know how to deal with.  It built into a crisis and is now largely resolved.  What was very different for me was that I was forced to trust without any control or clear understanding of a solution.  I threw control and caution to the wind. Instead of focusing on what to do, I had to trust myself to choose who I could  and could not trust to help me, and act accordingly.  I felt helpless in not knowing, and had to be vulnerable.  It felt like throwing myself onto the 'mercy of the court'.

I found great kindness and understanding.  I felt deeply accepted because I was outside my usual sense of control and felt such enormous relief in my trust being met with trustworthiness. Such a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders.  I've so seldom felt that because of my need to be in control.  In crises I've had a habit of turning, in panic, to the last people on earth I should trust, because untrustworthy people are familiar, the pattern is familiar, there is a kind of control in it.

The situation arose and developed out of my inability to recognise who was and wasn't safe, and a kind of compulsive need to keep going long after a particular unsafe person had proven herself to be untrustworthy.  Looking back, there were so many signs before the situation arose that I should keep away.  I remember conversations with my previous therapist, trying to figure out why I felt as I did.  That therapy relationship undermined my already under-acknowledged gut feelings, in this and so many other situations.  What I really needed to be more in touch with them, and to learn to respect my instincts, to take a step back when my warning system was repeatedly alerted, to trust myself more.

I trusted myself to listen to myself beyond intellectual understanding and to recognise the familiarity in treachery.  To seek help from the unfamiliar.

I hope this makes some kind of sense.  Explaining the details of the actual situation would take so many thousands of words, but this was the essence for me.

#11
I should have 'checked out' when I stopped posting and commenting a while ago, it's just that I wasn't sure I was checking out.  I've been dealing with some concurrent crises*, and surprising myself by how well I've been doing, most of the time. 

But I've felt at full-stretch with little to give to anyone else.  I feel bad about that.  I still drop in here quite often to quickly see if people I've come to care about seem to be doing okay, but don't feel capable of doing much more than that just now.

One thing I want to mention is that I've started working with a new therapist.  I wasn't sure I ever wanted to be in therapy again after my experiences late last year and earlier this year.  (I'm so grateful for the support I received when that was happening).  It's still early days but I feel really positive, and appreciate my therapist's warm, open, collaborative approach. 

So this is where I've come to:  a good therapist works with a client, not on a client.  Honest feedback and authenticity should be actively encouraged in a therapy relationship.  A good therapist asks questions and seeks to clarify what you are saying, what you are feeling, and what the issue is about for you.  Telling a client what to do, what to believe, how to interpret their experience, what their own therapeutic goals should be, and what is and isn't important or a problem for them is disempowering, potentially crazy-making and counter-therapeutic.   

Wishing you all well, and looking forward to coming back when I'm more able to participate.

* I'm going with the 'dangerous opportunity' definition🤞
#12
I haven't been around much lately because I had a meeting earlier this week with some members of one of the groups involved in the abuse which led me to this board.  It has taken me a while to digest.  The next day I felt I was floating on air with such a weight taken off me, but then I was left with a deep sadness

It went well, and I said what I needed to say.  It has opened the door for me to return to that group (albeit, under the circumstances, in a limited way).  A kind of partial rehabilitation.  I've missed the connections, and this past year particularly, I've withdrawn from everything I used to be involved with and every person I had a relationship with.  I've spent weeks in which the only real-world conversations I've had have been with people in shops.

Recently I have been started creeping back into the world of people, very gradually, though without much sense of connection because it takes so long for me to feel any sense of familiarity and safety, and it is so hard for me to get to know people.  I'm glad I won't have to start again entirely from scratch, and that I was able to say what I felt, but was unable to at the time. 

I wish I'd been able to show the emotion I feel.  I realise that part of the problem is I don't know how to accept people responding to me.  When the people I spoke to responded to my words, I had to fight so hard to stop myself from deflecting and felt myself shutting down.  It felt like a kind of torture to have to experience it.  I tried not to dissociate and yet despite my best efforts, when it comes to trying to remember what was said when I was responded to, I can't really remember.  It was a bit like being at the dentist when the drill touches a nerve and my whole body and mind wills it to be over.  (until very recently I don't know my actual nerves are in a slightly different place and novacaine had little or no effect).

So, I feel a bit disappointed in myself that I couldn't really let in the compassion and reassurance in response to my pain, by not being able to truly show my feelings, and also not being able to really feel, see or hear others when they responded.  l I felt I didn't know how, I felt lost.

I know I've missed so much in my life from this.  I've felt more comfortable in the familiar company of people who didn't care about me.  It's a pattern I need to change, to unlearn.  I know where it comes from.  It feels like a mountain to climb.

