Living As All of Me

[sanmagic7]

hannah1, i so much hate feeling sick anynore, yet it doesn't let go of me, so i get the idea of feeling well but not having the wherewithal to do anything constructive.  glad you're able to get back to your painting class, tho.  i know it's a good thing for you.

i've never known anyone who's into clothes w/ such depth.  i had a pair of penny loafer for years and years, finally lost them in a move, but i absolutely loved them. they lasted forever, and when i was in college (ages ago) they were 'the thing' to wear.  it became cool to wear them w.o socks, which was called going NS.  for the daring, we would even go to class w/o shoes or socks, which was called NS 2 (that's a raised 2 standing for 'squared').  i never thought of them as boring, tho, but that may be because i didn't have a lot of shoes to pick from, and i wasn't very adventurous w/ clothes at that time in my life.  i do love that you are, tho.  such fun!

love and hugs

[HannahOne]

SanMagic7, thank you for your reflections on loafers! You're right, everyone experiences style differently. It's like art, some people love a painting, some people don't, some people are moved by a color, others think it's blah. I go back and forth, sometimes I wear loafers with socks, which to me reads preppy and also a little pop rock, and sometimes I wear them barefoot. When I wear socks I like to wear floral patterned socks, or bright red---something unexpected.

I'm so sorry you've been dealing with stress flu and/or being sick. It is really a drag emotionally. Thinking of you.

[HannahOne]

I had art therapy today. I highly recommend art therapy if anyone is having trouble in regular talk therapy. Especially if you have a decision to make or are "stuck" in processing something, art therapy gets the verbal mind out of the way and taps into a different mode of being. I'm finding it so helpful.

I am carrying around a small rectangular structured boxy burgundy crocodile leather purse with a short handle I got at a thrift store for 15$. I love it. It makes any outfit look pulled together right away.

I am excited to try my navy pinstripe trousers with my chartreuse sweater (analogous colors), my burgundy sweater (analogous colors), my light pink sweater (analogous colors), my camo cropped jacket (pattern mixing, analogous colors, vibe switch), my white transparent blouse with a navy bra under it (texture contrast), and my rust velvet button down blouse (complementary colors, texture contrast). Most of these outfits would go with white loafers with a gold buckle, although for the rust top I would wear rust boots with a heel and for the camo jacket I am thinking black stable boots. With the pink sweater I might wear pink ballet flats. I have burgundy crocodile loafers coming in the mail from an online thrift store with my credits from selling some of my old work clothes, so I might wear those with the burgundy sweater, maybe with a floral sock that has some burgundy in it. Fall is here. Bring it on.

With all of these I will wear my gold heart necklace and the mixed metal bracelet from the junk jewelry when I was a kid.

And I'm wearing lipstick now. I got over it. I like it. And a little blush. I am happy. 

I feel much more like myself with my current clothes. I can feel right away when something is good, but not me. This inner confidence is taking me places inside and out. It goes in and out becauseI fade in and out. But that's a different problem. I am feeling very satisfied and proud to have created a small wardrobe that all feels like me, that I can wear to protect and express myself, that makes it easier to go out into the world and live my life.

I used to think clothes were silly, frivolous, that it didn't matter at all what you wear. And on some level it doesn't, clothes don't make the woman. But that's on the survival level. If we're all stripped naked in a prison yard, sure, it doesn't matter. Underneath our clothes we are all human flesh. But we do need clothing to survive, it's an essential like food and shelter and oxygen. And beyond survival, clothing is a cultural artifact, a craft created to express ideas about rank, gender, and beauty/attractiveness. All cultures have different styles and shapes and materials and colors of clothing. It's an essential part of being a human being to weave, spin, dye, sew, and wear clothes. It's not silly just because it was mostly women's work and because women are sometimes loaded with emotional labor to look a certain way in a way that men sometimes are not.

Choosing my clothes is choosing me. It is my body, my choice. I am not in a survival situation, I can buy clothes I like, I can wear what I choose, I am free to be me. Lucky, lucky, lucky me.

Frank wears the same fabulous fur coat every day. Silky and gray. His fur ripples over his shoulder blades, his fur suit fits him like a glove, except where it's saggy at his armpits and neck, for ease of movement. He changes his coat seasonally, from steel gray in winter to brown grunge in summer and back again. His under fluff is white and looks like dandelion seeds all over my house at this time of year, literal "dust bunnies" all the time, the Roomba never stops. His feet tap dance shoe-free, the hind feet size XXL for strength, the forefeet size XS for dainty crossing when he sits up. His face is adorned with whiskers, expressively moving with every breath and lip-lick. And his eyes have tiny eyelashes. No mascara needed. I can see how, in a survival situation, humans might want his fur coat for mittens, or his foot to hang off their purse. Lucky, lucky, lucky Frank.

