Dee's Recovery Journal 10 - Trigger Warning

[Dee]

Time for a new entry.  I am feeling better, I really am.  I have moments of being upset and hating myself, but they are less each day.  I registered for a ceramics class in January.  This is an attempt to end the isolation I have been in for a long time now.  The days that are bad are because I am becoming more aware.  It is super hard to look back at the last 20 years and start to understand how bad my marriage was and I didn't even realize it.  Wednesday I started to really understand.  It is hard to know what is wrong when you were never exposed to right.  Things that I thought were just me, issues that were mine, now seem like they were more than that.  I didn't understand why I was still having issues with childhood abuse when in reality the abuse wasn't over.  I just thought my feeling and fears were related to my childhood and I didn't understand.  To sit here and realize for the first time my marriage was domestic violence (without physical violence) is difficult beyond words.  Even if I shouldn't I feel so incredibly stupid for not realizing.  Being and adult and not removing myself from the situation in incomprehensible to me.  I have a lot of excuses about being overseas, not understanding, being threatened, but I still did nothing.

Anger, I have trouble feeling it.  I have been told I have a lot to be angry about.  My psychiatrist suggested I take it out on a pillow instead of on myself.  Tonight I bubbled and it wasn't nice and I feel awful.  I somehow talked about control in my marriage with my 16 year old son.  I ended up interrogating him.  When I was done I apologized.  He said he loved me.  He went to bed and I sat with my head in my hands.  I am just so upset after realizing the extent of abuse in my marriage.  Yet, this was anger and not a deep depression.  Not good, feels awful, yet not the same.  I think it is anger for realizing that I have been abused almost all my life.    That is where I am, finding anger, now I need an outlet and to be able to express it without hurting myself.

[Blossoming]

It's really hard to recognize abuse when that's all we've ever known so don't be too hard on yourself. 
Gaining new insight isn't easy either but it's better than never understanding (once the initial shock wears off).
I'm glad to read that you're doing better Dee.

[Dee]

I want to capitalize on a few positives today.
-I have ate better for about 5 days.
-I talked to my therapist about the control of my ex and made a list of control issues to address one at a time, these include passwords, accounts, a new email address, and iTunes!
-I have had more good days this week, just days of feeling better.
-I cried as a way to cope.
-I enrolled in a ceramics class in January
- I have plane tickets booked to see my friend in November.

[Three Roses]

    

[Dee]

Tonight, my stomach hurts because I ate a candy bar.  Something I don't often do.  I'll hate myself tomorrow and there is bound to be restriction to compensate plus.  I'm exhausted, I dreamed all night last night and gave up on sleep at 4am.  I am about to take a cocktail of meds designed to help me sleep, feel better.  They sometime work and sometimes don't.  I think I have built a tolerance to sleeping meds, so it is unlikely they will help or will I sleep.  Never mind, I just took my blood pressure and I can't take all my meds so it is a no sleep night for me.  I'll be lucky if I don't find myself throwing up due to a nightmare and then lay on the bathroom floor for the rest of the night.  High blood pressure meds work best to help me sleep, but I actually have low blood pressure.  So, I have a blood pressure cuff to see if it is too low for me to take them.  I have severe osteoporosis due to years of anorexia and if my blood pressure is too low I can fall and potentially break something serious like a hip.  I am all of 43 with the bones of someone twice my age.  My endocrinologist says I am his youngest and most severe case.

I don't exactly feel real tonight.  My hands are numb.  So I think I have dissociated, and this is the start, my hands are always the start.  Tomorrow I'll read my post and think, what did I say.  So before I go and crawl in bed, where I lay and stare at the door, I just wanted to post about the real side of it.  This is what CPTSD looks life for me.  This isn't including the part where I have poor boundaries, low self-esteem, and I isolate so I have no one to call.

I'll be okay though, I always am.

[Three Roses]

If I could, I would stand watch outside your door and let you sleep! Me and my dog would hunker down in the hallway, nothing gets past him.

[Dee]

Wow, it's been awhile since I was here.  I had a real downward spiral.  I think I was very aloof in had bad it went.

I went into full anorexia relapse.  I also had a serious suicide attempt at the end of January.  This actually propelled me into inpatient treatment in March.  I'm feeling better now, I know I will still have dark nights.

I picked up two knew diagnoses; Self Injurious Behavior (doing much better) and Dissociative Disorder (OSDD).

My goal for therapy is to be more honest and tell what I didn't tell.  I also have a goal of telling my kids about their grandfather.  This scares me more than anything else.

I had to drop ceramics but I enrolled in a new class that starts in June.

Oh, and guess who is buying a new car tomorrow?  Yep, that's right, this one.  It totally impractical.  This was a goal I set inpatient about my vision of my new future.  I'm moving forward on wanting to live with four wheels, two doors, and a roof that goes down:)  Nothing says breathe to me more than a convertible. 

Over time I want to update my trauma list here.  I want to get it out there, to my peers, so it can lose power and shame.

So my new list contains:
Raped at 18 the assistant manager of where I worked.
Abusive therapist at 19.

Unfortunately more to come.  The more I say it, the less power it has.  I learned that and it is so true.  There isn't a place I feel more supported than here.

[sanmagic7]

dee, i can't do much yet, but want to let you know i'm with you all the way in this battle,and struggle through the dark places, and your continuing journey and celebrations in the light.  so brave, you.  blessings, strength, power, and lots of love and hugs.