Elpha's adventure pt. 2

[Elphanigh]

Coming here again after I have had the chance to process and realize some things after my session Monday. 

I was, and still am, very encouraged and hopeful. Seeing that kind of progress and getting to recognize how far I have come it great. It reminds me I am healing exponentially because I am afforded a lot of chances at this point in my life. I happened to find communities of people that are healing, a few very close friends that are safe people, and then my wonderful therapist. I know just how lucky I am. But also know even with that if I wasn't doing the work I wouldn't be healing.

Anyways, not what I came here to say. The good from Monday led to a lot of realizations and broke into some strong anxiety. Both about group last night and just life in general. I realize even being sick for two weeks with bronchitis and having just gotten back from a trip with my Foo, I was still trying and succeeding at over functioning. Which led all the good from Monday to be completely overwhelming on Tuesday.

I just reached the most positive hopeful moment I have had in possibly forever, and it caused nightmares and anxiety bevause this junk is so convoluted. So I struggled to be kind to myself because it felt ridiculous to be bothered by the good.

However I realized that the idea of not having ctpsd one day is scary as much as it is positive. The fear of that unknown and the uncertainty that comes with the idea of having to figure out who I am without it at some point a lot. It also just became hard to trust that I could have that level of good.

I guess all this is to just be open with all of you. If I can celebrate, I can certainly be honest about how that celebration turned nerve wracking and scary. Especially for younger parts of me that still hold a lot of hesitation.

Either way I am still encouraged but also very humbled by it.

There are a lot of thoughts surrounding all of this but it will come in pieces. I spent my drive home after group last night talking aloud to myself to just get wrapped around some of it

[Elphanigh]

I am finding that I need to work on my need/just habitual desire to over function. I mean I have been better about it than I ever used to be, but I find myself guilting myself for not doing it.. or stressing over things because I am not over functioning as much. I still have a hard time just sitting and being, like my body and mind do not understand that concept super well.

Even when I am sitting, I feel like I am constantly processing some information.. like I am processing some realization I had towards healing, or a email that someone sent hours ago that I am finally recognizing how I need to respond to it.. or thinking about the work thing that isn't done or what needs to be done tomorrow. My mind gets so little quiet time.

There are normally two underlying layers going on at all times. (sometimes three or four) The first is my healing, I don't think I ever fully put that away, it is always underlying and realizations are always spinning etc.. I am not sure if that is normal or not, will ask my T if there is a way to kind of calm this a little. Then the second one is a running list of everything I need/should/want to be doing, even into the next week. Those never turn off, and when I was getting to do yoga frequently they were getting shut off at least a few hours a week, normally like three or four which was enough to feel like I was getting some rest. I want to though find other ways to help shut them off, because I can't rely on yoga when I am sick or traveling, or when my schedule doesn't allow for the time it takes to get a long enough yoga session in to get to that place of quiet.

The addition of applying to graduate school, balancing my volunteering, with my own healing, all  while my job is adding on more responsibilities to my plate and cross training me is making it more and more difficult to find a place of quiet.

Will likely do some reading, and just see if I can find something in the interim before I see my T next week. It is something I think will help me focus when I am working because I will hopefully have more energy if I am managing to find the quiet once in a while.

[Elphanigh]

Has been a while since I have written here. It has been a very full week of activity but also self care. I think I struck a decent balance as the week went on.

Today I have accomplished a lot and it is not even noon. I have written some social media posts for the Healing Book Club I am running, and finished my resume for school applications. Even bigger than both of those I have started a personal statement draft that feels true to myself and my journey to this place. It has been a long and very full road, even if I am only 24, my years have been filled with challenges and experiences that are beyond my age. I believe that my draft is showing them that. It sounds like something that is true to me and only me. It shows my inner beliefs that were challenged and how I have grown organically into this degree and career choice. That I am not just like every other sob story that wants to turn her experiences into good for others.. which is a great thing and certianly part of it, but my story is individual and my statement needs to reflect that. I don't feel so generic now as I write.

Maybe I will even share some of it here if anyone wants to see it.

Either way I am feeling accomplished and hopeful still. The anxiety of my to do list is still there but less so than it was now that I have started this process.

