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Messages - Geeky Gramma

#1
Poetry & Creative Writing / Waiting for the Phoenix
January 09, 2021, 01:04:10 AM
Caught in the between.
Heart still broken but beating.
The sun rises.  The sun sets.
The painful fog is so thick. It chokes me.
Chards of glass fill my chest.
I scream why...whyyyy....whyyyyyy
All who are me scream so loud in my head.
Tell these monsters to leave me alone.
Tell the monsters they cannot have me.
What's left to crush?
All is given.  All was taken. All was stolen.
Can a pile of ash still breathe.
#2
I am LOVING the new trauma recovery support group I am involved with called Triumphant Trauma Tribe.  It is totally free, and is led by a licensed therapist.
I have found such comfort and support there, as well as therapeutic help.  Being with others who know how it feels to be dealing with trauma symptoms and all that goes with them, has been fantastic.  There is a FB group page, and then online Zoom meetings at 5pm on Saturdays and 6:30pm on  Mondays.  We support each other outside of the group meetings as well, and that has been SO encouraging. 
If anyone is looking for a safe place to share and heal, this is the place!
If anyone wants more information, I would be glad to help. 
#3
General Discussion / Spiritual abuse
September 26, 2020, 03:24:35 AM
I struggle with C-PTSD.  My husband and I have been separated for months now,  but living in the same house.  He has narcissistic tendencies,  and the bullying, control and overall abuse has ramped up.  Today,  among other awful things, he said that my
C-PTSD would be cured if I would just forgive the people that abused me.  He does not think I need a therapeutic professional relationship. He says all I need is a Christian counselor who would use Biblical principles, and I could be cured. Meanwhile, he  continues to narcissisticly abusing me . The stress is making my symptoms flare terribly. I feel like im drowning.
#4
Depression / Can't go on
September 16, 2020, 02:50:25 AM
I am trying to find my Hope tonight,  and I just can't find it.  It's too hard,  for too long.
My body hurts,  my mind is overwhelmed,  and I'm sinking into darkness. I am discouraged beyond words.  It's hard enough to be trying to find healing from CPTSD.  It's hard enough to be marinating in narcissistic abuse.  It's enough to separated from my husband, and living in the same house,  and have my heart break a little more every day.  It's enough that my father is a narcissist,  my husband is a narcissist , my son is a narcissist.  It's enough that I'm so depressed that I'm barely functioning.  It's enough that I'm getting triggered every day trying to manage everything.  But all these things at one time?  Excruciating.  Intolerable. I am wracked with emotional pain.  And all this while a pandemic is making my world even smaller.  I don't have the energy to act like I'm ok.  I'm NOT ok.  I don't know what to do.  I don't know where to go.  My pain is so very great.  I can't do this. 
#5
I have never known grief like I know it now. 

My mother, who was my main (emotional) abuser, passed away in my home on hospice, with me as her primary caregiver, at the end of January.  I had already been on my healing journey for 2 years, and learning more and more about my CPTSD.  I had also been in marriage counseling with my (narcissistic tendencies) husband for about a year.

At the same time, my son, who is a full blown narcissist and had been estranged from us for many years, was served with an injunction for abuse.  He and his wife had been separated for months and we didn't know it.  His cruelty and abuse is astounding. 

As time has gone on and during the pandemic, my husband managed to sabotage marriage counseling, causing our counselor to have to end our sessions.  Things have gone from bad to worse, and I have now separated myself from my husband and have moved into the guest room.  I have finally taken a stand, and will not reconcile with him unless he takes responsibility and seeks help for himself. I feel very emotionally unsafe with the way he has been.   

My symptoms have been getting worse and worse , and the triggering has been incredibly intense.  I really cannot take much more.  I am depressed and anxious at the same time, and the dread of knowing that my marriage is potentially over is enough to make me think I cannot go on.  I grew up in a nightmare, and ended up marrying into a nightmare. 

I am remaining in my own personal counseling, and working on my own healing, self care, and trying so hard to have compassion for myself.  I feel so very alone.  My adult kids don't yet know we are separated, and hiding it from them is literally killing me with stress.  I feel so incredibly sad and hurt.  I don't want to be divorced.  I don't want to be separated.  I don't want any of this. 

