Recent posts
#91
Podcasts, Videos & Documentaries / Re: Attachment Focused EMDR - ...
Last post by Chart - December 22, 2025, 09:17:21 PMAwesome. I'm sold. Did exactly this last week with my t. Coincidence? Two cerebral halves connecting. Just like two people... it's all about connection. Regulation comes when the two halves "work together ". Just like relationships can do. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
AND Emdr can be used for preverbal by treating the associated present-day negative experiences that remain the aftermath of what happened before cognitive memory came online.
To be continued...
AND Emdr can be used for preverbal by treating the associated present-day negative experiences that remain the aftermath of what happened before cognitive memory came online.
To be continued...
#92
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by Chart - December 22, 2025, 09:07:33 PMHoly cow, I feel like I struck a goldmine here. Chipping away at grey flakey rock, tedious day, up and down a dozen boring times, grains and sweaty dust covering my face... and then something scintillating, it drops, feels heavy in the hand... gold man, it's gold! And then it kept going, each next nugget bigger than the last. A good half-dozen inspiring things I zealously desire to respond and explore with all here! But no... work tomorrow. Gotta rest, serious rest. I feel like I'm looking in through the window at an awesome party.
I'll be back
I'll be back
#93
Recovery Journals / Re: My journey so far
Last post by Little2Nothing - December 22, 2025, 08:17:39 PMDollyvee, Thank you!!!!!!
#94
Recovery Journals / Re: the next step
Last post by Chart - December 22, 2025, 07:55:01 PMHey San, yeah, a broken photocopy machine of a therapist would bring anybody down. But that being said, please take your time. Hope is important, but we all know the reality: good, honest, informed and balanced trauma therapists are definitely not in the majority. I totally believe you deserve the very best, but sadly, the very best is hard to find, so please hang tough and know that your search might take some time. Keep looking and keep positive, but most important, be patient (as best as you can).
Sending love, support and hugs through this process.
Sending love, support and hugs through this process.
#95
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by SenseOrgan - December 22, 2025, 07:53:02 PMsanmagic7
This is so validating. I'm sorry you get this!
Desert Flower
Thank you. Happy to see you again. I'm on the other side right now. Glad you did the right thing and stopped reading my post. That's what self care looks like. 
The night following the trigger wasn't good. Quite a lot of short moments of waking up. I was IN the doom that had been triggered. It was absolute, inescapable, forever. Condemned to eternal loneliness. The fact that such a short interaction, in a place that actually had potential for me to break my isolation, also triggered this, gave my despair extra power and validity. It took me a very long time to find a place where I could see myself not being triggered all the time, and meeting nice people. All of that was out of the window. This place too was a war zone, just like the rest of the world. This entire existence.
When I got up, I was in deep despair. It was excruciating. I didn't know what to do with myself. In my emotional reality, no possibilities existed. The connections I have here, and elsewhere... didn't exist. Any progress I had ever made... didn't exist. Good experiences? Didn't exist. And so on. Total bleakness. My emotional reality flooded everything.
Eventually I connected with a friend. We chatted a long time. And the flood completely vaporized quickly. Like it had been a bad idea that I dropped. No problem. Previous possibilities, connections, and achievements returned. Almost as if nothing had happened. Fully in, fully out. A day and a half later, I'm still out. Amazing.
It feels like something far away now. Yesterday I started having some insight around it. Today I have to work hard to tap into this. I wrote down just a few words right after. I'm glad I did.
TW/the nature of reality
I haven't thought this trough, it's a brainstorm of sorts...
What we take reality to be isn't objective. It's formed. As is the sense of self. On a moment by moment basis. The perceiver and the perceived aren't separate. What ends up being one's experience at any given moment, depends on an endless amount of variables. Most humans are capable of experiencing an extreme range of emotions and states. But we're not all in the center of the bell curve. What we experience is the subjective truths we have gathered throughout our lives. About who we are, and what other people and the world are like and what they mean in relation to who we are. Libraries of it.
