Living As All of Me

[HannahOne]

I start every day by getting dressed. And the process is an exercise in being aware of my CPTSD. I start by making choices. What do I want to say today? How do I want to feel? And try things on until I feel an internal yes. I have to allow time for this. I cannot be rushed.

My parents would say this is frivolous, self-centered, ridiculous and inane. Who cares what you're wearing? Who do I think I am?

I get it. What a luxury to have thirty minutes to try on clothes. And new clothes! And impractical shoes! And yeah, who cares? No one. But I care how I feel. And I care about who I think I am. I care about what I want to say. And it's my life! It's now or never.... I ain't gonna live forever! I just wanna live while I'm alive.... Thanks, Bon Jovi! Getting dressed is about expressing who I am because that's what I want to do. And it's my life.

The process of getting dressed is an exercise in CPTSD. Which parts of me do I want to extrovert today and which parts do I want to protect and keep internal? I need to keep the child self with me in awareness, I need to embody the adult that I am, I need to exhibit intentionality and self control and I want to exhibit approachability and fun. I have to battle through the internal critic where everything I put on is ugly, makes me look like a slut, makes me look like a country bumpkin or a pretentious city slicker or makes me look too big or too small or..... 

Getting dressed is worth spending time on. I start the day by making conscious choices, decisions. Not on automatic pilot, not being run by old programs, not unconscious. By the end of the process, I'm as embodied as I can get, as conscious as I can be, of who I am and what I am about that day. I've thrown off the nightmares, oriented to time and space, done a life review of all the me's I've ever been and am likely wearing remnants of each. I've got the childhood bracelet, the suit pants from my office jobs in my thirties, the slouchy sneakers from the teen years, the college t shirt over a lace blouse like my grandmother wore, the mom era jean blazer. I've got all of me.

If I just throw on sweatpants, I'm ripe for an emotional flashback, easy pickings for anyone who wants to ignore or disrespect me, set up to fail when I run into the school principal or a client, and skulking around trying to be invisible.

Better to show up as All of me.

[HannahOne]

Did I make myself sick?

Not on purpose.

Did I not do enough therapy? Did I not do the right therapy? Did I not reveal enough shame, grief, rage? Did I not process it right?

Or was I "too good" of a client? Did I overwork, obsess about the past, and so "not get over it"?

Is it all because of the abuse? my lack of fight? Is it because I froze? Or acquiesced?

Are my feelings poisoning me?

Am I toxic?

I don't want to let go of the fight. Rage. I needed that. I still need it. I don't want to give up flight. I loved running, my twelve miles a day in high school. Even submit, I'll keep it, horrific as it is. In my acquiescence was my one option for power and I don't want to give up one iota of my options. Shame? Kept me safer by keeping me small. Grief? I hate it. And, it shows me that I mattered. It all mattered. It all had material weight.

My feelings are, in a sense, me. Part of the All of me.
 
Carrying grief might be exhausting. Might be giving me "chronic fatigue." I suppose holding on to rage might be giving me "autoimmune disease." Keeping shame might be making me flabby. Maybe acquiescence gave me cancer.

Maybe it's not my feelings making me sick, maybe it's how I've weaponized them against myself just as my abusers used to do. Maybe it's thinking "my feelings are toxic" "I should be more Zen" "I need to get over this" "I'm not working hard enough to heal" "What's wrong with me that I'm not calm and happy all the time?" Or the internalized abuser, whenever I'm upset, "You make me sick."

Feeling like I'm making myself sick is probably more old programming. Feeling like I'm dangerous, a problem, a poison. Like it's all my fault, everything and anything that happens.

Sometimes people just get sick. Sometimes people just have a feeling.

I want to use this experience to change and grow. But maybe the way to use the experience is not to determine that I can never get upset again. Instead maybe now it's safe to feel my feelings, and in doing so I am reclaiming myself, my power, my safety. If I feel safer, I'll have less stress, which can only be good for my body.

I don't want to get rid of my feelings. Whatever feeling I am having in the moment it's probably what some part of me thinks I need. My nervous system delivers me shame, rage, and grief on a platter as it responds to stimuli to keep me safe. That doesn't make me wrong, it makes me a mammal.