[milk]

 

Either way I am feeling accomplished and hopeful still. The anxiety of my to do list is still there but less so than it was now that I have started this process.

[Deep Blue]

I always want to read anything you share sweetie 

Finding the balance is so important in my journey and I'm glad to hear you say you struck the balance this past week.

[Elphanigh]

Thank you both 

[Elphanigh]

So last night during group it was my turn to share birth circumstances and do a sculpt on it. We focused more on my connection with my parents than the other things that were going on. We gave them items to show all of the ailments and struggles that they held that were keeping them from being as connected to me as they needed to be. Then we took those off, creating a sort of magic family. One that was healthy and good for me,

For a bit I could feel the warmth and the safety that it brought to have that. To be connected to them, sitting with my inner child and allowing each of my magic parents to have a hand resting on me. Then the second I started to cry it is like I froze.. blinked away tears and couldn't feel. Like the second grief rears its head I just stop. I numb and get stuck. So I felt like it wasn't the most productive healing but it brought some realizations which is powerful. It also meant that my T had us all get up and move and dance to a song. Was her way of including everyone in getting me unstuck, she saw how stuck I was when I did not know it. I wasn't feeling so I didn't recognize what was going on inside of me. eventually did and had a rough ish night last night but I feel like I have bounced back.

So realizations I had... I used to be scared of my anger and frustration as a whole, and was unable to confront or process it. Now that I have processed through a lot of it, it is almost like a shield. It is an easier emotion to deal with than the grief that needs to come. I don't feel angry at her, but I also do feel like I am able to let go enough to grieve. I still don't believe that I can ever forgive my parents, their decisions led to a lot of * in my life and nothing they say or do will ever change that fact. I don't forgive them, and I may never forgive.I won't always be angry but that doesn't mean I forgive.

Grief feels like it comes with the expectation to forgive, and I know logically that is not the case at all. However, I can't quite shake the connection. I don't fear grief like I did but something it stuck, I just don't know what it is. Like I don't find that I am truly angry anymore, like I have said and processed a lot of anger. I also recognize why things happened the way they did. As an adult I understand it. It doesn't make it okay, but I understand it.

However, there is something there blocking grief. I am not intentionally avoiding feeling it, matter of fact I wish it would come so I could start to work through it, but I have missed something somewhere. Some piece or thought that needs attention first. I don't fear getting stuck in grief, but it is also just wholly unfamiliar to me. I have experienced a lot of death in my life, and other tragedies and I am not sure I have ever truly grieved any of them. I didn't know how, and it is hard to grieve when you are constantly in survival mode. I am not sure it is possible to properly grieve when in that state.

I had plenty of experience with anger in my life, although I was afraid I knew what it looked like. I also had experience of the anxiety, fears, and just terror. So processing them felt familiar in a way. Grief is a new territory and that unknown is honestly a little scary. It is hard to trust someone to lead me through that. Maybe my distrust and skepticism is holding me back too. I have trusted my T with so much, but I still find that I have never cried in her office, gotten close but never truly happened. I also know I used to cry all the time after sessions. Would just go home and weep for a while, that hasn't happened in a long time. I think because I have been in a better place but at the same time it means I really haven't had a truly good cry in over several months. Like last I remember is around when my older dog passed away, which has admittedly been 3 or 4 months.

I do feel like I am genuinely doing better on a regular basis but just feel like something is holding me back here and nothing that I come up with feels like it is the correct thing. I think I will know and feel it when I find that piece.

Will likely come back here to think some more, but for the moment I think this is enough rambling.

[Elphanigh]

My mind feels like it is bouncing between memories this afternoon. Like I am still okay, and not flashback like but it is flipping through them from time to time. Trying I think to probably tell or show me something. I don't fully recognize all of them. Most of it is sexual abuse of some nature, but the abusers are different.. so it is connected to my SA as a kid.

I know last nights processing was on my immediate family, and someone asked about the uncle that hit my M when she was third trimester. Because when asked by my T who took care of baby elpha I said that my Uncle and grandparents did while my M or D were working. So someone asked it if it was the same Uncle, which of course in my life it was the same one. So the realization they left me with his was rough, because I knew it but it hadn't settled in.

