A Safe Place To Be Visible

[Bach]

Thank you, 3R.  That's a good quote.  I'm pretty sure that what led to my getting kicked out of my group in June resulted from a Day 2 hater.  I'm really confused about that, though, because honestly, getting kicked out of the group was useful for me in a way that simply drifting away from it wouldn't have been, and I'm getting mighty sick of having to learn things about how to get along in the world by being stomped all over.

I'm not doing well today.  I didn't get enough sleep and I'm full of anxiety and inescapable dark thoughts.  I can't even take anything for it, because anything I could take that would effectively quiet my mind now would produce a rebound that will be even worse later.  It's been a while since I was in this bad a state of mind.  I'll survive it of course, but even last week's relentless emotional flashbacks of Little B weren't as hard to deal with as this.  I have to function today and I don't know how I'm going to manage it. 

[Not Alone]

So hard to function when you feel like you just want to put a cover over your head and stay that way all day. Supporting you through this tough time.

[Bach]

I can't speak right now and it hurts.  I need to speak.  But I can't speak.   

[Tee]

I feel the same hugs

[Bach]

Tee  Thank you for being here.

[Blueberry]

 

[Not Alone]

You are not able to speak, but I do "hear" that it is really hard. Sending you compassion.

[Three Roses]

This happens to me too, Bach - need to speak but can't. It's usually one of my first indications I'm in an EF. Pages 42-45 of the book "The Body Keeps The Score" talks more about this. I've attached an image which should be visible after the moderators review it, showing a brain scan image of a brain in an EF.

[Snowdrop]

Happens to me too. I didn't understand why or make the connection with EFs until reading this. You're definitely not alone.

[Bach]

The other day, I found myself thinking "I am really not coping well at all" but then realising that compared to not very long ago at all I'm actually coping amazingly well.  Reflecting on the pretty much unremitting trauma nightmare my life has been since the beginning of June, I realise that I'm probably a good 50% more functional and that have been at least 50% less self-destructive in my various behaviours than I have often been when feeling this bad.  So that's good, right?  Of course it is, but I'm angry that I can be doing this "well" and yet not feel any better at all than I normally would.  Furious, in fact.  I'm sure there's some reason that I should still be encouraged by the way my surprising and sudden surge in trauma has been accompanied by a just as surprising and sudden surge in sheer cope, but I'm not feeling it.  I was sure I would be by now.  Somehow I must stave off the disappointment, sit with the bad feelings and continue with the "responsible self-care" for however long it takes to come out of this, because I do NOT want to do the usual thing of letting the narcissist mother part of me abuse and neglect me just so that any little bit of behavioural improvement I can squeak out after a time of abject self-destruction and suffering will make me feel comparatively better. 

Note to self:  must write out a list of what constitutes responsible self-care.

Thanks very much, all, for the responses to my post about not being able to speak.  3R, the insight about emotional flashbacks and the image you posted were very interesting, but I haven't followed up on any of that in the book or anywhere else because it makes so much sense and I am just sick to death of trying to figure out what to do about emotional flashbacks.  I think I've been in a state of emotional flashback basically constantly since the beginning of June and right now I'm feeling like everything I try to do to make it stop just makes it worse.

Meanwhile, I realised today that I have painted myself into a corner with some of the communication choices I've made in this journal as a result of the beyond hypervigilant state of mind I was in when I first came here.  When I first came here, I had a vague fear that someone I know from somewhere else would be here and would know it was me, and so I made some choices that are limiting me in weird ways.  Everything I've written here has been completely honest, but there are things I've been leaving out for the sake of not feeling too exposed.  Nothing BIG or IMPORTANT or anonymity-compromising, but minor pertinent real-world details that when I look back on what I've written feel glaring in their absence.  It's a thorny problem, because I don't really know how to relax and start including stuff like that without feeling that I'm drawing attention to it.  But I'll finish with a moment of gratitude that this space is here for me to come to at all, even with awkwardness, pain, fear, and limits.

[Blueberry]

  Just want to let you know I read but putting words to feelings is difficult atm.

