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I actually threw out a ton of my journals one time because they triggered me. I'm still mad to this day I did it. I think the journals validated my feelings, but also show how far I've come. However, maybe it is the right thing for you to get rid of them. I don't read my journals, but I take them where ever I move. I used to feel like I was carrying around old negative feelings, but I feel now I'm bring around my strength. Without my experience and journals I would not be where I am today--on the path to self compassion.

It's really up to you what is best for you. Maybe there is some sort of ceremony you can have to burn them, or toss them. Maybe it will help you move forward from your old self. Everyone is different.

I hope this metaphor is helpful in terms of the grief work.

The title of this website is very appropriate for what I consider grief work. I think when we have these realizations we need to grieve them. It's like a giant wave hitting our little boat on the water when we start to really feel the sadness associated with childhood memories. We don't feel safe, we're scared, and we're trying to also ride the wave to safety. The next wave might come too. The tears, the anger, all those unprocessed feelings are like waves hitting our boat. Over time, after we start to grieve, we know how to tackle the waves. They might be just as big, but we're not as scared of them because we know what they are and how to handle them.

Over time, we might have calm, then have another storm; but each time a storm comes, we know what it is and how to handle it. Maybe the storm is triggered by a child we know, the way a loved one treats us... but we learn over time that these feelings of fear are from the past and not the present.

Grief work is a lot of crying. You're mourning what you never had--a mother to care for you. You're also mourning that you will never have a mother to care for you, and that you have to figure out on your own how to mother yourself.

We're going to spend the rest of our lives grieving. Time changes everything. I know many people focus on Kubler-Ross' stages of grief... but I prefer Wordon's. Exchange "death" with "loss." It's about finding meaning in your experience. It is who you are.  Here's a link: http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/wordens-four-tasks-of-mourning/

Rain, another member, suggested I read the book Will I Ever Be Good Enough? By Karyn McBride. It has helped me much more with the grief work than Walker's book actually. Walkers book has become more of a supplement and reference. I highly suggest it since it sounds like you dealt with a NPDm. McBride walks you through the steps really well for dealing with grief in regards to a NPDm.

I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm doing the grief work I feel like I'm going "crazy." I also had a gaslighting mother, so that may be why. My mantra lately has been, "There's nothing wrong with you. There is something wrong with what happened to you."

Have you started a journal? I write in mine all the time. When I feel very overwhelmed or need to tell someone I'll post it in my journal on here. Here is a safe place to share.

Final tidbit. Do something nice for yourself after you have a grieving session. I feel like that extra self care makes it easier the next time you do grief work. It's like a little reward for all the hard work.

I know what you are talking about. From as early as I can remember (around age 3?) till about age 22 I had insomnia to the point of visual and auditory hallucinations. Very scary. One time I almost drive to work in the middle of the night in my PJs to serve a customer. They stopped happening when I moved in with my best friend who I felt safe with. It was the first time in my life I could sleep through the night and the visual hallucinations stopped.

I always had more auditory hallucinations than visual ones. An old T told me this is very common in those who have childhood trauma. Your brain doesn't function properly. The only time I have auditory hallucinations now is when I am under very extreme stress and dissociative. Or in these situations I will become very paranoid.

As an artist myself, I often make artwork about these things. It's a safe way to express these experiences. Also, I don't know if I read this, or someone on OOTS suggested this, but I will literally say out loud to myself (often while hugging my dog), "This is not real. I am safe unless there is clear evidence that I am in danger. This is an amygdala hijacking." I don't know what works well for you for getting back into your body, but mine is taking a walk, hot bath, pets, and body scans. It's like taking care the child part of yourself that never learned emotional regulation and lives in a state of fear.

Have you read The Body Keeps the Score? I'm reading it right now. The way the book explains all the different ways our brains are effected by trauma is incredibly amazing. Knowing that there is a biological component to all this has been helpful to me. That there is nothing wrong with me, but there is something wrong with what happened to me! Also, I'm a HSP, so I don't know if that has a role in the psychosis.

Do you think that your imagination and creativity play a role in psychosis? I always wondered that in myself. I feel like I have a very active imagination.

Do you think your M was gaslighting you? Have you read Will I Ever Be Good Enough? By Karyl McBride? Rain suggested it to me. The book helped me notice and accept that I have can't accept myself or be self compassionate and why. She also goes through steps to heal from those negative messages from our mothers. Hope you find the healing solution that works for you.