[NarcKiddo]

I love how you enjoy your clothes, and your colours, and now your make up.

You've inspired me to enjoy make up again. I've always worn lipstick without fail (partly because my lips feel too dry without a coating) but I realised I had stopped bothering with anything else since the pneumonia. Unless I was going out for dinner, the make up would sit in the drawer. Reading your journal over the last months has made me realise I can enjoy make up for me. And that I can benefit from experimenting - because make up has moved on and my skin has moved on. Liquid blush in Barbie pink is so lovely put on in a sheer wash, and I never knew! So, thank you, HannahOne. I'm grateful to you. 

[HannahOne]

NarcKiddo, that means so much, that I may have inspired you to enjoy your own choices! Thank you for letting me know! For me it's become a kind of self-care. Taking the time in the morning. It takes about thirty minutes to choose an outfit I'm happy with and that goes with the weather and vibe of the day. I often rushed out the door in a t shirt wet-headed, or unshowered. Sigh. My hair would dry on the way to work or I'd put it up... I had babies for some of that time, I was busy. But I also was afraid to care, couldn't face myself in a mirror, didn't want to think about my body. This change I've made feels deep, feels profound and important, like what always should have been. I should have always cared for and cared about and taken account of my body, prepared it to face the weather and the eyeballs of others, taken time for me to feel hot water in the shower or style my hair so I don't feel ashamed in front of people. I dunno. It's a whole thing I'm still understanding the meaning of, and I certainly don't have a lock on it, there are days I struggle or don't bother and that's ok too. 

[Blueberry]

I highly recommend art therapy if anyone is having trouble in regular talk therapy. Especially if you have a decision to make or are "stuck" in processing something, art therapy gets the verbal mind out of the way and taps into a different mode of being. I'm finding it so helpful.

 

I love reading about your experimenting with clothes and the choices you then make. It sounds like the clothing is maybe art on your body, a form of art therapy you're carrying out? What you write sounds such a whirlwind too, I feel breathless reading it, in a good way.

[HannahOne]

Blueberry that's such an interesting perspective, I never thought of my clothes project as art therapy, but Yes! I am going to ponder that. Thank you for sharing your comment.

What I find so magical about art therapy is that it bypasses the verbal part of the mind. And as you can see I'm hyperverbal LOL. I used words to cope from age two, which is not developmentally appropriate. I ended up on the high IQ end but I don't think that's why I did it, I think it was a coping mechanism. Instead of being a normal toddler and looking at my parent's faces, learning to communicate, learning body language, learning how to have a conversation, learning how to ask for and receive help... I had my nose in books, or had my record player reading me stories while I read along with the book. I spent many hours in books. I guess it's lucky my house had books in it!

So therapy has been very helpful but it's also limited because I intellectualize and get lost in the words. It gets very abstract and I lose contact with myself and with the other person sometimes. It's a defense.

Art therapy somehow accesses a more visual part of the brain... and a more feeling part. Some of the most insightful and telling art I make in art therapy I've done with my eyes completely closed the whole time! I find it very compelling and an incredible relief to be in touch with this side of me. Art therapy tells me more of the truth about myself than my verbal mind can think up. It feels very deep, settling, a quiet knowing. I look at the drawing or art, and I know what my decision is. Or I know what I know about my life. Or I feel the feeling. It's very clear.

So this clothes project is learning a language, a visual language of color, shape, and texture, and also a language of feelings. How does the shirt feel on my body, how do my feet feel in the shoes, does the belt make me stand taller or shrink? It's a form of art therapy that I do both eyes open and also eyes closed. I do look at the outfit and judge what it looks like, but I can also put on the outfit, close my eyes and ask, how do I feel? I know if it's right or not by feel.

Maybe that's part of why it's speaking to me so much the last year or two. it is definitely a form of therapy. A way to take my body back, to connect with myself and others, to express myself and also protect and hide parts of myself.

Thank you for sharing your insight!

[HannahOne]

I'm in an EF here. It started about 24 hours ago. I notice that I tend to ignore/avoid for about 24 hours, sometimes much more. When I get triggered, I try to just ignore it for a while. Eventually it catches up with me.

