A Safe Place To Be Visible

[Blueberry]

Today is a really bad day.  I sent the letter to OP via email on Saturday night, and I felt good about it all weekend.  But then this morning they sent me a text in which they did not acknowledge anything I said in the email at all, except to tell me that they think my "travel logic is faulty," because blah blah, but it's my choice.  So I explained in a reply text why the blah blah part matters, included reassurance of wanting to see them, and restated the boundary.  To which I got a terse reply of "Fine."  I know that "Fine" in OP's voice.  I can hear them saying it in my head every time I think about it. 

Unfortunately this is fairly typical.   

  for deciding not to engage, not to respond!

I understand and empathise with not wanting to take supplements or eating after making such huge steps forward, especially steps that have to do with boundaries. I struggle with it a lot as well. Unfortunately it's a bit of self-sabotage. Sometimes it helps me to divide up those tasks. e.g. Take one supplement, then see if I can take the next a bit later. And self-praise! Yay! I took my first supplement today!!

Trauma reaction to the way somebody is saying "Fine" in your head? Yes, that definitely could be an EF.

We are here for you. 

[Bach]

Hey, that thing where I'm getting a trauma reaction from hearing them say "Fine" in my head, is that an emotional flashback?

I think yes! Here's some more info on EFs, if you want - http://pete-walker.com/flashbackManagement.htm it's long but def worth it. At the bottom are some things to do to counteract an EF. 

Thank you for the link, Three Roses.  The article was interesting and helpful.  It brought an important question to my mind, though, one that I would prefer not to deal with but will have to, which is the question of explaining CPTSD to people like PP, especially because they clearly suffer from it, too.

[Bach]

Today is a really bad day.  I sent the letter to PP via email on Saturday night, and I felt good about it all weekend.  But then this morning they sent me a text in which they did not acknowledge anything I said in the email at all, except to tell me that they think my "travel logic is faulty," because blah blah, but it's my choice.  So I explained in a reply text why the blah blah part matters, included reassurance of wanting to see them, and restated the boundary.  To which I got a terse reply of "Fine."  I know that "Fine" in PP's voice.  I can hear them saying it in my head every time I think about it. 

Unfortunately this is fairly typical.   

  for deciding not to engage, not to respond!

I understand and empathise with not wanting to take supplements or eating after making such huge steps forward, especially steps that have to do with boundaries. I struggle with it a lot as well. Unfortunately it's a bit of self-sabotage. Sometimes it helps me to divide up those tasks. e.g. Take one supplement, then see if I can take the next a bit later. And self-praise! Yay! I took my first supplement today!!

Trauma reaction to the way somebody is saying "Fine" in your head? Yes, that definitely could be an EF.

We are here for you. 

Thank you so much for being here.  I'm a trainwreck today.  But I did manage to eat a little bit and take the supplements an hour or so ago.  Now I think I'll go outside and pull a few weeds, try to give my little beets some breathing room.

[Bach]

Just in case anyone noticed, I did change OP to PP in my threads everywhere I could.  PP is a better abbreviation for them with regard to what it stands for in my head.  I know my going back and changing it wherever I could is a little bit loony, but 

[Tee]

Just because I'm a little slow on the abbreviations what does OP and PP stand for?  Some of them I get I eventually some my head just won't figure out without help.
But it's all good to change things to make them the way you want it.

[Not Alone]

Just because I'm a little slow on the abbreviations what does OP and PP stand for?  Some of them I get I eventually some my head just won't figure out without help.
But it's all good to change things to make them the way you want it.

  But I did manage to eat a little bit and take the supplements an hour or so ago.  Now I think I'll go outside and pull a few weeds, try to give my little beets some breathing room.

for self care.

[Bach]

Sorry about the abbreviation thing.  I was having some serious brain problems today.  PP stands for "Problem Person."  Originally, I was using the letters OP to indicate that person because I didn't want to use names, but then I changed it because I think OP stands for something else?  And also, Problem Person made more sense to me.  I'm sorry for being confusing.  I was very confused and in a lot of pain today; standing up for myself, setting boundaries, neither engaging nor backing down, but also having a zillion trauma reactions or emotional flashbacks or whatever they were happening to me.  It was a rough day.

