Moon Journal

[artemis23]

Time to start one of these where I can just ramble.

I realized today that I was feeling badly about feeling good yesterday (and today). Like it's not allowed. I'm sick and just have to be sick and miserable all the time or I'm lying, I'm making it up. That's how my M treated me as a child. She would take me to Dr eventually most of the time, but always treated me like a 'hypochondriac' because I had tummy problems at age 4-5 and the doctors didn't find anything. I know now abused children often have this symptom. She never wanted me to take meds or get treatments. This was negligence abuse and gas-lighting. I still struggle today to go to the DR, or to believe my illnesses are real.

I'm having a bad bout of CPTSD, understandably, rn and many days I feel shame about it and I'm just making it up. I'm reading as much as I can to remember this is a severe illness that is very debilitating, to validate myself. I had to drop AA because of the invalidating platitudes and victim blaming stuff. I realized my sponsor who claimed she has PTSD, doesn't think it's even real. She runs the AA groups in this place where severely mentally ill individuals (majority are legally 'conserved' so their guardians have rights over them) live. I remember her saying in a meeting that, 'they choose to be there'. Most of them were put there without consent. Looking back, uhhh WHAT. No, they don't. RED FLAG. I'm glad trauma seems to be in public eye now, but I'm starting to get a little annoyed with how everyone who has experienced trauma thinks they have PTSD when I mention that I do. They don't, or they wouldn't be telling me AA will cure it.

And I'm happy for them if they don't, it's not something that is enjoyable. It's not something I 'choose' to experience, I am not 'playing a victim role'. I'm not just 'being negative,' I'm not just lazy and don't want to work, I'm not doing any of this for fun, it's excruciating. I have a very real neurologically and somatically based disorder because of what I survived and how my brain and body developed because of that and it's very difficult to overcome and just 'let go', thank you very much! It's a threat to my life bc of persistent SI and attempts, because of highly dangerous retraumatizations that have occurred. Because I am disabled and not able to work or care for myself much of my life...

It's a wonder I'm alive and so it's not always easy to know how to feel good, or even to feel allowed to a good day. Just coming out of horrific DV, I'm scared. And I'm scared of being kicked out on the streets for having a good day at my M's house, and I have no one to enjoy it with so I'm sharing it here.

[sanmagic7]

and thank you for sharing it.  i love hearing when people have a good day - we all so deserve it even when we don't think we do. 

no, you are not making it up.  i remember too many times over too many years thinking exactly the same thing, especially when the docs couldn't find anything 'wrong' with me.  i'd hope that i had some horrible illness that could be noted and cured  just to refute those 'making it up' beliefs. 

as it turns out, and what you so eloquently said, we are suffering from diverse traumas that have taken too big a toll on our bodies and minds to be able to manage them discreetly anymore.   the damaging effects of long-term chronic stress is still not fully recognized by many.   keep reading and reminding yourself that it's not you - it's what was done to you.

funny how that 'feeling bad about feeling good' thing pops up over and over.  we're just so not used to feeling good, it rings all kinds of past bells for us, it can be uncomfortable for us, and we can even sabotage feeling good in order to relieve some of the discomfort.  it's a wicked cycle.

love and a warm hug to you, artemis.

[DecimalRocket]

Interesting name for your journal. Artemis, Greek mythology Goddess of the moon. Interesting. You must really like her.

I've gotten support from different people before, and some of them misunderstand as well. I often got my help from volunteers who were trained in depression and anxiety, not PTSD, and many of them didn't really seem to have an idea how it works. How we can't just move on that quickly. How we aren't trying to be negative.

Geez, if it's our choice, then I don't see why we would enjoy this choice. Whenever people argue that something is a choice that is not, they don't seem to take account how that choice could actually benefit us. Strange.

Anyway, thanks for the little help you've given me so far in this forum. You're welcome to come here anytime. 