I know later in life at least some he had abused me, and there is one memory that is newer to me that is from around when I was like 2 that feels like it was him, so maybe there was something earlier.. or that one from me being so young is creeping up because I have not been paying as much attention to that younger part of me recently. I am trying to get to a space I can sit with her and hear what she has to say, but that is hard. I still struggle to want to sit with her. I need to, but what she holds is another layer of awful to add to my list. I know that isn't her fault, and it isn't her that is awful it is what she went through but goodness I struggle to sit with her. So I will try, but carefully.

With the holidays I don't see my T for a individual session until the 3rd, unless something drastic happens, which I really don't want. So I don't want to get into something too big if that makes sense.

I have already told her I want to work on grief when we have our next session but little me may need to take the lime light first. Maybe she is what needs processed, because it does feel rather crappy to know my parents continued to let my uncle be in my life, even alone as a kid growing up after he did what he did to my mom. I honestly am not sure he didn't abuse my M when she was younger.. the way she talks and has talked about things in the past makes me wonder. hmm..

[Elphanigh]

My roommate totaled her car last night on the way back home from work. She is completely okay and I wasn't there but I have heard about it. I am first just super grateful she is okay, and well. Also that she is dealing with all of this with help from her D and not putting that on me because I warned her I emotionally cannot handle that.

Car wrecks are a triggering subject for me, and after having been triggered by group on Tuesday I am worn out so it is harder to deal with. I am managing though. However I am struggling with memories and body sensations. November is a hard month for death anniversaries for me, particularly around car deaths. Last week was the anniversary for the death of a dear friend of mine 6 years ago from a car wreck, next week (I beleive) is the anniversary of one from 9 years ago, and then there have been a few other deaths of people I knew from cars in this time of year. I also was in two car wrecks about this time of year (matter of fact one hits its 4 year anniversary next week..) I wasn't driving in either but came out bruised and traumatized from them both.. both of them totaled the car I was in and the other car hit where I was sitting..

To top those off, I almost lost my dad to a wreck last year and a friend of mine did lose her father figure to a wreck about 3 years ago this time. There are also a myriad of death anniversaries from other things that scatter the period between October and Christmas. Which I have been handling well but I just remember so much.. and am seeing the car wrecks I have seen happen that ended up with casualties and ones that were described to me in too much detail when I was far to young to be hearing them...

So I am struggling with memories today, struggling with the large amount of death I have known and seen in my life.


Yesterday evening, before all this happened, I was hit by just the large amount of crap I was dealt.. the fact that the adults in my life sucked and all of them are still around small children on a regular basis now. That my abusers have access to kids and that is terrifying to me... the realization sometimes of just how much I  have gone through.. how many decks of crappy cards I was dealt... lived through and then just dealt another hand of crap.. I am healing from that and starting a new but sometimes the trauma hits me as a whole. Like big picture just smacks me in the face. Normally that means something big is processing and I am sure it is.. although not sure what realizations are about to happen.. but something.

Either way this is me today. I think I am off to the porch to rest. Holding all of this is too much today. I am choosing to try to let some of it go.

[Deep Blue]

Managing is good, but I'm glad you are going to the porch for a bit.

Self care is very wise my dear

[Elphanigh]

Yeah.. managing will get me through work but it won't help me bounce back. I plan to take a nice bath with a cup of tea and a good book tonight for self care. It will help my body to let go of some of what it is holding onto. Having the porch as a little mental getaway is helping as well just until I can get there.

I realize it is a lot to take in, and I wasn't fully giving it credit until I started to write all of that out this morning.

Thankfully I have a sort of spoil myself day planned for Saturday. I have a haircut scheduled at a place that gives you a glass of wine or really nice coffee and spends time really massaging the head and neck before getting the haircut itself. Then I am going shopping with my roommie for a few things which will be great. I have gotten to be pampered in a long time, or bought anything for myself in even longer so I am excited. I think it came at exactly the right time, without me even knowing. I have had it scheduled for a few weeks

[Elphanigh]

Victories happened today 

I do feel like I have bounced back from my triggers the last two nights. I am doing well at work. But better is what happened with my M today, and with my old flute teacher. We will start with E (its what I call her here), she commented on a post on fb.. a picture of me three years ago today at my half recital in college. Something along the lines of " a good memory!" , which I promptly in my head went no, I was being strung along by you.. but I played beautifully despite it..
Either way, I stopped and recognized she doesn't deserve space in my head any more or that kind of energy. It felt peaceful and doesn't bug me.