I am barely living.  I am barely functioning.  I cannot remember what it feels like to be happy.  I do not know how I managed to get to this place.  Thank you for listening.
#6
Thank you so much.  I feel your support. 
:grouphug:
#7
The Cafe / Re: Reasons to be cheerful
July 28, 2020, 11:35:26 AM
My reason to be cheerful:  in finding this website, and connecting with you amazing survivors, my gift of writing arise from it's deep slumber.  This outlet is helping me find relief, expression, and purpose.  Thank you all!  :heythere:
#8
I struggle with CPTSD, and am recovering from codependency.  I have repressed memories of my childhood from before 13 years old. I was emotionally abused by my narcissistic parents, who hated each other.  I was raised in a war zone.  I left home in trauma at 18, and slid into a marriage as a result of what I now know was trauma bonding.  I started with chronic illness when I was pregnant w my 4th baby at 27.  My marriage was full of me/empath and him/narcissist nightmares.  No one knew outside of our family.  My symptoms increased and increased, and so did his narcissism.  I started therapy 2 years ago, and marriage counseling 1 year ago.  It was in marriage counseling that I started getting massively triggered, so that my lifecoach saw how bad things really were.  Each session he would manipulate and control, to the point where finally, a year in, my counselor said no more.  She told me husband if he continued to do what he was doing (controlling counseling and using her as a weapon against me) she would step out of counseling with us.  He kept it up, and she kept her word.  This just happened a few weeks ago.  I spent an entire week shocked to my core, because I told him if he did that, it was over.  He essentially spit in the face of reconciliation.  So I melted down to liquid for a bit.  Shaking, terrified...scared.  But it has sunk in.  My counselor has seen it, and supports me fully.  My heart is truly broken, but I HAVE to face the reality that for now, my marriage is over.  Here's the rub.  I am still living in this tiny house, in a separate room, during a pandemic, while I am attempting to break my trauma bond.  I am triggered almost 24/7 right now, as this last painful dying flesh is carved away.  But I know it must be carved away for me to heal.  At the same time, I feel like I am in a literal nightmare and I cannot wake up.  From everything I have read, from everything I have been told, there is no other way but to leave...to get away.  If I stay here, I have to find a way to do it in a healing way.  I am not there yet, but I am working on it.  I am a very intimate person, who has no clue how to be surface. I crave deep connection.  I have been married for 35 years.  We are the parents of 4 married kids, with 7 grandchildren.  And my whole world has fallen apart.  I am trying to stand on strong legs, but I am trembling from head to foot.  I am so lonely, and I want a hug so badly, and I would love to have someone come sit with me.  The grief is unbearable.  I am trying to take my power back.  I am trying to break this trauma bond.  I am trying to learn to love myself MORE than my fear of abandonment.
:fallingbricks:
#9
Recovery Journals / My journal of letting go
July 28, 2020, 02:23:26 AM
Letting go of the wish of a mother who wanted me.  She didn't and now she's gone.
Letting go of the wish for a father that wanted me.  He didn't.  He doesn't.
Letting go of a family that I wished for, but instead received a battle zone with bullets flying and bombs exploding and landmines sending metal shrapnel  in every direction, piercing my heart on a daily basis.
Letting go of the wish for a partner who would see me.  Or hear me.  Or want me.  He wants control and I have always allowed it.
And when he disapproved of who I am and what I needed, I begged him to forgive ME.  I have laid on the floor begging more times than I can count, begging for another chance to earn his love.  Trying to please the unpleasable.  Trying to fix and help and sacrifice and deny until there was nothing of me left.  Screaming for love. Screaming into the dark.  Pretending for the world that I wasn't broken into a million pieces. 
Letting go of the child who has become a monster, and has denied me now my motherhood.  and my grandmotherhood.
Letting go of appeasing. Letting go of the white picket fences.  Letting go of dreaming.  Letting go of trying to save the world.  I need to save myself.  I never thought I was worth saving.  If I was worth something wouldn't my most important people want me?  Why did I have to earn it?  I was never able to earn it.  I shouldn't have HAD to earn it.  It should have been given freely.  So I give it to myself.
I have to rise up from these ashes.  I have to rise up and grab hold of the hope of healing from this injury that makes me feel so frozen and so scared.  I have asked God to take me.  SOOOOOO many times.  But I am still here.  I still have my injury.  It goes with me everywhere I go. Some days I hold my injury's hand, and some days it holds mine.  But I am letting go of my own misunderstanding. I look behind and reach for that little girl who wanted to be loved gently and unconditionally.  I am letting go of the noise, and embracing the quiet.  I am letting go of every person who treats me like I am too much.  I am letting go, for now, of being happy.  I am profoundly sad, and that's ok .
I am on a journey of unclenching fists, and relaxing my white knuckles and just...letting...go.   
Still frozen. Still shaking. Still agonizing.  But letting go.  I am letting go of the breath that I have been holding for 57 years. 
Exhaling the poison and inhaling the healing balm.
To be continued...
#10
Emotional Abuse / Needing some hope
July 28, 2020, 12:53:59 AM
I am wondering if anyone has been in a long term relationship or marrige with a person that they were trauma bonded to-- and then successfully broke that trauma bond while living with them,  and remained in a relationship with that person in a healthy way. I need some encouragement. I am agonizing, while trying to break that bond with my significant other who has narcissistic tendencies. We are living separately but in the same house,  and I'm working on my own recovery now, and no longer trying to save my marriage. I have CPTSD, and am a recovering people pleasing codependent.  Trying VERY hard to detach, and staying in a triggered state almost constantly.  Any thoughts would be received and appreciated.
#11
To my narcissist:

There are some things I need to tell you now, some words I need to say—and SOOOO much of me that I am taking back from you—that you will never see again.  You have three faces.  You have lived in the darkness of my pain because of the parts of me that could not stand up to you—that could not bear to see you. You have had a chokehold on me for 57 years, and I nearly lost consciousness.  You have been poison in my bloodstream, surging and seeping into the marrow of my bones.   

My desperate broken longing heart learned to beat to the rhythm of your controlling pattern.   

Thump thump its all in your mind thump thump  you are imagining is thump thump I love you thump thump I hate you thump thump I will show you whos boss thump thump I want to love you thump thump you are too much thump thump I promise I wont thump thump im sorry you feel hurt thump thump I'm not perfect thump thump don't look back thump thump you are crazy thump thump whats wrong with you thump thump you are too sensitive thump thump get a grip thump thump I want to love you thump thump no one will believe you thump thump cant you see Im trying thump thump see me helping you thump thump you are the common denominator it's you thump thump the problem is you thump thump the problem is you don't forgive thump thump let's start now thump thump        I mean now thump thump no really I mean now thump thump

I met you when I was born.  I didn't know any different. Your controlling silence...your emotional unavailability...the things of which I do not yet remember, but are being kept safe for me...chipping away at my innocence. Piece by jagged piece, chards of my heart fell out of my chest and into my lap and onto the floor—then you looked straight into my eyes and pulverized the chards with your cruel foot—grinding it into diamond dust that blew away in the breeze.  I wanted your love so badly.  I craved your acceptance and your approval, but you played that hand close to your own cold heart.   

So I ran.  and I ran-an 18 year old young woman running with little girl legs--away from rejection and chaos and agony , and straight into your arms again.  You, my narcissist.  I gave you my girlhood.  I gave you my life.  I gave you my choice.  I gave you every tender bleeding part of myself, and your ego grabbed it in your unsafe dangerous hands.  I was excruciatingly naïve, desperate for attention, and willing to lock away my passions, my thoughts and my opinions for the sake of stability, which I deemed a worthy cause.  What I thought was stability was burning quicksand of the rest of myself going slowly under.  I stayed when I should have left.  I took it when I never should have let you finish your cruel sentence.  You mocked my injury with enthusiasm.  You had me convinced.  I BELIEVED YOU.  I took eager bites of lies that you served me daily.  And then I begged YOU not to leave ME. I promised to be better, when I was in no way capable.

And then you were also my child.  You were my entry into my dream come true. You were my reason.  I gave you such tenderness and love and encouragement, and I did my very best to be strong for you.  And yet you saw it as weakness. You were disgusted.  Somehow, someway, it happened again.  I saw you transform into this monster.  I saw the insidious power you wielded.  I see the sword you are still swinging, hacking at everyone I love.  I thought I knew the depth of the pain you, my narcissist, could inflict, until I saw YOU swing away.  Effortlessly.  Without hesitation, annihilating relationship and love and tender souls.  This pain is more intense than ever, and you know it.  You are BANKING on it.  You are COUNTING on it.

But no more. Even if my newly discovered voice is still shaking, I speak the words: NO MORE.   The diamond dust is being swept up and poured in a beautiful glass jar of healing.  I have made my choice.  I choose me, and you are no longer MY narcissist.  But you are still THE narcissist.  I wield the sword now, and it is a sword of hope and healing and freedom.  It is a sword of reconnection to my created self, before you rewired my mind and heart.  You no longer have access to my depth, to my dreams, to my focus. I have thrown the key into a bottomless pit.  I am diamond dust that is being forged into who I was made to be...before the pain and also after.  Before my heart was broken and also after 57 years of being too much and also not enough.  There is no love in you, narcissist, and the truth is LOVE WINS.  Love has already won. And I am now in warrior pose
#12
General Discussion / A letter to my narcissist
July 26, 2020, 05:21:23 PM
To my narcissist:

There are some things I need to tell you now, some words I need to say—and SOOOO much of me that I am taking back from you—that you will never see again.  You have three faces.  You have lived in the darkness of my pain because of the parts of me that could not stand up to you—that could not bear to see you. You have had a chokehold on me for 57 years, and I nearly lost consciousness.  You have been poison in my bloodstream, surging and seeping into the marrow of my bones.   

