baby steps (I'm trying)

[sanmagic7]

 

i believe the mere fact that you are still here and continuing a journey that is difficult and frightening proves your bravery - i don't think you ever have to doubt that.  as for what else is left of you after the 'others' pieces are taken away, i think you'll be happily surprised.  i've read a lot about how people didn't realize the qualities they possessed and utilized while going thru their lives.  we are much stronger than we ever knew.

i give you lots of credit for deciding to fill in the blanks of your life - again, a very brave thing to do,  and i'm so glad you're feeling stronger today.  i think having someone with you is a good idea, especially in the beginning w/ all this while you're still trying to find your sea legs.

sending love and a hug full of encouragement.   

[Three Roses]

i believe the mere fact that you are still here and continuing a journey that is difficult and frightening proves your bravery - i don't think you ever have to doubt that.

[Not Alone]

So for right now I feel calm, the calm after a storm I guess. Like how the ocean feels after a great storm rolls through, I just need to pick up all of the debris it left on the beach now. I'm ready to live my life the way that I want to live it. And I hope that 5 years down the line I can look back and love myself for going through all of this for what feels like a second time now. I don't know if it's too early to say it, but I'm really proud of myself for starting this journey. It sucks and sometimes I wish I didn't, but now I'm really glad that I did. I can't wait to see how much I grow from this.

I wish none of us had to go through this, but hoping with you for the future. Good that you are proud of yourself for stepping into this journey. It is difficult and it takes courage to step into it.

Welcome to OOTS. 

[sunflower38]

notalone, sanmagic7, Three Roses  Thank you so much!

July 26th >

Today was a really good day, one of the best I've had in a long time. C flew here today, we haven't seen each other in a few weeks which is a long time for us, and it's been so great! We spent the morning going around town and looking at things. I had a small anxiety hiccup after realizing I had received an urgent medial forms email a month ago and didn't notice. Without these certain forms I won't be able to take part in something that I've wanted for years now. I am trying my best not to spiral the "what if's" out of control if I don't get this taken care of, so far I think I'm doing fairly well compared to how I normally react. I need to know that it is the weekend and that I have to rely on other people to help me complete these.

I also had my first therapy appointment with my new therapist. I'm so grateful for my past therapist in helping me learn about therapy and to start paving the road for my recovery, but I think it was good that I had to switch. Maybe this was a sign from the universe haha. My new therapist said all of the right things that I needed to hear and gave me some amazing tips to try and separate "therapy time" from living my life. She had the idea of bringing a journal to sessions, taking notes and afterwards writing down my thoughts on what happened and what I wanted to continue talking about the next week. Then, close it and leave it in my car. That way I had my time thinking about things, and this is me putting a bookmark in a book to hold my page for next week. I was also really proud of myself for participating more in talking and answering the questions she had when we both looked over the list that I brought with me about things I want to work on. After my session I felt a release that I hadn't ever felt from my other sessions, lighter almost like it was a weight off of me. C and I had an amazing rest of the day, we bought some plants and had some really good food. Feeling content is my favorite feeling in the world and I've felt it a lot today!

Can't wait for the rest of the weekend, we're going to do some sight seeing and exploring. I hope I feel just as good the rest of the weekend, things are finally looking a little brighter now.

[sanmagic7]

enjoy these moments, remember them, sunflower.  stuff like this can help you know that the rough times will pass.

so glad about your session and how your new t helped you feel relief.  it all sounds wonderful.  and good for you for being able to share more, talk more - i wouldn't doubt that helped you get more out of the session, too.  well done!   

i'm glad you can realize you can ask for help to get those forms finished.  if i may, i'd like to send a hug along that will enclose those 'what if's?' for you so they won't get any bigger.     love to you, sweetie.  sounds like you're doing really well, and i'm glad you found that feeling of contentment.  hwo great for both you and C. 

[Tee]

  yeah for a little brighter.  I hope you have fun this weekend and are able to get you paper work done.  I agree with everything San said it sounds like your moving in the right direction. Good luck and keep going

[Three Roses]

  🌻

[sunflower38]

@sanmagic7 - Thank you for the hug! It's greatly appreciated.

@Three Roses and Tee - 

August 2nd >>

C left early Monday morning, it was hard watching someone leave again when we're always tied at the hip, but this time I think it was easier since I know we'll see each other soon. Otherwise, the weekend was relaxing and just what I needed.