My M.. I haven't talked in about 2 weeks which is good and huge for me. But she messaged today asking how I was, and saying she had missed me. Real purpose was to ask about christmas but she did at least ask about how I was for a few minutes first. When I told her I wasn't coming home, she respected it and was okay. She didn't make it about her or try to guilt me one bit. So while we were on a roll I decided I would tell her about me applying to grad school. Might as well get it all out of the way at once. She was happy and ecstatic for me, again not making it about her or pushing any boundaries. She asked where I was applying and normal human questions with this without digging or guilt tripping or spinning it. She seemed genuinely excited and thrilled. Even told me she thought I would do really well in that field, agreed with me that it was perfect for me.

Now that I have had time to sit with it, and really absorb it, tears are trying to come out. I can't right now but I will allow it organically later tonight. I feel validated and supported by her for the first time in basically forever. She has supported and loved me before, but this feels different. This feels genuine and kind. Not about her, or my accomplishments.. purely excited because I am so happy to be moving forward with this. It feel like unconditional support and happiness for me.

There is a younger part of me (and even the adult part of me on some level) that feels more sure and validated because she chose to be kind today. Some part of me wanted that support and love.. I have been putting telling her these things off for a solid month because I didn't want to deal with the fallout. I wanted to get to be excited about school and not guilted about Christmas. I was so afraid she would take both of those things away from me. I was scared she would react poorly or to make it all about her.. so this is miraculous. The younger parts of me are jumping with joy. There is a warmth and love that they haven't had in so long. I know it was pointed at adult me today, but those little ones needed that love. It is something I try to give them, and it is never so strong coming from me. To get it from someone they so desperately want it to come from is astounding. I gave up long ago on having that from her.. so getting it is a shock.. It feels better than I could have imagined. I know it is small but it is a moment I needed.

Does this mean I will suddenly have a better relationship with her? no Does it mean I will start telling her things more readily? No.. but does it mean I can start to maybe have a more adult relationship with her? yes. I can try to have that. At least maybe starting with grad school stuff. Not much else but with grad school stuff I can try. Still protecting myself, but I can take this moment and try.

For now my littles are feeling so many different things. I am not sure why there are so many tears that want to happen for something so happy but they do. I think a touch are tears for joy, and the others are a sad grief from the parts of me that needed this earlier in life.

I am choosing not to should myself. I could say that I should not be letting this feel good, and shouldn't trust it, or shouldn't be making a big deal out of it. However, this is a big deal for parts of me. It is a big deal to see my mom treat me like another adult and to not be self focused. It is a big deal and it is okay to feel however I am feeling about it. I deserve to feel whatever I feel.. after years of not getting what I needed from her or anyone else, I deserve to feel whatever comes up in this moment. I deserve to enjoy this but I also deserve to get to be skeptical. I deserve a lot I never got, and I am slowly healing and giving much of it to myself.. but in moments I can get it from others I deserve to allow that to happen.

I feel like I deserve love, and support. That I deserve the validation and excitement because it is exciting. I am going into something that I will make such a difference in, and am growing to be such a beautiful soul.. and a strong one. I deserve this, and all that comes from it.

Okay, going to stop before I actually make myself cry.

[Three Roses]

I feel like I deserve love, and support. That I deserve the validation and excitement because it is exciting.

You do!

[Elphanigh]

Thank you Three Roses. It is a belief I have been trying to cultivate and it is just really coming full circle tonight. Hopefully it stays for a while, it is refreshing and I think would open some healing doors to have it here longer and more fully. 

[sanmagic7]

it sounds like a big deal to me, and i'm so very glad for you, el.  i know the relief i've felt when i've finally gotten some long sought-after validation.  it doesn't mean that everything will change, but that moment in time is a very needed boost - at least that's how it's felt for me when it's happened.

and, i echo 3r - you totally deserve all the good things life has to offer.  it sounds like a cliche, but it's really true.  enjoy enjoy enjoy!

love you my dearest.