Taking those concrete beneficial steps

[Blueberry]

Thank you everybody I do feel a little stressed but what's not done in advance in preparation, is not done. I think once things get going, I will enjoy my day.

[Blueberry]

I wish I could un-invite a couple of people coming to my party tomorrow afternoon. I feel so stressed about some people's behaviour before they even come! One friend (about whom my T once said "you have friends who treat you like this??" NTS!!!) seems to be trying to organise my party for me in advance. She can be quite bossy, it's one of her bad sides. She's either trying to be helpful or well, trying to organise me.  ...if she starts trying to organise things on Sat. afternoon, or just stating loudly what she wants, I may well state a boundary. ... Then after my birthday, I'll demote her to the status of acquaintance and won't invite her next year or any other time I celebrate. Too much stress.

She lived up to all my expectations unfortunately. It took me a while to set an adequate boundary on her demands for that one particular game. She really tried to be the centre of attention, to make her presents the centre of attention, even her arrival: "Am I the first?" she queried loudly, having arrived too early. She wasn't actually the first because I had allowed my 2 guests who weren't local to come early or leave later, and one of them was there already. Sounds like a bit of a narc or at least 

I'm not swallowing that kind of stuff anymore. It's not the first time. So I phoned her this evening and said a number of things. She emailed wanting to know examples of her dominant and domineering behaviour, so I gave her a few.

Then another friend and her husband  ...This friend has her heart in the right place, but often her need to chatter overrules all that. She can talk the hind legs off a donkey and it stresses me. I haven't really decided what to do about her in general. ... OK, I get it, as an image of B1 flits through my head: her behaviour sometimes reminds me of his behaviour. It's like a need for attention. Man, this stuff is so hard.   

As I wrote way above, she is a dear friend with her heart in the right place. Yes, there's a lot of chatter but our conversations when we're alone can go deep and she has long been a really good support in many ways. Even though I have thanked her for that, I'm not even sure she realises how much a support she has been. Apparently it's the same for me the other way because she has said she doesn't feel our friendship is unbalanced in giving and taking, whereas I felt like a needy burden for a long time. She's the kind who can make a fly-away comment at a party and get people laughing and chatting, but at the same time not in an overly domineering or dominant way. Sometimes I may need to set a little boundary as I did the other day during phone call and sometimes maybe need to withdraw a little and figure out if I'm triggered by something very small that's not the main part of our friendship at all.

OK, now that I understand what some of the deeper issues are, I could go off and do some EFT.

I didn't do that EFT. Quite a while ago, my T said that by a certain stage, trauma therapy isn't really different from 'normal' therapy because healing involves the same steps of setting limits and boundaries, finding out who you are, where you're going, what you're putting up with or not. I finally understand what he means. Running a sentence of EFT through about my reaction to these friends wouldn't have been an appropriate response to feeling stressed by them / their behaviour. The vent on here was certainly good so I could get to the core of the issue. And then the next step involved acting in the moment or saying something after the fact. I did reel my friend's husband in a bit at my party as he went off on some tangent of conversation, aided and abetted by Now-Just-Acquaintance, I might add. It was a topic I had actually intended to bring up and the fact that I was going to do so would have been obvious to N-J-A, but she just had to get it in first of course. But my friend's h allowed himself to be reeled in and for me to talk about the subject briefly, in a way understandable to my guests who didn't know anything about it. His accepting being reeled in meant he allowed me to take on role of hostess again, he didn't have some 'inner need' to be centre of attention whereas somebody who doesn't accept that and just argues instead....   Bye-Bye.

[Blueberry]

i've found that, at times, too, that doing something physical can help me thru some rocky times.  laundry and dishes often do the trick for me.

