Living As All of Me

[HannahOne]

At the doctors today I noticed what was triggering me. It was waiting for him to come in. I was listening to the hallway noise, hearing doors open and close, voices, trying to guess when he might come in. I am going to ask for a new note in my chart asking if they can just leave the door open to my own room. This would be much better for me. The appointment itself was fine, I had to change into a gown for an X-ray and that was ok, I got a steroid shot and that was fine. For the x ray I helped myself to an extra gown as a jacket to feel more covered and I'm glad I did. For the shot they already were prepared to tell me each step before they did it.

Sometimes I am surprised or not expecting the triggers to be what they are. I assume it's one thing, and it's not. I'm interested to try out my new door plan and see how much lower my blood pressure might be without waiting for the doctor to open the door.

I get restless around 4 pm. Part of it is I get hungry. I'm not sure what the other part is. Sundowning, LOL. I decided to just leave today. I'm sitting by the river. It's much better here. The kids don't need me and walking around the house fretting or crying in bed is not good for any of us. I feel calmer here. There are other people sitting by the river too, wanting to enjoy the last of the fall-summer weather. Tomorrow is expected to be colder.

I had a little glitch of grief today. I had planned to wear the navy pinstriped pants to the city tomorrow as the city therapist has worn them twice. I want to keep the conversation going. But not one of my planned tops felt right with them. Meanwhile a chartreuse sweater with brown barrel pants and light blue Mary janes was perfect. I am still sometimes feeling loss of my mother, loss of my old therapist, in need of guidance, or conflicted in how to be. Cool is clarity, people who have a cool factor are cool because they're clear about who they are and it shows in their outfits. I am seeking clarity, with allowance for difference and complexity. Being clear doesn't mean being one thing, it means being intentionally.

I still feel lonely at times and I'm not sure what to do with it. I've given up on making friends for a while. I'm tired. I don't know how much of my feeling alone is from the past, and how much is from the present. Today I had a good bit of interacting and talked to two friends on the phone. I wasn't alone most of the day. Yet there's this feeling that something is wrong, and someone else's presence could make it better. Get me out of my own head. Is that old? Is it now? Is it just what it's like to be an independent adult? Is it part of CPTSD? I think I'd be fine hanging out with a horse but I'm currently horseless. I might reach out to the therapy farm and see if I can visit Felicia. She's a very large throrougbred mare and might be willing to tolerate my mommy projection. She'd probably nip me in the butt so I stop thinking and moping around.    Either that or shove me with her nose into the nearest wheelbarrow full of poop. Snap out of it, HannahOne! I think one reason I'm lonely is it's hard to find people who can relate to All of Me, to this kind of content.

I'm starting to look for community in the art world. Many there have various mental health conditions, or if not, at least know how to feel. I found a very cool thing in a shop the other day, it's a Japanese book of colors. Each page is a color swatch of several colors that you wouldn't think go together, but do. Like my chartreuse sweater and light slightly electric blue denim Mary Janes. It works because both colors are a little electric, bright and light, and the colors are analogous, next to each other on the color wheel. The brown pant in the middle both gives the two colors space and grounds them, and also contrasts. The pants end up being the star of the outfit, sandwiched by the two bright colors. Color theory is so interesting because it's not about the individual colors at all, it's all about how the colors relate, what they look like against each other, how they temper or enliven the one they are next to. Chartreuse wouldn't work in an all black outfit, it would glare like a stoplight, but pair it with a color equally bright and suddenly it's not so bright, it seems harmonious. It's all about relationship. 

[NarcKiddo]

 

[HannahOne]

I had a busy few days and was never lying in bed during the day. I was at the ocean, and had to lie down. The wind and waves really take it out of a person! In a good way. I think there is also some letdown of stress. I'm feeling very peaceful.

I have a plan for my medical stuff and I feel pretty good about it. I'm going against the grain to some. But I'm doing what I think is best for me, even though it entails some loss. I've been on this path for almost a year. I've had plenty of time to think it over and get a few opinions. Ultimately, it's up to me, there's no one right answer in my situation. Which is not expected. However it's become an opportunity to get more clear on the edges of Me. Boundaries. It's really me and me alone that can decide what's best for me. It really doesn't matter what anyone else may think. I feel it heavy on me, I alone have to walk whatever the path will be. And it also feel very enlightening to know the edges in a new way, where I end and someone else begins.

