Re: Blueberry's Next Steps: beneficial, constructive and mindful

Started by Blueberry, August 25, 2018, 03:20:30 AM

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Blueberry

 :) :)

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Yesterday I finally got my copy of Pete Walker's "From Surviving to Thriving" as well as "The Tao of Feelings" or whatever it's called exactly. Lots of stuff slotting into place :thumbup:

One example: It sounds to me as if when I'm with FOO or even thinking about FOO I'm in a constant EF. Sometimes extreme, sometimes low-level. That's why it's so strenuous having any contact with FOO mbrs whatsoever including sending post to the Little Ones, who aren't even part of the dysfunction as it pertains to me yet.

Three Roses

I think you're going to like that book! I'm excited for you!

Hope67

Hi Blueberry,
I am also excited for you that you have those books - I think you'll like them too.  Your example of being in a constant EF  when thinking about or being with your FOO - it resonates big time with me.  I've not had contact with mine for quite some time now, and yet I still experience EFs when I think of them - and I find I do ruminate - but thankfully less than I used to.  I think you show great fortitude and strength when you make contact - but I can see that you find this very 'strenuous' and that is understandable. 
Hope you enjoy the books.
Hope  :)

Blueberry

Thanks  :) :)  I like both books already as I read here and there. More things are making sense.

Today some progress: choir in the church service - somebody felt hemmed in where she was standing and so about 4-5 people started discussing it and making suggestions about how to deal. The suggestion was that I should move up a row so as to make space. I refused because the person in question could just as easily move. She said "No, I am staying here." So I suggested she stop complaining about it then if she wasn't going to do a simple move to better her situation. In the end somebody else moved.

For me this is progress in two ways: I didn't allow myself to be pushed around to accommodate other people and their wishes - a good few past examples of me allowing myself to be pushed around over the decades flitted through my mind. Secondly, I stood my ground on an occasion where people would tend to say "shh, stop making a fuss" in order to shut me up. At least FOO would, but other people tend to as well. "This is an important occasion... just be accommodating...  :blahblahblah: " If it had been someone's funeral or some such very solemn occasion, I would have undoubtedly not stood my ground and not "made a fuss" but it was just a fairly ordinary church service.

Deep Blue

Blueberry,
I'm so impressed that you are beginning to be more comfortable with acknowledging your own progress.  We see it all the time and Im happy you are getting to a place where you can see it too.   :grouphug:  well done  :cheer: (just cuz I know you love that one)

sanmagic7

 :yeahthat:

you are really making headway on some of these fundamentals.  that's so terrific.  i don't have enough words to tell you how happy i am for you.  it's so great.    :applause:  love and hugs, always.

Blueberry

Thank you both  :) :)

Now I'm reading Pete Walker's book "From Surviving to Thriving" and busily underlining. So much makes sense and I find myself nodding my head. I also feel I haven't been doing enough of the right work in healing. I do spend quite a bit of time fleeing from feeling. Pete mentions sitting with your feeling of say fear for half an hour I think. I tend to procrastinate and then sit max. 5 minutes.

I know otoh that putting pressure on myself is not a good idea but maybe gently, lovingly, firm the way a good parent could be? Only problem has always been that I don't know how that would be. I go into an EF-like state at the thought of a parent setting any kind of rules. It's clear to me cognitively that a parent has to, but I don't have access to any kind of 'map' of that or 'directions' on how to get there. My brain de-rails at the thought. One bit of progress is being able to write 'lovingly' without de-railing. I feel a bit self-conscious about it and ashamed though I know the shame is someone else's, but I did manage to write it :thumbup:

We have mice in the storage room of the building, not for the first time, but now one (at least) is in my office space and has not so far gone into my bucket trap. I have a lot of trouble setting real traps. Last time there was a mouse problem where I was living I was paralysed with old fears. Last year when a magpie somehow got into my apartment I realised the connection, what had paralysed me: my brother barging into my room raging mad, hurting me physically. I know I did Screen Processing on it, in fact that's probably where the memory came up.

I did manage to capture the somewhat injured magpie and get it into a transport box and convey it to a bird 'hospital'. So it is good for me to focus on that: I managed without help!

My fear of setting traps is mixed up with my problems of doing activities with my hands where several steps are involved. Nothing new, but still a difficult topic. Pete Walker mentions having had just that problem, but preparing meals, not catching mice.  I have the problem cooking too, needless to say. And then there's something that might be a bit on the OCD spectrum. Ah, no. I notice it's not a good idea to go in there.

Well, I have real traps from a friend and I'll see if one other man in my building would be willing to set them for me.

I found out today that our landlords are probably selling our building again, presumably because it would be way more renovation work than the neighbouring building and they've chickened out and/or decided it's too expensive. Tenants are pretty well protected legally in this country, but I'm still worried about what might come of this: maybe have to move after all within the year, though there are way too few apartments in cheaper range in my town. There are often either long waiting lists or tons of people turn up to view a single apartment. Without a regular income and officially sick/disabled I'm not a good bet for landlords. Then there's my office space too. The rent was reduced. It might go straight back up again to be more in line with the average round here.

I do realise when I write all that that there is no point in being worried in advance, before knowing all the facts. There are steps I can take to be better informed about certain rights and I do belong to a residential tenant's association. So that's one place for tricky questions.

Blueberry

Yay, the mouse went into my bucket trap  :cheer:  and i've now let it loose in a field. It scurried here and there and it struck me that the mouse was probably traumatised too, after being stuck in a bucket. But with just mono-trauma, the mouse can get over it by running around instead of freezing up.