I'm sure that's a helpful protective act.

But I'd like to shorten the time between being triggered and taking full delivery of my emotions.

In between those two things, I've always historically stopped eating. Stopping eating also shuts down feelings and thinking to some extent.

In the last few years I added staying in bed, not drinking water. From the pandemic to about two years ago I was very overwhelmed with some life problems and all of that was apparently the straw that broke the camel's back.

I'm focusing on the fact that I didn't stay in bed and not eat for days. It was less than 24 hours this time. I just had a nice meal and left the house. In grey barrel jeans. Good job, HannahOne!

I want to be closer to myself. I want to be able to acknowledge my experience closer to the moment.

I'm having to make decisions about my healthcare and it's just not black and white at all. I never knew it could be this "you have several reasonable choices." My partner doesn't agree with my decision. I can't trust his opinion. First, he's barely read a thing about it in the last year since my diagnosis. Second, he doesn't want me to be non-functional, he wants everything to stay the same, and some options would necessitate I take some time off and get help. Third, I am upset that he waited until a year into the diagnosis to bother even reading anything and I'm upset that he didn't come to any of the 10 appointments I've had with oncologists and surgeons, save one, and in that one I felt he undermined my preferred approach. He could have at least been on the phone for the appointments. My sibling was on the phone for many of them.

So all of that is disappointment. Which leads to some paranoia on my part, I lose trust in him, then myself. I am able to stay aware that two reasonable people can have different opinions and approaches, but somehow I also get into an EF where that awareness doesn't touch the feeling that he's not on my team, he doesn't care or is only out for himself, or just that he's not up to the task of what I need.

I'm writing this not to disparage him. He has his own valid struggles, reasons he didn't attend appointments, for one I didn't tell him for the first two months and went through biopsy on my own, I only told him when I needed lumpectomy because I couldn't drive myself home. So my narrative is clearly unreliable, it's only that, mine, and can't be trusted as the whole picture. I rarely ever write about him because it's unfair, even anonymously, and my recovery isn't about him. I'm writing about this now because it's a relational issue that's profoundly resonating my relational trauma and that's what I have to work out.

What I know about myself is that when I was sick as a kid I was alone and terrified, and when I was injured a doctor abused me. When my mother found out, she screamed at me. So I know that I will tend to feel alone and shut down when I'm sick, I will cut off "terrified" with cold steel. And I don't trust doctors, others, or myself. It becomes a toxic soup of paranoia and distrust, overthinking, confusion, fear. Like a hall of mirrors.

Stepping out of that, I'm left with myself and my gut that I have to trust. I am sad that I can't seem to get more support or the support that I want from my partner and that I don't have local people to be with me. All my people are spread around the country and the planet. I also know that part of that is due to how I act in relationships, I don't share, or I don't share enough or the right way. And I don't share or don't share enough because I'm scared of this exact situation, or feeling invalidated, unheard, feeling crazy or stupid, feeling confused, second guessing myself. I kept my friends from my twenties, but once I settled in my thirties and had children I didn't make so many new friends, and the ones I made died early of cancer or COVD or self-harm. So here I am with friends, all over the place but not here.

I'm not sure how to work with this.

Going back to what I know, I know that when I'm by myself I feel clear about my decisions. When I make art, it's very clear.

I know that tomorrow I have painting class. That will be positive.

I don't know what to do with my partner. I can say "I'm disappointed" but it feels too big for that to be adequate and neither of us can go back a year and communicate differently. I also feel it will just keep happening. It's part of the dynamic, part of his way of being and mine. There's a despair about that. Some of the dynamic is my ambivalence about care, about support, help.  Under extreme stress, this is just how it goes with us, and the stress is extreme again. His FOO is undergoing ground shifting change and he's in the exact middle of that for the last 6 weeks, he's overworked, he's got limits of all kinds himself. And I'm under stress with the medical stuff and then general trauma load. We've been through hard times, much much worse. I know things can get better.

I'm just not sure how to work with the medical stuff within the relationship, because I can't seem to, mostly because of how triggering it is and how I handle it, and partly because he's limited and doesn't mesh well with me in this area. We've never agreed about many important things, how to handle certain things with our kids being a big one. But we got through it and resolved any resentment. The stakes were extremely high and we didn't see eye to eye. but it all worked out. Eventually, this should be the same. I'm just scared right now.