Me too, san, and the exact same physical activities: dishes and laundry. I think from what I read in the past few days you're going thru a difficult spell, so I just wanted to send you some support and 

[sanmagic7]

i like what your t said about healing isn't always just about therapy - that part of it comes from living life day to day, acting appropriately, setting those boundaries, speaking up for oneself.  i think i knew that at some level, but seeing it written brought it to my consciousness and sounded great.  sounded true.  recovery, just like trauma, takes place on a multitude of levels, doesn't it. 

i'm glad your party ended up going well, that you were able to have that conversation and get some of the wrinkles and realizations ironed out and brought to light.  onward to another year of continuing healing.  sending love and a hug filled w/ enlightenment

[Blueberry]

I'm having some trouble getting back into a normal routine, after my birthday. In fact i spent most of the day in bed. I just got up when I absolutely had to.

Strange dreams atm, sometimes being with FOO and trying to get away. Yesterday at T, I started drifting off and splitting up a bit. Fortunately my T noticed and reminded me of ways to come back, so that I then did. We're working again on feeling. I'm never too keen on feeling. I'm meant to do a bit of feeling for homework, which could explain why I've been going back to bed. I'm feeling in order to try and heal more fully from the medical traumas, even if they are more relational traumas. I'm still often very unkeen to go to certain types of medical people, and don't go regularly though I know I should.

There's also tons of stuff I ought to be doing, stuff I put on hold in order to organise my birthday party. Now that's over it's time I went back to all those tasks.

Yesterday one very good piece of news: I've waited out the 2 years' interim at my T's. He can offer me appointments more regularly again now. I hadn't even known that was on the cards. He'll have to officially apply to the medical insurance but they can't turn it down. I think I get 12 appointments, but they can be every 2 weeks instead of just once a month, if that. More regular appointments are good when my T is trying to get me to feel. 

[Hope67]

Hi Blueberry,
Just sending you a hug  and I hope that your weekend will be restful.  You had such a lot on with your Birthday - I imagine you must be tired from all of that.  I hope your strange dreams will settle, so you can get some respite from them.    Great that you will be having regular appointments again with your T - that is great news.   
Hope 

[Blueberry]

Thanks Hope I've actually been ill since Friday evening so my weekend has been very restful so far. I have been lying in bed!

[Hope67]

Hi Blueberry,
I'm glad you're keeping warm in bed, and I hope you feel better soon.  Sending you a nice warming cup of something you'd like, and hoping you are ok.
Hope 

[Blueberry]

Thank you Hope!

Well, I finally started making myself herbal tea to drink again in the night. Today I've been thinking I should go up to the farm tonight, but really whenever i get up and wander around I notice I'm shaky on my feet. I also think I should be thanking friends who came to my birthday but I'm hardly doing any of that.

The most important thing would be getting on with new glasses, which I could do tomorrow, especially if I don't go to the farm.

I spoke to a friend today with cptsd who said with the amount of things going on the past week, no wonder I've been just lying in bed. I was setting limits... and then an email came from this no-longer-friend https://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=10215.0 On the surface I felt detached as I responded but I guess I wasn't totally. I've been back to pondering myself as a friend and concluded on the one hand I'm not a very good one but on the other hand learning to be better e.g. noting my habit of making friends with rather dominant and domineering women and older ones at that - noting that I do that is one step along the way to stop doing so.

I've been succumbing to self-neglect so I presume it's a small EF. I didn't want to write that yesterday because I felt after my birthday and all the good things around it, including the progress I had made, I shouldn't then be moaning on here. The moral of the story: progress comes in small steps. Even when there seem to be large steps like at and around my birthday, that doesn't mean "happily ever after". There is still healing to be done.

[sanmagic7]

i'm pretty wiped out right now, but sending love and a 

[Not Alone]

You have made big steps lately and I love the small steps you are taking by making herbal tea and listening to your body and resting. 

[Blueberry]

Thank you notalone! It just occurred to me while reading your post and your name what huge steps you've made since you came on here, so I just wanted to write that here too.

[Not Alone]

Thank you, Blueberry. That brings a smile to my face and warms and encourages my heart. 

