Haven't been able to share - can't post about anything at all.
I hope this is temporary.
I hope this is temporary.
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#2
Recovery Journals / Lifecrafting's Journal First paragraph addresses possible triggers
August 29, 2015, 11:09:23 PM
I had an experience yesterday that shook my world and I want to share it. In this post I have used a certain profanity a few times, always with ***** and only in the context of the dialogue that was going on in my own head at the time this experience was happening. I don't believe I have misused it or broken any guidelines but if I have I will understand if my post is removed.
Triggers - Gosh, I don't know.
There is nothing of physical or sexual abuse.
My bedroom as a little girl was in a basement - it was dark and bugs were everywhere but I don't go into details - it's just part of the story. My parents were hunters of our food so there is some of what goes along with that.
May or may not be important; I'm just trying to cover my bases.
So here it is.
The Body Remembers
I stand there in the middle of the room trembling. The floor is concrete, the lighting, a single bulb hanging from the ceiling by an electrical cord, gives little light and the smell of dead mice permeates the air. I am in the basement. And I am, at 56 years of age, all of a sudden 5 years old.
It's a lovely home, kept by lovely people. It has many years of joy, laughter, tragedy, grief and togetherness oozing from every nook and cranny; there has always been love here. I am in awe of the feeling I get that some people's lives have been... good. Just good.
The basement in this house is pretty decent as far as basements go - it's full of the usual stored Christmas stuff and some of the kid's old toys and picture frames no longer in use, that sort of thing. It's all good.
But, it is a basement and it has a mouse problem. And I volunteered to take care of the problem. It's not a pleasant task and I don't really "WANT TO" but there you go; I volunteered so get on with it, right?
So I head downstairs and there it is - a trap with a rather large dead mouse in it and looking at it, I find myself catapulted into another world. I don't even know what happened but out of nowhere, I am so afraid, I don't know what to do. I'm standing there looking at it and before I know it, I am crying - tears just rolling down my face and my body is trembling. And I hear these words come out of my mouth: "I can't do it."
What?
I'm standing there, talking to myself, "Whoa...what are you doing? What's going on? Of course you can do it! Shake it off woman!"
Taking on "just get the job done" motivation, I go searching for a long something or other to bring the trap out more into the open and I'm walking around feeling like my legs are going to give out on me any moment and all I can think is "How am I going to do this? I can't do this! How am I going to do this??? Well, I have to do this. Quit being a baby about it and just do it!"
So I find a small rake and start walking back over to to the trap and even before I get there, I'm crying harder and when I see the trap, I start walking around in circles talking to myself... and then I just decide "OK do it." So I stop and look at it and just thinking about reaching the rake out to bring it closer makes me f****** crazy with fear... And now the trembling is more like violent shaking and there's this continual dialogue in my head: "What is wrong with me? What is happening to me?" And I'm walking around in circles.... and I'm panicking and I'm saying "F***" over and over, walking around in circles...
All I can come up with is courage. "Yep, that is what is needed here" so I wipe my tears, in a mad at myself, defiant sort of way and tell myself to "buck up and just do it." I don't know if that is courage or not but that's what I'm calling it. Anyway, I turn around, face the dead mouse, reach out again with the rake and fall apart, start walking in circles again. Cry, cry, cry. F*** F*** F***
I won't go on and on but it did go on and on for about 20 minutes I would guess; good thing nobody was in the house but me...
Well, I did it. And there was a second mouse. Did that. Talking to myself, "OK. Done. Allright. You did it. Done. OK. You did it. It's over." And then reset them for the next round. It was the most excruciating emotional time I have ever experienced with regard to such a "trivial" event.
I sat down on the stairs and cried. Relief, I guess, releasing the tension? I don't know; I just cried.
Calming down, I wondered why I did it. If it's so horrible, why would I do that?? Well, I said I would, that's why! Well, yeah... it's only right to follow through, to be good with your word and all that but really? Did I really need to go through all that??? And did I do something to create that drama? Is this my fault that it was so hard???
Now, I'm sitting there rationalizing the whole thing and berating myself and possibly creating more drama while I'm trying to calm down and... "Really! What is going on with me?"
And then it hit me. Good and hard. If I hadn't been sitting I probably would have fallen over.
I was 5 years old when my sister was born and that's when my mom moved me and my other younger sister into the basement of our house. It was a finished basement in that it had concrete floors and stuccoed walls. There were huge cracks in those walls, a few bulging so badly I sometimes wondered what would happen if they broke - would we be buried in the basement? And that is where the cockroaches lived too. I would watch them come in and out of those cracks and I don't believe I thought too much of it then because there were lots of bugs down there; the spiders scared me more.
