The tipping point…

[sanmagic7]

thinking of you.  love and hugs

[Chart]

thinking of you.  love and hugs

[SenseOrgan]

Hanging in there Chart?

[Chart]

When I was 17 my mom and dad moved me to Kansas. The house was a classic suburban setup with two-car garage and squeezed in amongst a hundred other couple of houses all oriented around winding roads and cul-de-sacs. However it worked out, I got the main bedroom downstairs. My parents wanted the more private, but smaller room on the mezzanine. As such I had my own bathroom and a sliding glass door that let out onto the garden. My parents were in the room diametrically opposite mine, the other side of the house and the floor above. My first few terrifying weeks at school introduced me to a whole new social world. Where in Ohio and my previous school I had been unpopular and had few friends, here in this new bigger school there were plenty of social groups and I quickly found the theater crowd and made acquaintances. Almost immediately someone introduced me to a fellow student that actually had her own apartment a little ways across the suburban landscape. We became friends, and I would sneak out of my house after my parents would go to bed, walk the distance to reach a crazy apartment absolutely jam-packed with plants and hang out until sunrise, when I would walk back and sneak back into my room before my parents were up.

That's a little bit how I feel right now, here on the Forum. I've been gone for I don't know how long and I've been to some crazy places since for sure. The Forum has stuck with me though, and I am closer than ever to my Zoom group meetings every two weeks. I've also made contact with someone in the region next to mine and we have begun exchanging by email. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they are NOT French, rather an ex-pat kinda like me, but from England and have been in France for decades.

I continue my morning exercises, PMR, Cardiac respiration, and Guillarme abdominal strengthening. I do this very faithfully. I still feel the benefits of it, although tiny, I still feel it and as my Cptsd symptoms continue... I think I will do these the rest of my life. On April 5th I added two hours of meditation to this "regime". I am impatient with my continuing symptoms and thus made the choice to engage in what I called at the time "Desperation Meditation". Since then I've learned a lot and am still learning. But my determination has given some relief and I even sense that things have become slightly less intense. It's hard to describe. But I'm convinced it's doing something. Also, I trust the Buddhist concepts and adherents. I trust them as much as I trust my Cptsd Zoom group.

Without a doubt, contact with people who understand is gold, pure solid gold. More and more I feel the strength I get from these connections. I continue my inner-child work and have even incorporated it into my meditation. I also continue with a state-assigned EMDR therapist. She is very limited in her trauma knowledge, but she is open to learning, and we have established trust, which allows me to often "lead" our sessions. We work as a team and I am able to cry my head off, releasing and releasing and releasing. I'm doing this now for at least a year. I find it amazing just how much trauma is stored inside me. These reservoirs are impressive. I will keep going.

Time for dinner. I took my daughter shopping for the back to school stuff, clothes, notebooks, shoes, etc... After we got home my daughter said the nicest thing I've ever heard: "Dad, if you weren't my dad, you'd be my best friend..." I was stunned, stood there for a good twenty seconds, then went and hugged her and told her how much that had touched me. I realized after, thinking about it all... I have changed. It's long this *poop*. It's frickin' really long, but I have changed. I don't necessarily feel a million times better, not hardly, but I have realized that I am more relaxed and patient and just generally happy and cool when I'm with my kids. I have become a better father through all this work on Cptsd. Regardless what I feel regarding my healing, I know that I am a better person than three years ago. There is no going around, the only way out is through. But when we make that passage together, it's whole 'nother experience entirely.
Sending love and hugs to everyone.

[Marcine]

Hi Chart— great to hear from you and with so much good, solid news in your update!
I missed you and am glad to hear you're changing, growing, parenting, meditating, connecting, and... being!

[sanmagic7]

chart, i don't think there could be a more wonderful sentiment than to have your kid say something like that.  my D, also, has noted the changes i've made since i was her mom so long ago, and we get along now like gangbusters.  good for you for making all the effort, for sticking to it, for grinding away at this cptsd beast.  well done!  love and hugs

[HannahOne]

Chart, I was so heartened to read your post. I've had a hard day and reading about your pursuit of exercises that you know are helping, your dedication to meditation, and your relationship with your child brought me some happy tears. I am delighted for you. Thank you for sharing your experience.

It is VERY long, and very hard, and healing may take the rest of your life. That you find yourself a better person, or maybe more the person you wanted to feel safe enough to express, is wonderful---and there is no stronger proof of the solidness of the person you are than your child's words. Your post was solid gold for me today.

[TheBigBlue]

Chart, it is so good to see you back here!
And what a wonderful update to come back with. I'm really happy for you and especially touched by what you wrote about your kids.
Sending big  

[Desert Flower]

Hey Chart, like the others, I'm really happy to hear from you. (I myself have been away too.)
And it's absolutely wonderful what your daughter said and I am so very proud of you for keeping up all the hard word, which is in fact paying off!
 

[Chart]

Thank you all so very much. I feel truly blessed and am reminded of the love and sharing that helped me so much these past three years. This life is such a strange funny thing. But the goodness of this forum and the love shared... That's not changed a whit. I didn't forget that, but somehow I'm moved as if it is brand new. (Which it's not!

Hope to heck that made sense.

For about two years this forum was a kind of life-raft for me. (And I'm probably not alone in that feeling.) Looking back, trying to remember accurately and honestly, I needed desperately to "give" and feel validated by who I had discovered I was. It has slowly dawned on me that my breakdown and subsequent struggle to just stay alive was the beginning of finally coming to know who I truly was. Before... I'd been coasting... for decades. I'd just been stumbling through life. Reactions were experienced through a solid state of dissociation and absence of awareness. Like trying to explain a seventh sense. What I thought I was living was a small chunk just visible above the surface. And the water is freezing but I found the courage to dive. I'm not sure I'd made that leap without the help, insight, preparative wisdom and most critically, the love given and shared here on this forum.

It's good to take a break just for the joy of reuniting.

AND the contrast of change is very apparent. I do not feel exactly the same. One big thing is a big reduction in shame. I used to doubt horribly everything I wrote. I feel that "guilt" immensely reduced. That's REALLY nice.

Soon time for sleep for me... one last little thing... I met with French social services today, a long story of difficulties my daughter was experiencing. I once again felt the "confusion and ignorance" at the core of so many of us humans. Again, through the experience I felt something different: I felt compassion, deep solid understanding, without any pretentious ego for the difficulties these people were working under. It was totally liberating to be outside of my habit of "guilt because I knew better". I sensed my old patterns, but they'd lost their power over me. Funny, I'm realizing as I write that this is most certainly a product of my meditation... And on that subject I have a few things I want to share.

But now perhaps some sleep.
Love and hugs. Thank you again.
 

[zen_racer]

 Chart, I wasn't around when you were before, but I really enjoyed reading this post. I like that you're feeling better and handling things better. I can relate to how you feel about this forum. It has been a life saver since I learned about cptsd.

Your post gives me hope that I will keep getting better and can heal further. I'm sitting right now having a chocolate shake while waiting for my therapy visit in 15 minutes when I'm going to have my first EMDR session.

I'm glad you're doing well, and would be interested in reading about the meditation if/when you post that.

[Desert Flower]

Hi Chart, I's so glad to read your wonderful realisations, they help brighten my day! Yes, we are getting better, slowly, gaining momentum. Thank you for sharing.

  

[Blueberry]

That's brilliant with your daughter, Chart!