Blueberry's Journal

[Blueberry]

I guess some things can't be completely avoided when we're stressed. I think relapsing to some kind of addiction is some kind of rest. But not just for physical rest, but for the rest on willpower. To use up willpower with such a streneous effort each day is stressful, and indulging every once and a while is needed.

If only it were "every once and a while"! It used to be.

The only time I had my eating totally and utterly under control, I didn't have the energy for anything else, except I suppose looking after my pets and 12 Step groups. Other self-care for me? Nooooo. Some form of work? No. Creativity and fun? No. Reading? No. Housework? No. Finish washing the dishes? No. Hanging up the laundry? No. So, yeah, all my willpower was going into eating the way I'd been taught in-patient.

Re: strenuous - reminds me that last time I had a difficult piece of work to do in my contract work, I managed to finish only because I was munching cookies at the same time, or maybe during my break. But I knew: without these cookies, I will never finish. Which was one of the reasons I decided against doing that type of work again. OK since then I've taken on 2 small contracts but they were a sub-type that is per se much easier. That type of work is really, really strenous for me and my head.

but I'm sure you're the type to work too hard than laze around too much.

So I've been told multiple times, and although I still find it difficult to believe, when the  opposite is said or insinuated by Ts, I always get raging mad  So that means that my not believing has to do with FOO.

Thanks for pointing these things out to me DR.

[Blueberry]

You really need to take care of yourself these days.

There's a post on the Boards that I really think I ought to answer but thanks to your suggestion that I take care of myself and coupled with my remembering that "ought to" is like "should" and Should is never good for me, I'm going to let it go. Somebody else has been and will continue to answer this other post. It doesn't have to be me all the time.

Tahanks once again DR 

[DecimalRocket]

No problem, if you need more validation, I'll be up to it if I'm well enough.

And yes, again, you need rest. We all need it in different amounts, but everyone does. And people aren't supposed to judge how others need much rest based on how much energy it takes for something to do for them. So please respect your energy levels, not how others see it.

[Blueberry]

Yesterday a friend's husband, who has had contact with M and F and quite likes them, asked a neutral question about F. I answered. He asked a further question, more about F's plans. I answered that I have almost no contact to M and F atm so I don't know. Friend's h. was then quiet. I hope it stays that way. But still things are whirring in my head. Friend's h. would probably side with M and F. That kind of thing.

I think this is still affecting me. It doesn't take much to knock me off kilter and make me question what I'm doing, being VVVLC. Friend's h had PTSD due to a sudden medical condition. As far as I know, he's through T and healed and possibly expecting that I'll be healed at some point and go back to normal contact with FOO. Without realising that I can't. He's not somebody I feel comfortable talking about any of it to, so I don't, but I do know he picked up once that there was CSA in my FOO. Crazy to think I'd go back to FOO with that in the past. But the point is: I myself did go back after a long period of VVVLC and NC. So can't be surprised when people who have little to no knowledge of CPTSD are still assuming I'll go back some day.

Difficult topic for me. Need to get to the point where I don't care what other people think of me.

[sanmagic7]

i wish you the best with that, blueberry.  try as i like to tell myself i don't care, way down deep i still do, and i don't like that i still do, so i guess (have to guess at this, cuz i'm not sure) i get angry with myself for still caring what others think.  wow, suddenly in my head i started going on about 'it's stupid, i know', and 'i shouldn't care, but i do', and 'i hate it that i still care', and just a bunch of gunk came up.  yuck.

wow,  where that came from and why i don't know.  i think i'm still kind of reeling from the holidays, and am not quite all put together yet.  anyway,  i truly understand and relate to what you're saying.  going off kilter doesn't take much, especially around this time of year.  i know that has to do with my nc daughter.  too big a hole in my mother heart, and it will always be raw and sensitive.

i skirt around those kinds of questions as well, only want to answer so much and no more.  don't want to share - there's so much invalidation out there.   warm, loving hug to you, sweetie.   

[Blueberry]

I want to be left in peace. B1 chose his path during Horrendous Event. I'm still healing and taking the time I need. I stayed up late posting on here, then didn't sleep a wink. Since I'm still eating my problems down, I got up a 5 AM and ate a raw carrot. NTS raw carrot on empty stomach is not helpful in the least. The opposite in fact.

I'm feeling out of sorts. Not just physically cuz of the carrot. No, sorting out my feelings on account of FOO and dealing with friendships and what I'm going to take or not - that's where I'm at. Sorting out limits in friendships automatically makes me wonder if FOO isn't right after all. NTS: that's once again ICr. speaking. ICr. sides with FOO. ICr. is having a field day. ICr. isn't right.

As I'd say to FOO if they could understand: you have to say 'No' when you mean it, instead of saying 'Yes". Same thing goes for me - I have to say to friends 'Sorry, can't hear your problems out atm'. I didn't yesterday when talking to the friend I'm going to see today. I need to learn to not be so accommodating. Now I'll feel bad if I go later today than planned, not for her but for my godson. Towards her, I'll not feel like a bad person, but more like a bad friend. Totally crazy. I know that for some of my friends, I'm the one good friend they can tell stuff to. I need to start protecting myself more. I'm carrying enough as it is. To one of those friends i've been suggesting other people, like what about Friend So-and-So, won't they listen? (Yes, she agreed, you're right, they will.)

As I wrote somewhere else, maybe even further back in this thread, it's a time of chaos in my head and feelings. I've been told in T, a long time ago now, that times of chaos are good! It means things are re-sorting.