The Problem Person is an long-term important friendship in my life that has in many ways been very beneficial to me, but in which unfortunately are also duplicated many of the dynamics of my relationship with my mother.  We are in a pretty bad place at the moment.  My posts here and in the Letters of Recovery subforum over the last few days have been about a situation with Problem Person that I have handled like a BOSS but which is taking a toll on me.  Thank Goodness it is FINALLY time for bed, hope I can sleep tonight! 

Thanks again for being here, all.  This thread really helped me today.  It was really hard but I managed to get through without doing anything self-destructive.  I even made some positive efforts.  Today was actually super-successful even though it felt like this: 

[Tee]

  good for you Bach!  Life is hard!  Glad you didn't lose ground today.   

[Three Roses]

Hope your day is better tomorrow! 

[Bach]

Trigger warning.  References to severe neglect, drug use, past suicidal ideation, and past self-harm (explicit).




(Did I do that right?)


NOTE:  I wrote the following early this morning after waking up from short sleep and thinking that it would be a terrible day.  I feel a little weird about it now because it exposes a great deal, but I got what I needed out of writing it, which was the will not to just give in and have the bad day.   Now after a workout with my strength trainer I have a somewhat more positive outlook and am going out to do some errands, so I'm going to post it here as a reminder of how I am finally starting to get on top of coping methods.  I probably will not need that pain pill today, although I reserve the choice.

Well here I am ready to face another day.  Sort of ready.  Maybe ready.  I didn't sleep enough last night and I have gut pain this morning.  I'm proud of myself for standing up to Problem Person and not sacrificing my physical needs to please them, but still I get sick from it.  I am so tired of this struggle.  Later today I might take the percocet I resisted taking yesterday.  I try not to take them because I don't tolerate medications of any kind well at all, and of course opioids are especially dodgy for a bad gut (thanks Mom for starving me when I was an infant, that malformed digestive tract is the gift that keeps taking!), but sometimes I can't turn my brain off any other way and a little narcotic haze and bad TV are an indulgence I can't deny myself. 

It's really early in the day for me to already be thinking about medicating with anything other than the usual, but I suppose I can count it as a victory that I don't have the death-wishing loop in my head.  The death-wishing loop was almost constant earlier in my life, but ever since I discovered and started treating my digestive illness about 10 years ago, it is less prevalent.  I call it the death-wishing loop now instead of suicidal ideation, because I never think seriously about committing suicide anymore.  Now on a bad day instead of having the intrusive thoughts  of ways to commit suicide (described below), I will have a loop of one of these phrases: "I can't do this anymore" or "I don't want to be here anymore" or "I want to die" or "I wish I was dead."  Which one of those phrases it is depends on how bad the day is.  So, you know, bad enough, but nothing like how it used to be.  I used to have a terrible and almost constant battle in my head between thoughts about killing myself and fear of death.  I would have intrusive thoughts of shooting myself in the head or of opening a bottle of pills and pouring them all into my mouth or of jumping in front of a bus.  These were all cartoony and unrealistic thoughts, but very painful, especially as they would provoke my fear of death, and I would feel horribly trapped between my desire to end my pain, my fear of dying, and my small but persistent belief that it was still not too late for me to heal and have a real life someday.  I went through a phase of cutting myself to relieve that trapped feeling.  Even when I did that, my inability to surrender was evident.  I always cut myself very carefully, sterilising the blade before I used it, cutting mindfully and deliberately and only on fleshy areas of my body so as to make sure not to accidentally seriously injure myself, cleaning the wounds afterward (With rubbing alcohol.  That way, I got the most pain release for the least amount of physical damage).  I don't do that anymore.  Thank Goodness.  There are certain destructive behaviours I used to regularly engage in that I still miss and still struggle to stay on top of, but not that.  I haven't cut myself in 12 years and now the thought of it repels me instead of attracting me.  I'm kind of horrified right now, thinking for the first time in a very long time about how a part of me used to romanticise it.  So obviously, change is possible, and my belief that somehow I can some day be well continues its confounding persistence even when I am at my most discouraged.