Underneath the internal argument about how he didn't come to XYZ or how could he think ABC, I am angry and sad that I'm in this position. And that he can't fix it. Or make it better. Or save me. As an adult I Can see that those are the expectations of a sick, sad, abused child. And I'm an overall healthy adult. It's true I can't trust him to know everything, make decisions for me, agree with all my reasoning, or ensure safe doctors and just carry me through treatments with me as a passive bystander. I'm an adult, it's my decision, my personal reasoning, I have to make the relationships with the doctors myself, and I have to carry myself through and be present to all of it. It's usually better, I'm usually more able to do that, when my partner is not there, if he's there it's a triangle. If it's me and the doctor, it's more clear. I just don't trust myself to think through and accurately hear the doctor by myself so I want someone else there.... but maybe, because of my own stuff and also because of his stuff, it can't be my partner. And maybe that's ok. Ideally I would have a partner who could do the "in sickness" part in a way that felt better to me. I just know that even a different person wouldn't solve the whole problem because of my own issues with being sick/needing care/doctors.

I'm not sure what kind of comfort could really be had from a partner or anyone. This is also part of my legacy of neglect and abuse. I don't even know what "support" would look like. I know that I feel safest in the world with my sibling. Yet my sibling would not be taking my approach at all. Doesn't argue with my reasoning, accepts and understands it, but would do the opposite as me. And somehow that's tolerable. Being with my sibling is the most sane I ever feel, because we are coming from the same place.

I think the biggest trigger is that, feeling insane. The feeling of invalidation or intense self-doubt, diosorientation. It's a very scary feeling, and probably an EF. Somehow my sibling does not invalidate me. My partner and I don't hav much time to talk, which doesn't lead to validation, and, well, he's a man, he talks in a more blunt, direct, confident way that is difficult for me at times like these because there truly is no one answer, all the doctors agree on that. So for him to find it "clear" makes my head explode. But that's partly how he is and how he approaches life, not one for nuance. Whereas I get lost in the weeds.

I am going to keep working on validating my own thoughts, feelings, perspectives, even as I leave room for those of others and for mine to shift and change. I'm going to allow myself to be physically present, that is to feel what I feel, know what I know. There's no other way through this. I'm glad I could recognize that some of my expectations are those of a sick child. And that even if my idealized hopes were realized, I would struggle with them. I want to be "normal" and have images of "healthy normal couples" and how they would navigate this. but neither of us is "normal" and I am what I am. CPTSD means it's going to be more complicated, more emotional, more intense, more difficult, more overwhelming, overall messier to navigate.

What helps me most with feeling like myself, feeling safe, is being with an animal. If I say to my dog, "I'm considering X treatment," the dog will lick and chew if that feels right to me. If it doesn't, she might move away, or stare. Horses and rabbits the same. They pick up on my feelings about the topic and react. It's like an external biofeediback device. You have to get the animals agreement to be such a device, and keep it short so you don't fry their circuits. But my dog is a very good magic 8 ball and open to performing the service. I will start with that.

Makes me remember when I was little I would tell my dog all my secrets and then quick! close the flap of his ear so my words wouldn't fall out. That dog saved my life over and over for my first eleven years, saved may sanity. So many hours we spent staring at each other, nose to nose on the dirty carpet, or on the heat vent in front of the sliding glass window trying to stay warm. If not for him, I think I would be feral and not just socially awkward and a little out of step. I think I might hav become psychotic, and not just have CPTSD.

At each step of my life I found ways to survive, ways to go on, at each step I took the least bad of the bad choices, I made lemonade out of a thousand lemons. I made choices when the best path wasn't clear. I made choices that cost me a lot but gained me the essential. I know how to do this. I am just vulnerable, having self-doubt, and not getting the kind of support I need, or not able to allow the kind of support that I need. It is as one, really.

Just being able to write it out here is a kind of support. Something I would never in a billion years have done just a few years ago. I wouldn't have expressed even to myself let alone anyone else. Let alone the internet. I wouldn't have been aware of half of what I've written here.

There is not other path forward but this one, and judging my partner or myself doesn't achieve anything. There are all kinds of stories my mind can make about my relationship, my illness, my life, myself. And, here I am. The sun is setting and the insects are making their insect noises, like the beeps of the earth's heart monitor, letting us know the earth is still alive, still becoming and falling apart at the same time, still here as the ground to fall down to and the sky to fall up to. In the middle is All of Me.