You are making progress, that I see. It may feel bad to do so, but it's OK to take a break. It's OK to not know the next step. It's OK to make mistakes or to do things imperfectly at first and then want to improve on them later. 

[Tee]

 

[Three Roses]

I think it's great that you were cautious and protective of yourself! 

Just want you to know, you can share as much or as little as you are comfortable. We understand. 

[Bach]

I wish I could learn how to stop being triggered by feeling good about myself.  That's the number one most awful thing my mother did to me, messed me up so badly that feeling any kind of self-love is like a self-destruct mechanism.

Blueberry, Tee, 3R, your gentle presences are so appreciated.  Not being alone with it is still unfamiliar and frightening but also has given me a new thread of hope.  I haven't had one of those in a very long time.  Now Job #1 is not getting caught up in the subconscious panic reaction to the thought of a new thread of hope, because of course I do that, too.

Trigger warning:  Some crazy brain matter, and mild references to narcissistic abuse of a child.







I need to write about a weird thing that happens to me where I have moments of sort of being my mother.  Talk about hard to put into words.  Let me see if I can describe this by telling about a recent such moment.

I've mentioned earlier in this journal that my mother was a sun-worshiper.  When I was a kid, I of course assumed that laying in the sun for hours was something she did because she enjoyed it.  I've never enjoyed laying in the sun for long periods of time, but in recent years after reading an article about earthing, I've developed an appreciation for lying on the grass in the sun for maybe 10 or 15 minutes after I swim.  The other day, after swimming, I was lying on my towel on the grass, and the fronts of my legs started to feel uncomfortably hot.  I wanted more earthing time, and there were some clouds, so I thought the sun would go behind one before too long.  So I turned over to relax on my stomach, get a little sun on my back and then be more comfortable when a cloud came.  The sun was really strong, though, and no cloud came, so I started getting uncomfortable again, but for some reason I felt compelled to stay in the sun.  That I HAD to stay in the sun, because it was...Good for me somehow?  I felt that there was some kind of virtue in enduring the sun, and that I MUST NOT move into the shade.  After a few minutes of feeling more and more uncomfortable, something in my head switched and said "What on Earth are you doing? If you don't want to lie in the sun, don't lie in the sun!"  So I did that, but then suddenly I was thinking about my mother lying endlessly in the sun, thinking "Ugh, Mom LOVED that.  Wow, being baked by the sun must have felt as good to her as it feels bad to me", and the horrifying thought occurred to me that maybe she didn't do it because she loved it.  Maybe it WASN'T because it felt good.  And then I remembered:  The tan.  My mother was always concerned with her tan.  Working on her tan.  Coppertone assist.  Equal time spent back and front.  She had to be as tan as possible.  So, like, what, I had MY MOTHER'S emotional flashback?

That's not the first time that has happened, and it's creepy.  It's creepy when it gives me disturbing insights into my own treatment at her hands (like the time that I was changing my wiggly baby niece who I adore and would never dream of hurting, and felt a moment's genuinely spiteful thought and violent impulse towards her when I couldn't get her leg into the onesie, or the time that I found myself thinking about a high-maintenance pet that if they died it would be a win-win because I wouldn't have to take care of them anymore and I could milk the grief for attention).  It's just as creepy when it gives me empathy for her.  Feeling empathy for her makes my skin crawl.  Not because I don't think that it's generally a good thing to have empathy, but because I know that there is no way I could ever express any kind of empathy to my mother without her taking it as a clean-slate absolution of everything she did to protect herself from her own anxiety at my direct expense.  I still remember the time I felt a huge burst of empathy for my mother when she was telling me about a painful social situation she had been in that I could really relate to, and I'm still thankful that we were in the car the time and I couldn't act on my impulse to hug her and validate her.  I can empathise with the fact that her life has been difficult and painful in many of the same ways as mine, and for many of the same reasons, but this is a woman who tried to bond with me over us both having had terrible mothers.  I ASK YOU.  So, yeah, creepy and scary, and I hate my brain.

[Three Roses]

I have no words to share, no special insights but just wanted you to know you've been heard.