Hi Lovely - Not sure what IBS is but I agree that a balanced diet and exercise are an essential part of health.   Exercise is such a natural way to lift spirits and bring your body back to itself.   We've had millions of years where working, to some extent, would provide the framework of our existence.  Around this framework we would fit in sleeping, body functions, eating.  Today we have much more choice and rather than gardening or hunting our work is usually not physical.   I have to act on this more often myself as I can get very lazy.  Exercise gets tiring!   

Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I also have chronic gastritis (irritation of stomach lining). I just posted an article on high cortisol levels (usually true with chronic hyperarousal) and supplements that are helpful for fatigue, stomach issues, hypothyroid, low blood sugar, etc. High cortisol is a somatic reaction to trauma. Yes, between Walker's Book and the Body Keeps the Score, I thought I better start being mindful and meditate or things are just going to continue to get worse!

I have a feeling it is going to take me a long time to read the Walker book, because I keep reading other books related to chapters of his book... haha. Like, I've gone off on some inner/outer critic work. Seems like the key is getting back into your body through meditation and yoga. Then it will feel manageable to do the work. I don't know if anyone has noticed anything similar/different. Self-soothing/safety seem to be a big thing I need before getting to the next step.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disenfranchise your grief. Didn't realize that this all happened so recently. Very sorry about your cat. I'm sure he/she had the best quality of life possible with you. The aggressive cat not having a "home" seems strangely symbolic. I think many of us are sensitive to these kinds of rejection. Sending you peace.

http://www.medicinegarden.com/2011/02/20/high-cortisol-part-3/

This is the last part of the article with the doctor, testing, and supplemental treatments. However, if you start at the first page they will go through all the other symptoms that high cortisol levels cause.

Not a parent, but I think it's admirable of you to listen to your d and provide her a trustworthy space to talk about her challenges. I have friends who are parents, and I can tell how heavy their hearts are when their children are experiencing challenges.

In Brene Brown's book Daring Greatly, she talks about the type of parenting children through these types of experiences. She talks a lot in the book about being with your child in a challenge, empathizing, and sharing something similar that was challenging to you can help children feel they are not only not alone, but that when they are feeling vulnerable that it's good to talk about their feelings. Brown talks about in the book her personal experience with this and how hard it was, and how much she needed to grieve what her children were grieving!

You sound like a really great Mom. I hope you find some peace and advice from other parents. 

I actually ended my struggle with this today! I have been meaning to get back into meditation/yoga for years. I started today.

I did yoga for 5 years and meditated often, once for a period of 2 months straight daily for 30 minutes. When I go back and read my journals during that time, I realized I was much more confident, courageous, and outgoing. The reason why I stopped was because I became incredibly depressed. I stopped all this 4 years ago. I have thought for the past couple years, why the heck did I stop!? So for the past couple years, I decided to let my IC verbally beat me up about how much of a failure I am.

Well, today I am fighting back!! I have been doing yoga over month. Today I started meditating again. I was terrified to start. I hate meditating. It hurts your body, it's hard to focus on the present moment no matter what techniques I use. But no matter how irritating it is, I know how good it makes me feel after I do it.

I found an app called Care.com. It has meditation programs on it. So I set a silent 15 minute meditation. I can't believe how fast it went by. I had a horrible night terror last night and spent a lot of my day ruminating, crying, feeling on the verge of panic. Now it is all gone and I don't see it bothering me anymore. I feel relaxed.

So my goal is 15 minutes a day for one week. Then 20 minutes a day the second week. Then 30 minutes a day for the third week. Then I'll make a new goal after that. I have a reminder on my phone to make me meditate, because I have memory problems.

My IC:         Me after meditating and creating my 3 week goal: 

Sounds like you're having a rough start to the year. I'm sorry that you're going through so many changes at once. You sound like you really know what you want, and you work towards it. I'm sure if you stick to your boundaries, values, and take care of yourself things will fall into place. At least a "good enough" place.