Had a second appointment with my new therapist on Wednesday and we talked about self care and what I want. I don't really know why figuring out what I want (in life, today, in general) is so hard for me. I don't quite know what I actually enjoy or even what I want for myself 10 years from now. We talked about self care in taking care of myself physically, emotionally, and socially. Self care is also hard, there's always some anxiety around doing things for myself or things that I enjoy since there was always negative responses when I did any of these things as a child. I found myself spacing out quite a bit as we talked about this, and my therapist helped me understand that these things (isolation, hyper awareness, not letting myself feel emotions, not taking care of myself) were things that I used to protect myself in the past, but I don't need them now.  Letting myself let go of these things is going to be really hard, but I want to. Wednesday was spent relaxing since I pushed myself really hard in therapy to talk about these things even though it seemed like the words were getting stuck in my throat all of the time. This has been happening more often now, feeling like I don't have the ability to talk. Maybe this is another way of me protecting myself? But if it is, I think that would make me really angry, all of those times in my life when I've been enjoying or wanted to know something but couldn't say or ask anything. How many possible moments of voicing my own opinions and learning about what I want through verbally expressing myself have I missed because of trauma?

I've been feeling sad lately, sad that I have to go through this, sad that I keep having negative thoughts of how bad I'm doing and how I don't deserve anything.

I had a couple things for homework until our next session next week. Working out a rough sleeping schedule that doesn't flare up my requirement for perfectionism while also setting myself up to fail is a fine line to walk. Being in bed by 10:30 and awake by 8:00 seems like a good step for right now. It's not a specific time that I have to be awake, but a good general timeframe. Baby steps! I was also given a wellness wheel, something to push me to figure out what I want. It's been so hard to work on it. I'm not really sure what to write, or how to even start thinking about it. I would be staring at the blank circle but feeling like I'm looking at the world's most complex calculus problem. Maybe I need to look at this in a different way, I really want to push myself to finish this and be happy for accomplishing that small bit of progress.

On some really good notes! My home finally feels like a safe space to me! I realized that yesterday while I was baking, something that I haven't done for myself in a long time, and I truly felt comfortable with myself in my home. It's 100% completely mine. I've also been talking to some friends more now, we may not be living near each other anymore, but it's so great to feel loved by someone I care about and I know they care about me too. My inner critic started telling me a couple days ago when I haven't heard from friends in a week that they didn't really care about me and that we would all drift apart. But I got to stick it to my inner critic when we all got to group call yesterday and hang out for hours! I haven't had that much fun in a while, I laughed a lot.

Today is a pretty okay day, been having "creative time", something that my therapist and I talked about using instead of saying "work" which is a word that for me has negative meaning to. Also enjoying all of those vanilla cookies I baked yesterday haha, so overall pretty okay 

[Not Alone]

On some really good notes! My home finally feels like a safe space to me! I realized that yesterday while I was baking, something that I haven't done for myself in a long time, and I truly felt comfortable with myself in my home. It's 100% completely mine. I've also been talking to some friends more now, we may not be living near each other anymore, but it's so great to feel loved by someone I care about and I know they care about me too. My inner critic started telling me a couple days ago when I haven't heard from friends in a week that they didn't really care about me and that we would all drift apart. But I got to stick it to my inner critic when we all got to group call yesterday and hang out for hours! I haven't had that much fun in a while, I laughed a lot.

Today is a pretty okay day, been having "creative time", something that my therapist and I talked about using instead of saying "work" which is a word that for me has negative meaning to. Also enjoying all of those vanilla cookies I baked yesterday haha, so overall pretty okay 

[Tee]

  your goals don't have to be huge. Glad you were able to have fun with friends.

[sunflower38]

August 3rd ---

Today was a slow and chill day. I made myself work on my wellness wheel which soon turned into a wellness board. As I was writing, it soon became easier and easier to make notes about what I want for myself, something that seems so complicated to me for some reason. This may be coming together really slowly, but I'm happy with it so far and I might even hang it up later. There's a large amount of stickers, washi tape, and Steve Nicks lyrics which just makes it even better . I made a ridiculous goal yesterday of finishing this in one day. I know now that it was an unreasonable goal for myself and my inner critic is being mean and saying that I should've been able to finish it. It's hard not to listen to that mean voice, but I'm trying to not let it bother me. I'm learning to forgive myself.

One thing that I did for myself today was to print out an emotion wheel. Emotions are a huge question mark to me, recognizing them, acknowledging them, voicing them, etc. It's so easy to just push them away and become an apathetic void, but I know this was just a bad skill I had in the past to protect myself from showing emotions to my abusers and to myself. Now though, I can look at my emotion wheel when I'm not sure what I'm feeling and pick out the words that fit best with me. So far it's been helpful! I hope it curbs my automatic response to feel nothing when I can't understand my emotions.

[Blueberry]

Wow, sunflower! You're making tons of progress!

[Tee]

  that's awesome! Sounds like a busy day!

[Three Roses]

 

[sunflower38]

August 5th ""

Had a long weekend of doing nothing and cleaning up a bit at home. Planned to do some stuff today and was actually excited to go places, but woke up feeling like I was coming down with a cold. I physically feel terrible and that doesn't help my mental health at all. The moment I actually wanted to do stuff something happens and I can't  so frustrating