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.