[NarcKiddo]

Makes me remember when I was little I would tell my dog all my secrets and then quick! close the flap of his ear so my words wouldn't fall out.

That's so sweet! 

I'm sorry you're in an EF but you've done very well not to react in your usual way. The usual way sounds to me not very supportive of yourself, so it's good you are caring for yourself more even in the face of an EF. You've also done really well to notice that you have reacted differently and record it here. I'm proud of you.

Your comments about your partner's attitude have some resonance for me. Mine also wants everything to be the same. He keeps very much out of any medical decisions I have to make and he asks very little. I sometimes feel he is disinterested but I don't think that's actually true. In my case he is interested and he does care but he is not one to mull over every future possibility and I am. He is also very strong on my medical autonomy and that my decisions must be my own. That can make me feel alone but isn't meant that way. This probably sounds very dysfunctional (probably because it is) but sometimes the best way for me to communicate some aspects is to go out for dinner with particular friends who I know will ask about things. I will tell them and he will listen carefully. I know this deepens his understanding without him having to ask or make a big deal about it and sometimes results in him having further questions or thoughts afterwards. If I ever need him to step up with practical stuff like driving me to appointments he will gladly do so. He will willingly read things if I ask him to, shove the paper under his nose and sit there while he does so. I do that rarely because I hate asking for things, but I have realised it's what I have to do if I need him to read something.

I'm so sorry you are struggling with all of this. I think it goes with the territory, both of CPTSD and illness, and of course feels even worse when you are in the overlap of those. I think it is a good idea to tell your dog for all the reasons you state, and because sometimes we just need to say the words out loud. Writing here to people who will read them is a really good thing to do, but sometimes only the voice will do.

 

[HannahOne]

NarcKiddo thank you so much for sharing how it is with your partner sometimes about these things. It helps to read. I think that's part of what I need, what is that? Sharing experiences, normalizing, relating?

My sibling says I have high expectations I am a little type A and intense. I do things with intensity. My husband likes to tell me to chill with this joke, "Do you smoke after making love?  If so, you're doing it too hard." LOL. He says I do everything too hard and I'm going to burn myself out, it' too much friction, too much pressure. So we are opposite in personality. I will read every article, get a second opinion. He'll just do what the first doctor says and go about his day. It doesn't mean he doesn't care. The situation of being sick and dealing with doctors is probably the biggest trauma trigger I have, it chains on to all the other traumas. And then being in a relationship where I don't just want, in fact often don't want, but need some care and support, is also very triggering. I'm the independent one who gets everything done. Not right now. And he's not going to flip and become me. He's going to keep being himself.

I do think I need to be a little clearer about the boundary. You share that your medical autonomy is your own. I think I want him to validate my decision. And I'm not sure he can or is going to because he doesn't entirely agree. I have to accept that that doesn't mean he against me. And his different opinion has value, it's more for me to consider.

It helped enormously to write it here. I did talk to my dog I feel normal this morning, and it was already over last night, I was able to become calm after talking to the dog and taking a walk. I was really pleased. I don't exactly feel like I ninja'd my way out of an EF, but I had some sense that I had handled it, addressed it, taken care of myself, and that itself has allowed it to ease. Directing my attention toward it instead of running from it, allowing myself to feel shameful and scary emotions, sharing the shameful scary situation with others here and with my dog, seemed to lift it.

Today.I need to continue to focus on myself. My husband is having his own crisis situation and already texted me three times this morning. I have to stay focused on my own plans for the day, I can't solve his situation and putting my energy into it won't be helpful as actually _I_ don't agree with his plans lol, his perspective.   And there's no point in arguing, we each know how the other would be approaching it. But it's his circus and his monkeys. So he has to be him over there, and I have to keep being me over here. Being me means getting dressed in good clothes that feel good and going to painting class and then possibly to a picnic for the wildlife center.

Thank you again NarcKiddo for being vulnerable with me about this topic. I really appreciate your reading and commenting.

[HannahOne]

I wanted to write a little more about the EF because I Want to remember something important. Maybe other people also have this experience too.

When my partner had a different opinion on what I should do I had symptoms of an EF, I felt like the room wasn't real, then like I wasn't real, I saw visual distortions and saw red, I couldn't think, my tongue felt too big in my mouth and I couldn't see. Like, total hysteria in the old sense of the word. I've learned enough not to try to communicate when I'm in that state and just went into another room, then left the house. He's learned enough to let me go. Good.