#13
Therapy / need to get this off my chest
April 15, 2017, 01:32:36 AM
I've been re-reading diaries from the worst time of my life, the time I had given myself a year to find something that would help, or die.

Month after month I was writing abut problems with my therapist not listening, not showing compassion, being harsh, mean, impatient, discounting my feelings - hurting me.  I didn't see this as a problem with her, at the time, but with me.  I felt it was my fault, and tried week after week to make things better between us.

Now I feel angry. I needed help.  I didn't deserve to be treated like that when I needed kindness and support.  It must have been clear that the approach wasn't working as my depression continued to worsen. I feel it is irresponsible and selfish for a therapist to respond to a client according to their own feelings at the time, rather than responding to the needs of the client.  That I was dangerously suicidal when I was enduring sometimes overtly contemptuous behaviour from my therapist, makes my blood boil.

There is nothing I can do about this.  I need to get over it.  It is in the past.  I don't know how to get to the other side with this.  I feel so utterly betrayed, by her behaviour and by my own.  I wish I hadn't accepted that treatment, let alone paid for it, I wish I hadn't bought into blaming myself.  I wish I hadn't put her feelings above my own needs.
#14
General Discussion / Energy
March 19, 2017, 07:41:02 PM
I never have any idea what category to put posts into.

I have energy today, and a huge list of things to do.  I'm grateful to lose the paralysis I felt yesterday.  I feared it would go on, that I'd get trapped in it, but there has been a shift in me.

I had an experience about six months ago, in which I saw myself as being okay, and from that a cascade of changes have taken place.  I wonder if this understanding is a foundational building-block of resilience, and whether it is a part of why those who grew up in the assumption of their being okay can find it so hard to understand the experience and reactions of those of us who didn't.

It's not as simple as flicking a switch. My brain is still wired with a lifetime of experiences, understandings and ways of responding from the default of not-okay.  I have so little experience of this that I'm all over the place in knowing how to behave, in responding reflexively from the old understanding, which will always be a part of me too, then trying to know how to correct, sometimes over-correcting.  Often it is confusing because it's often about not needing to do anything at times that my scripts tell me action is required, actions about making up for being deficient, about appeasing, about a perception of being in danger. (And the converse, the need to stand my ground where flight or surrender were reflexive).

The other side is a change in default to others are okay - just okay, not a mountain I need to climb to be deserving of, or a need to feel suspicion towards, or to try and figure out which applies.  There is a middle ground, in which there is no contradiction in being open to others and ready ro defend myself and my interests.

I'm not pretending to be 'fixed,' the work has just begun.  I feel a bit like someone who has received a cochlear implant possibly does, as they struggle to understand and respond to the world of sound.  A beginner.

This feeling can be undermined, but it is like one of those birthday candles that are blown out and and then flicker back to life.  Unfortunately, it's not anywhere near as instantaneous as that.  I fear losing it, but so far, the flame has never been completely extinguished, since it first came.  Time will tell.

It was nearly a year ago that I first posted here and I wrote something like "I'm determined to believe in myself, even if I'm the only person on earth who does.  It makes a huge difference to be a part of a community of people who understand.

#15
Therapy / Sad
March 17, 2017, 03:23:52 AM
I ended therapy with my therapist this week.

I had hoped to be able to talk through my concerns, to retrieve some of the trust I lost, to feel  respected, trusted, believed-in, renewed faith, to believe I was cared-for and that she had my best interests at heart. I would have liked to find a way to repair the breach and stay and work together differently, or to walk away with mutual regard and best wishes.  I wasn't able to do that.  There was no way I could resolve anything unilaterally. 

I had a horrible EF about it last night, but the worst only lasted a few hours.  I feel hurt, loss, hugely undermined by her view of me, which I hadn't known before.  But I don't feel afraid.
#16
Successes, Progress? / Healed for the moment
March 14, 2017, 12:18:08 PM
I feel very level.  I don't have to be anything, or look for different outcomes to undo old wounds.  I don't feel wounded right now, just very tired.  My wounds are fine, settled, part of a whole.

It was a pretty crap day - painful.  There will be a need to grieve over time. But I didn't abandon myself very much, and this awkward, shambling realness is worth more than any slick, successful, shape-shifting for a temporary respite from feeling unacceptable.  I didn't do very well, I didn't achieve what I set out to do.  I cried, stumbled, felt confused, but it was worth it.  I feel freed. I feel okay being imperfect, feel like I can move.  I'm getting past the paralysis of self-doubt and second-guessing myself that has stifled me for so long. 

I think I will sleep peacefully tonight.
#17
General Discussion / On being a doormat
February 19, 2017, 05:10:45 AM
Note - Content removed at member's request.
#18
I don't know where to put this, having developed CPTSD as an adult, but also as someone who experienced childhood trauma.  So, this seems like the right spot.