I feel very close to myself lately. I feel some affection for myself. I feel a bit proud of myself. I know what I want, what's best for me. It won't be perfect, nothing is. But it's my path.

Lately when I get dressed I'm able to put together an outfit very quickly. It's never a race and there's nothing wrong with trying ten options but it also feels good when I start with pants, or shoes, and can build on that easily to get something I like. I looked at photos from a year ago and two years ago and feels bit embarrassed I was struggling! I know my style will continue to evolve and in future, I'll cringe at some of my choices now. What I love is that: I have choices. And I'm making them. I feel lucky to live in a place where eI can choose whatever I want to wear. To have my own path.

In the past I have often felt bad about leaving my career to raise children. I worked full time until had the second kid, then 3/4 time until they were in school, but school became a whole thing, the pandemic happened and I just never went back. Interestingly lately I notice I no longer think so much about "my career." I had to interview my partner for a fundraising event and they had to describe their career with me holding the iPhone. In the past I would have felt a tinge of jealousy or regret, a feeling of unfulfilled "potential" or disappointment with myself. I didn't have that feeling at all. I could see that was his path. And I felt perfectly happy with my path. That is totally new. I don't know where it's coming from, but any relief from resentment and self-criticism is a gift.

I'm focusing more and more on my own path. My own life. What I want _right now._ I'm less thinking about how I became what I am and more energy going toward who I'm becoming. What I'm working on today ,what my current goals are. Less on the past. It feels good. My goals mostly revolve around finding the exact right dark navy crocodile collarless leather jacket at a thrift store, and learning how to paint the shadow of a mushroom using only shades of grey. Continuing tu curate the house and make it more and more practical, usable, livable and current with where the family is right now, ie, putting kitchen towels in the kitchen cabinets and not down the hall... and working out, slowly, building muscle. Clothes, colors, cabinets, getting cut. These are tethers to the present, and paths to who I am becoming.

[Blueberry]

Inspirational Hannah!

I wish I could embrace my goals and move forward with them. I wish... Somehow I don't. There must be something wrong with me, other than cptsd I mean.

Some of your goals have been mine, like curating the house, making it more livable. I give up so easily. It's not a bad goal! Anyway I don't want to fill up your journal with my stuff. It's just reading your journal tells me it's not that my goals are wrong, it's something else... So thank you for that.

[HannahOne]

Blueberry, thank you for sharing your experience.

I'm with you in the struggle. To be clear, my house is not organized 100% all the time. Right now there's laundry to be folded on the couch. The bedroom has several boxes needing to be taken to recycling and a pile of clothes to be put away on the bed, two water glasses on the nightstand, a pile of books I mean to read someday except I can not read paper books anymore, and the closet is stuffed full of photos, papers, kids craft keepsakes. I just did the dishes, but the kitchen floor needs a sweep and there are 7 sweet potatoes on the counter that I don't know where to put, because the pantry is full. The dog food bags are leaning over and there's some kibble on the dog's tray. And I have a pile of papers to go through. So it's not perfect. But it is in process. My goal is rally to keep things moving, to be in process. The goal of having a clean organized house is pretty futile around here, in my case I have two other adults and one almost adult who don't create order and it's too much for one me to keep up with.

I'm tackling small bits. That's my goal, to do a little each day. Like I open a drawer and clean it out in five minutes. Or I get one box of kids papers out of the closet and throw out 75% of it. And every day I do dishes and laundry and one other chore, like floor cleaning. That's all I get done in a day. And I might only get that much done every 2-4 days depending on what else is going on and how tired I am, "tired" being a stand in for actually tired, or for depression, anxiety, or not being All of Me, not being present enough to remember why I care.

