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Messages - Anjulie

#31
Me, too :hug:
#32
Dear blueberry, I'm glad I just stop by in your journal. I didn't read all of it, but I understood that it is time for you to move on to a new therapist because your current one can only offer you one appointment every six weeks. I hope understood correctly.
I wish you well with your search, whenever you decide to begin.  :hug: all the best with that!
I agree with the others that you are an inspiration. Although it is so much work for you and you are dealing with many problems in different areas, you always come up with new ideas and you pursue them as far is good for you. Thank you. 
#33
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
August 24, 2019, 09:46:57 AM
Jazzy and notalone thank you!  :hug: :hug:
It's so good to hear that you are with me and support me!
I'll be back when I have a bit of energy back.
#34
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
August 22, 2019, 05:36:26 PM
Thank you snowdrop and Three Roses for the understanding and for suggesting to rest. That helps me very much to allow myself to rest which is what I really need. When I told my husband, he nodded vigorously  ;)
:grouphug:
#35
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
August 22, 2019, 12:00:38 PM
 In the last days, I've been sorting a lot. I made lists, e.g. what are my problems now and what were my problems when I first broke down at the age of 17.  It was good to see how much progress I've made since then but also very hard to realize once again what * I was in then.
But I also did was make a therapy chronic which means I wrote the date and also the issues of the different therapies  I had.  Oh dear, it was so much work until now.
Well, it is true, I am much better now but my life has been damaged, and  some of it beyond repair. Eg I cannot work anymore and receive a retirement fund... I could not have children, it would have been far too much for me. I have so much less strength than other normal people have.
Now I'm processing all of this, and I am exhausted. It was a lot of work.
#36
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
August 20, 2019, 11:17:24 AM
I am still recovering from my crisis that began 3 weeks ago.  Sorting it out, making lists. What was it, why was it so extreme, what did I learn from it?

I also work a lot with the sentences to the inner child from Pete Walker in his book the Tao of fully feeling. They help me a lot.

I think what caused the crisis was the loss of three very important people in my life.  One was my friend and the other two were people who triggered me badly with their behavior, and that not for the first time. The first was my mother-in-law, and the second was my psychiatrist. I decided to see my mother-in-law much, much less and then for a really short period of time. So within two weeks, or actually one, I lost those three crucial people, a big part of my safety net, let alone the triggers. I don't have very much people around, and, apart from my FOO,  there was only my husband and a friend of mine left. This friend was at that moment suicidal, and thought about going to a clinic ( which I strongly encouraged her to do). And my husband has had a very hard time for months and couldn't be there for me.

When I realized that I was near to alone, I panicked. I reached out for help at a local supporting institution. When the panic seized a little, the pain and the hurt washed over me.  And it came back again and again in waves. It was the question, if I, too, should go to the clinic. In the end, however, I decided not to. I could see that this hurt and all the tears were normal reactions to what had happened to me and that they needed time to be. And I needed rest, because I was absolutely exhausted. I'm exhausted, still.

I have the feeling that I'm learning very much at the moment. But I can't pin it down yet.

#37
Recovery Journals / Re: Jazzy's Journal
August 18, 2019, 08:52:50 AM
Sorry for my late reply, but since I've read this post from you, I wanted to respond.
Quote
So, I read a couple of the other shorter journals here for the first time ever, and now I feel like I'm doing this all wrong... I'm not being emotional or connected enough, on and on, but I think it is just part of the shame that I feel in pretty much everything I do. This being a public record is incredibly difficult. I always had to be beyond perfect, and while I don't have a rubric for this, I'm sure it is not perfect.

I've been struggling with my way of being here, too, and I got so many kind responses, they basically all say: Just be who you are, we are here to heal, you are welcome just as you are and just as you do it.

You're not doing it wrong. There is no wrong  here.  Just do it the way you want to do it, everyone has its own voice, and that makes it so valuable.
#38
I can very much relate to what you're saying. It's really hard to live with this shame and with this need for validation.
You ask if it is narcissistic to need this approval for validation. You write you are in danger of codependency. Isn't that an extremely non-narcissistic way of acting?
I don't know, but it was just a thought. I also think, that there are narcissistic needs in every human being. They are not bad in general.