I'm not sure whether that belief is something inherent in me, or whether it comes from my Partner of almost 30 years, a fundamentally positive person who met me during a brief healthy time in my life in my late 20s and no matter the * I put them through since has never given up our relationship or on the idea that I can be well.  I'm pretty sure I'd be dead by now if I had not had such a caring and supportive Partner.  Aside from all the other challenges I would have navigating this world on my own, without them I would not have had anyone to try to get well for.  I guess it would be better if I was able to try to get well for my own sake, but there's really almost nothing that I can do without the motivation of pleasing someone else.  Sometimes I have resented my Partner for keeping me alive, but here I still am.  I love them very much, even though they are much bigger and stronger and heartier than I am and often don't know how to handle me (physically) as gently as I wish they could.

[Three Roses]

Yes, you totally did that right! (You even included a wide gap between paragraphs which is great to do because then no one catches words or phrases with peripheral vision. 👍) I knew what I would be reading, and read it anyway. I'm delighted at your ability to begin opening up here on the forum, and saddened by the difficulties you've been through.

You've been through tremendous difficulties and have coped the only way you were able to. Your strength and determination are admirable and inspiring! 

[Tee]

Hugs

[Not Alone]

NOTE:  I wrote the following early this morning after waking up from short sleep and thinking that it would be a terrible day.  I feel a little weird about it now because it exposes a great deal, but I got what I needed out of writing it, which was the will not to just give in and have the bad day.   Now after a workout with my strength trainer I have a somewhat more positive outlook and am going out to do some errands, so I'm going to post it here as a reminder of how I am finally starting to get on top of coping methods.  I probably will not need that pain pill today, although I reserve the choice.

Several good, strong, positive choices.

[Bach]

I don't know whether this needs a trigger warning or not because some of it was written with fore- and afterthought, and some of it is raw real-time brain data spewed out as I experienced a very intense, painful and frightening emotional flashback.  There are no graphic details of anything specific in it but I'm sort of governing my trigger warnings by how much it scares me to post, and posting this scares the you know what out of me.  But it feels really important, and the urge to erase it and ignore that it happened feels really unhealthy, so here it is.

Every day, another small or large thing crashes into place.  I found myself into a traumatic meltdown as a result of thinking that I will FINALLY go get a haircut and finding out that the person I expected to be able to go to is now working somewhere too far away for me to drive to.  This is a much bigger deal than it seems like it should be because I have some extreme trust issues regarding haircuts.  It started with a small thing clicking that I knew right away would be a problem, and then I saw clearly what I was doing in how I was speaking out loud to myself as parent-me tried to hustle the various child-me's into not freaking out and continuing with the plan to go to the swimming pool.  Now I meant to just sit down and write calmly about this but OMG HELLO SEVERE AND OBVIOUS EMOTIONAL FLASHBACK.  Not just to the specific childhood injury with regard to the haircut, but also to the first time I remember having an emotional flashback as an adult, even though I didn't know what it was at the time.  It was in 2006.  I will probably write about it eventually, but not now. 

Okay, okay, thank goodness I know what's happening right now because it's TERRIFYING and I am freaking out in various parts of myself but I am also keeping touch with the whole self that has the coping methods and calming strategies.  It's strange how part of me, which must be the "observing ego" that K often mentioned, is sitting close to but still outside of this.  I'm calming down a little right now, but my heart is still racing and I'm starting to feel the adrenaline-sick.  I know this feeling, and I know that it passes.  I'm not about to have a heart attack, or to tear my head off my shoulders and roll it like a bowling ball.  My Person is at the gym, but will be back soon.  I didn't get to go to the swimming pool like I wanted to (hijacked that effort with a completely offhand thought as I carelessly twisted up my hair to pin above my head to keep it out of the water that "Man, it's raggedy.  It really does need a trim.  It's been how long...a year and a half?), but that's okay.  Maybe I can even still go if I calm down enough and rethink my plan for the next few hours, but if not, that's okay too.  Calm now.  Calm.  Take some deep breaths.
Turn the radio down.  Take some more deep breaths.  Hug the little one.  Oh, and notice but don't be afraid of all the aftershocks of realising that all this happened when (we) were TRYING TO GO TO THE SWIMMING POOL.

[Tee]