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.