Part of it is his timing, I've been dealing with this for almost a year and he's so late to get involved. I think that's on him. But he doesn't tend to focus on things until they're in front of his face and urgent, whereas I am plan my life out in decades. Some of that is personality and I need to not take it personally.

Part of it is just that he has a different opinion though. Why is that so triggering? I was thinking about the experience of the EF and it is like being abused as a child in that feeling of total disorientation and fear when the abuser says the sky is red and you can see it's blue, but you have to agree that it's red. What is that feeling? It's that I cannot have my own perspective. It makes me feel crazy. And that's also a trigger, feeling crazy is scary. What is that moment? The grass is blue when I can see it's green... I have to turn myself inside out almost. I have to become someone other than I am to say yes the grass is blue. My life depends on agreeing that the grass is blue. And I know that's wrong. So there's this feeling of loud, buzzing wrongness. And also a feeling of fear because... I have to let go of my own reality. That feels like a massive violation and it also feels terrifying because... the person I am relying on to keep my safe is crazy. And I have to join them in the crazy to stay safe.

And.

That's not what happened with my partner. That's how it felt to me. But even in the moment I knew it was valid for him to have a different opinion, heck two of the doctors I've seen took his approach. Four of them preferred mine but even so all agree either approach is "reasonable."

Over thirty years of this relationship I've come to find humor and a thrill in his differences, his different perspectives and opinions. I no longer find them a threat. Even in the depths of a serious struggle in raising kids with life or death stakes, his differing perspective didn't throw me like this. I can generally predict that if I like the pink he's going to like the green, and find it funny. I know that if I want to go to the beach, he wants to go to breakfast, and we can make silly little deals about it. We can be like two real estate agents haggling over a dishwasher in a million dollar house. I can insist that he can have the dishwasher if I get the chandelier in the bathroom, and watch him become outraged LOL, and he can propose back that I can have the chandelier in the bathroom if he gets the blinds in the living room and watch me become outraged, and at this point after thirty years our outrage itself is a farce and we don't even feel it anymore, it's just part of the dance and we both know none of this matters and isn't serious, and he goes to the beach or I go to breakfast. It's like a decades long arm wrestle where we regularly now just let each other "win."

This feels so different. NarcKiddo sparked a thought it me. This might be so different because it's about my body. And that's why my outrage was real yesterday. He actually shouldn't get a say about my body. And I'm asking for his say. But as he's my partner, I probably actually ought not ask his opinion on this. Maybe that's a boundary that I insisted that he cross and then when he did I became terrified and enraged.

I do want his "support" but by asking for his opinion I wasn't asking for support.

What do I mean by support?

It can't be to agree with me. But he could say he can see why I'm thinking the way that I am, or that he understands what I prefer even if he thinks otherwise.

I guess the other sticking point is he found contrary data. This sounds silly but math is also a trauma trigger for me. I avoided math in my college and career. My abuser approached math in a way that left me totally confused and sobbing daily. I can't go into it. But some of my decision has to do with statistics and it's complex to understand how the statistics apply to me. This is why my partner would just do whatever the first doctor thought made more sense, whereas I will go try to get a medical degree online and learn statistics to understand it for myself. I have no faith, no trust in doctors, or anyone really, I have to understand things for myself. It's my only defense! I lean heavily on my intellect. And that's just stupid to do in this case. I'm not a doctor and can't become one. But when my partner had a different understanding of part of the math of my situation and said directly my math was wrong, I went into an EF.

I'm not sure what he could do differently there, he legit thinks my understanding of the math is wrong. I will check with the surgeon on Friday but the surgeon agrees with my math enough that she proposed this approach so.. I think my husband is wrong

The other trigger is "not feeling cared for/about." Neglect. And it's true, his attention is elsewhere, he's got a major circus going on in his own FOO. I always feel I'm put last, after his job, our kids, and now for the first time, his FOO, because there's a crisis there. There's some reality to that. It's hard to get the man's attention sometimes. I mean, I know how to get his attention but that's also a trigger. Sigh. Sometimes in a relationship everything is a trigger. I'm so triggered right now by my situation that everything is becoming too hot and too fragile.

I do think that some of my "cared about" issue is coming from the inner children, from old wounds. I simply cannot experience the care that part of me wants to experience, because I'm five foot seven and 150 pounds. I'm just not a child. And I can't experience the care that part of me wants because other parts of me block it, erase it, undo it, and deflect it. It's not really his fault.