Sometimes at night, when I was scared, I would call out to my parents thinking they could hear me cuz I could hear them but nobody ever came. The light in the room was a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, (if that light wasn't on, it was pitch black down there) it had a short chain that I had to pull to turn it on. Now that I think about it, that's pretty messed up; I'm not that tall at 5 years old. In the middle of the night, I would get out of bed, feel my way along the wall to a certain place where there was a chair that I could drag to the middle of the room to stand on to reach the chain; I have no clue what I did before I was tall enough to do that.
Well, that's the basement part of the story. Here is the other part:
My parents were hunters - deer squirrel, rabbit, pheasant, doves....there was always some beautiful animal hanging dead in our garage - the smell sickens me to this day.
We had an incinerator in our yard and when they brought home our "food", it was my job to take the birds out to the incinerator and take the feathers off. I would stand there and cry. I would tell them I couldn't do it. But I had to do it anyway. And then they made me eat it. I cried through that too.
I guess what this whole mousetrap thing did was bring alive the fear and loneliness of my basement life and the total despair I felt having to pluck the birds (handle a dead animal) - together they came crashing in on me, overwhelming me with feelings that I left somewhere in the past.
This is my current understanding of the body remembering trauma.
I feel better having written this. Thanks for reading.
Triggers - Gosh, I don't know.
There is nothing of physical or sexual abuse.
My bedroom as a little girl was in a basement - it was dark and bugs were everywhere but I don't go into details - it's just part of the story. My parents were hunters of our food so there is some of what goes along with that.
May or may not be important; I'm just trying to cover my bases.
So here it is.
The Body Remembers
I stand there in the middle of the room trembling. The floor is concrete, the lighting, a single bulb hanging from the ceiling by an electrical cord, gives little light and the smell of dead mice permeates the air. I am in the basement. And I am, at 56 years of age, all of a sudden 5 years old.
It's a lovely home, kept by lovely people. It has many years of joy, laughter, tragedy, grief and togetherness oozing from every nook and cranny; there has always been love here. I am in awe of the feeling I get that some people's lives have been... good. Just good.
The basement in this house is pretty decent as far as basements go - it's full of the usual stored Christmas stuff and some of the kid's old toys and picture frames no longer in use, that sort of thing. It's all good.
But, it is a basement and it has a mouse problem. And I volunteered to take care of the problem. It's not a pleasant task and I don't really "WANT TO" but there you go; I volunteered so get on with it, right?
So I head downstairs and there it is - a trap with a rather large dead mouse in it and looking at it, I find myself catapulted into another world. I don't even know what happened but out of nowhere, I am so afraid, I don't know what to do. I'm standing there looking at it and before I know it, I am crying - tears just rolling down my face and my body is trembling. And I hear these words come out of my mouth: "I can't do it."
What?
I'm standing there, talking to myself, "Whoa...what are you doing? What's going on? Of course you can do it! Shake it off woman!"Taking on "just get the job done" motivation, I go searching for a long something or other to bring the trap out more into the open and I'm walking around feeling like my legs are going to give out on me any moment and all I can think is "How am I going to do this? I can't do this! How am I going to do this??? Well, I have to do this. Quit being a baby about it and just do it!"
So I find a small rake and start walking back over to to the trap and even before I get there, I'm crying harder and when I see the trap, I start walking around in circles talking to myself... and then I just decide "OK do it." So I stop and look at it and just thinking about reaching the rake out to bring it closer makes me f****** crazy with fear... And now the trembling is more like violent shaking and there's this continual dialogue in my head: "What is wrong with me? What is happening to me?" And I'm walking around in circles.... and I'm panicking and I'm saying "F***" over and over, walking around in circles...
All I can come up with is courage. "Yep, that is what is needed here" so I wipe my tears, in a mad at myself, defiant sort of way and tell myself to "buck up and just do it." I don't know if that is courage or not but that's what I'm calling it. Anyway, I turn around, face the dead mouse, reach out again with the rake and fall apart, start walking in circles again. Cry, cry, cry. F*** F*** F***
I won't go on and on but it did go on and on for about 20 minutes I would guess; good thing nobody was in the house but me...
Well, I did it. And there was a second mouse. Did that. Talking to myself, "OK. Done. Allright. You did it. Done. OK. You did it. It's over." And then reset them for the next round. It was the most excruciating emotional time I have ever experienced with regard to such a "trivial" event.
I sat down on the stairs and cried. Relief, I guess, releasing the tension? I don't know; I just cried.
Calming down, I wondered why I did it. If it's so horrible, why would I do that?? Well, I said I would, that's why! Well, yeah... it's only right to follow through, to be good with your word and all that but really? Did I really need to go through all that??? And did I do something to create that drama? Is this my fault that it was so hard???
Now, I'm sitting there rationalizing the whole thing and berating myself and possibly creating more drama while I'm trying to calm down and... "Really! What is going on with me?"
And then it hit me. Good and hard. If I hadn't been sitting I probably would have fallen over.