Blueberry

No new mice over night in my bucket trap. I am relieved. It was just one after all. It won't be just one in the storage room though! However they have been there for a while or on and off in the winter time. Maybe other people in the building will actually deal with them. I can give myself a break instead and could congratulate myself more on having got rid of the one in my office.

***TW animal suffering ***

It is possible that my reluctance to use traps is not so much a paralysed hands issue as really not wanting to be the agent that kills an animal or even inflicts pain or suffering. And then finding the result of that action in the trap. My Fur Babies are bigger than mice but not by that much. So probably that plays a role also.  When I pass by animals killed on the road, I feel a terrible sense of sadness, partly that may be because my M did too. In fact saving animals from that kind of suffering was huge in her mind. otoh our bigger pets (dogs) sometimes got the brunt of her anger and they certainly lived in a house where verbal strife was common. She didn't save them from that. My fur babies at that time were simply too small to be involved but they did suffer neglect. M's view that it wasn't "worth" taking them to the vet's she projected onto them. "It's not worth it for them." I have long since known that isn't true.

Cognitively: it's OK to kill house mice since they are pests, disease-carriers etc. Also they are invaders in my space and I don't like having them there, they increase my anxiety. But since when have my emotional blockages really been alleviated by logic? In fact I now notice that my whole chest and stomach feels like a pillar of concrete, with fear in my throat atop it all.

In fact I believe the mouse-issue is multi-faceted. There is more to this but I can't write it down atm. Still, that's a lot of progress since the day before yesterday.

Blueberry

I haven't felt myself so completely and utterly unmotivated for a while. I did finally get up and I did finally eat and I collected a load of jerusalem artichokes somebody dug out of her garden and left out for me. Other than that, I'm spending a lot of time in bed, dozing and reading.

sanmagic7

sounds like a well-deserved day of rest for you, sweetie.  you've been thru a lot of emotional stuff, from what i've read.  it doesn't surprise me that you need to take a break.  i hope it's relaxing for you and does what you need it to do.

interesting to me was the way you put it that you haven't been putting enough of the right work into healing.  i've felt that at times myself.  it's something that comes to me thru an outside source, like you reading walker's book.  almost like an 'aha' moment.  'o, so this is what needs to be done!'.  those have helped me change direction and become more efficient with what i've needed to do more times than i can count.

as far as gentle, loving parental guidance, maybe that's a phrase that would suit you better than parents making rules.  i get it that when we haven't had a model of that in our lives, it can be difficult to know what to do.  i think your t has given you gentle guidance at times - that might be a place to start.  just a thought.

well done taking care of your rodent problem.  very humane.  keep up the good work, blueberry.  you just keep marching ahead, and it's wonderful to see.   love and hugs.

Blueberry

Thank you san  :) :)  :hug: Always motivating, always seeing the good in my steps. That's certainly a good antidote to my ICr! Yes you're probably right that thinking about gentle, loving guidance would do me better than thinking about rules. Eventually I rebel against rules. In my first years of therapy, I'd follow rules and try to make everybody else do so too :thumbdown: but now I can't get up the energy to follow them.

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I still haven't persuaded myself to have a shower and hair-wash. What could make me want to? Rhetorical question.

Quite possibly I've been reading too much in Pete Walker's "From Surviving to Thriving" without digesting it properly including discussing, taking proper breaks to do other things,  and taking a step or two based on what I'm reading.

I do feel better from having gone to a friend's today. We sat outside and I wore a head scarf, that way nobody'd notice my unwashed state toooo badly. We discussed the upcoming re-election which is tomorrow and she offered to help me apply for nationality of my present country. At present, I'm not quite eligible due to the effects of cptsd on my earning power, but I'm eligible on all other fronts. Sometimes the local bureacrat who decides these things makes an exception. That's what I'd be hoping for. This friend thinks I should try for a personal appointment with this person and offered to come with me. Also she can help me formulate my reasons in compact language!

Three Roses

I empathize with the "overdoing things" in regards to reading. Sometimes when I know I want and need to get to the heart of something, I rush through it. Spend too much time, and/or go too quickly through rich material. Big hugs, BB.  :hug:

Hope67

Quote from: Three Roses on October 21, 2018, 12:21:24 AM
I empathize with the "overdoing things" in regards to reading. Sometimes when I know I want and need to get to the heart of something, I rush through it. Spend too much time, and/or go too quickly through rich material. Big hugs, BB.  :hug:

:yeahthat:


I also feel that way too - as Three Roses said - and I also want to send you a hug, Blueberry  :hug:

Hope  :)

Blueberry

Thank you so much Hope and Three Roses! :hug:

Yesterday I did some EFT. It made something clear to me so I went on to do some Inner Child work as well.

Between last posting here I discovered another mouse in my office space. It managed to die all on its own, idk how. I notice the whole thing is not easy. I dread coming into my office space (which is where I am now, my computer and Internet connection is there) wondering what I'll find. Today - nothing. My bucket trap is here, nothing in it.

Yesterday I spoke to a neighbour who's got mice in his apartment but hadn't been dealing with them because he didn't want to kill them. I basically forced him into starting doing something. I explained the bucket trap but then he went ahead and set normal traps a friend of mine lent me. So much for not wanting to kill any mice. Maybe that had been just an excuse or he was just hoping the problem would go away on its own. I don't want to feel into what the problem might be, but the mice issue is getting to me. I feel very unstable. However  :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: that I pushed my neighbour into doing his share of getting rid of the mice. 

This morning I was singing with the choir again and the rest of the day i've spent sitting at my window in the sun enjoying the heat and playing endless rounds of Patience with my flower cards. It's better than going back to bed.