I think this way helped me, doing it in tiny bits, doing something each day. I don't really anymore have the goal of a good-looking house. I used to get really upset if I looked around and saw some disorder, I think it was triggering from my growing up in a chaotic situation and it triggered a lot of shame. So with kids I was spending a lot of time putting things away, cleaning up. That was ok, it was an anxiety management strategy and someone has to clean up... but at some point I had to change the goal or I was always feeling bad about myself. It's been helpful to make my goal more like "having what I need where I need it" rather than "making my house look like a non-traumatized person lives here." Focusing more on me in the house, and less on the house itself, if that makes sense. This is also more motivating, I don't have to beat myself into cleaning up, I want to put things right, for myself, so my life is easier and more harmonious and fits me better. The way good clothes fit right. So the house feels better to me. Not just so it looks better to some imagined other.

I don't know if any of that is relevant to your experience but I wanted to clarify that I'm not living in a magazine spread and I don't have it all together.

FWIW I also think it's helpful to me to think about what part of me is making the goals. I don't know if you think in parts or not. I notice that part of me always has career goals and I'm not pursuing a career right now. So that part is always criticizing me. Part of me wants a nice house. Other parts of me are resentful about cleaning up or just want to daydream all day. Part of me wants X but part of me wants Y. So I get stuck. I don't "make progress." This is a longstanding struggle for me! Why can't I follow through, why can't I do what I want to do? I've come to see it's often because part of me wants the goal.... and other parts of me don't, or are afraid of that goal. I want a clean house, but if I spend a lot of time cleaning, am I "just a housecleaner"? am I being taken advantage of by family members who don't clean up after themselves? and neglecting other important goals like relationships and achievement? Parts of me want to protect me from too much time cleaning.

My protective aspects are strong and often stop me from the goals I say I want to achieve. I say I want more muscle but part of me protects me from going to the gym where I might get discouraged, feel embarrassed or feel awkward, and so I don't go to the gym. Then I say "what's wrong with me?" I want to learn to paint, I want to be a painter. But I'm scared. If I take out my paints at home alone, I might feel confused, uncertain what to do, helpless. So I never take out my paints at home, I can only paint with others. I say, "what's wrong with me, I have paints and I want to be a painter, I love painting, yet I never paint at home!" Nothing's really "wrong" with me, I just have some inner conflict and very active protective parts. You could call it anxiety. I find it more helpful to think of it as protective aspects. There are emotions that are still scary for me to tolerate, although that's changing fast the last year or two. And there are competing priorities within me.

I've dealt with the fear of feelings by allowing myself to feel what I feel without a critical part coming in and saying "what's wrong with me?" and when that critical worried part does come in, I reassure it, thanks for being worried something is wrong with me but actually I'm ok, I'm a human and this is what it looks like to be a human. Humans have feelings, get scared holding a paint brush, get triggered by a messy kitchen. And I've dealt with the inner conflict about competing priorities by doing a little of everything. A little writing. A little painting. a little cleaning. A little cooking. A little working out. A little moneymaking work. I do 10-45 minutes of any given activity per day and I've been astounded to see that that is enough to make "a lot" of progress. 10-45 minutes of weightlifting a day has brought me down 3 pants sizes in nine months. 10-45 minutes of organizing cabinets a day has made my house feel much better. 10-45 minutes of writing a day has accumulated to a manuscript. I know many people do things for 8 hours a day. I can't do that. But doing a little of my top priorities every day has made me much happier! and also gotten my closer to my goals and achievements.

I think for me the real "goal" in all of these is not so much to be stronger, or write a book, or have a clean house, it's more just to be living, to be busy about the process of being human. Rather than what I had been doing which is lying in bed staring, crying, or sleeping most of the day and night. I still do have to spend some time each day staring and crying. but now I'm doing it "on purpose," I sit down and feel my feelings, I bring up the sadness and grief on purpose. And in 10-45 minutes it's done for the day. Most days.