Some truths are of higher importance than others. The most important ones are about survival. In the case of PTSD, they are front and center [almost] all the time. With other types of trauma, there may be more flexibility. There are situations where these truths are in the forefront, and situations where other truths are. It's highly variable. Both in time and from person to person. The most appropriate version for the moment is pulled up, without us even realizing it. This is the world we live in. What we interact with. It's all projection. The entire world as we experience it. We don't see other people. We see what we project onto them. The same goes for the world, and who we experience ourselves to be.
What happens in an EF, is that we're back in an emotional truth we've learned. We've learned how that feels, and also what this means in terms of agency, and possibility of changing our situation. In the case of trauma, in the situations in which it was created, our options were severely limited. A situation like that, the possibility of being in one a gain, is of extremely high importance to the system. These are profoundly educational moments. We have very important memories about this. They have come to make up some of the most fundamental building blocks of our sense of self and of reality. They make up our truth to a large degree.
What I experienced the other day, was a dramatic shift between truths. Two in a row, actually. Back and forth. Experienced by the same person. In the same world. The EF feels so real because it's a truth I learned early in life and it was repeated ad nauseum. In part also by myself via isolation in various ways. My brain predicts how situations/life will be, and comes up with the most optimal action to take. A bit like the weather report is created with a gazillion projections, producing a range or a likelihood. The prediction is based on my emotional truths. A thick stack of it. Perhaps a tiny bit on my intellectual knowledge. These predictions and truths need to be wrong and disproven. Endlessly.
In line with what Einstein said about solving problems, I think it's going to be pretty hard for this brain to go against this brain. Particularly when highly emotionally charged truths are pulled up and projected onto the future and even the present. As per usual, I arrive at the conclusion that connection is key. I don't think that I'm exaggerating if I say that everything depends on it.
This is so validating. I'm sorry you get this!
Desert Flower
Thank you. Happy to see you again. I'm on the other side right now.
Glad you did the right thing and stopped reading my post. That's what self care looks like. The night following the trigger wasn't good. Quite a lot of short moments of waking up. I was IN the doom that had been triggered. It was absolute, inescapable, forever. Condemned to eternal loneliness. The fact that such a short interaction, in a place that actually had potential for me to break my isolation, also triggered this, gave my despair extra power and validity. It took me a very long time to find a place where I could see myself not being triggered all the time, and meeting nice people. All of that was out of the window. This place too was a war zone, just like the rest of the world. This entire existence.
When I got up, I was in deep despair. It was excruciating. I didn't know what to do with myself. In my emotional reality, no possibilities existed. The connections I have here, and elsewhere... didn't exist. Any progress I had ever made... didn't exist. Good experiences? Didn't exist. And so on. Total bleakness. My emotional reality flooded everything.
Eventually I connected with a friend. We chatted a long time. And the flood completely vaporized quickly. Like it had been a bad idea that I dropped. No problem. Previous possibilities, connections, and achievements returned. Almost as if nothing had happened. Fully in, fully out. A day and a half later, I'm still out. Amazing.
It feels like something far away now. Yesterday I started having some insight around it. Today I have to work hard to tap into this. I wrote down just a few words right after. I'm glad I did.
TW/the nature of reality
I haven't thought this trough, it's a brainstorm of sorts...
What we take reality to be isn't objective. It's formed. As is the sense of self. On a moment by moment basis. The perceiver and the perceived aren't separate. What ends up being one's experience at any given moment, depends on an endless amount of variables. Most humans are capable of experiencing an extreme range of emotions and states. But we're not all in the center of the bell curve. What we experience is the subjective truths we have gathered throughout our lives. About who we are, and what other people and the world are like and what they mean in relation to who we are. Libraries of it.
Some truths are of higher importance than others. The most important ones are about survival. In the case of PTSD, they are front and center [almost] all the time. With other types of trauma, there may be more flexibility. There are situations where these truths are in the forefront, and situations where other truths are. It's highly variable. Both in time and from person to person. The most appropriate version for the moment is pulled up, without us even realizing it. This is the world we live in. What we interact with. It's all projection. The entire world as we experience it. We don't see other people. We see what we project onto them. The same goes for the world, and who we experience ourselves to be.
