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Messages - Anjulie

#16
Checking Out / Re: Taking a little break
September 09, 2019, 07:25:46 AM
Hi,
I'm back  :) Thank you all for your good wishes. I really was able to rest.
#17
Checking Out / Taking a little break
September 02, 2019, 09:12:04 AM
l'll take a little break for the rest of the week. My forearms hurt (they hurt a lot and often) and I think they are telling me to give them a rest  ;)
See you all soon  :grouphug:
#18
Hi,
I've done skin picking all of my adult live on a daily basis.
Recently, I came across the OCD Center of Los Angeles, which provides help for Obsessive Compulsive Disorders and related Disorders.
They offer a free 52-weeks email course for skin picking/hair pulling. You receive a mail once a week.

Here is the website: https://ocdla.com
About skin picking: https://ocdla.com/compulsiveskinpicking
52 weekly lessons (Reflections on Skin Picking and Hair Pulling)  https://ocdla.com/skin-picking-dermatillomania-trichotillomania-reflections

The course is based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I received the first one yesterday and it was about self image. A good text, followed by three questions and one "weekly tip". The layout is very clear and simple, it makes a good impression on me.


#19
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
September 02, 2019, 06:51:01 AM
Hi sanmagic7, thank you für your validation, it means a lot  :hug:

Yes, weaving is a very different kind of state. I really want to do it, and do it a lot. A big problem I have is that my forearms are so tense and hurting after just minutes (the same goes for writing). I guess it is the fear from my childhood of being judged and treated with contempt. I am very unhappy and sad about this. Why can't I do those things that I want to?  :'(
Maybe my inner child has to learn that there is no F behind my back anymore, peering over my shoulder all the time.

So that's something I hope will get better with the occupational therapy. I will bring it into my traumatherapy, too.

But every step is so much work! So I have to brain-work to find some break from brainwork  :pissed: :pissed:
#20
 I share the feeling of sanmagic7 that there might be grieving involved.
When I can't manage to get my basic things done, I am often grieving underneath, or completely exhausted because I am processing something really tricky. Or both.
Maybe this whole process about the people around you and establishing healthy borders is taking its toll?
I can imagine all the questions and spirals in you about that.
Sending you a hug
#21
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
September 01, 2019, 12:16:07 PM
Hi Hope ,
Thank you, and your hug is very welcome  :)
:hug: back!
#22
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
September 01, 2019, 06:29:16 AM
Thank you Blueberry and Three Roses!  :)

I'm sorry to hear that you've got those triggers,too, Blueberry. But it feels comforting to me that I am not alone with this. Maybe it will get better for me, too. I really hope so.
#23
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
August 31, 2019, 09:36:01 AM
I am much better now. I don't have so much energy but I feel lighter, as if a shadow has gone.
Yesterday I was in a new therapy called occupational therapy. My old psychiatrist told me I was actually too "fit" to get it but for once it would be OK. Occupational therapy is where you learn to engage in activities, to concentrate, to actually do things. Sorry, I can't describe it properly. My T suggested it  because I have huge problems to learn an activity by myself. I wanted to start weaving, but there are so many triggers when I do something practical, so I never got far.
Oh dear, today I have trouble explaining what I mean in English.

Well the appointment was really good, and the T was completely getting what I needed. The problem is, I don't have a prescription yet, and I don't want to go back to that psychiatrist, I just don't want to, I've been with her for years, but I always go out worse than I went in. So next week on Tuesday I have an appointment with my GP, and hopefully, she will prescribe it for me. She knows I'm looking for a new psychiatrist and consented to fill in the gap.
I'm very nervous and hope she will do it. Otherwise I have to think again if I for once go back to that psychiatrist. Or to leave it be.

So if all goes well, I will finally learn how to weave. I'm really looking forward to this. All my activities up to now, except housework  have to do with the brain, so I long to do something with my hands.

In two weeks I also plan to try out the church choir in my little village. It feels like  a new stage in my life,  trying out how it feels  to be a part of a group of normal people, here in my village, where I live . It certainly will be rocky sometimes, but as I wrote here before, when I was at church with those people (three times now), I just felt natural and good.

This is something completely new to me, Most of my life I felt like an alien among other people. I don't know when that has changed. However, I'm looking forward to that adventure.



#24
 My husband is affected by my flashbacks, too. He cannot be there for me fully because he is reminded of his childhood, where he had to be there for his mother unconditionally.  As a result, he tends to lose his sense of self when he's too close to me while I have a flashback. So I have to deal with those intense feelings more on my own then you would think when you are in a marriage.  But I find that since I acknowledged that he can't react otherwise, he finds ways and steps closer to me, he experiments what he can do for me without losing himself. But that needs time.
I don't know what feelings you husband is dealing with, but maybe he can't choose to react differently, maybe he, too, is stuck in some pattern, that was established when he was a child.
I think that when your husband tries to not show that he is shutting down shows that he wants to make the situation better, which is good. Maybe you could talk about how to be together when you have those feelings and find another way and be creative about that.
My husbands and my solution is that I go to my room for grieving (a strong trigger for him) and only come to him when I have a concrete question, e.g. please take me into your arms, please listen to me, please make me tea etc.
That is sad maybe, but it is not his fault, nor mine.
So what I had to learn over the years is to take care of myself and nurture myself in flashbacks. I found this list from Pete Walker hugely helpful in this:
http://www.pete-walker.com/13StepsManageFlashbacks.htm

#25
I hear you. I wish you solid ground.  :hug:
#26
General Discussion / Re: Accepting a PTSD diagnosis?
August 31, 2019, 07:55:54 AM
I like the image of a boxer very much, jazzy. I'm glad that your image of yourself could change  :hug:
#27
General Discussion / Re: Accepting a PTSD diagnosis?
August 30, 2019, 03:54:10 PM
 I've been thinking about a word in German, and it's translation into English is "marked" ("gezeichnet"). I don't know if I translated it properly. It's a word I don't disclose lightly, but I want to share it anyway. There's a lot of hurt in that word for me, and thats why it feels right.
In essence, I mean that it's in the same corner with post traumatic.
Still, it's not the final say.

I think that the word or sentence could be a different one for everyone. That's what you want to express about yourself. And I guess mine will change over time.
With my word, I want to say "look at me, look what you've done!". Maybe you want to say something different, like "I'm not weak".
These are just thoughts.
#28
General Discussion / Re: Accepting a PTSD diagnosis?
August 30, 2019, 11:06:26 AM
QuoteLet us know if you find the right word!
I'll do that!
#29
General Discussion / Re: Accepting a PTSD diagnosis?
August 29, 2019, 07:51:49 PM
Cool!
#30
General Discussion / Re: Accepting a PTSD diagnosis?
August 29, 2019, 05:17:31 PM
I feel weak very often, too.  Most of my energy goes into working on myself, just to manage the basics. As some of you have said, I'm fed up with this. I want it to go away, to be happy.
But, as I read this thread I realize that it helps me so much at the moment that I am not alone in this. It makes it easier for me to accept my condition.
And then I am so angry at all the unfairness. When they take so much away from you and then tell you that you're not allowed to be weak.
Besides, I would like to find another word for weak in my life. A word that holds in it the survival but also the frailty and the struggle. I don't know one, I'm still looking.
Maybe it will be a sentence.