[Blueberry]

  I saw you're making more progress again, notalone.

__________________
I suppose I'm in a bit of an EF again. Time feels weird, as if I'm been in this state for a long time though it's actually only off and on. Yesterday I read a lot of old, old posts of mine here, especially on the Diff. Day board. I do see improvement, lots in fact, but I also see how I go circling back in the same tracks. Depression, depression, depression. otoh no wonder since I attempted to communicate with FOO yesterday. Contact and their game-playing (or whatever they are doing) is just not good for me.

I was at my GP's today. Contrary to what his receptionists claimed, the lab managed to get a good lot of useful information out of the blood test. It's almost all fine. The only bad test results are for Vit. D, so bad my GP prescribed a supplement. I know you could say: 'go outside more often'. But commands are seldom useful for me, nor is appealing to (my own) reason and in the past often my body just wouldn't absorb certain nutrients, like iron. I haven't changed my diet for the better since back then, but iron has been fine for a few years, also Vit. B and C. Whereas before even the stores of iron in my body were constantly really badly depleted. I still always get worried before I get blood test results. I always fear my GP will say I'm going to get diabetes or or or if I carry on eating the way I am. Now I notice that's a projection. That's the sort of idea my parents came up with. They are not medical experts and they also believe in people getting what they deserve - like with my unhealthy eating habits I would 'deserve' diabetes or a heart attack or something. But actually diabetes could be a consequence though it doesn't seem to be in my case but it's not something anybody deserves.

I've had other things in my head today, yesterday too, like I shouldn't still be writing on here so much, I should be getting on with more in life, I should be taking more of those concrete beneficial steps... but I remembered Should is never good for me. And I remember encouragement from other mbrs on here towards me and how it helps me keep going whereas criticism of me or just agreeing with all those critical remarks I make about myself that wouldn't help. So back to self-acceptance.

Also I have a newish inner part to observe and allow to be, since my last T appointment. It's a part that felt like it wanted to go crazy. During my T appt it took on form and sat on the floor where it still is. I'm not feeling further into it. I know there are other mbrs here doing work on their own with inner parts but I've had so much bad experience with that in the past that I just block at the thought. I have trouble accepting that I'm not as talented as other mbrs with this. I remember a painful sort of realisation as a child that I couldn't help being not as intelligent intellectually as everybody else in my FOO. I'm not even sure if I really am less intelligent than they are, but at the time that's the way they acted. So that's sort of what this feels like again, or what I'm flashing back to I suppose.

So now I'll go back to reminding myself that it's OK to need help. The important thing is to realise where my limits are in dealing with myself, not go over them 'because everybody else can' and that destabilising myself by getting too close to something traumatic (whether memory or realisation from past or present) doesn't help anybody. Also, it's not a race. And often what I'm doing in my day-to-day life when not working directly on trauma is restabilising, gearing up for the next step, reconnecting with activities that help me with resilience. I remember that I had to actively work at learning to do things that help me keep going. Not a cognitive type of learning, but more a removing of emotional hurdles and blockages, so that means removing hurdles that were put in the way due to childhood trauma. Yeah, it was really bad what I went through as a child. One of the reasons that healing is taking so long is undoubtedly connected to continued contact with FOO, even though it's way, way down compared to even 5 years ago. 'They' say you can't even start to heal properly till you end contact with the original cause of the trauma. No wonder it's taking so long.

[sanmagic7]

your last paragraph is so full of great, healthy, self-caring suggestions - just wonderful!  good for you, blueberry.  well done!

i take supplements for vitamins, incl. vit d, even tho i'm outdoors nearly daily.  the way my system is stressed, i don't know what is working well and what isn't - better safe than sorry, i think.  i haven't had a doc yet, over the centuries and gadzillions of docs i've seen who have ever tested me for deficiencies like that.  right now, i don't have the money to get that done, but i love that your doc was proactive enough to order those tests for you.   

love and hugs, my dear.