What happens in an EF, is that we're back in an emotional truth we've learned. We've learned how that feels, and also what this means in terms of agency, and possibility of changing our situation. In the case of trauma, in the situations in which it was created, our options were severely limited. A situation like that, the possibility of being in one a gain, is of extremely high importance to the system. These are profoundly educational moments. We have very important memories about this. They have come to make up some of the most fundamental building blocks of our sense of self and of reality. They make up our truth to a large degree.
What I experienced the other day, was a dramatic shift between truths. Two in a row, actually. Back and forth. Experienced by the same person. In the same world. The EF feels so real because it's a truth I learned early in life and it was repeated ad nauseum. In part also by myself via isolation in various ways. My brain predicts how situations/life will be, and comes up with the most optimal action to take. A bit like the weather report is created with a gazillion projections, producing a range or a likelihood. The prediction is based on my emotional truths. A thick stack of it. Perhaps a tiny bit on my intellectual knowledge. These predictions and truths need to be wrong and disproven. Endlessly.
In line with what Einstein said about solving problems, I think it's going to be pretty hard for this brain to go against this brain. Particularly when highly emotionally charged truths are pulled up and projected onto the future and even the present. As per usual, I arrive at the conclusion that connection is key. I don't think that I'm exaggerating if I say that everything depends on it.
#96
The Cafe / Re: The Love of Libraries
Last post by Marcine - December 22, 2025, 07:43:02 PMThat sounds wonderful, Hope!
I wish you calm, peace, and happy reading
I wish you calm, peace, and happy reading
#97
Inner Child Work / Re: Learning to write
Last post by Desert Flower - December 22, 2025, 07:37:37 PMNot going mad Saluki, just a little distracted maybe.
Take care.
Take care.
#98
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by Desert Flower - December 22, 2025, 07:34:20 PMHey SO, I just wanted to say I'm sorry you've been struggling.
I was unable to read all of your last post for fear of disintegrating a little bit again myself.
Just wanted to let you know I'm here. You're not alone.
I was unable to read all of your last post for fear of disintegrating a little bit again myself.
Just wanted to let you know I'm here. You're not alone.
#99
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by Desert Flower - December 22, 2025, 07:15:22 PMHi Chart, I just want to say you are such a big support to all of us here and everything you have written here to me has been so utterly helpful and kind, I could not think of anything wrong with it at all. You've truly helped me through some very rough times and I will not forget. You are so very much ALL RIGHT!!!! Please don't forget (if we could 'just' do that, we'd be fine, right).
Yes, the fear is C-PTSD and we are repeating that unfortunately.
Very good for you you're starting this journal.
And I like your 51% goal. I recently read Janina Fisher and she writes about 10% wins. We're not looking for completely feeling better, totaly fine 100%, that's not realistic, but we're looking for the little wins. When we're feeling 10% better, it makes a huge difference already. It could be the difference between 45% and 55%, right. Like your cup of coffee. I love mine too, it brings sheer happiness sometimes.
(Sorry if this reply was a bit jumbled up due to the state I'm in.)
Yes, the fear is C-PTSD and we are repeating that unfortunately.
Very good for you you're starting this journal.
And I like your 51% goal. I recently read Janina Fisher and she writes about 10% wins. We're not looking for completely feeling better, totaly fine 100%, that's not realistic, but we're looking for the little wins. When we're feeling 10% better, it makes a huge difference already. It could be the difference between 45% and 55%, right. Like your cup of coffee. I love mine too, it brings sheer happiness sometimes.
(Sorry if this reply was a bit jumbled up due to the state I'm in.)
#100
Recovery Journals / Re: the next step
Last post by Desert Flower - December 22, 2025, 06:47:12 PMHey San, I'm sorry about the labeling machine and how it upset you, I can surely relate.
I do like how you named this thread "the next step". You writing about the 'labeling machine' here and others commenting are next step already taken. This is how we keep going and learning. Keep taking steps. Lots of love.
I do like how you named this thread "the next step". You writing about the 'labeling machine' here and others commenting are next step already taken. This is how we keep going and learning. Keep taking steps. Lots of love.