Zen_Racer's Recovery Journal

[Hope67]

Hi Zen_Racer,
Your relationship sounds really positive - I agree with the others who have mentioned being in awe of how you have handled the situation and the date, and as SenseOrgan says 'beyond' as well.  Really sounds positive and balanced and caring - I also wanted to use this emoji  and also send you a hug 

[zen_racer]

Thank you everyone. I've gotten a bit quiet, mostly due to the impending therapy visit later today. I will respond more appropriately and get back to everyone else's journals tomorrow.

[NarcKiddo]

 

[sanmagic7]

i hope therapy went well, ZR.  rooting for you!  love and hugs

[zen_racer]

Alright.  I appreciate how many people have said that they're in awe of how I handled that.  I don't see it.  I was honest, both about my reaction and answering her questions.  She seems to have no reservations because of that.  But I still feel like I shouldn't have had that reaction in the first place, and still feel shame regarding that.

That said, I'm not letting that make me self sabotage.  We've gotten together again to walk around a sculpture park, and then got dinner.  She's been very supportive of me, especially yesterday because she knew it was going to be a difficult time at therapy for me.

Therapy was really difficult.  When I got memories back regarding my drinking binge, self harm, and a couple more things I don't want to repeat right now, it really got to me.  I've cried about this stuff on multiple occasions since then.  But when talking in therapy, I am normally an even keel, not showing how much something effects me.  I describe it and what it means, but I don't really have a reaction that shows it.  When describing these events, I couldn't stop from having a reaction and having to take breaks.  My therapist would stop us and do something like throwing a pillow back and forth to bring me back into the room.

With what we had already covered, and then going over a lot of the big huge array of things that happened during the drinking binge, she at first brought up maybe doing the Adverse Childhood Experiences quiz, but then very quickly changed her mind.  She then explained what the quiz was for, and suggested that me seeing how high I would score would probably be more detrimental than helpful for me.  During part of what we talked about, she kept trying to find the person or people that would've been my safe person to help me through those experiences.  But there wasn't one.  She eventually said that she was surprised that I was in therapy at all.  When I asked about that, she said she was surprised that I would ever decide to trust anyone after all the things we've gone over so far.

I didn't say anything about it after that in therapy.  I just kind of let that sit, like I had never considered that.  But that's not true at all.  After all the stuff growing up, and all the stuff leading up to and during that drinking binge, I later decided that no one would ever be able to hurt me as much as I'd already been hurt by others.  No one would ever be able to hurt me as badly as I'd hurt myself.  It's not trust.  It's confidence that life would never be any different, and confidence that I'd already been through worse than anyone could ever try to make me go through again.  But that's another set of memories I didn't have until now.

When we stopped, she asked if I was still present in the room.  I didn't like that question and thought it was pointless.  I told myself that if I could possibly answer that question in any way, it would prove I was present.  And I told myself that while zoning out and thinking about those memories I wish I didn't have back.  But I realized that in my mind I was being spiteful and then playing semantics games in my head to not actually be honest, so I told her I wasn't.  We spent another 5-10 minutes tossing the pillow back and forth again while started complimenting me on how I made it through those things.  How I overcame all that to some degree to become as successful as I am.  I am not good at accepting compliments like that.  Especially with how I was feeling right then.

I was never mean or rude to her though.  We had already gone about 15 minutes over and she asked if I was present again.  I told her honestly about 50/50.  She suggested I go for a walk before driving anywhere.  Do something for grounding like try to find 5 cars a certain color or something.  I walked over to the close Dairy Queen and got a chocolate shake.  I then called my oldest friend and talked with him driving home.

This morning while checking in with myself before work, I cried almost nonstop for 20 minutes, and had a really hard time shutting that off to drive in to work.  I didn't feel like I had really left that behind until I got to work and got distracted. 

The woman I've been seeing checked in with me several times yesterday, both before and after therapy.  I'm not used to anyone being that accepting and supportive, but I am strangely not finding that difficult to accept like I do compliments.  And that acceptance and support does go both ways.

I am still finding what I talked about in therapy really difficult to cope with, but I'm also glad I got through most of that situation.  I'm going to go try to get grounded again.

[NarcKiddo]

Thank you for sharing all that about the therapy session. Your going to get a chocolate shake afterwards resonates with me, because after every FOO visit I rush to the Starbucks at the station on the way home and get a big gooey drink of a kind I would not normally go for.

Ignore the following paragraph if you do not want to think about ACE scores. This is only a general commentary but you might not want to visit it as your therapy session was tough.

I'm interested she mentioned and then discarded the ACE questionnaire, but it sounds like sensible advice. I think it is designed mainly for therapists to use anyway, although I came across it online myself a couple of years ago and completed it. In my case the score was high-ish (which I by then expected) but could justifiably have been much higher except I found myself making a lawyer's argument for reducing the score at several points. I read that a high ACE score can be mitigated by Positive Childhood Experiences which would explain why she was trying to explore safe people with you. There is another questionnaire for PCEs and I found that more illuminating because essentially I had none. So there was nothing to mitigate whatever ACEs I endured and goes a good way to explaining the roots of my CPTSD, I think.

I'm glad your new relationship is proceeding well and that she is accepting and supportive. As for you not understanding why people think you handled the first date well, I think you are not giving yourself credit where credit is due. Which of course is something most of us here do an awful lot. Perhaps you should not have had that initial reaction and I am sorry you still feel shame about it. What, to me, is awesome is that in the moment you did not let the shame sabotage you. You got through the pain and discomfort as well as anyone could possibly be expected to do. You were honest throughout and thus gave her a chance to make up her own mind about you. In your position I would probably have shut the whole thing down and even if I had stumbled through the rest of the date I would have killed the relationship in my mind and never would have spoken to the person again.

Tossing the pillow sounds like a really interesting approach. I like it. My therapy is on zoom so it's not possible to do that, but I think I would find it helpful. Except I'm rubbish at catching things, so there's that...

 

[sanmagic7]

ZR, bravo to you for your honesty, both w/ your T and w/ the woman you're seeing.  i see nothing wrong w/ your animation on that first date - like i said, i thought it showed passion, and your date checked it out and decided it was all ok.  that, to me, was the important part of that interaction - what did she think of it?  if she'd hated it, believed you should feel ashamed of yourself for speaking the way you did, you would not have seen her again.  i'm also loving how supportive of you she is - she sounds kind and caring, 2 qualities that are often hard to come by. 

and, as difficult as it was, how painful it might have been, i'm glad for you that you were able to get those tears out.  i'm convinced we often shed those kinds of tears as adults because we weren't allowed to shed them as children, at the time of the pain.  so, to my mind, those tears have been held hostage inside your body by the trauma you experienced, and it's only now that you're feeling safe enough to set them free.  they're full of poison now, so getting them out is a way of self-care. 

i hope those date continue - it's sounding hopeful to me.  well done on all fronts.  love and hugs

[Hope67]

I'm also glad that you were able to express that emotion via your tears - I like what SanMagic said about feeling safe enough to set them free.  I remember reading something in the past about what happens when we cry, and whilst I can't remember what they said, I did find it to be a helpful process (the function and process of crying).  Sending you a hug of support 

[zen_racer]

Thank you everyone.  I guess I was looking more at the fact that I had those reactions and felt all that shame, and didn't put much stock in how I reacted to it.

NK, that is interesting about the ACE and PCE tests.  I had gone ahead and found those quizzes online.  I had 7 out of 9 for the ACE, and 0 for the PCE.  That seems a little odd for me, because I did have positive experiences as a child.  Just none of the ones on that quiz.  Maybe the quiz only had experiences that would help development of a child where the positive experiences I can remember might not.  I don't know.  Just an observation.  Also, the benefit of tossing a pillow is that if you don't catch it, it's still just a soft pillow. It was also a very soft fuzzy pillow, so the texture was interesting too. 

SanMagic, I think you're right.  I explained my reaction, and answered her questions, including what me getting angry looks like.  I think she appreciated the honesty.  She probably understood me having an EF and what that was like as well as you and NK.  We're having our third date this Friday.  Sending love and hugs. 

Hope, I appreciate what you shared about the tears.  Sometimes it feels like it helps.  This time, it just felt overwhelming, but I guess in the end I still felt a little better.