Zen_Racer's Recovery Journal

[zen_racer]

Thank you SanMagic.  Because of a couple instances in therapy with this T, she will stop and ask me how I'm doing and if I'm present in the room.  I have been pretty good at being honest.  The issue I seem to be having is that I sometimes have delayed responses.  I felt fine leaving therapy yesterday, but then in the car 5 minutes later I was feeling it so strongly and almost had to pull over.  Then was fine again.  I think when it starts getting too intense, I dissociate again.

B is hiking all the way to cabins at the bottom.  I think she said 8 miles down, and 15 miles back up.  I could be wrong about those numbers.  A month or so ago, she did a 4 day backpacking hike in mountains in Colorado.

Thank you!  Love and hugs.   

[NarcKiddo]

I've never had EMDR so I don't know how it progresses or what the aftermath of a session might be like. I sometimes find a short break is helpful after an intense session as it gives me time to regulate again and absorb the tough session. However, I have had times when I am glad to have therapy again the following week. I'm sure those who have had EMDR can comment if you want advice - maybe put a specific question about that out in the forum? But the safest thing is probably to wait until you have an undisturbed run of sessions. If EMDR proves to be intense then I guess you can leave it out and do something else in the next therapy session before going back to it? Just thinking out loud. Ignore if not helpful.

 

[sanmagic7]

hey, ZR, in my experience as an EMDR client, i, too, have had kind of delayed reactions to processing. or vivid dreams afterwards.  from what i understand the brain is reorganizing itself, re-wiring in a way to the movement that processing provides.  in effect, it's re-processing (the R in EMDR) the original information it held fast in order to be able to let it go or change it into something manageable and tolerable, (desensitizing, the D in EMDR) with the ultimate goal of erasing the bothersome memories or sensations that accompanied the original trauma.

may i suggest that next time one of those hits you while driving, that you do, indeed, pull over, stop, let it pass thru your brain/mind?  for one thing, just in case you begin dissociating, you will be safer, and for another, it will give a little extra time for your brain to do its thing.  up to you, of course, and i don't know where you were driving, if pulling over is even an option.  you might want to tell your T about this, see what she thinks about it, what she recommends, instead of just hearing what i'm saying.  she may ask you to sit in the waiting room for a few minutes, see how your brain is reacting before even getting into your car.

just some thoughts.  as always, take what's helpful, leave the rest.  love and hugs and thank you for yours

[zen_racer]

NK and SanMagic, I appreciate the input.  I have not started the EMDR yet, but I'm beginning to lean towards doing so the next session with then having a break.  My delayed reactions are so far just to stuff I've gone over in therapy just talking about the past and my mind wandering.  I have a race training/practice day after this session, but I have a 4 day weekend after the therapy session.  Then for the week that I'll have the next therapy session, work will be really busy and hectic.  I think I'd rather try it when I'll have a break, and see what the EMDR hangover is like, and then have more information to be able to choose how well I'll be able to handle a rough work week while potentially doing EMDR in therapy.

Yesterday, B and I had our first day together where we had 1 thing to do, but then spent the rest of the day just hanging out together, running errands, and cooking dinner.  She had been feeling like not doing her training hike for the weekend because of the heat.  After I made a suggestion, she came to my house early in the morning, and we went a little down from where I live and did a 7 mile hike with over 1200 feet of elevation climb.  We were both wearing weighted backpacks.  It was an enjoyable day, except for when I felt like I was dying at the end of the hike.  LOL

I've been spending time in the mornings on workdays at least, sometimes on the weekends, checking in with myself for 15-20 minutes.  More recently, it has gotten to where I lay down for the check in, and rather immediately start experiencing strong feelings/emotions.  At times, it has been difficult to shut that off for driving into work.  I had thought I was actively connecting with my feelings, but realized I was instead dropping the mask I didn't know I was wearing, and simply revealing the emotions that were already there.  These would sometimes come out at other times, like watching that TV show I mentioned, or when in therapy, or talking with B about the same stuff.  This morning, while checking in with this forum and responding to other things on here, I started having those emotions start surfacing without confronting my past or specifically checking in with myself.  It's a definite shift from before when I'd have to be confronting my past or specifically dropping the mask.  I'm not entirely certain what to make of that yet.  I'm assuming that I'm continuing to feel safer, and so more things are bubbling up.  I'm still not sure what to think about that yet.

I hope everyone is doing well.

[sanmagic7]

I'm assuming that I'm continuing to feel safer, and so more things are bubbling up

i think that might be a safe assumption, ZR.  i've found that happening to me as i continued to live w/ my D - she helped make me feel safe, and actually, i don't think i've ever felt safer, so it makes sense to me why i can feel more, discover more about me, look inward instead of always being on the lookout for something else i have to endure or work thru or make a decision to stay or go. 

the other thought that came to mind was 'aaaaah, youth!'  reading about your hikes, 7 frickin' miles! - and i do well walking around my apt. complex, which is about 1/2 mile.  i used to walk about 3 mi./day on a regular basis, but my legs just don't have it in me anymore.  still, i'm happy for what i can do.  it's at least something.  i'm very glad for you that you found someone to do that with.  it sounds healthy and fun and you're enjoying each other as well.  yay!  love and hugs

[zen_racer]

the other thought that came to mind was 'aaaaah, youth!'  reading about your hikes, 7 frickin' miles!

Lol. I get stuff like that all the time, even when talking with people in real life. I'm 50 years old. Admittedly, I'm in pretty great shape physically, despite how sick I was for a couple years because of my gallbladder and then vitamin deficiency.

[sanmagic7]

hahaha, ZR!  back when i was 50, i felt pretty good, too.  i'm so very glad for you that you're able to do this physical stuff.  i think it's wonderful for you and  your health.  i've had to cut back over the years, had to take breaks when i was down and out, but feeling better right now.  back to walking and lifting, which feels good to me.  so, well done!

keep up the good work!  love and hugs

[zen_racer]

Last week, my mom had texted and wanted to have dinner.  She texted while I was at work, and was suggesting that night.  I took a while to calm down before responding, but eventually told her that evening wouldn't be possible.  She suggested other nights, and I didn't want to have a text conversation about that at work, so I just let it go, until the following evening.  I agreed to meet her this week, last night.

I don't like how I felt at her just reaching out for contact.  I don't like how I felt after I agreed to meet.  Between that and actually meeting, I dreaded it.  I thought about worst case scenarios.  I tried to figure out how far sideways everything could go.  Like her not letting me know other family would be around, all of them staging an intervention, her asking me for ridiculous stuff.  After leaving work yesterday, she wouldn't tell me what the new place in town was where she wanted to have dinner, and her wanting me to come to her house first seemed like a trap, and I wanted to cancel.  She has once trapped me somewhere by having us go together, when I was a teenager with my own car, and I've never felt safe going anywhere with her without me going separately since.

But I did go.  There was no big surprises with other people, but aside from the worst case scenarios, it did go kind of like how I thought it would.  After a while, she started beating around the bush of us not having been talking.  Of course, she did so by making up a story about how it was an issue with me, and she didn't know if I was still choosing to be upset with her or if I'd decided to get over it yet.  She obviously refused to acknowledge that it might actually be based on her behavior.  But this time, I didn't let it slide, and pointed out that it was because she acts like I'm a child, talks down to me, tries to pick apart every single thing I ever say.  She asked "Well I haven't done that today have I?"  I simply said "Not yet."  So she gave her smug smile and said "See, I've changed."  I didn't let that slide either.  I said "But don't you remember the last time we've talked about this?  I told you how badly your treatment of me affected me, and you told me that's just the way you are and you'll never change."  She got really quiet, and then changed subject.

She asked about other people in the family that she already knew I wasn't talking to.  Then asked about if I'd been riding my motorcycle much (she's already known that I mostly gave up racing this year).  I told her not a lot, but that I had just done maintenance to it and it's ready to go as the weather gets cooler.  I then told her that I should really do the work to the other two motorcycles so I can sell them, and the one I still ride, to get the new bike I want, pointing out that it would be safer if I wanted to ride to work.  That's when she started attacking the idea of me riding, making up stories about it, and talking down to me like she's the expert on riding motorcycles.  She doesn't ride, and I have for 18 years, including racing.  I stopped her, and told her flat out that I wasn't interested in her opinion.  "I'm not asking for opinions on if I should be allowed to do this.  I've ridden for 18 years and done race practice for over 10 years.  If you'd like to learn about riding you can ask me, but I'm not interested in an ignorant opinion from someone that has no experience with it."

Unfortunately, I let it slip that I'm seeing someone, but didn't give much information other than that.  She started jumping to conclusions up to suggesting that I should come over to dinner with her to meet the family and she'd invite everyone, and I flatly refused saying that's never going to happen.  And just to be clear, that's 100% to do with how my family treats me, and not at all to do with how things are going with B.  I have two view points on this.  If B is someone that I want in my life long term, why would I give my family the chance to show her how to treat me poorly and disrespect me?  That is how my family acts.  The other is why would I subject someone I care about to such horrible and abusive people?  I cannot see a single good thing that could possibly happen.

There was at least one other instance, I think early on, where she didn't have an argument for the facts I stated, so she attacked the semantics and then told me everything I said wasn't true.  I corrected her rather rudely that time.

After I finally escaped, I felt a little good about the interaction on my way home.  I stood up for myself, and didn't let it trigger me as badly with her behavior.  Later that night, I started getting angry about how she created the story about how everything was just some unknown thing wrong with me as to why I might be upset with her.  Angry for how she started acting like I was a child to get talked down to despite being the subject expert while she is 100% ignorant of it.  I think I've already gone through a stage of grieving the understanding, connection, and support I should get from parents.

I haven't started ruminating on it like I've done in the past, yet.  Not sure if I will or won't.  In some ways, it feels like I've come quite a ways into getting better and handling it better.  But in other ways, it highlights that I shouldn't have to spend over a week destabilized because a hollow bitter person that pretends to care wants to create an alternate reality where I'm always wrong and at fault.  And if it's only a week, that's still a LOT better than the rumination and self hatred used to last.

Sitting here writing this, I feel like punching something.  Maybe I should visit the punching bag in the basement.

There are other unrelated developments, but this is already long enough.

[NarcKiddo]

Your post totally resonates. My experiences with my mother are so similar. I also find myself spending endless time planning for any sort of outlandish situation she may throw at me. Yours suddenly becoming an expert in motorcycles just to spoil or stop you from riding them is precisely and to the letter the kind of thing mine will do, and it happens when there is a situation she cannot be involved in. Since she cannot be present in the activity she has to stop it and the only tactic left is to try to ruin it or make me scared of it. I swear, there must be a factory somewhere churning these people out!

I agree that you seem to have come a long way in your handling of such situations. But you are totally right that you do not deserve having to spend a week decompressing. You shouldn't have to spend any time decompressing after a visit from a family member who supposedly loves you. (I mean, I think everybody probably does to some extent because any visit with a family member you don't live with has its own pressures, no matter how well you get on, but surely not in a way that actively interferes with your equilibrium).

 

[Chart]

Yeah I think I can join the "Whack-a-mole-mother" club.
:-)
I'm not really tested anymore, but in parallel situations with similar behavior I'm finding silence and "non-reactive" posture works like gold. I'm still learning but my early experiences are incredibly positive.

[zen_racer]

Last Thursday, I had my first EMDR session.  The experience has been a lot.  I don't think this would qualify as needing trigger warnings, but the whole experience has seemed like a lot to me, so just giving a general warning.

We are starting off with a negative self belief where I feel like I need to apologize for existing.  That theme shows up in memories on the timeline to varying degrees, but we're starting with one where I rated the severity around a 3-4.  To start, even rating the memories seems weird to me.  In recalling the memories, I don't feel an emotional connection to a lot of them.  The idea of assigning a number is foreign to me, and I can't even begin to do that.  But in relating them to the negative self beliefs that I checked off the list, suddenly assigning that number isn't that hard.  But as a little foreshadowing, I think I screwed that up.

My T wanted to start with a memory in the 3-5 range.  Bad enough that I'd be able to tell a difference after fully processing, but not starting out with something really major.  The memory we chose is one where my family was on vacation.  My mom likes to plan every second of a vacation.  At the beginning of a hike, I was having sharp stabbing pains in my stomach.  It was something that became a constant in my life for a long time, and this wasn't the first time.  But it was before we knew what it was.  Because she had planned things out and wanted to this hike, at exactly that time, she brushed off the pain I was in.  She said I was making it up to get out of hiking, and that I always did things like that (I didn't).  She yelled at everyone until we all started hiking.  But I couldn't do it.  I couldn't keep up.  Eventually my dad realized something was actually wrong and got mad at her and took me back to the car.

For the next part, it would probably make more sense if I explained that since I wrote the recovery letter to myself, I have had no connection with Little ZR.  My inner child has been completely gone.  I had wondered if I somehow integrated it with my adult self, but that now seems like definitely not the case.

For the EMDR processing, my T asked me to choose a resource, a person, to stand up for me in the memory (I think I was about 6-7).  I chose myself, but when trying to stand up for myself, I was stuck.  I told her that I don't think I'm very nurturing towards myself.  I mentioned I don't have that issue towards others, and she asked who I was nurturing to.  I said my niece and nephew as an example.  She had me picture that they were in my place in that memory, and to picture myself standing up for them.  When that worked, she switched to me standing up for myself again, and this time I was able to do that.  She asked if I'd have anything to say to my mom.  In that moment, in the session, I told her that it was child abuse.  That was the moment I nearly broke, and almost started crying.  Something I haven't done in a session yet.

We ended up not getting fully done, and she had me picture putting that memory in a box for later processing.  Something I'll be doing in a few hours in a session later today.  Oddly, I left that session feeling pretty good.  Refreshed even.  The next day, I woke up feeling better than usual, still refreshed.  I had been going to do a race practice day with B going with me, but it was way too hot so we just ran errands, hung out, and eventually watched a couple more episodes of that TV show.  In it, one character was preparing for a big meeting and looking at herself in a mirror.  She started seeing a child, her inner child.  She was amused by that, and they made faces at each other in the mirror.  She left with an obvious extra spring in her step.  That scene was so difficult for me to see.

B started hugging me tight and wasn't letting me go (not implying it was against my will or that I was trying to get away from it).  I finally realized it was because I don't have that kind of relationship with my own inner child.  That to even be able to see my inner child in the context of trying to heal, I have to accept the horrible stuff little me went through to need reparenting now.  I can't see Little ZR without experiencing the pain, and I don't think I've been ready to accept that I was a victim of child abuse to the extent that it was.  I think my brain has been blocking picturing Little ZR because of that.

Since then, I've been on an intermittent roller coaster of emotions coming back.  Sometimes when situations would make sense that it's happening.  Sometimes unrelated to anything at all and out of the blue.

In the session towards the end, my T reminded me that it's okay if I cry in the session.  With the stuff that came out that I didn't describe here, she admitted that hearing the stuff I went through at that age was making her feel like crying.  And she reassured me that THAT was okay, and normal.

Maybe I mis-scored that memory.  Maybe I didn't, but it's just that more things are inter-related that I didn't realize.  Either way, I'm starting to understand how big of an undertaking this is going to be.  How many negative self beliefs I checked off.  How many different memories relate to each one.  I'm still committed to recovery, but this is making me wonder how emotionally unstable I'm going to get in doing the processing.  It's making me wonder if maybe when emotions start coming back, and I immediately think they are bad emotions ... maybe it's that being emotionally numb for so long makes any emotion feel overwhelming, so even if it's a positive one I feel like it's bad.

I remain hopeful that EMDR is going to be beneficial.

[TheBigBlue]

That sounds like a lot for a first EMDR session, ZR.

I hope you and your T can take it slowly and gently, especially as so much seems to be opening up.

I'm glad you're feeling hopeful and am rooting for you.