If it's hard to embrace a goal, I find that either I'm putting too much pressure on it and trying to do 8 hours of it at once, or part of me doesn't want that goal or is worried about what the goal will cost me, like I have the goal, but I don't have All of Me. Part of me has made a goal that the rest of me isn't interested in or thinks is harmful. So some inner negotiating is required. "Yes you're right, part of me who wants a career, cleaning up these dishes looks like I'm being a housewife and I promised you I'd never be a housewife, that is not safe, it's not secure, it's dangerous to rely on a man for money, and you have important things you want to do in life, you want to make an impact, help people, have adventures, not stay at home washing other people's dishes. you have a great point, you're right. And, I'm going to do dishes for ten minutes, then they'll be done and I can go to the city/work on a manuscript." I find that parts of me are like small children who panic, who see me doing X Y or Z and jump to conclusions, who don't understand that adult life includes doing dishes, doing dishes doesn't mean I'm "just a dishwasher." It just means I 'm doing dishes because I want clean dishes.

Wrangling myself can be like wrangling a toddler, it's a lot of work. But the way I used to do it, by screaming at myself inside, mentally beating myself up, obsessing about why I couldn't do X Y Z and other people could, etc was so counterproductive and perpetuated my trauma, it was recreating CPTSD, recreating an abusive dynamic inside. I had to treat myself the way I treated my kids, explaining, reassuring, negotiating, listening to concerns, asking what can I do for you right now to make things better for you? Explaining that I'm the adult here and I've decided dishes is the current priority and please lean back and relax so I can get them done, let me be. Let me exist. Let me do. Stop trying to jump in and stop me, take over. How can I help you feel better right now? Imagining what I did with my kids, If my toddlers didn't want me to do dishes, I'd pick up my toddlers and put them on my hips, make it fun with bubbles, get them done and then play with the toddler. And sometimes, stop doing dishes and attend to the toddler. Then return to the dishes. This is what I think of as "the art of getting to yes," based on the book title "getting to yes" that I read about negotiating.  I pushed and pulled for years and didn't make much progress, pushing and pulling ended up with me lying in bed in total refusal for a few years. I just shut down and refused to do anything. As I've been working on building a relationship with myself modeled on love and care, not on abusive dynamics of demand, forcing, insisting and shaming, I'm able to do a lot more. A lot more, relative to lying in bed. I still don't work a full time job, raise kids, keep house, and create art. I had to let go of the job. And my house is mostly kept, not perfect. And I make art most days, but not every day. And raising kid is hard, although I'm almost done. Life is complex and that's what parts of me don't know, how complex adult life is, the tradeoffs the pressures, the constant negotiations of my needs and the needs of others, my own needs that sometimes compete. I can't be all things to all people all the time. I had to let go of that as a goal. My goal is to be All of Me as much of the time as I can. Doing dishes, making art, making some money all falls under that. As long as I keep that hierarchy clear, things go better, I get "more" done, I do more, I'm more active in my own life. All of Me has to come first.

I hope this little think-aloud is useful.

[Blueberry]

Thank you so much HannahOne, that is so helpful to read!

Yes, I have Parts and I figured you might too, based on the title of your journal.

It's late here, midnight. My alarm is set for 6ish. I'm not at home actually, so I will get up and go about my stuff tomorrow. And I will reread what you wrote and see if I can take some steps in applying some of your ideas to my situation!

Thank you so much

[NarcKiddo]

However it's become an opportunity to get more clear on the edges of Me. Boundaries. It's really me and me alone that can decide what's best for me. It really doesn't matter what anyone else may think. I feel it heavy on me, I alone have to walk whatever the path will be.

[HannahOne]

Hi NK!
************

TW vague talk about religion.
Growing up I wasn't supposed to think about myself. I was not to think about how I looked, what I wore, what I ate, what I wanted, what I thought, what I needed. No preferences allowed. There were categories of crimes that were specific to the female people: vanity, gossiping, demanding, asserting. IE, caring what I look like, speaking to others about my experience, asking for help, or insisting I knew my own mind.

I was supposed to focus not on the outside but on the inside. What that meant in practice was that I was supposed to be rigidly flat, passive on the outside, and no one cared what level of chaos was on the inside. I was to ignore the inside as much as possible. What I thought and felt was irrelevant to anything. What I looked like on the outside was also irrelevant, I was to be, in effect, invisible.