I stand with you in  that you were made to feel so much fear snd shame and that you were damaged so badly.  :hug: :hug:
Thank you for sharing.
#39
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
August 17, 2019, 10:19:57 AM
notalone, yeah thats sounds totally ok and good and healthy as you say that!  I hope, and I do think, that with me it will be the same, periods when I need to write and periods when I can and like to read and respond to others.

Yesterday I was at my T's and we talked about all of this.
I think what I didn't learn in my childhood is that there is something natural about giving and taking. If you grow up in a healthy environment, then you take that in all the time.  At least, that's how I imagine it.
Somehow, at some point, I don't know exactly, I've learned that you have to give all the time. You have to give without feeling you want to.  Don't listen to yourself, just do it. There was a lot of religious abuse about this. But my parents are that way, too. They are not able to love really, but they are very generous and very reliable in terms of material and practical things.

Having learned this  was useful, because I was able to build really lasting relationships with this attitude.  I have learned to love, too, in the end  :) And I became better in choosing people as friends, who in turn  give me support. Well, as I said, with this one friend it didn't "work " that way.


My T told me yesterday, that, in a friendship, I should only give when I truly  want nothing in exchange. And only what I can give without exerting  myself. And if that person goes away because of that, and that I am always afraid of, that's just the way it is.

So I have learned, that there is some kind of calculation behind all of this. I often give to make sure the other will give the same to me and will not walk away.  :blink:

I think at the core, there's a lot of fear involved, and force. Maybe a way for me is to listen more to my heart, as woodsgnome wrote. Be more of a breathing, living being.
That would be nice...

#40
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
August 14, 2019, 05:36:41 PM
 :hug: blueberry, thanks a lot, I'll try to keep that in mind.
Maybe it just needs to sink in a bit.
#41
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
August 14, 2019, 03:55:07 PM
Thank you sunflower38  :hug:
and for saying that I I am welcome and don't need to feel guilty.
On one level, I think so, too. But at the moment, I don't have access to those feelings.
I think I'll take a break and talk about how I feel to my T.
Maybe I come back to my journal when I have sorted out what's going on inside me.

#42
Recovery Journals / Re: baby steps (I'm trying)
August 14, 2019, 11:32:58 AM
 :hug: I hear you.
Glad you feel better after the letter and after the feeling and the crying :hug:
#43
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
August 14, 2019, 11:23:59 AM
I'd like to post something positive, too.
I think the hurt and the sadness are not so strong anymore.
I have managed to built a bit of a professional supportive system.
My husband seems to be better, he was in crisis, too.
I have twice gone to church in my village, and people there seem to be very nice and welcoming. Although I usually don't feel at ease with strange people, there I felt quite relaxed- really odd!
#44
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
August 14, 2019, 11:17:04 AM
I've made some realizations yesterday and this morning.
As I am not a native speaker reading and writing here it's not so easy for me. Especially when writing I cannot maintain a flow of my thoughts, I can't express my thoughts directly.  And therefore, it takes a lot of time and energy to express myself.

Then, I feel so touched and honored by any answers that I got here on the forum. Actually, I've got the feeling that it is too good to be true...
It is very hard for me to take up space when I know I don't have the strength at the moment to help others much. I think contacts and relationships should be reciprocal, that's what I've learned in my life.
I have once overused a friend of mine. Luckily, she told me so, so I could react and depend less on her. But I know deep in my heart there is a very needy spot. Well, I didn't get much love as a child so that's no wonder.
It became my strategy to listen to others first and give them first before I myself take the space and talk, let alone ask for something.
But here on the forum, things  are all different. I come here, I Post here and some of you have already responded very kindly and very helpfully.
Well, this seems to have triggered something, because at the moment I feel uneasy and guilty for taking up space here.  There is also fear, a lot of fear for not being enough and not giving enough.
It's just like I feel at the moment.

I try to listen to my heart. And what I know is that old things make me feel that way. There is a way to be here and be OK. I just need to find it yet.

#45
Recovery Journals / Re: Anjulies recovery journal
August 13, 2019, 03:00:14 PM
Thank you Tee  :hug: