Zen_Racer's Recovery Journal

[Hope67]

Hi Zen_Racer,
My sincere condolences on the death of your friend.  Also, sorry to hear that your other recent friendship ended last week. 

I think you did well to write these things, and sending you a supportive hug -  - you are dealing with a lot of things - I hope that you can find some rest and recuperation on the weekend and time to process things as and when you want/feel able to. 

[NarcKiddo]

I'm so sorry to hear about the death of your friend. Also about the ending of another friendship and the one that is feeling toxic. That's a lot to handle at all, let alone in a short space of time. Plus a change of T.

You are dealing with a lot, ZR, and I hope you are finding ways to be kind to yourself and take whatever rest you need.

 

[zen_racer]

Thank you Hope and NK.  I finally got enough sleep, and I'm feeling a little better.  I know that none of these things are destroying my life.  I'm trying to remind myself that it's okay to be overwhelmed when things pile up like this.  I do wish I hadn't gotten those memories back though.  I guess I at least now know why I felt like I deserved to feel so bad.  Big surprise, it was something that wasn't my fault and I didn't deserve, and my M used as an excuse to attack me and tell me how horrible of a person I was.

I'm guessing that's the type of memory that would be a good target for emdr therapy.

The weather here is supposed to be rainy and yucky all weekend, so I'm planning on spending a fair bit of time attempting more grounding work, processing, and spending less time with screens and more time either doing house work or reading.

Thank you again.  Hugs for both of you.    

[TheBigBlue]

  ,    and support.

[zen_racer]

TW for self harm



I'm still having issues with the memories that came back this last week.  I've previously written about remembering the worst night of the drinking binge I went through.  What I remembered last week was a lot of what lead up to that night.  When I started the drinking binge, I was using it as an escape from everything in my life.  Eventually I started drinking enough that I would have a hangover, and I would get really sick.  That's when I started drinking more, and doing anything I could to make the hangover worse, because I felt like I deserved to feel as horrible as my M told me I was.  Worse even.  I kept drinking specifically to make myself feel as bad physically as I felt emotionally.  I think this was also when I was the worst about cutting, and I think my worst scars came from this.

I know I've written about it before, but the reason my M was attacking me and telling me how horrible I was as a person was because I had been giving up my life to keep my grandpa (her dad) out of a nursing home, but eventually he got too bad, and I couldn't do it alone anymore.  She wouldn't do anything to help, and she blamed me for her dad's medical condition.  She screamed and yelled at me every chance she got.  She'd tell me how I ruined her life, and my grandpa's life.  That I let them all down.  She was angry and spiteful and vengeful.  And I believed her even though I knew she was wrong.  I already felt guilty for not being able to help my grandpa anymore, but he started being delusional every time he'd see me, and wouldn't let me help him anymore.  I was still a young kid that shouldn't have been abandoned to try and take care of him alone.  I shouldn't have been blamed for him getting sick with Alzheimer's.

I think this is a big part of why I still don't feel like I deserve self compassion. Why I feel like I have to apologize for even existing.  I deserved being helped and supported, and so did my grandpa.  I never deserved be constantly attacked by people that should have supported me.  I never deserved to have their misplaced anger and rage affect my own perception of myself for so long.  I never deserved how badly I treated myself because of their abuse.

That was why I had moved away.  Unfortunately, 22 years away and dissociation made me not realize how bad it would be moving back to be around them again.  And being around them again for the last 4.5 years is why I'm as bad as I am now.

[dollyvee]

He'd spend half the time talking about stories that often didn't relate to anything I was talking about, and he even started talking over me to tell me his stories. 

Oof that's not great and well done for spotting the red flags. I found that learning the boundaries for what is and is not acceptable were tricky for me as someone who never was allowed to have them, but when I had to remind a therapist twice that my dad committed suicide, I knew it wasn't right. I'm not sure if I should say that last part or not. I'm sorry if it's triggering at the moment you are dealing with self harm issues.

Sending you support and hope things are better with the new therapist.

dolly

[NarcKiddo]

And I believed her even though I knew she was wrong. 

This is a CPTSD problem in a nutshell. That awful push-pull internally over what we know and what we nevertheless believe.

You are completely right that you deserved help and so did your grandpa. I feel so sorry for the younger ZR doing his absolute utmost for grandpa, and still being berated and abused for it. Even though logically it is clear you realise that it was an impossible situation, I wonder if maybe emotionally there is still some guilt around your grandpa's situation, at least for part of you. I'm glad you are talking about it, because you deserve to be free of that burden that should never have been put on you in the first place.

 

[zen_racer]

Thank you Dolly.  It's okay that you said that, it didn't trigger me at all.  I'm sorry that's something you've had to deal with.  Regarding my therapist, it was difficult for me to finally decide to switch therapists because I didn't know any better.  I had only just started therapy and didn't know what it should or shouldn't be.  The final straw for me was when I noticed that it was making me want to quit therapy completely.  I realized that was a warning sign that I would indeed immanently be quitting therapy for good, and that meant that I needed to act fast.  Only one session in with the new therapist, and the difference is showing me that I was right to switch.  Thank you for the support. 

NK, I most certainly still feel guilt for not being able to keep my grandpa in his own home for longer.  Ultimately, I kept him in his own house for 5 years longer than he would've been able to stay there by living across from him and helping him out.  He was my favorite grand parent.  He always had such a great outlook on people and life.  He was so patient with my brother and I.  The only time I ever saw him upset (that wasn't related to the Alzheimer's) was a time that my brother and I were doing something stupid where it would've been easy for us to get seriously injured.  I took him to his last Marine reunion when I was 19, and got to know a lot more about him by the way he lit up and remembered more while being surrounded by people that had meant to much to him when he was so much younger.  He had built the house he lived in.

Yeah, I feel guilt for not being able to do more.  I think because of how my mom blamed me for his condition, I also have a huge amount of shame.  As the youngest person in the family, it shouldn't have been on me to make the decision that ultimately put him in a nursing home.  I shouldn't have had to act like the adult and then be blamed for an age related medical condition and made to feel like the progression of Alzheimer's was proof that I was as bad of a person as if I had created the disease just to hurt people.

I had always assumed that it was the alcohol that had damaged the memories of whatever had happened.  Now that I've remembered a lot of this and made the connections, I think the memories were just too much to deal with.  The memories of letting my grandpa down, and hating myself and hating life so much.  The dissociation of forgetting those memories after attempting suicide twice literally saved my life.

It was during this binge that I got the last job I had before I moved across the country to get away from family.  I think my grandpa only survived in the nursing home about a year and a half.