Dressing in boring and careless clothes didn't make me any less self-focused. I find that I "forget" myself more when I'm comfortable in my clothes. Dressing in ways that felt boring, careless, or invisible made me feel awkward, and then ashamed, which I had to deny. Layers of denial. My clothes said "I don't care" but I did care about myself, I cared about other people, I cared about life and I wanted to be part of it. It's hard to participate in a party when everyone is in cocktail attire and you're wearing a Cookie Monster suit. It's hard to be casual in a Cookie Monster suit, hard to be self-forgetting and fully present.

If I don't take time in the morning to remember who I am, I won't be able to set myself aside later to focus on the people, places and things around me. Taking time to get dressed in ways I like makes me able to more seamlessly enter the water of the world and start swimming. When I throw on PJs and run to the store I end up feeling very much outside the flow.

There's a paradox here. It's that being invisible is not an option. Dressing in boring clothes that try to hide me doesn't make me invisible, it makes my visible as wearing boring clothes that don't suit me, that I didn't choose, that look like I'm trying to blend in with the furniture. Dressing in clothes that make me feel awkward or like an overgrown ostrich doesn't prevent me from interacting in the world, it just means that I interact awkwardly. Dressing in clothes that don't leave me full access to the range of myself doesn't make me have "less" on an impact as if "less" of me is somehow better; it just means that I interact in a stilted way and my impact is incoherent with who I am or the situation.

I don't mean to imply that grey sweatsuits are bad and Ralph Lauren blazers are good although I do prefer the latter Wearing skirts is generally dystonic to me. I will instantly feel like a giraffe, doesn' matter if it's a stylish brand name skirt or not. Wearing heels makes me feel like an elephant. I will walk much more smoothly and easily and purposefully in my husband's suit trousers that I got tailored a bit to fit me, and hemmed. I will feel more present in a button down shirt than in a puffed sleeve blouse, even if the blouse is "better" brand or more in current trend.

I suppose what I'm putting together is that there clothing choices were no way to hide, not exist, or avoid the impact of my presence on the world.  The spell I was trying to cast doesn't work, the mumbo jumbo I was taught didn't work, the formulas I was given didn't lead to the expected result. It's been the opposite. The more I choose how to show up, accept that I exist and must therefore make choices, and allow myself to be seen and appraised, seen and digested, seen and taken in...the kinder my presence seems to be. What I was taught was a crime seems to actually be an act of love and connection. The more I have preferences and express them, the more comfortable I am and the more comfortable people around me seem to be. Because they know what to make of me, and I'm not asking them to lie, to pretend I'm invisible. Style has to do with somatics. I have a body, it needs to be draped with fabric. As above so below, as inside so outside...  the idea that I should pay more attention to my character than my appearance has been a bit of a trap, in so far as "character" was a stand in for others judgement of my adherence to restrictive rules about being quiet, not a problem, obedient. How I show up matters _because_ I matter.

Tonight I start PT for my shoulder. I have a stack of books to go through, ie get rid of. I haven't read them in a decade, some I never read. And I can't read on paper. Some of these books are self help or Alanon or DBT... I feel done with all of it. And I don't need to hold onto it to remember some of the paths I've explored. I don't think I'll be returning to those paths and if I do, what I need will always be out there. I need to lighten my load. I have a vision in my mind of my house with more open space. I'm almost there. I have to get rid of 10% of my stuff. I keep going!

[HannahOne]

Putting on clothes is like putting on the qualities that I want to bring out from inside. Chartreuse brings out silly, unexpected, not too serious. Navy pinstripe pants are serious, confidence. Crocodile loafers brings out a refusal to stress, structure, a little luxury, like I had time and finding to get an education.

I notice that the more I have gotten into clothes, the less time I'm spending thinking about how to fix myself, change myself, make myself into something else. Because I'm doing it, I'm being me, I'm expressing myself, I'm stepping into the pinstripe pants like stepping into someone who has confidence. I'm stepping into loafers like stepping into enough abundance that I'm not in survival mode, not running anymore. I'm pulling chartreuse over my head and being silly, creative.