[artemis23]

Thanks guys, yes I love the Goddess and the moon. Connecting to her has been very helpful in my spiritual recovery as a woman. Sort of a reclamation of a loss of the feminine aspect of the divine and acknowledgement of the subsequent devaluation and oppression of the all things 'feminine' (not necessarily male or female) throughout most of 'civilization'.

Yeah I'm at the point where I'm just going to stop sharing with people who don't get it. It's much more helpful to get support here or from professionals. Although the support here is consistently better than most professionals. There is so much of this 'just let go' attitude to be found throughout society and I consider it ignorance and victim shaming. The intentions aren't always bad, of course. But it's like, oh well we can't fix you, so we will blame you, instead of the violent and abusive perpetrators that did the damage in the first place. I've had enough of the 'stop playing the victim' rhetoric.

[artemis23]

Today is another peaceful kind of day. Didn't get out much but I'm just allowing that to be ok, feeding myself better. Working on getting more vegetables in. I love them so much and all this processed stuff isn't making me feel so good. I didn't realize I was starving for vegetables. I'm coming back to simple self care things and adding back one at a time with less pressure on myself.

That perfection driver, the inner critic, says do it all and do it now! now! NOW! already!!!! She wants me to be eating perfectly, getting exercise everyday, always on top of everything, daily routine. She likes to throw shame at me like 'you are so lucky you have gym membership you're just wasting', 'why can't you just go for a swim', 'why wont you go to gentle yoga...' blah blah blah it's never ending and I'm over it. I want to do all those things but when I hyperfocus like that I just get overwhelmed and feel like, forget everything!

I could have had a coronary today. I'm being sued by debtors. I don't owe a huge amount of debt, but I also have zero resources or assets. Still, it's overwhelming, they have a decade to hold it over you and seize bank funds, garnish wages, etc. Not very motivating. But I just kept breathing. My M later said she wants to help me pay to file for bankruptcy and i'm all about it, I already wanted to. I just want a fresh start. Credit is already trashed.

But there was that moment before when I signed for the papers (first time they showed up panic because I thought my F had come up here to hurt me, took three times to answer door when I knew who they were). There was that moment when I the SI crossed my mind, and I could have spun out. But instead, I told myself, my life is work so much more than any amount of money, and also so much more than destroying myself so abusive people feel good. That too. And it was a victory. I didn't get me down that long. I'm proud of that.

I'm finding it easier to focus on what I'm doing right lately. I think it's helping to get support here.

[artemis23]

The other night I was feeling 'disgusting' in my body and 'fat' (yeah, fat is a feeling now in the 'woke' nutrition community). And then I finally remembered, 'I'm not the disgusting one, the people who abused me are, their behavior is, not mine.' I'm carrying the shame for their behavior, down to the feeling itself, and projecting it onto my precious body. It's like, sometimes, we seek a way to become what they project onto us so we can rationalize all that cognitive dissonance. It continues the abuse in our minds and lives for them. I am not disgusting, I'm perfectly lovely, inside out. Putting on some weight is like some protection. Soothing myself with food is helpful, I'm just letting myself do this now. Slowly turning down the volume on the shame voices. Slowly making sure I also eat nutrient dense foods for my health, out of self love, and not to shame myself that I need to lose weight.

[artemis23]

And then the bad days start again without any warning. I'm tired. So tired. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to be anybody. Nothing is appealing. Nothing is enjoyable. Any amount of pressure from FOO and I buckle and I'm back to wishing I wasn't here anymore.

[DecimalRocket]

Ah, it's alright Artemis. We all have days where we fall back and get weaker. It's fine. I've gotten a really bad time these last few days too with half or whole day EFs.   

Anyway, it was still progress of you to be able to feel like it wasn't all your fault. That means there's a part of you that's maturing. I admire how you're open about your own progress and pain, and that's amazing.

Take care.

