A Safe Place To Be Visible

[Not Alone]

I hear that you are scared. This (dealing with trauma &/or waiting to deal with trauma) is really scary.

[Snowdrop]

I've become aware of where the bulk of my unexplored trauma lies, and I seem to have a couple of Youngers trying to stop me from really going there.

Becoming aware of where the trauma lies is massively scary, but it's progress. My experience, in case it's helpful, is that I had missing memories and empty holes where traumas were. For a long time I didn't consciously know there were traumas, and becoming aware of the holes, and what might be in them, was  . I found it helpful to take any kind of pressure off my younger self, and give her a lot of comfort, reassurance, and shower her in love. She began to share her experiences at a manageable pace when she felt safe and trusting enough to do so. 

[Bach]

I've become aware of where the bulk of my unexplored trauma lies, and I seem to have a couple of Youngers trying to stop me from really going there.

Becoming aware of where the trauma lies is massively scary, but it's progress. My experience, in case it's helpful, is that I had missing memories and empty holes where traumas were. For a long time I didn't consciously know there were traumas, and becoming aware of the holes, and what might be in them, was  . I found it helpful to take any kind of pressure off my younger self, and give her a lot of comfort, reassurance, and shower her in love. She began to share her experiences at a manageable pace when she felt safe and trusting enough to do so. 

Thank you for the encouragement, Snowdrop.  This is especially hard for me right now, because I have trauma from throughout my life that I've been digging up little by little for many years, each time thinking that I've "figured it out" and "will be able to heal now".  This is the latest in an exhausting process of re-evaluating my life with a new therapist and realising that there are areas of major trauma that I haven't dealt with at all, not because I wasn't at least somewhat aware of them but because it's stuff that I've always been willing to dismiss "not that bad" or "my own fault" or "no one's fault" that didn't seem important once I figured out the towering evil of the covert mental and physical abuse I got from my mother.  Most recently, I have realised that I have a whole set of traumatic injuries from after my NM sent me to live with my father and his second family when I was 13 that I have given only the barest head-nod of acknowledgement to, because I was treated so much better at my father's house than I had been at my mother's.  Being sent to live with my father probably saved my life, but now I'm having to understand and accept what an incredibly low standard "better than Mom's" was.  The most extreme and obvious symptoms of my thoroughly neglected physical care were addressed and I was given a modicum of affection and positive attention, but that was really about it.  It's very difficult to reconcile the "saved my life" with the "piled on new and unfamiliar kinds of emotional damage" 

I'm in so much pain right now.  I have a neck injury that is making my entire upper body hurt and disrupting my sleep, I'm having hormonal issues, and my therapist is on vacation this week.  Whine whine whine.  I am depressed and having the bad thoughts.  I won't do anything stupid, though.  In fact, I won't even neglect my responsibilities and spend the whole day on the couch watching crappy TV the way I want to.  I've certainly gotten better at coping.  Or maybe it's just that My Person is home all day for the summer and I can't fall apart in front of him the way I can when I'm alone.  Sigh.

[Tee]

  take care of yourself

[Three Roses]

Bach, I don't hear you whining, I hear you speaking plainly and clearly about the difficulties and pain you went through and are going through. In the midst of our abuse, we were told to "stop complaining, it wasn't that bad,  ". Well, it was bad and harmful and damaging, our abusers just didn't want to face it. You're free here to state the truth in its reality.

[Snowdrop]

I completely agree with 3R. 

[Not Alone]

Bach, I don't hear you whining, I hear you speaking plainly and clearly about the difficulties and pain you went through and are going through. In the midst of our abuse, we were told to "stop complaining, it wasn't that bad,  ". Well, it was bad and harmful and damaging, our abusers just didn't want to face it. You're free here to state the truth in its reality.

Absolutely. Bach, you are in physical and emotional pain. You are dealing with deep, difficult issues. You deserve to speak and you have the right to be heard.

[Bach]

Thank you for the support, friends    It was so helpful the other morning to write all that out and be validated, and I ended up having a reasonably good day.