I spent so many years thinking about changing. LOL. Thinking how to change myself. What to change. Who could help me change. How I could become someone else. Some of that work was useful, I learned a lot of skills.

But once I started focusing on what I like to wear, how I feel in different outfits, all the different parts of an outfit and what I want each one to express in terms of color, tone, vibe, shape, texture and what all of that could "say"... I shifted my focus from changing myself, to hearing myself. What I wanted to say.

And I started to respect myself. I know I'm not everyone's cup of tea. I have many faults and flaws. I can be annoying, rude, selfish, I can talk too long or not talk enough, I can be prickly, intense. Not everyone can relate to me. I'm making peace with that and enjoying my own company more and more. Even when I get into an EF, I'm able to find some poetry in it. I'm able to sit with myself more. I'm able to have compassion for myself. I notice I'm not spending hours worrying that I had an EF and what that says about me, feeling like I've failed at healing because I had a feeling...

I think spending time every day on myself is helping me respect myself more, too.

So much of the research on trauma was done on PTSD, war, men. CPTSD is different. Growing up in the war zone is different than being sent to war, and there's a difference between having an enemy, and when the enemy is your caregiver. And it's different being female, growing up knowing you're physically smaller and weaker, knowing society places you in a lower value, knowing the double binds.

It's been hard to have self-respect. Because I was raised not to respect women, and I'm a woman. Because the enemy was those who were supposed to, and sometimes did, love me, so what does it say that I loved my enemy? And because growing up in the war zone makes fight impossible and flight out of reach. What's left is "fawn," but that makes it sound like something I choose to do, a verb, a way I decide to be. Nope. Fawn is a state that happens. For me, sometimes the worst thing about the trauma wasn't the strike or assault but the state. I wasn't in control of my state. A survival mode would take over. It wasn't "me" fawning. And it wasn't exactly fawning, because it wasn't a discreet thing I knew to do. It was an entire way of being, a state of mind and body, a chemical bomb going off inside. It's not so much that I smiled at nodded at cruelty or insanity, it's that the smiling and nodding was happening to me. I was watching it from outside. It was an un-doing of selfhood.

Self-respect is hard-earned, then. I know something about myself not everyone knows, I know what happens to me under duress and there's no heroism there. Even the term "survivor" sometimes turns my stomach because, again, what choice did I have? Certainly there were choices and I tried to choose the best I could but the meat of my experience was just that survival happened to me. And what of me does that leave, what am I in that situation where I have no will, cannot self-determine, cannot act and freely choose?

I would say I feel like an animal but that's a bit of an insult to my animal friends. I just didn't feel human and I didn't even feel I had the dignity of an animal. I felt like dirt.

Putting my feet into croc loafers feels like the opposite of that. It's like a covering over, not to hide but to ennoble. My feet didn't run, I didn't go into flight. And my feet can be clothes in dignity. My arms didn't hit, I didn't fight. And my arms can be clothes in joy and a clear choice, no one wears chartreuse on accident. My face can be seen, I can be seen for who I am. What people will see is not what happened, or what I think and feel, who I really am inside is invisible unless I share it. But they'll see dignity, a choice to have joy, a decision to weigh in seriously in pinstripes. They'll get a feel for All of Me.

And I'm into that right now. I want to get a feel for people and let people get a feel for me. I get to choose how I show up. What feeling people get, their first impression.

I am thinking about the second impressions. What happens when I open my mouth. I want to return to my work on communication, negotiation, being emotionally present. It still often happens when I'm talking that my mouth feels disconnected from my brain. Something takes over. Maybe it's survival, maybe it's a part, I don't know. But I am thinking about how I can "clothe" my words, make more intentional choices. I used to feel hellbent in a way, on saying whatever a bit raw. So many many years spent biting my tongue, sugar-coating. Ok. but I see now that I prefer to adjust the dial on that. I would like my words and tone and body language to speak as expressively as my clothes and to have as much choice over them as I do over what I wear. That's a bit of a tall order. I'm going to explore more what I can learn and who I can learn from.