[artemis23]

Thanks Decimal

Today I took some steps to try and break free out of this mess I am in. Learned helplessness is really a bugger of a thing. I applied to get a grant for psychiatric trauma hospitalization. And I called a local organization that is super trauma competent and amazing, I had forgotten about them but my one healthy friend here I met not too long ago reminded me. They were so kind and a great resource for me to use for counseling and groups at some point. Just their call line is amazing. They really validated for me, out loud, that the situation I'm living in is unhealthy and not helping me. That even if my M and SD aren't directly abusive, they are incapable of understanding, supporting, or providing any compassion or help for my very serious illness right now (CPTSD). Or for what I've just been through. It was hard to make the call because I had to remember how much abuse I've just been through and blocked all over again. And to validate that I deserve support and help and healing. Because my M just wants to ignore everything and pretend it's all good so she can keep up her own walls, her own illness. And I have to break free. I have to save myself.

The woman told me they have housing programs for trauma survivors like me. Not a DV shelter something else, they are a rape crisis center for all people regardless of when trauma happened and kind of special place. I felt instant hope and relief, if I can just get out of this house and have support then maybe I can survive. I almost killed myself last week. But I couldn't do it, as hopeless as I am. It's the feeling of being trapped like when I was a child with no real help or way out. Just my M who needs me to pretend 'everything is fine' and ignore my pain. Well, this wouldn't be the first time it almost killed me. In fact, this happened several times in the last year with physical illness too.

I have to understand that I'm not trapped, but it's not going to be easy getting out and on my own either like this. But I have hope this organization can help me, they are so competent and compassionate. The hope has faded a bit into fear, and the realization that leaving this false security of my M again terrifies me. But it's almost killing me. It didn't work out last time when I left and remembering the pain of being completely alone, running out of resources in a foreign country, and almost dying of a tropical illness only to have to come back here is enough trauma on its own. I had a breakdown and chose to live in a slum with a drug dealing psychopath who abused me very badly and I nearly died 6-7 times there. Some of which was me trying to overdose to get away because I was that broken. But something keeps me here no matter how many times i've almost died (9 in the last year!!!!!!! *!!!!) here I am. That has to count for something.

I have to apply for disability and I'm going to call a lawyer, which they are free until they win the case apparently, and have advocates from the rape crisis center go with me because I'm stressed about having to bring up my trauma. One step at a time, I have to get out of this house.

I have nothing, no resources, barely even clothing. She has full financial control of me, and I'm so ill at this point I don't know how to leave, but I have repeatedly told her I need psych hospital and my psychiatrist is worried I am going to kill myself, and her only response is 'how would that benefit you' and to ask me what my plans are for my future. She is literally insane. I am sane, she is crazy. She called me crazy when I brought it up the first time. No. I'm sane. This is projection and gaslighting and control.

But the real kicker now is this fear, of not having any trust of the outside world or anything in it. That this horrific emotional pain I am in living with her and her partner is somehow familiar and known. And the what-ifs of some free housing project full of god knows who run by god knows who and all the other unknowns about how will I have this or that, can I ever work, could swallow me whole. But I think I have to take this leap of faith. It's really  about faith in myself. Faith my abusers don't want me to have. I'm so scared. But I really have nothing left to lose, except if I take my own life because I'm going insane in this house of cards.

[DecimalRocket]

That's horrible, Artemis. I'm glad you're alive now. Not everyone can get out of situations as horrifying and life threatening as that, and still be alive. That tells me something about your will to live, even if it doesn't seem that strong.

I'm sorry there aren't much resources for you. That there isn't much for you to use up. I hope the kindness of the people in the shelter could help you. I've been surprised by how many people I didn't know stop by to help me when other people walked by. I remember crying in the middle of the school hallway before, absolutely broken and distraught. Other students would pass by ignoring me, but one guy kneeled down to ask me what was wrong as he called for help.

I'm sorry to hear what has happened to your mind and body. Cptsd affect so much of our lives in several areas, and it breaks many of us many times. I think it's a strength to be willing to trust those people and open up to us, so thank you for telling us your story. Many of us can learn from it.

.