There's something important I said above that I sort of didn't realise I had said, which I now see is going to be a pretty big problem.  My Person has been working at home all summer, and it has been great because it's so much easier to keep up on all my self-care when My Person is here to help me and cheer me up, but starting on Monday he will have to go back to work in the city and I'll be home alone all day again.  I think I kind of haven't noticed the anxiety I have about that because I've been too busy dealing with the anxiety from my therapist being away this week and from my neurotic attempts to avoid acknowledging that her being away is hard for me.  I do have a lot of anxiety about it, though.  I had a weird little stress meltdown about it tonight right before I went to bed, of which the unfortunate result was using too much cannabis and getting myself wired instead of relaxed.  I wish I could more consistently remember not to do that.

I'm such a dang mess.  How am I ever going to heal?  How will it ever not be excruciating to live with this brain in this body? 

Meanwhile, I have to try to breathe and ride out this bad high, with the hopes that it will ease off in time for me to get a decent amount of sleep tonight.
Lots of shame and guilt in here, and I am so very tired of it. 

[Tee]

  just breathe Bach it'll be ok.   

[Not Alone]

Dear Bach, like Tee said, breathe. One moment at a time. I hope you are able to rest.

[Bach]

Last night I drugged the kids with sugar just like mom used to do to me.  Now today they're flopping around in bed all groggy and out of it, and I'm here alone.  My brain is a tiny bit quieter, but I'm depressed.  Not quite the death-wishing voice, but I've got some really bad I-can't-with-this-life syndrome going on today.  I guess the Youngsters are the keepers of all my trauma, but also of all my good stuff too.

[Not Alone]

  What is one thing you can do for yourself today that would bring you some comfort? Tea, safe movie, a walk, read a book, listen to music. . . ? If I was near you, I would do some of those things for you. One moment at a time, dear Bach.

[Jazzy]

Hope you feel better soon Bach. Take care!

[Bach]

Hello, friends.  Thank you for being here.  I've been around and appreciating the replies on this thread as well as everything everyone shares here.  It's weird finding out about how so many of my strange little alien-seeming experiences and feelings in life are not so alien at all in the secret worlds of trauma.  It's sometimes scary and sometimes hopeful. 

Trigger Warning:  Mention of early neglect.









Scary right now.  I'm really struggling mood-wise.  I'm functioning vaguely well behaviourally, much better than I usually do when I'm a headspace like this, but I feel awful all the time emotionally unless I'm drugged enough to feel sort of okay or at least numb, and honestly, that sucks too, just in a different way. 

I'm hormonal right now, which is good because it means I can remind myself that it definitely will pass sooner or later and I'm not heading back down into the kind of hole I used to go into before I knew about my somewhat-addressable nutritional and lifestyle problems, but it's bad because it's completely impenetrable.  Even if I do something I feel good about, or something good happens, it will only lift me up for a few minutes, and then I'll drop back down into seeing everything through the lens of the infant in the crib left alone cold, hungry and helpless, whose entire body was built wrong because she wasn't properly fed or cuddled.

Too much pain.  What's my point?  Even My Person told me to stop dwelling on the past yesterday when I was feeling sad thinking about all the things I wanted to do that I never did because I couldn't get it together, and wondering what I might have been if I hadn't been traumatised since birth.

Meanwhile, I am avoiding dealing with Lizzie's pain and disappointment, and the anger and despair of the Teenager who just doesn't &^@#ing have a name, okay?

[Three Roses]

Even My Person told me to stop dwelling on the past yesterday when I was feeling sad thinking about all the things I wanted to do that I never did because I couldn't get it together, and wondering what I might have been if I hadn't been traumatised since birth.

Grieving is an important component of healing the past. On page 36 of From Surviving To Thriving, Pete Walker says:

"Grieving is necessary to help us release and work through our pain about the terrible losses of our childhoods. These losses are like the deaths of parts of our selves, and grieving can often initiate their rebirth."

Hang in there.