I was 5 years old when my sister was born and that's when my mom moved me and my other younger sister into the basement of our house. It was a finished basement in that it had concrete floors and stuccoed walls. There were huge cracks in those walls, a few bulging so badly I sometimes wondered what would happen if they broke - would we be buried in the basement? And that is where the cockroaches lived too. I would watch them come in and out of those cracks and I don't believe I thought too much of it then because there were lots of bugs down there; the spiders scared me more.
Sometimes at night, when I was scared, I would call out to my parents thinking they could hear me cuz I could hear them but nobody ever came. The light in the room was a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, (if that light wasn't on, it was pitch black down there) it had a short chain that I had to pull to turn it on. Now that I think about it, that's pretty messed up; I'm not that tall at 5 years old. In the middle of the night, I would get out of bed, feel my way along the wall to a certain place where there was a chair that I could drag to the middle of the room to stand on to reach the chain; I have no clue what I did before I was tall enough to do that.
Well, that's the basement part of the story. Here is the other part:
My parents were hunters - deer squirrel, rabbit, pheasant, doves....there was always some beautiful animal hanging dead in our garage - the smell sickens me to this day.
We had an incinerator in our yard and when they brought home our "food", it was my job to take the birds out to the incinerator and take the feathers off. I would stand there and cry. I would tell them I couldn't do it. But I had to do it anyway. And then they made me eat it. I cried through that too.
I guess what this whole mousetrap thing did was bring alive the fear and loneliness of my basement life and the total despair I felt having to pluck the birds (handle a dead animal) - together they came crashing in on me, overwhelming me with feelings that I left somewhere in the past.
This is my current understanding of the body remembering trauma.
I feel better having written this. Thanks for reading.
#3
Questions/Suggestions/Comments / Can anyone tell me why my emoticon function won't work?!?!?
August 29, 2015, 05:53:23 PM
I have tried everything. Even Kizzie wrote me back with directions on how to use the emoticon function and believe me when I tell you that I feel.... Well, you know... how many people have to ask HOW TO PUT A SMILEY IN YOUR POST?
My computer just spent a couple of days at the Geek Squad hospital and the tech said my settings are fine....
Help? I'm feeling all kinds of left out cuz I can't give hugs like all of you do...
My computer just spent a couple of days at the Geek Squad hospital and the tech said my settings are fine....
Help? I'm feeling all kinds of left out cuz I can't give hugs like all of you do...
#4
The Cafe / I just want to tell you
August 11, 2015, 05:37:02 PM
I am a grateful member of OOTS today!
Since finding this forum, I am feeling better and I want you to know that I am grateful for each and every one of you ~ for your sincere presence here, for being mindful, for being honest, for being fun, for sharing of yourselves the way you do.
You have helped me!
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
Since finding this forum, I am feeling better and I want you to know that I am grateful for each and every one of you ~ for your sincere presence here, for being mindful, for being honest, for being fun, for sharing of yourselves the way you do.
You have helped me!
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
#5
General Discussion / Not trusting my feelings
August 06, 2015, 01:57:06 PM
As a new member, I have spent a few days perusing the site, reading and sorting through thoughts/feelings. Thank you all so much for being here!
Inasmuch as I've made the decision to take action toward helping myself, I am completely overwhelmed by the task at hand. I know many of you have been there or are currently in the same place so I'm looking forward to your hearing your thoughts.
What I've chosen to focus on first is the lack of trust I have in my own feelings.
If I look back, I find situations where my "intuition" was positively reinforced so I know that much.
More recently, (past 6 years) I am in a relationship with a man I lived with for 2 yrs and then moved out. I recognize him as having many narcissistic traits but who says he's doing the best he can to work out our stuff...and who sits down and really talks with me when he knows I'm close to leaving the relationship. When we have these big talks, I believe he is sincere because he goes to a place we've not been before in conversation. (narcissistic control or " OH NO, SHE'S GOING TO LEAVE!!!" Are they the same thing?)
In between talks, I find discrepancies in his communications that I don't trust. He has given me reason for mistrust in the past so could it be my not forgiving/moving on that keeps me finding issues to mistrust?
The bottom line is that I truly believe that he loves me and I do love him. I also truly believe there is something wrong. Could the something wrong be that we're trying to maneuver in this ****** ** relationship, both of us with issues and that's challenging in itself? What to do??? I haven't a clue.
So prioritizing... I've got to put things in perspective:
Serious trust issues with him; more important is the lack of trust in myself.
I have been drinking (not way too much but too much to feel OK about) for 4 years now; it's not out of control - I go to work, basically I'm healthy, the drinking is getting better every day but how much of an impact does guilt, shame, blame, not to mention the physical consumption of such a toxin have on my thinking? Right? Geez.....
No 12 steps at this point. I have been in CODA and ACA.