My desperate broken longing heart learned to beat to the rhythm of your controlling pattern.   

Thump thump its all in your mind thump thump  you are imagining is thump thump I love you thump thump I hate you thump thump I will show you whos boss thump thump I want to love you thump thump you are too much thump thump I promise I wont thump thump im sorry you feel hurt thump thump I'm not perfect thump thump don't look back thump thump you are crazy thump thump whats wrong with you thump thump you are too sensitive thump thump get a grip thump thump I want to love you thump thump no one will believe you thump thump cant you see Im trying thump thump see me helping you thump thump you are the common denominator it's you thump thump the problem is you thump thump the problem is you don't forgive thump thump let's start now thump thump        I mean now thump thump no really I mean now thump thump

I met you when I was born.  I didn't know any different. Your controlling silence...your emotional unavailability...the things of which I do not yet remember, but are being kept safe for me...chipping away at my innocence. Piece by jagged piece, chards of my heart fell out of my chest and into my lap and onto the floor—then you looked straight into my eyes and pulverized the chards with your cruel foot—grinding it into diamond dust that blew away in the breeze.  I wanted your love so badly.  I craved your acceptance and your approval, but you played that hand close to your own cold heart.   

So I ran.  and I ran-an 18 year old young woman running with little girl legs--away from rejection and chaos and agony , and straight into your arms again.  You, my narcissist.  I gave you my girlhood.  I gave you my life.  I gave you my choice.  I gave you every tender bleeding part of myself, and your ego grabbed it in your unsafe dangerous hands.  I was excruciatingly naïve, desperate for attention, and willing to lock away my passions, my thoughts and my opinions for the sake of stability, which I deemed a worthy cause.  What I thought was stability was burning quicksand of the rest of myself going slowly under.  I stayed when I should have left.  I took it when I never should have let you finish your cruel sentence.  You mocked my injury with enthusiasm.  You had me convinced.  I BELIEVED YOU.  I took eager bites of lies that you served me daily.  And then I begged YOU not to leave ME. I promised to be better, when I was in no way capable.

And then you were also my child.  You were my entry into my dream come true. You were my reason.  I gave you such tenderness and love and encouragement, and I did my very best to be strong for you.  And yet you saw it as weakness. You were disgusted.  Somehow, someway, it happened again.  I saw you transform into this monster.  I saw the insidious power you wielded.  I see the sword you are still swinging, hacking at everyone I love.  I thought I knew the depth of the pain you, my narcissist, could inflict, until I saw YOU swing away.  Effortlessly.  Without hesitation, annihilating relationship and love and tender souls.  This pain is more intense than ever, and you know it.  You are BANKING on it.  You are COUNTING on it.

But no more. Even if my newly discovered voice is still shaking, I speak the words: NO MORE.   The diamond dust is being swept up and poured in a beautiful glass jar of healing.  I have made my choice.  I choose me, and you are no longer MY narcissist.  But you are still THE narcissist.  I wield the sword now, and it is a sword of hope and healing and freedom.  It is a sword of reconnection to my created self, before you rewired my mind and heart.  You no longer have access to my depth, to my dreams, to my focus. I have thrown the key into a bottomless pit.  I am diamond dust that is being forged into who I was made to be...before the pain and also after.  Before my heart was broken and also after 57 years of being too much and also not enough.  There is no love in you, narcissist, and the truth is LOVE WINS.  Love has already won. And I am now in warrior pose.
#13
General Discussion / Re: Spiraling downward
July 25, 2020, 11:11:25 AM
Slim-
I am struggling with both of those things, powerlessness and shame, but what is challenging is that my current situation makes those feelings appropriate.  I also know that there is flashback involved.
I don't know how to separate all of that.
I feel quite unable to continue to feel this horrific without relief. 
I am using all the tools I've been given. I am putting so much energy into trying to break out of this loop. 
This darkness is just so thick,  and the intense emotions are just so powerful. 
I don't want to sound negative.  But this is quite unbearable.
I so appreciate your kindness. It is comforting to feel understood.
-GG
#14
thank you all so much your compassion and understanding.  I'm so overwhelmed.
You help me feel less alone.
#15
Slim, I have so much compassion and understanding for you now, and also for that little boy that felt so scared.  I have so much empathy for all the feelings you are feeling, and the way they toss you about. Why do I not extend that to myself? Why do we do that to ourselves? Sending you support and compassion as you navigate...