Starting my journal

[Hope67]

Hi Holidayay,
I'm glad that you're feeling a teeny bit better. 

I hope that your 4 days off will be enjoyable, and that you get some rest and recuperation, and anything else that you want/need.  Sending you a hug if that's ok 

Hope 

[holidayay]

Its 5am in the morning, and I'm cuddled up in bed with my cat.
Things were very busy the past few weeks. With massive amounts of anxiety, constantly.
I've moved twice. The flat I was living in with my friend was due to undergo renovation, so I moved to a temporary place whilst I found a more long term place. My friend is moving to nearer his university, and i decided to stay in the same area, but in a more desirable part.
I sorted out the last of the unpacking and furniture delivery yesterday.
It has been so stressful. Moving houses is SO much stress, I plan on staying put for a while now.

I've been thinking about the importance of slowing down. For healing, as well as for generally living life a bit healthier, and to feel calmer and more centred. I also deleted the last of my social media accounts. There is something uncomfortable about living in a virtual reality, whilst on a healing path to recovering from a bad distorted reality that CPTSD can make feel so convincing. It feels...twisted and confusing. I feel a big relief...like I am freed.

Next on my agenda is....rest. Lots of it.
Now I am in my own place that is a lovely little flat, I have started enjoying cooking again. I hadn't cooked in 2 months whilst I was at the temporary in-between place. Just eating whatever is fast and convenient and usually, not that healthy. My mood already feels like it is benefiting a bit.
The simple life is incredibly comforting. Yesterday evening, my friend came round and we cooked dinner and watched tv and just chatted. It was SO nice. I am so happy to do things like that, and evenings spent reading, or weekends visiting the countryside.
Back to basics.

[holidayay]

So many rushed dreams with lots of emotions in them. It is getting increasingly difficult to ride them out - the stress, panic and triggers all being felt because of the dreams, then I wake up with a hangover of all these feelings. I am SO tired. I wish I could have a restful, full sleep.

I have had a few things to sort out recently and i think the I'm overwhelmed and just needing a break. Sorting out moving houses, then the boiler had an issue, and then found out there is a squirrel nest in my attic so had to call pest control and the damn squirrels were so noisy they kept waking me up at all hours of the night. I feel like I just need a BIG BREAK FROM EVERYTHING. I want to just sit back and relax, with no list of to-dos: 'call this or that person to sort out this or that issue, make sure to stay in between so and so hours for the delivery men to come, send emails to sort out another issue etc etc' - I'd like to just kick back and BREATH.

I am increasingly tired. And my mind if whirring and constantly thinking.

It has just not been an easy couple of weeks and I feel worn down by it all.

[Papa Coco]

Holidayay

Being overwhelmed is awful. I feel your pain on that one.

I'm very sorry that it's hampering your ability to sleep. Nothing is easy when you're sleep deprived. I know because it's after midnight here in Seattle and look at me...another night of total insomnia here too. When I say I feel your pain, trust me...I'm up at midnight feeling your pain of sleeplessness again tonight. I have got so many problems to deal with right now. I can't stop thinking about them. It feels like torture. I know it will get better soon. I hope it gets better for you soon also.

Tonight, I decided to google ways to ease the exhaustion of feeling overwhelmed. Apparently, it's a condition felt by many, many people right now. Most every source of information on the topic that I find on the web says that relief from being overwhelmed is accomplished when I learn to give myself moments of mindfulness. Here's the article I found just before checking in on the forum. It's actually pretty good information, and it makes me want to try a mindfulness moment when I finish this post. https://www.yourpowercenter.com/blog/2017/10/06-3-simple-ways-to-start-being-the-observer . It's a very short article, but it brought me some peace just reading it.

Wish me luck. I'm not good at being quiet. Not good at being still. Meditations require a little help for me. I need some meditation music, or even a 10-minute guided meditation I can do with headphones. Otherwise, my mind can't stay quiet for more than just a few seconds.

Meanwhile, I guess all I can really say for certain is this: I hope you are able to solve one or two of your chaotic problems so you can get some sleep. Good luck to you!  I'm in the same boat and I'm hoping for both of us to get some sleep...sooooon.

[holidayay]

Well, pest control man came few days ago and set the traps for the squirrels. I haven't heard them make any noise since before he came so I hope this means they've migrated somewhere else for good.

