Recent posts
#91
Recovery Journals / Re: Hope's Journal 2025
Last post by NarcKiddo - December 22, 2025, 04:50:57 PMIt is a good list. I'm glad you had a nice, tranquil time in the library and found some books to enjoy.
You're certainly right that Christmas is not very supportive of losing weight. Also, I think it can be good to take an occasional break. I think your plan to enjoy a few treats and not worry too much is a good one. I tend to find that attitude helps me check in and make sure I am actually enjoying the treat rather than eating for the sake of it. If my intentions are too "good" it's easy to berate myself for dipping into the chocolates too many times and then just finish the whole lot at one sitting, because I've "ruined" my plan. Much better to be kind and supportive to yourself over what can be a tough period for many reasons, not just weight loss.
You're certainly right that Christmas is not very supportive of losing weight. Also, I think it can be good to take an occasional break. I think your plan to enjoy a few treats and not worry too much is a good one. I tend to find that attitude helps me check in and make sure I am actually enjoying the treat rather than eating for the sake of it. If my intentions are too "good" it's easy to berate myself for dipping into the chocolates too many times and then just finish the whole lot at one sitting, because I've "ruined" my plan. Much better to be kind and supportive to yourself over what can be a tough period for many reasons, not just weight loss.
#92
Recovery Journals / Re: I Am
Last post by NarcKiddo - December 22, 2025, 04:34:52 PMGabor Mate, who writes a lot about addiction, says that it can be helpful to examine what the good things are about using whatever it may be. What does it provide? He points out that in the absence of physiological addictions via their mothers, babies are not born addicted. At some point somebody tries something and wham! It has an effect they want to repeat. He also posits that no substance on earth can be described as intrinsically addictive, because there are many people who can dabble even with stuff like heroin and not become addicted. Therefore, in working out why we reach for whatever, we need to think about what we like about it. It has to be doing something that feels good or reducing something that feels bad. Once we truly work out what service it is actually providing we can give better consideration to whether that can be addressed by something else.
I guess you maybe could think about what cannabis does that ice cream does not.
I guess you maybe could think about what cannabis does that ice cream does not.
#93
Recovery Journals / Re: I Am
Last post by sanmagic7 - December 22, 2025, 04:18:37 PMwhy not, indeed! it sounds like you discovered a life w/o cannabis, and you survived it, maybe came out of it for the better, bach. you've got that experience under your belt. you know you can do it and make it thru a day, then another. one step at a time, ok? love and hugs
#94
Recovery Journals / Re: Marcine’s journaling forwa...
Last post by sanmagic7 - December 22, 2025, 04:15:20 PMi love the phrase 'morally upstanding social menace' - it resonates in my soul. be who you are, say what needs to be said, walk in your own love - i love those ideas, and your phrase actuated them from somewhere inside. thanks for writing this, marcine, and glad you're here. you've taken some huge first steps. sending love and hugs (if that's ok)
#95
Recovery Journals / Re: Hope's Journal 2025
Last post by sanmagic7 - December 22, 2025, 04:06:04 PMit's quite a good list, too, hope. well done on so many accomplishments this year. keep up the good work and enjoy the holidays. love and hugs
#96
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by sanmagic7 - December 22, 2025, 04:04:02 PMthe inexplicable feeling of fighting against being disintegrated is unnerving, in my experience. losing self while self is feeling threatened is, as you say, like finding ourselves at the bottom of a nasty cocktail. it's very much a battle to stay regulated, present, and whole. i often can't keep up. love and hugs
#97
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by SenseOrgan - December 22, 2025, 03:38:57 PMFor everybody, much gratitude for you being here 
Marcine
Thanks for sharing that. Even though I know I'm not the only one, that moves very far to the background when this hits. There's nothing like relating to safe others to break the spell of aloneness.
dollyvee
Thank you big time for sharing that. You're actually the first person I'm discussing this very specific issue with. You're validating a lifetime of experiences! Co-validation!
This topic reminds me of Pratricia A DeYoung's definition of shame: "Shame is the experience of one's felt sense of self disintegrating in relation to a dysregulating other." The trigger is misattunement. I think what you describe, and what I also experience with people who leave little/no space for me is that I start to disintegrate. It's a distinct feeling I can't quite put into words. It feels dangerous, accute. The opposite of co-regulation. There's an internal conflict going on between two primal interests. Authenticity and connection, or at least being tolerated. To be or not to be. Exist and get your head chopped off? Or chop your own head off and sort of survive? Check mate. In my view, it stems from the time when my entire survival depended on a connection whith a misattuned and dysregulated person.