I know when I feel like how you described I think to myself, "I'm not going to say it can't get any worse because it will!" Just because we take care of ourselves, do the right thing, and try to set up a drama free life for ourselves doesn't mean that we're not going to face challenges. Sorry if this sounds kind of blunt, but acceptance to life--it's craziness, it's unpredictability, it's joys, surprises, etc. is what I've learned is the best way to deal with these kinds of things. The only constant is change. If I am going to accept the random positive feeling from the sun shining through the trees, then I also have to accept the negative feeling of spilled coffee in the car. Life is random.

I'm not saying this is easy, and it something I struggle with daily. I feel when life throws at me an angry client, a totaled car, an injury to a pet--I get overwhelmed for sure, but sometimes after a few days or a week I can accept what happened. Stress relievers are also important here. However, I definitely have problems accepting my FOO or my uNPDM because I have (unrealistic) hope that they'll change or realize the error of their ways. However, there's part of me that knows that's never going to happen--I just haven't accepted it yet. I think the more we can learn to go with the flow, accept things, and live in the moment the more grateful we can be.

When I'm having a hard time, I also try to count my blessings. My friend made me do it with her several times, and it is a good tool for when you feel overwhelmed, vulnerable, or disappointed. I hope you can find some peace in your day. 

Your strength based attitude is inspirational. Welcome! 

I have IBS. Whenever I'm stressed to the point of panic I get diarrhea (sorry for gross details). I have all sorts of allergies now too including gluten, chili peppers, and tomatoes. I'm also nauseous a lot. When I complain about nausea my partner always says, "You're always nauseous!" I have thrown up before from panic. I haven't had them in a few months, but I was having these weird episodes once a month where I would wake up in the middle of the night and throw up for no reason. The next day I didn't feel good, but I wouldn't be sick in any other way. I think it was my body's way of saying, "STOP. Take care of yourself."

The things that have helped me is eating a balanced healthy diet, exercising (even if it's just a walk around the block with the dog!), doing something to relieve stress, and taking a probiotic with digestive enzymes. The probiotic really helps. I make smoothies with yogurt. If you buy a probiotic, make sure it is refrigerated because bacteria are living things. The type of probiotic I use (and is my favorite I've tried) is called RAW Women's Daily probiotic. It has the digestive enzymes in it. For stress relief, do something you enjoy. I take baths, sit outside if it's nice, take a walk, and I just started meditating and doing yoga again.

I hope that helps. I've been to digestive doctors, allergists, everyone. It's stress (CPTSD) related. If I have a horrible night terror or flashback I get digestive symptoms too.

Hope you find something that works for you 

**SA TRIGGER WARNING**

I had a horrible nightmare last night and I can't stop replaying it in my mind. I keep trying to ground myself by saying out loud, "It's not real. I am safe. It was a bad dream." When I have dreams about SA I have extreme difficulty letting them go. All through middle school and high school I would constantly have dreams of someone trying to rape and kill me. I honestly have no idea why. I do have some bad body flashbacks, but like a lot of flashbacks I cannot see anything in my mind, and can only feel it in my body. I also went through other physical abuse I can remember, such as my Mom sitting on top of me, pinning down my arms, and having my siblings tickle me till I literally couldn't breath. Or my M literally dragging me across the floor by my arm when I got in trouble... and one time my uncle accidentally pulled my arm out of my socket when I was a kid because I wouldn't give him a flashlight I had that belonged to him.

I do only have one memory that I remember where I can remember visually and in my body. I remember my Mom having my brother and I bent over a bed with my Dad in the room and she was putting something up our rectums. I remember them yelling about something going on an airplane and what she was doing. My parents are substance abusers, and I often wonder if it had anything to do with transporting drugs since my Dad was a drug dealer. It could have also just been a suppository. I have no idea. This memory still haunts me just because I felt violated, exposed, embarrassed. Just awful. My old T chalked it up to suppositories.

I thought maybe sharing this terrible night terror and dissecting it might be helpful for processing it. The scariest part about my night terrors for me is they are incredibly vivid, colorful, and full of detail. They feel so real even though they are not.

Dream:

I was in a strange house that I have never been in, but it was my FOOs home. I remember being with my Mom and my sister. My brother wasn't there. My Mom was going go have sex with me, and told me to pick which room she was going to have sex with me in and she walked away. I looked into my brother's room and saw how neat and clean it was. Soothing, dull, warm colors and wood floors and furniture. It looked relaxing. The other room was sterile and messy. Full of marble and metal architecture. The room was big and open with little privacy. There was a bathroom in the room, that was also as large as half of the room. There was a hot tub in the room also. I walked in and there were two women standing there like butlers waiting to be told what to do. It was like all of a sudden I was in a hotel room.