I don't mind putting this out here; we have ONE Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting here in Kansas City; I would like to start another. If anyone is interested or knows someone who may be, you can PM me... Thanks.
OK. Basically, that's it. I'm willing to elaborate if needed. Please do share!
Inasmuch as I've made the decision to take action toward helping myself, I am completely overwhelmed by the task at hand. I know many of you have been there or are currently in the same place so I'm looking forward to your hearing your thoughts.
What I've chosen to focus on first is the lack of trust I have in my own feelings.
If I look back, I find situations where my "intuition" was positively reinforced so I know that much.
More recently, (past 6 years) I am in a relationship with a man I lived with for 2 yrs and then moved out. I recognize him as having many narcissistic traits but who says he's doing the best he can to work out our stuff...and who sits down and really talks with me when he knows I'm close to leaving the relationship. When we have these big talks, I believe he is sincere because he goes to a place we've not been before in conversation. (narcissistic control or " OH NO, SHE'S GOING TO LEAVE!!!" Are they the same thing?)
In between talks, I find discrepancies in his communications that I don't trust. He has given me reason for mistrust in the past so could it be my not forgiving/moving on that keeps me finding issues to mistrust?
The bottom line is that I truly believe that he loves me and I do love him. I also truly believe there is something wrong. Could the something wrong be that we're trying to maneuver in this ****** ** relationship, both of us with issues and that's challenging in itself? What to do??? I haven't a clue.
So prioritizing... I've got to put things in perspective:
Serious trust issues with him; more important is the lack of trust in myself.
I have been drinking (not way too much but too much to feel OK about) for 4 years now; it's not out of control - I go to work, basically I'm healthy, the drinking is getting better every day but how much of an impact does guilt, shame, blame, not to mention the physical consumption of such a toxin have on my thinking? Right? Geez.....
No 12 steps at this point. I have been in CODA and ACA.
I don't mind putting this out here; we have ONE Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting here in Kansas City; I would like to start another. If anyone is interested or knows someone who may be, you can PM me... Thanks.
OK. Basically, that's it. I'm willing to elaborate if needed. Please do share!
#6
Podcasts, Videos & Documentaries / CPTSD Coach Youtube Link
August 04, 2015, 12:17:54 PM
I am a huge fan of Spartanlifecoach on Youtube.
I know a few others have mentioned him here but that was a few months ago so I thought I'd share this video today:
Can We Work Towards A Total Cure For Complex PTSD?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws6uTDeWp4o
As has been mentioned before, he does use his words colorfully - swearing is part of his dialogue; not a ton but it's there.
I know a few others have mentioned him here but that was a few months ago so I thought I'd share this video today:
Can We Work Towards A Total Cure For Complex PTSD?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws6uTDeWp4o
As has been mentioned before, he does use his words colorfully - swearing is part of his dialogue; not a ton but it's there.
#7
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Writer's forum?
August 03, 2015, 01:47:55 PM
Hey Everyone,
I still haven't introduced myself to you all but I've been reading and sharing to the best of my ability. I want to thank you all for being here; I appreciate you.
I have a thought....
I feel better through writing poetry/short stories.
I have looked around the site for a place to share through this medium but don't see one.
Am I missing a writers forum somewhere or is it not something we do?
If not, can we???
Thanks
I still haven't introduced myself to you all but I've been reading and sharing to the best of my ability. I want to thank you all for being here; I appreciate you.
I have a thought....
I feel better through writing poetry/short stories.
I have looked around the site for a place to share through this medium but don't see one.
Am I missing a writers forum somewhere or is it not something we do?
If not, can we???
Thanks
#8
NSC - Negative Self-Concept / Difference between Inner/Outer Critic?
August 01, 2015, 08:41:09 PM
Hi All,
I just registered with OOTS today and am looking forward to learning how to help myself so THANK YOU in advance for sharing your experiences and knowledge!
I just started reading Pete Walker's book Complex PTSD; I was in tears by page 11 so I know it will do me good....
I've been reading here about inner & outer critic. Is the difference between the two that outer critic is vocal (towards myself or others) while the inner is the "beating myself up voice"?? Can you help me with this?
I just registered with OOTS today and am looking forward to learning how to help myself so THANK YOU in advance for sharing your experiences and knowledge!
I just started reading Pete Walker's book Complex PTSD; I was in tears by page 11 so I know it will do me good....
I've been reading here about inner & outer critic. Is the difference between the two that outer critic is vocal (towards myself or others) while the inner is the "beating myself up voice"?? Can you help me with this?
#9
Please Introduce Yourself Here / New to OOTS
August 01, 2015, 06:53:48 PM
Hi Everyone
Actually, I just don't know what to say except I'm glad I found this site. I hope to start healing....
Thank you for being here
Actually, I just don't know what to say except I'm glad I found this site. I hope to start healing....
Thank you for being here
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