[Blueberry]

i wish you the best with that, blueberry.  try as i like to tell myself i don't care, way down deep i still do, and i don't like that i still do, so i guess (have to guess at this, cuz i'm not sure) i get angry with myself for still caring what others think.  wow, suddenly in my head i started going on about 'it's stupid, i know', and 'i shouldn't care, but i do', and 'i hate it that i still care', and just a bunch of gunk came up.  yuck.

I'm sorry that brought up a bunch of gunk for you. 

I actually am beginning to care less.   

[Blueberry]

I'm remembering in inpatient therapy I got the sentence to announce whenever I spoke: "I'm Blueberry and I couldn't give a * about anything", and then carried on with whatever I wanted to say. The asterix really was a bad word. It was empowering! Other patients asked "Why does she get to use that bad word??" My own T told me in private that it was because a lot of my energy was hiding behind this sentence. When I allowed myself to say the sentence, I allowed my own energy to come out to be used constructively for me.

It also allowed me to see more clearly what I did actually care about and what I only thought I cared about due to FOO influence.  I'm sorting that kind of thing again atm.

[Blueberry]

I'm continuing my thoughts from my own post (Jan. 5, 2018) from this thread: http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=8509.msg60478#msg60478

In the aftermath of the last Horrendous FOO Event, a couple of Ts suggested strongly that I never spend time with any FOO members again without a very loyal friend from outside FOO with me, as a protector, a buffer, somebody FOR me. I'm thinking back to that now too. Contact with FOO other than via emails is so dangerous and so destructive for me that I really shouldn't allow it. I'm using "should" consciously because unfortunately internally I'm not far enough to be able to say "I'm not allowing it!" There's not much conviction or strength behind that sentence.

Another aspect to all this difficulty which has cropped up today is: one of the little kids is injured. Not really badly as far as I can make out, not life-threateningly. But it's obviously still not a time when I can confront FOO with anything, or would even want to. For the sake of little kid. But in FOO there never is a good time. I would always be causing somebody a problem; somebody would always object, because they don't want to know. So just a bunch of circular thoughts to no purpose.

Except that I realise: I'm a caring person. I don't want little kid to suffer, I want little kid to get better, their parents present emotionally for them to help healing. In spite of everything. If I treated FOO the way they treat me, I wouldn't give a hoot. I'd just go wading in whenever shooting my mouth off and destroying other people's swimming pool walls and then telling them their walls are obviously too weak or they set them up wrong or something. I'd find some reason to blame them.

[DecimalRocket]

Hey, Blue. Yes, I can relate to having problems with boundaries too. Though, instead of helping others too much, I distance and withdraw too much. Growing up with trauma does that to much of us, it seems.

Well, best of luck. You do deserve to say what you want and need too.

[Blueberry]

I realised on the weekend that part of my problem is my loving, compassionate heart. I know I've been giving in the wrong place to the wrong people all these years. Forgiving FOO because they seemed to have understood and seemed to have improved, only for them to continue their abuse in some other way or form. Not realising till the last Horrendous Event not just how clueless they are about their own behaviour towards me, but how callous too.

Or maybe they're not even clueless? I think M is possibly Borderline, witch variety. Up until now I haven't dared think what the males in FOO might be or have, except that F enables and B1 (as with M) could possibly be traumatised too, but neither of them are working on healing themselves. No, just seeing the problem in me. F always gets of scot-free. Everybody thinks he's a great guy. If anybody in our family has a problem it's me. And if it's not me, then it's M. The males? Innocent as the day they were born, in their own eyes, and in each others' mostly too. M isn't innocent, she is and was abusive.

Bit by bit, memory by tiny memory, things become clearer. As I keep realising more and more of the verbal / emotional / psychological abuse. At some point, it'll be enough for me to 



or else I'll feel in a safe enough place to do so. Not around FOO. They just use that as proof for themselves that I'm crazy, volatile, difficult etc. B1 and M nicely forgetting their own explosive and abusive behaviour towards me when I was growing up. And although F seems more of an innocent, enabler type, 'hounded' by his own wife and all that kind of nonsense, atm I notice how much I fear standing up to him.

I also fear finding out I've been hoodwinked all these years. I would feel that way if I discovered his problems are more than 'just depression', like if he turns out to be a covert narc or something.

[Blueberry]

I'm going to put some of my posts from over at the old server in here.
Post from Feb. 2nd
I really miss OOTS in its proper form! Where we can post and know that everything will be saved. And where far more of the community are reading and posting, and therefore also validating and supporting, than are doing atm.

I've started writing some of my pain and grief at OOTF, but there I get far fewer responses, sometimes none at all. I also write differently there. Like in my earlier time on this forum. It's harder for me to link emotions and thoughts. Or maybe better said:  I can write what happened in my childhood, but I can't feel the emotions, I can't express the anger and grief I'm feeling or ought to be feeling at what was done to me.

Brainwave: 
I guess what I could do when OOTS is finally running again properly is copy the posts I made over on OOTF into the relevant sections here and edit them to what I'm feeling at that moment. Because at that moment of writing on OOTS I'll be feeling different anyway - more acceptance, validation and understanding of me here, and you know me here which many on OOTF probably don't feel they do. With all that in mind, it makes sense that my posts on here end up different and are more healing for me.

[Blueberry]

Blueberry, I think your niece will like the present that you have chosen for her - I certainly hope so anyway.  Because you are thoughtful, and because you care.    to you.
Hope 

She did! B2 sent a short email to say that.

[Hope67]

   Really great.  Glad she did.   
Hope