I then had this horrible realization that my Mom was SAing me. What do I do? Just complete panic. In my dream, this felt normal... the SA, that it had happened many times. But this realization that it was SA just totally made me go into panic mode.

My Mom walked in and said, "I got the hot tub because I know you like hot tubs." She asked if I was ready to get in the hot tub. I had the urge to literally * my pants. I told her I had to go to the bathroom. One of the butler girls showed me to the bathroom that had no door, but was like a separate area of the room divided by a wall. I sat on the toilet, and felt like I was going to have the shits but nothing would come out. The two butler girls were standing there looking at me, and I said to them, "Will you leave?" and they started to walk away.

At that moment, I woke up. Thank God. My alarm went off. It felt like a miracle that the dream didn't go any further.

The body memories I have of being molested have been haunting me for a while. I tried talking about them in therapy, but my T wasn't very helpful even though she was supposedly trained in SA. It felt relieving to express these terrible flashbacks I was having, but I didn't feel I got any guidance or help. It just made me feel more hopeless. The fact that I might never know what exactly those memories and feelings are from are terrifying. Was it my Mom? Am I making it up? Am I imagining these things? If I am why did I start having these night terrors when I was so young? I've had night terrors my entire life. I can even remember having ones as a child where I was abandon and I could not find anyone, and being trapped somewhere I would potentially die... like out in the woods.

I feel like whenever I have these dreams, it's like my body wanting me to pay attention to something I can't grasp or understand. What is it? I'm trying to listen, but I can't hear anything. Is it a metaphor? It makes me feel completely, lost, confused, small, panicky, and honestly like I just want to die. It's so scary. Like my heart is stuck in my throat and I can't breath. My chest and shoulders feel like stone.

I think my sister was in the dream, because her and I suffered the grunt of abuse. My brother was always babied and was allowed to do whatever he wanted. He always was treated like a king. I think that's why his room felt so nice in my dream. That he had all the positive attention I wanted.

The other room in my dream was probably how I felt as a child. Cold, not comforting in any way. No privacy, and in fact invasion of privacy. I often have dreams about having to use the bathroom where other's are watching me, where I have no privacy. Just feeling completely humiliated. I don't know if this relates to my remembered experience.

I love taking baths. I guess bathing/showering was a safe place to self sooth when I was living with my FOO. I could lock the door and cry. I could lock the door and destress with an oatmeal bath. It was the one place I actually had privacy. I would often bring a radio in the bathroom with me, turn it up incredibly loud and say to myself over and over, "Be strong. Be strong. Be strong. Just make it to 18 and you'll be free." My partner and I often take baths together because it's relaxing and safe. We rented a hot tub room a couple weekends ago for his birthday. We did spend most of our time sitting in the hot tub just de-stressing after our car crash and holiday with FOO. I don't know if this is why a hot tub came up in my dream.

In my dream, the fact that my Mom made that comment about the hot tub felt invasive. The fact that my self soothing place was being manipulated and used for evil in my dream was just completely angering. It's like when my Mom is around, nothing is safe. I'm not safe, my self soothing isn't safe, nothing is safe.

And the fact that I was having the shits in the dream. I have IBS and when I am triggered I find myself running to the bathroom sometimes. I wasn't diagnosed with IBS until a couple years ago, but I'm pretty sure it was always an issue for me as a child. It was like I was regressing in my dream. Seems like some completely * up Freudian experience.

I want these dreams to go away so badly. I haven't really shared them before. Or my feelings about my body and SA except one time with an old T. Uhg. 

Here's the interview: https://hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/01/12/treating-trauma-yoga

Apparently yoga is a very successful treatment for PTSD! I did yoga for 5 years then stopped. Now regretting that decision.

And here's a website with TONS of free yoga videos at all levels, lengths, etc.

http://www.doyogawithme.com/

http://www.whatcanyoudocampaign.org

I saw an advertisement for this organization on TV. They actually talked about PTSD. Thought it was nice that someone does consider it a disability, but also that people are NOT just their disability.