I wanted to quickly comment about contradictions.  I've been writing a lot about my problem with fawning and, in doing so, I've talked specifically about that and how it has impacted my relationships.  But I've felt really uncomfortable about the fact that focusing on one issue can create a false impression.  There are ways that I'm a mass of seeming contradictions.  I think most people are to some extent.

What has bothered me in talking about fawning as a problem, is that there hasn't seemed to be a way of talking about it without oversimplifying my whole self, and I've felt like I've been in danger of doing myself an injustice in doing so, especially since when I first came here via OOTF it was because of bullying from a very nasty narcissist.  Also, In talking about the more recent problem, it might have sounded like I was (fawningly) taking excessive responsibility for that.  I just wanted to talk about my issue because what I need to identify and change in myself, is what is most important to me.  If I talked about the situation, and myself more broadly, it would show a more complicated and truer picture, but far too complicated for what I wanted to tease out and understand.

But I've ended up feeling the need to clarify that the bullying that led me here was not caused by me in any way.  I'm sure my lack of confidence and some degree of fawning was one factor in why I was honed-in on, and I put my hand up for taking for too much, for too long, but not without some kinds of far-too-polite protest, even early on.  This wasn't someone I ever liked, she wasn't a friend.  I wasn't just worried about her behaviour towards me, but her affect on the whole group and the project we were involved in.  I was aware of her manipulativeness and dishonesty, and because she underestimated me, and we were thrown together (in part because she tried to turn me into her personal slave and whipping-boy) I was already watching her.  I talked to her directly, one to one, about my concerns in relation to one particular matter, and at the same time told her that I was not going to tolerate her behaviour towards me, and listed the behaviours.  I naively thought the problem between us was dealt with.  It was then that things turned really nasty.  I experienced things that I would have only expected to see on some TV drama, with an obviously devious machiavellianand twisted villain.

Coming to understand her behaviour brought me out of the fog about other relationships, with people I actually cared for and this had huge repercussions.  It let me understand parts of myself too, problems of my own, that until then, I couldn't join up the dots on.  In the end, this has been what has been most valuable to me, being able to come here and find kindred friends, working on and supporting each other with similar problems.  Being able to understand, learn and change - which is painful and difficult, but so much lighter for having all of you and this haven.

I loathe victim-blaming.  I didn't want to do that to myself, and I don't want to ever imply that anyone is responsible for abuse from others.

#19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27VgK0LrR3Q

The above is a link to a u-tube series on trauma/tension releasing exercises.  I'm going to try them because I feel a lot of trauma is locked in my body and it would be useful to find ways to release and relax.

While I was away, I was in a shopping centre feeling very stressed and with the back pain that often goes with that.  I walked passed a demonstration for a body-shaking machine that was being touted as helpful for pain, so I tried it.  The shaking sensation felt great.  It relaxed my muscles and left me feeling invigorated.  When I got home I signed up for the free one month trial and I find using it helps me shake out so much tension.  It loosens me up, and where I get tight and experience pain, I experience the most relief.  I like the sensation of feeling a sense of body relaxation without the hypo-arousal that I usually experience when tension is released (ie via massage).

I'm in a rush right now, but on an online bullying support group someone had attended a TRE workshop to help with her PTSD.  I looked it up and it is a non-profit organisation that releases information and videos for free.

Anyway, I haven't tried this yet, but I thought some people might be interested.

Have a great day/evening/ night (depending on the timezone)  everyone.
#20
General Discussion / What is a journal?
December 21, 2016, 08:52:46 PM
I didn't know where to put this, but this seems to be the most "general" spot.

I want to make a comment and ask a question about journals.  It is related to a recent comment about people being less likely to comment on others' journal entries.  With a couple of exceptions related to particular circumstances, that's true of me.  I'm unlikely to read a post in a journal.  I've never read anything written in most of the journals here.

I've just finished writing in my journal.  For me, a journal is an internal, private dialogue.  I was surprised there were people journaling in this site because, from my point of view, that seems like a contradiction in terms.  For me, the freedom to explore in a journal relies on it being private.  My journal isn't open for feedback.  I realise that this is just my own attitude to journals. Maybe this is why I feel there is a tension with journals on this site.  I don't like to feel there are people who want or need to be heard being missed.  It seems that journals could more easily than with open posting, recreate toxic FOO and related adult experiences.

The main question I'd like to ask is: why do people journal rather than post? 

My feeling is that I'd prefer that journals were not open for comments and that if the writer feels that they are wanting or just willing to have a part of their journal become part of a conversation, that they copy and paste it into a separate post.

What do other people feel?