Existing as an individuated entity next to the relentless force in the form of this opinionated/aggressive/etc person is like a life and death struggle for a young child. I regress to this state over and over in the presence of highly triggering people. In the past, I've referred to severe incidents as "being flattened". I do not check out, like in dissociation, I think. But I do instantly loose my self esteem, often a significant part of my cognitive capacity, sense of belonging and safety in general. I end up in a nasty cocktail of despair, powerlesness, anger, shame, loneliness, and probably much more.
And what makes it so painful, is that I really don't agree with this. In the moment. And rightly so. So I remain present with this overwhelming force, pulling from all the resources I have to stay as regulated as I can. It feels like so much is at stake. Not much is in the interaction with the person in front of me in reality. I'm also kind of aware of that in the moment. So it's another battle to not get reactive [and make things even worse], and nip [potential] conflicts in the bud. It's a minefield. One that can happen at any time with people I don't know that well.
I've gotten a bit better at navigating these situations over the years. At least the mild to moderate variety. I think a vital ingredient for that is meditation. It has strengthened the witness. A part of me is not invested, does not jump on the train, and simply registers what's happening. It provides a tiny pause, creating a bit of a choice between reacting or responding. With reacting I also mean completely imploding and fawning all the way. In the recent example I felt an urge to go against the bulldozer as well as to get out of there asap. So it was hard work to stick to my actual position, which was in most cases that I haven't quite formed an opinion around it and don't care all that much to do so. It's the most difficult position to have around this type, but in line with my authenticity. I was way too dysregulated and intimidated to properly connect to that and word my thoughts, so that's how I ended up mildly fawning my way through it. I have a long way to go dealing with these people. I have no choice, since they're everywhere, and everywhere I go, I take my trauma and triggers.
It seems to me our sense of self is easily influenced by the strong emotions of other people. It lacks the robustness of people who were allowed to individuate properly. The ICR is part of this too, but I believe a good chunck of this is the autonomic nervous system taking the wheel during certain social situations and cognition following suit. This is how this developmental arrests manifests. It's old, and heavily compounded. What's also going on is me projecting onto these people. I'm rarely aware that this is what I'm "doing". These people remind me of something I haven't processed, apart from triggering deeply ingrained patterns. My contraction around this keeps happening because I haven't integrated enough of it. I'm not reacting to these people. I'm reacting to what's already within. I also know what it means to not be triggered by them, which is a bit of a tangent not for now. Nothing changed in the outside world, is the bottom line. I didn't make what other people think of me my business.
What you describe about your experiences with T's is very painful. I'm really sorry you have to deal with this. I've had my unfair share of that too. Including the irony of it being patient centered, and so on. Retraumatizing. As a rule of thumb, I believe it's extremely important that people struggling with attachment trauma stay/get on their own team and kindle the fire of agency and truth. So if this is how you feel, the act alone of validating your own experience and not taking on a T's view about you has a lot of merit. A lot! It may be your therapy while your T has another agenda. This is literally what I concluded after the fact about these encounters. There are caveats to this too. It's crucial to be radically honest with ourselves. There may be truth in what the T's are seeing in us too. I've attempted to make many of them into the understanding parent I never had. I did not grant them much bandwidth to see me how they do, or to interpret. Partially justified, partially reactivity on my part. I wasn't ready to feel what it actually triggered in me, and it wasn't safe because the container of attunement wasn't there.
Walking around like an exposed nerve, it's exceptionally hard to find the right therapeutic fit for that moment in time. Give yourself some credit for getting out there, will ya? It's bloody difficult to find the right blend of safety and being challenged. What we carry is exquisitely painful. It took me forever to start opening up, because the therapists on my road were often so triggering and unsafe for me themselves. When it comes to therapist advertising what it is that they offer, what's written on the cover of the book doesn't always match the content. Part of finding the road home, is to tune into when it's time to leave, or actually stay. Only you can know.
Thank you for you're support. I'll check out Jay Reid.
NarcKiddo
Thank you for your kind words adult with agency. Great term! I can honestly say I did the best I could. It hit me by surprise and I was vulnerable to begin with. Fawning helped me survive many situations, so like you I acknowledge it's value. The aftermath was really rough. I hope to hash that out a bit in my next entry.
Marcine
Thanks for sharing that. Even though I know I'm not the only one, that moves very far to the background when this hits. There's nothing like relating to safe others to break the spell of aloneness.
dollyvee
Thank you big time for sharing that. You're actually the first person I'm discussing this very specific issue with. You're validating a lifetime of experiences! Co-validation!