He did the things I asked him to do directly to help prepare for what's coming, what I decided that he doesn't agree with. He ordered a new fence section so the dogs can be let out and not walked, he took the Roomba to be fixed. NarcKiddo said they have to put the reading material in front of their face and sit there. And maybe I also need to be more direct, not just tell him "go read about it" but hand him the studies I myself read. Why do I want him to read studies? to get his opinion. But if his differs from mine, meltdown. Poor man. I want him to read them to check myself. If I turn out to be mistaken, that's only a good thing that he showed me I am mistaken, it's why I wanted him to read them.

So it doesn't quite make sense that I got so lost when he had a different opinion, except the timing. I think I felt very intruded upon because I've been doing this all myself, and then he decided to read something and disagreed. It felt intrusive and unfair because he's been absent for the entire process---he came to two appointments I think but we've hardly discussed any of it, so involved with work, kids and everything, so little time and space.

Time and space are important and a constant struggle... we struggle to carve out time and space for each other and that's also fraught. I need to plan the time and space or I can't be present. He is spontaneous and really can't plan. LOL.

Sigh.

The dance of give and take. I don't want to strive for nothing anymore. Ani DiFranco. I just want to lie here with you, keep the wolves outside the door. There is nothing in this world you could ever show me that would ever matter more.

In the whirlwind of life, it feels like a hurricane too right now. I have to remember the eye of the storm. Relationships are nothing but give and take. Right now I feel fragile and empty, vulnerable. I don't like that feeling. And, I'm ok. This is adult life, life is complex and rich, we've created a family and that's four people total plus the pet menagerie, a house and all its pipes and parts that break and need a coat of paint, a yard with weeds, three cars with windshields that get cracked and tires that go bald, a Roomba that goes berserk, the dog needs medication and the rabbit needs a teeth trim, the baseboard peeled off the wall again in the hall and who's going to nail it back down? His mother, my sibling and his work, my schedule, it's all a complex clunky machine clomping down the road, springing leaks and succumbing to entropy as fast as we can patch it back up. And this is another hiccup, a big one. And it adds to the overall load of all of this. All of this is All of Us and it's hard because it's beautiful, it's hard because it's a lot, it's hard because we created All of Us over thirty years and we've changed over that time. When we met what did we know, nothing, LOL. I was 18 and stupid as a post. I signed on for the duration because what else was I going to do? And here we are. It's not hard because it's bad. It's not hard because he's bad or I'm bad. It's not full of friction and empty at the same time because we failed. It's hard because it's complex, rich, big, and it's just the two of us holding it all up, all together. Sometimes in the dance we step all over each other's feet and knock foreheads and sometimes I'm spinning in the middle of the floor while he's out on the edge tap dancing. It's not a smooth tango all the time, and cannot be. That doesn't mean it isn't good.

[NarcKiddo]

No, you're not a doctor and aren't about to become one. But you are the expert on All of You. I don't think the research you are doing is stupid. It might be a bit obsessive - and boy, do I know all about that. My computer must wonder what's hit it. However, I don't think being a bit obsessive about your own health outcomes is automatically bad.

As for the math - it made me think of something I read online only this morning. It was about soldiers in WW1, who apparently used to be sent to battle wearing cloth caps. The rate of head injury was appalling and unsustainable so someone had the bright idea of putting them in tin helmets instead. Only when they all had tin helmets the injury rate increased. Something was going horribly wrong. The Powers that Be were thinking about moving back to cloth caps again. Eventually somebody looked at the numbers with a proper overview. It was indeed true that head injuries were increasing. But deaths from head injury were decreasing. The tin helmets were doing their job. So depending on what your math problem is, it seems to me possible that understanding can quite reasonably differ depending on the outcome. It's clearly not as simple as 1 + 1, so I think your plan to approach the surgeon again to review the math is wise and sensible.

I hate that denial of self when your abuser tells you what is true and you are forced to agree. It's totally understandable that your partner's disagreement with your conclusion could trigger that feeling even when that is not what your partner was doing at all.

I'm very happy you feel normal this morning.

 

[HannahOne]

Mood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVT5hT-r9oU

[HannahOne]

NarcKiddo, I love your example of the tin helmets. What an interesting way to think about cause and effect and how we sometimes make errors in attribution! "So depending on what your math problem is, it seems to me possible that understanding can quite reasonably differ depending on the outcome. It's clearly not as simple as 1 + 1, so I think your plan to approach the surgeon again to review the math is wise and sensible." Thank you!

