Recovering Gently

[Gently]

I like the reflection that was prompted in my mind as I wrote the title of this recovery journal. It can mean so many different things. At first, as the words toppled out into the little text box, it felt like a description of the way I am recovering, I am recovering in a gentle manner. Immediately the honest part of me said "Um, not always gently though, right?" No, not always gently. Often it looks quite the opposite of gentle on the outside, the way things come out through expressions of pain and frustration with what's happened, what's still happening. The next thought was that those two words describe what is happening to Gently, Gently is recovering. That felt very true. I can fully agree with that statement. The last reflection feels more like a mission, should you choose to accept it: We are on a mission to recover Gently. Here is all of your fancy tech and a super fast sports car. Duh duh duh!

There is a gentle part of my recovery. It happens very deep inside of me, amongst parts of me that are very timid to show themselves to the outside world, even the most trusted of my people, whom are very few. The tenderest, gentlest parts of me are also the ones who have been most hurt, and hurt because they have allowed themselves to be seen and touched by other people.

It's people! I hear the revelatory cry of Charlton Heston's character in the movie "Soylent Green" as he discovers the horrible truth. Our horrible truth is that the source of our trauma is people, closeness with people, trusting people, needing people.

I've been taking photos out of frames today, decluttering. We had to take all of the photos off of our narrow stairwell walls when a new wash tower had to be taken up to the second floor laundry room, and they've been sitting on the landing for several months. We have so many family photos from our wedding eleven years ago. His family, my adoptive family, my birth family, my late abuser husband's family. Looking at all of them sends a pang of panic through me. Very few of them stir up fond and comforting feelings. The ones with my own kids do, the ones with my, now, husband, my true husband, do.

I ripped up the one with my late abuser husband's family and threw it in the trash. That felt like a dissenting act. A liberating act. They all appear to be so pleasant. That's part of the problem.

Choosing not to put up photos of all of these people feels radical, risky somehow.

My attachment to people is so tenuous. All of these people. It feels so arbitrary.

I found myself feeling a sense of acceptance of that in me today. I have been so afraid of that feeling, like I have to fix it. Today, I thought: What if that's just how I feel with people in general. What if that's an okay way to be in the world. What if that's me, and okay. What if nothing bad will happen to me if I just allow that to be true.

I don't know what we will end up putting on our walls.

Maybe wallpaper!

[HannahOne]

Welcome, Gently! So glad you are journaling here.

Welcome to all parts of you.

What to put on your walls is your choice now. 

[Gently]

Thank you, HannahOne 

[SenseOrgan]

Welcome here Gently! 

[NarcKiddo]

Gently is recovering.

I am happy to read this. Your whole journal entry feels gentle, kind and thoughtful.

[Gently]

Thank you, SenseOrgan and NarcKiddo 

Time with "the kids". No other way to refer to them, although they are both above thirty years old and one has his own child, now. More time with the kids and the grandchild lately. A family hang-out once a week. It calms me, regulates me, having that anchor, that reassuring regular contact. Makes me feel that everything is okay. And, I guess it is if we are all willing to spend time together.

"I guess" is the tricky part of this life, this cptsd life. The not knowing, not for sure. The knowing that connections are tenuous or can be exploited or discarded.

Ruminations this morning after time together yesterday. Starting to feel "under it". Feeling myself begin to fall, things going grey, shame creeping in.

"No, don't do that to yourself." A cry, a lament rises towards the soft self, the afraid self, the worried self. Care, compassion, affection, support. An internal response of openness to it, allowing it to lift me back up, bring me back into the land of the living. Tender Loving Kindness. Tears of release.

"Be kind to yourself today, you need some extra care today."

Yes, I do. The tide is turned. This newly discovered posture of compassion towards my tender self is becoming familiar, responding to it more natural, believing it more possible.

I turn my face away from ephemeral anxieties and distress, rumination and fear. I turn my heart towards loving kindness, care-taking. I will practice this day through a posture of loving kindness, self-care and recovery towards myself.

On the outside, my activities will likely look the same as if this shift had not happened.

On the inside, a universe, a galaxy of difference. From darkness to light, from oppression to freedom, from death to life.

I turn my face away from all of the demons "out there" and instead turn my loving gaze onto myself, this moment, this place, feel my own self, my own needs, my own body, my own tender heart, and actively offer care and support. I stay.


Stay here, stay with me, I need you.

I'm here. I see you. You're safe here. Breathe with me.