This topic reminds me of Pratricia A DeYoung's definition of shame: "Shame is the experience of one's felt sense of self disintegrating in relation to a dysregulating other." The trigger is misattunement. I think what you describe, and what I also experience with people who leave little/no space for me is that I start to disintegrate. It's a distinct feeling I can't quite put into words. It feels dangerous, accute. The opposite of co-regulation. There's an internal conflict going on between two primal interests. Authenticity and connection, or at least being tolerated. To be or not to be. Exist and get your head chopped off? Or chop your own head off and sort of survive? Check mate. In my view, it stems from the time when my entire survival depended on a connection whith a misattuned and dysregulated person.
Existing as an individuated entity next to the relentless force in the form of this opinionated/aggressive/etc person is like a life and death struggle for a young child. I regress to this state over and over in the presence of highly triggering people. In the past, I've referred to severe incidents as "being flattened". I do not check out, like in dissociation, I think. But I do instantly loose my self esteem, often a significant part of my cognitive capacity, sense of belonging and safety in general. I end up in a nasty cocktail of despair, powerlesness, anger, shame, loneliness, and probably much more.
And what makes it so painful, is that I really don't agree with this. In the moment. And rightly so. So I remain present with this overwhelming force, pulling from all the resources I have to stay as regulated as I can. It feels like so much is at stake. Not much is in the interaction with the person in front of me in reality. I'm also kind of aware of that in the moment. So it's another battle to not get reactive [and make things even worse], and nip [potential] conflicts in the bud. It's a minefield. One that can happen at any time with people I don't know that well.
I've gotten a bit better at navigating these situations over the years. At least the mild to moderate variety. I think a vital ingredient for that is meditation. It has strengthened the witness. A part of me is not invested, does not jump on the train, and simply registers what's happening. It provides a tiny pause, creating a bit of a choice between reacting or responding. With reacting I also mean completely imploding and fawning all the way. In the recent example I felt an urge to go against the bulldozer as well as to get out of there asap. So it was hard work to stick to my actual position, which was in most cases that I haven't quite formed an opinion around it and don't care all that much to do so. It's the most difficult position to have around this type, but in line with my authenticity. I was way too dysregulated and intimidated to properly connect to that and word my thoughts, so that's how I ended up mildly fawning my way through it. I have a long way to go dealing with these people. I have no choice, since they're everywhere, and everywhere I go, I take my trauma and triggers.
It seems to me our sense of self is easily influenced by the strong emotions of other people. It lacks the robustness of people who were allowed to individuate properly. The ICR is part of this too, but I believe a good chunck of this is the autonomic nervous system taking the wheel during certain social situations and cognition following suit. This is how this developmental arrests manifests. It's old, and heavily compounded. What's also going on is me projecting onto these people. I'm rarely aware that this is what I'm "doing". These people remind me of something I haven't processed, apart from triggering deeply ingrained patterns. My contraction around this keeps happening because I haven't integrated enough of it. I'm not reacting to these people. I'm reacting to what's already within. I also know what it means to not be triggered by them, which is a bit of a tangent not for now. Nothing changed in the outside world, is the bottom line. I didn't make what other people think of me my business.
What you describe about your experiences with T's is very painful. I'm really sorry you have to deal with this. I've had my unfair share of that too. Including the irony of it being patient centered, and so on. Retraumatizing. As a rule of thumb, I believe it's extremely important that people struggling with attachment trauma stay/get on their own team and kindle the fire of agency and truth. So if this is how you feel, the act alone of validating your own experience and not taking on a T's view about you has a lot of merit. A lot! It may be your therapy while your T has another agenda. This is literally what I concluded after the fact about these encounters. There are caveats to this too. It's crucial to be radically honest with ourselves. There may be truth in what the T's are seeing in us too. I've attempted to make many of them into the understanding parent I never had. I did not grant them much bandwidth to see me how they do, or to interpret. Partially justified, partially reactivity on my part. I wasn't ready to feel what it actually triggered in me, and it wasn't safe because the container of attunement wasn't there.
Walking around like an exposed nerve, it's exceptionally hard to find the right therapeutic fit for that moment in time. Give yourself some credit for getting out there, will ya? It's bloody difficult to find the right blend of safety and being challenged. What we carry is exquisitely painful. It took me forever to start opening up, because the therapists on my road were often so triggering and unsafe for me themselves. When it comes to therapist advertising what it is that they offer, what's written on the cover of the book doesn't always match the content. Part of finding the road home, is to tune into when it's time to leave, or actually stay. Only you can know.
Thank you for you're support. I'll check out Jay Reid.
NarcKiddo
Thank you for your kind words adult with agency. Great term! I can honestly say I did the best I could. It hit me by surprise and I was vulnerable to begin with. Fawning helped me survive many situations, so like you I acknowledge it's value. The aftermath was really rough. I hope to hash that out a bit in my next entry.
