the next step

[sanmagic7]

thank you marcine, and i'm especially glad about the kinship part.  it provides me w/ a picture of a very strong connection.   

hannah1, thanks so much for your continued support and kind words.  it's so appreciated.

i'm going to be working on my next round of grieving.  i do believe it will be the loss of feeling any kind of support, compliments, loving touch, affection, freedom to ask questions, helped, emotional connection, anything related to attachment or safety, while impossible expectations of being perfect topped it all.  there might be more, but they're tucked neatly away in my subconscious, and will surely come out when it's time.

this is going to be rough, i can already feel it.

[sanmagic7]

worked on grieving my childhood yesterday, and it was interesting.  lots of remembrances but also lots of 'you've been doing this all along, you can do it now, you can take care of yourself, you do take care of yourself, all of that stuff is in the past and you don't have to live there anymore'.  and i got a brick of pain in my chest for a while, but knew it was the pain of leaving all that behind.  i can look back now and see that it doesn't pertain to me anymore.  very strange, will take some time to get used to it, but the pain eventually disappeared and i'm feeling pretty good.  i like it.

[sanmagic7]

something has shifted due to this process i'm putting myself thru, grieving different parts of my life that shouldn't have happened or didn't/couldn't happen because of what i experienced from various people.  yesterday, i was able to recognize and actually feel joy during some parts of my life, especially driving by myself, the radio turned up, me blasting the words as loud as i could, and i could actually feel that such experiences were actually joyful for me.

it's something i haven't been able to see, let alone feel, because all the negatives kept getting in the way, like shadows or a fine netting, not allowing me to even see, let alone feel, some of the very lovely things that have happened to me, even if only for a few moments, i am beginning to see some of them as not neg.  i like it a lot, and will keep on targeting various things or parts of my life to grieve.  i think the pain of not grieving simply covered every good thing up.  i hope it continues to open me up to more of the good stuff.  that would be nice.

[NarcKiddo]

It sounds like you are doing some really good work, San.

 

[HannahOne]

So glad to hear of this shift, SanMagic7! Putting in the time with yourself to grieve your losses is opening some new windows to joy! The way out is the way through.

[Marcine]

San,
You wrote: "...all the negatives kept getting in the way, like shadows or a fine netting..."

Lifting the veil, indeed!

[sanmagic7]

NK, thanks for that validation and all your support.

thank you, hannah1 - you are so right!  gotta go thru it to get to the other side.

yeah, marcine, it does feel like a veil was lifted.  thanks for that!

i don't fully understand what's happened this year, but it's the year of finally feeling better i've been looking for for more than 30 yrs.!  honestly, i have more energy, have gotten back into lifting nearly on a regular basis, and have been able to see and remember more pos. things that have happened in my life.  even to appreciate what i've accomplished, like coming out the other side of the darkness.  i know it's only about a month or 2 that i've been feeling like this, but it seems nearly monumental. 

i think getting rid of this past therapist lit a fire under me somehow, too.  i have targeted many unorthodox things during my time of treating people w/ emdr, and it seems like my mind was finally able to shift that unorthodoxy to myself.  i don't know what it's going to mean when i start w/ a new T, which is supposed to be in june, because she is all about IFS and i don't know what that's going to mean for me.  we'll see.

in the meantime, no one, and i've had several emdr T's, has thought to target loss or grief, even tho they must have surmised that i was full of both.  too many, i think, believe that an incident or specific situation, a memory from the past must be a target, something tangible, but i've known for a while that just isn't so.  whatever, i'm feeling better for going after my grief, altho i did experience some 'after the fact' reactions yesterday from mon.  nothing too major, just feeling off.  better today.  yay.

[sanmagic7]

crashed pretty hard, yesterday.  looks like i'll need more work on this childhood thing, or it's just taking longer than i expected to wander its way thru my system.  there were a lot of yawns toward the end of my processing, which was different from the week before.  i think it was blueberry who once told me yawning was a sign of stress being expelled, something like that.  so, i'm guessing i might be holding onto more than i thought (well, why wouldn't i be?  there's so much there), and i may have to break it down into smaller pieces.  we'll see.  like 0-2, 3-6, etc. i think i'll see that there is so much packed into much small time packets than simply childhood as a whole, so each of those may need their own processing package.  i'm thinking, yeah,

[HannahOne]

  for yawns! Yawning is part of how some mammals release stress, notably canines. I've never seen Frank yawn. My pet rats yawn HUGE, and stretch their little T rex arms.

[sanmagic7]

thanks, hannah1 - i've heard of yawns being stress relievers, and i can feel the release  when i do yawn while processing something.  nice to know our kindred mammals do the same thing.  frank can't be stressed if he doesn't have to relieve any.  nice job on giving him that for his life.

i realized yesterday, after a major cry, that at least part of what i was missing w/ the 'grieving my childhood' thing was the necessity of saying good-bye to my family and what they did/didn't do to or for me.  so, i flashed them one by one, starting w/ my bro (who is still in my life in a good way) who has a very sanitized version of what our family was like, what influence it might have had on his personality and life choices.  after him came my sis, a full-blown NPD, a bully to both my bro and me, physically much of the time, then my mom, full-time enabler, emotionally absent, and i always saw her as a mouse, someone i never wanted to be like, and last, my father, who i worshipped, and who let me down in so many ways and by so many means.

and i told each one of them these things, flashed thru them individually, and finally put them all together and they began getting smaller and smaller and smaller.  i can still see them in my mind, tiny versions of how i once saw them, but those versions held the basics - gave me life, put a roof over my head, food on the table, my sis and i were great drinking buddies for many years, till we stopped and grew farther and farther apart, and she just became mean again in emotional ways.

so hopefully, that part of my grieving w/ them is done.  i may still have other things attached to them, but we'll see.  in the meantime, for next mon., i intend to grieve my D1.  it's been over 10 yrs. w/o a word from her, except thru her father who told me she said - tell san i don't want to hear from her anymore, and to delete my  email - and i felt a pang in my chest just from writing that.  it struck me that she did not say 'mom', and this happened after she was very, very sick and i reached out to let her know i was there, sending angels to keep her safe and get her well.  at least the angels did their jobs, and she got well whether she wanted it or not.  so, lots of grief, hurt, pain, humiliation - all sorts of stuff that needs to be reconciled w/in me.  my heart is pounding right now, so i know it will be extremely bad.

[Marcine]

San,
I honor the intuitive, truthful path you are creating for yourself.
I hope the going isn't too rough.
More power to you, my friend.

[HannahOne]

SanMagic7, crying and grieving is important. Coincidentally Ive been doing a lot of cleansing crying lately too. Acceptance is truly a radical act. Being willing to have it be the way it was, the way it is. It may come around again, but I think each time we grieve, we are more solid after. Solidarity.

[NarcKiddo]

 

[sanmagic7]

Marcine, thank you for your words of encouragement.  they were great! 

hannah1, i was struck by the phrase 'radical act.'  never thought of crying and grieving that way, but i can see your point. it wasn't allowed by others, so to allow it for ourselves is, indeed, radical.  thank you for that,

NK, thank you for the hug.  it's comforting.

today is when i've been doing my 'therapy of grief', but i'm thinking about whether i need this day off.  the ordeal of last week w/ my family - parts of it were showing themselves all week.  i thought i was done on mon., but still felt off on wed., and friday was a crying day.  so, i'm wondering if i need to rest a bit, rest my brain/mind a bit.  this is where having a T would come in handy - they could help me make that decision based on an outside assessment of me.  we'll see.

grieving my D1 is going to hurt a lot, which is why i'm hesitating.  when i thought about it last week, i got a big ball of fear in my chest.  yeah, i'm scared of saying good-bye.  it seems pretty final.  but maybe there are parts to say good-bye to, like i did w/ my family.  there were small parts of them i kept, but they're only about an inch tall now in my mind.  i may be doing the same for D1.