Thank you for the support and encouragement.

[HannahOne]

Really enjoyed my day today. I woke up refreshed, I did some writing. I found a new place to submit writing and I have a hunch they might take it, which is a good feeling to have. I did rounds of dishes and laundry and cleanup. Went for a walk. Art therapy. Took my kid to a doctor and we had such a lovely talk in the car, lots of laughing, I continue to marvel at their rapid-fire development of emotional maturity. Every night I put to bed one child and every morning I wake up and it's a whole new child. Hello goodbye, hello goodbye.

I ate three decent meals. I am getting my energy back. I also caught up on my junk journal and was able to fill in the last two weeks with the scraps of notes and photos I had. This is a good project for me to keep track of All of Me.

Tomorrow I have a doc appt for my shoulder that will take most of the day due to commute. Wednesday city therapist. I am finding a little bit of a routine again.

The thing that continues to feel most like All of Me is painting. I am loving learning. I am terrible at oil painting, I smudge my lines, I make a mess. And I love it. It's really learning to see. you have to put what you think aside, and become an eyeball. I keep thinking "that's black," but it's absolutely not black, it's muddy gray. Or I think, "That's red," but what kind of red? I need to think, "that's cherry," or "that's brick." There's an entire art of naming colors. But here it's learning to make them concrete and specific, and see the nuance, not what words are chosen. It's more the image of the cherry I need than the word "cherry." And how to make the red on my palette more "cherry" and less "brick"? I have to understand color theory. I'm still on black and white painting but it turns out we get a wee color lesson each time. I can see why I am so far from actually being able to use colored paints. first I have to learn to see.

Then there's all levels of cool colors and warm, undertones. I have never been able to see this before. I am just barely getting a glimpse of it now. It's part of what went wrong with my makeup, I was using makeup that was too orange for my skin tone. There's also value, how intense the color is, I think? or how clear maybe, clear vs muddy? Saturation. I'm not sure on that part yet. There's shadow, the hook on which all colors are hung. Shadows ground the image. And perspective.

So much to learn to see, so much of my mind to learn how to pick up and set aside. When I leave class, everything is a sensory blast, the trees don't look like "trees," I don't see the trees I just see infinite shades of what we call "green." the road doesn't look gray, it looks like stripes of light. This is what I am so drawn to and feel I must imbibe, I must gulp down learning how to see, before my lights go out.

In a similar way I feel I am learning to hear. I've been listening to a lot of music, first music from my teen years and lately more and more classical. Jazz. Piano concertos. It's unlike me. But again something is drawing me to learn to listen. To feel what music does to my mind, how my mind entrains to it, and emotions, what vibrates my bones and resonates with my heart. Music is quite amazing, the full range of human experience, expressed by a hammer hitting strings. Or by air passing over vocal cords. And I'm in that experience, I'm a human too. In a way, this music was made for me, for all of us. And it took all of us to make it, so many many people dedicated to making violins of wood, tuning pianos, conducting, teaching, so many many hours people practice their instrument to be able to play, so much coordination to keep the performance hall heated and lit and have everyone arrive at the same time on the same day to take out their instrument... Soon enough I'm going to be watching PBS and Masterpiece theater. I grow old, I wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled....And growing old is a privilege. I want to see what's beyond the next year, and the next.

I have to get back to dance class, being sick knocked me out of it. I am still unsure if I want to try partner dance, ballroom, or stick with adult ballet, or Zumba or some other type.

Painting, music, dance. It's all so analog. I'm grateful I got to taste analog life before digital took over. There's something so compelling about using the hand to draw, the eye. Using the hand to play, the ear. I've been reading Matthew Crawford again, (ironically, on my computer because my eyes can't read paper anymore), Shop Class as Soul Craft. Highly recommend if anyone is interested in this topic of how the hand makes us human.

Trauma tries to un-human, is inhumane. Trauma breaks the eye-hand connection. I no longer want to see. I don't want to feel. I lose the ability to use my hand for my own purposes. I lose my purpose, I am only surviving. I withdraw, isolate, stare. Trauma  breaks the ear-heart connection. As a child the school thought I must be deaf. Nope, just spaced out. Making art, listening to art, seeing art, moving as art is healing All of Me. Sometimes I still feel really broken. Right now I am feeling very healed.