#98
Recovery Journals / Re: Hope's Journal 2025
Last post by Hope67 - December 22, 2025, 03:28:43 PM22nd December 2025
It feels a bit frenzied out there - lots of people jostling to look for Christmas presents/food stuffs/whatever for Christmas. I found some moments of peace and calm within all of that - especially when I ventured into the library, which is one of my favourite places to be - so calm and lovely there. I chose some books to take home to enjoy.
I think I'll wait till after Christmas is over before I consider my usual goal to think of the various things that have happened over the year, and consider any realisations I've had regarding my progress in attempting to tackle the emotional fall-out of C-PTSD. But as I consider that briefly in my mind just now, there are some thoughts coming to mind - so I'll jot them down:
I have been able to stay 'mindful' and use meditation to good effect this year - it has enabled me to feel a lot more centred and grounded in so many situations, and I am grateful for having stuck with it and practised it - so that I can use it on a daily basis.
I feel more like an 'adult' more of the time than I have ever done in my life - and it's been ok - it's enabled me to parent the smaller parts of me who need me, and I am grateful that I've been able to find various books and tools and resources to enable me to try to do a reasonable job of it.
I've noticed that dreams in recent weeks have featured my past work situations, and that is unusual that they are focusing on that - but the good theme within it is that I am coping with the job situations and I'm amazed at how I've managed to cope - this reflects reality, as I do think back and wonder how I ever managed to do what was a complex and demanding kind of profession. I don't think I would attempt it now! I feel too scared at the responsibility of it all.
I've managed to lose some weight during the second part of this year - but Christmas isn't helping me to continue - so I've decided to just enjoy some treats and festive bites, and not worry too much till January - then get back to trying to lose more weight. I suspect this is true of many people this time of year - not a time for dieting over Christmas!
Wow, I've written far more than I thought I would, and I didn't even think I would be writing any conclusions from the year today - but I do seem to have put down a list, so I'll leave it there for now.
It feels a bit frenzied out there - lots of people jostling to look for Christmas presents/food stuffs/whatever for Christmas. I found some moments of peace and calm within all of that - especially when I ventured into the library, which is one of my favourite places to be - so calm and lovely there. I chose some books to take home to enjoy.
I think I'll wait till after Christmas is over before I consider my usual goal to think of the various things that have happened over the year, and consider any realisations I've had regarding my progress in attempting to tackle the emotional fall-out of C-PTSD. But as I consider that briefly in my mind just now, there are some thoughts coming to mind - so I'll jot them down:
I have been able to stay 'mindful' and use meditation to good effect this year - it has enabled me to feel a lot more centred and grounded in so many situations, and I am grateful for having stuck with it and practised it - so that I can use it on a daily basis.
I feel more like an 'adult' more of the time than I have ever done in my life - and it's been ok - it's enabled me to parent the smaller parts of me who need me, and I am grateful that I've been able to find various books and tools and resources to enable me to try to do a reasonable job of it.
I've noticed that dreams in recent weeks have featured my past work situations, and that is unusual that they are focusing on that - but the good theme within it is that I am coping with the job situations and I'm amazed at how I've managed to cope - this reflects reality, as I do think back and wonder how I ever managed to do what was a complex and demanding kind of profession. I don't think I would attempt it now! I feel too scared at the responsibility of it all.
I've managed to lose some weight during the second part of this year - but Christmas isn't helping me to continue - so I've decided to just enjoy some treats and festive bites, and not worry too much till January - then get back to trying to lose more weight. I suspect this is true of many people this time of year - not a time for dieting over Christmas!
Wow, I've written far more than I thought I would, and I didn't even think I would be writing any conclusions from the year today - but I do seem to have put down a list, so I'll leave it there for now.
#99
The Cafe / Re: The Love of Libraries
Last post by Hope67 - December 22, 2025, 03:16:51 PMI went to the library today and it was such a lovely place to be - I felt some calm and peace there. Enjoyed those moments. Have brought home some nice books to keep me happy over the festive period.
#100
The Cafe / Re: Good Things Christmas thre...
Last post by Hope67 - December 22, 2025, 03:15:39 PMHi everyone,
I know this thread was for last Christmas, but I'm looking for somewhere to just say something about Christmas, and so I came here - it's 2025 - somehow the whole thing takes on a frenzy and I just wanted to note a few moments of calm within it - hope everyone is negotiating their way through the festive times.
I know this thread was for last Christmas, but I'm looking for somewhere to just say something about Christmas, and so I came here - it's 2025 - somehow the whole thing takes on a frenzy and I just wanted to note a few moments of calm within it - hope everyone is negotiating their way through the festive times.