Maybe being with my feelings will help my nervous system. If I'm not fleeing my feelings, fighting them, or submitting to them, maybe my nervous system will learn that they're safe, not dangerous, not toxic. I just don't want to stay in any one state very long. I want to be like Frank, move through those states. He freezes, but only for ten seconds. He flees, but only fifteen hops. He kicks out, but then turns and hops back over, resumes chewing his hay, goes back into a flop. He doesn't stay in the stress, think about it, analyze it, reprimand himself to do "better" next time. He's ok with being a little spooky. If I breeze down the hall and don't announce myself, he's going to jump straight up in the air. Me: "Oh sorry Frank! I didn't see you there!" Him "Oh sorry, HannahOne, I didn't hear you coming!" Me: "I'll be sure to hum or call out when I'm passing by!" But it's cool. He's already back in a flop, back legs flung out behind.

[Papa Coco]

HannahOne,

Frank is a creature to learn from. Before my knees gave out 5 years ago, I used to walk for exercise, at least an hour a day my whole entire life. Gads, I loved walking for exercise. I'm slow now and can only walk for about 20 minutes before my knees lock up. But back when I did walk far and fast, I had trails through the woods I could walk on. Many times, I'd admire and try to learn from the rabbits and bunnies that I would spook when I came around a corner. They'd quietly hop away, deep into the underbrush. I'd apologize as I walked past. I'd go 30 feet, stop and turn to see that as soon as I was gone, they'd return to their chewing. I wanted that so badly. I wished SO BADLY that I could handle danger and then get on with life. But no. I had to log my mistakes into the shame folder so I could run them on a loop through my conscious mind every day from then on. I have to spend the rest of my life avoiding anything that reminds me of that day when someone walked up on me and I had to hop into the underbrush.

I've given up a lot of delicious meals in life because I was too afraid to return to them after a scare.

I feel like I'm controlled by my past fears. Sometimes I wish I could get a memory wipe and wake up one morning knowing how to walk and talk but not remembering my past. 

But that only shines a spotlight on the reality that I am who I am because of every, single, solitary thing I've ever been through.

As of the past year or so, I've finally crossed a line where I still suffer with fear and EF triggers, but I don't hate myself anymore. All the incessant reading and research and pondering and meditating I do has finally pushed me out of self-loathing. But that didn't stop the fears and triggers and the chronic sense of panic that churns like magma just beneath the nice cool surface of my being. The earth is a hot ball of molten lava with a cool crust that grows pretty trees, and I'm a bit like that myself too. I can feel pretty good for a while, but when something breaches the skin, a stream of volcanic fear and trauma fly out from me, boiling my skin until I can get that gap closed again. I don't hate myself anymore, but I still live in fear.

I hope you can find that same ability to let the fear and trauma be fear and trauma without the traumatized belief that it's your fault. In this world where we are healthier to take responsibility for our actions, our traumas are not one of the things we need to take responsibility for. I believe that you are right when you say this self-loathing was given to us against our wills by the people who were commissioned to teach us self-love. So it's NOT our fault that we have trauma. We can still take responsibility for our lives, but we don't have to take the blame for how we are wired. And how we are wired is real. It's a real problem that we really have to deal with.

My hope for all of us on this forum is that we can each find ways to separate our Selves from our traumas. Both are real. Both can happen simultaneously. We can have explosive EFs while still feeling our innocence around why we're having them. It's a long road to freedom from EFs. I call it my Journey of a Thousand Steps, and I'm working hard to focus on today's steps, and know that as long as I'm on the journey, I'm right where I need to be. Progress, not perfection. On my bedroom wall I put up a note that says, "The journey is the destination". That helps me to stop focusing on the frustration I tend to feel as I keep trying too hard to be fully healed.

My path runs alongside yours. I'm really glad we can share these things with one another here. I find that for me the saying is true; We're stronger together.

[HannahOne]

PapaCoco, I am still in the self loathing. Or, part of me hates myself. I figure that's also a survival mechanism, to think that it's my fault so I can undo it. I guess I'm still also working on acceptance. Being willing to have had it all happen. I don't want it to have happened. Like you say, it's a journey of a thousand steps. It just takes the time it takes. I feel frustrated that my life is quite a bit about all of this. I would like it to be about something else. But, then as you say, I wouldn't be me, right? And, it's a whole lot easier and more fun being me with others, which I found here. And if you're here, you must be out there too. I just have to let people know I'm here out there