I've noticed stress build up triggers CPTSD symptoms. When stress hits the overwhelm stage, then its like I'm fully back there again. The heavy emotional dreams with all the feelings of shame, fear, abandonment, rejection, confusing chaotic situations I was often put in as a child.
I'm currently going through that now.
I feel so much shame about my life.
That I didn't know better, sooner. About dysregulation, how to cope better, how to choose better, healthier friends and boyfriends are me...how all this always lead to the bigger problems and reinforced the same issues.
Low self worth, shame, dysregulation - that's the emotional diet I lived off and that dictated how I experienced life. With some periods in between of solace and relief.
But how could I know better? It was impossible. It had been everything I had been taught, repeatedly, from the time I was born.
The feelings of regret that I could have altered the trajectory of my life had I known better, sooner, stings so bad. I feel awful thinking about it. I feel ashamed and regretful.
And the chaotic dreams currently reflect that. The past few nights sleep have been absolutely crammed with scenarios and emotions that reflect this. Like my brain finally understands and is blaring out 'MAKE BETTER CHOICES FOR YOURSELF'. I wish I had learnt about it way sooner. WAY sooner.

[Hope67]

Hi Holidayay,
Sounds like you've been processing a lot in your sleep - all those dreams.  I hope you're ok and getting sufficient rest to enable you to do the things you want to do in the daytime.
Sending you a hug, if that's ok 
Hope 

[holidayay]

I feel so depressed today.
Truthfully, its a day where I don't see the point to life. Everything feels empty and grey and pointless.
I don't even want to feel better. Who cares? It feels like its too late, too much damage done.
I wish I wasn't me.

[Armee]

 

I hear you, here. I'm glad you are you because you actually seem pretty awesome. But I understand feeling that way and it sucks.

[Blueberry]

I understand those feelings too holidayay, all of them. When I'm stuck in those feelings it's always really really difficult for me to remember, envisage, believe that those feelings will disappear again. But they do, they really do! They don't last for ever.

If it feels safe for you, I'm sending a caring    If not, then I'm just sending care.

[holidayay]

I hear you, here. I'm glad you are you because you actually seem pretty awesome. But I understand feeling that way and it sucks.

Awww  the last thing I have been feeling is that anyone would think I am pretty awesome, thank you. I kept thinking the whole day I am unworthy and don't have anything to offer and no wonder I am still single, why would anyone want to be with me? I made lots of poor choices.
Seeing your comment made me smile 

[Armee]

I feel a lot of similarity between us for some reason. It's hard to see our own strengths and value. But it doesn't mean it's not there. I regularly think I'm a terrible *ty person but I know the actual truth is the opposite. It's just hard to feel that as real when we are EFing. 

[holidayay]

I woke up from very vivid dreams, yet again. Disturbing dreams involving my family.
I've been ignoring feelings I have which make me angry that I feel them. Last week, I had distinct feelings of missing some of my family, of missing parts of the past. It feels weird and confusing to me but sometimes I miss the version of 'love' and 'home' that i understood it to be back then; not because i like the abuse or want it to continue, but because....as a child, I made a home within what society and the world told me should be my home and family. I found warmth in the little nooks, i felt love for family members as i understood it to be back then and for it all to just be turned upside down and inside out and to not see the same people, or live life the same way....and to just keep realising more and more everyday how NOTHING of what i was taught was 'love' or 'family' is so much to take and a tough pill to swallow. Its so hard to keep re-learning every tiny part of life that was taught so terribly wrong the first time round.
I don't mourn the abuse.
But I mourn the automatic feeling of \normal' when i didn't question everything quite as much. I miss knowing the parameters within which i could try to build my own sense of inner home and i miss some of the little good things,,,like my sisters and eating dinners together, watching movies, going to visit my sister in her home she had bought with her boyfriend and going for walks around the fields....

I didn[t want to face these feelings coming up last week but i really bloody missed those little few moments from my past. The moments of little nooks of home i'd find in library corners, or in my bedroom with a book, or visiting my sister, or always being able to call on my other sister for a chat and a vent/giggle.
I miss the false illusion of home i had to believe in - it was false but it was still an illusion.
I miss familiarity. I miss continuinty.
I'm sick of change, new faces, new homes, new roots to be setting down, new happiness to try to be found.
Its absolutely exhausting.

[Armee]

I'm sorry. 

[paul72]

hi holidayay
I'm so sorry that you're feeling this way. It resonates with me as well
Sending a supportive, caring hug if you'd like 

[holidayay]

A girl at work who has been so kind and lovely to me, told me some things that I am not sure what to make of.
I confided in her that I felt some ladies at work seemed to have developed an approach of wanting to undermine me, but I don't know why. For example, a patient's relative bought me flowers to say thank you and my senior consultant just gave this forced smile and walked away, not saying anything, when I told her. On other occasions, she simply ignores me when I talk or message her or takes my suggestions and then puts them forward as her own(!) after refusing to acknowledge the same input I say to her!

The girl who is kind to me responded by saying she hadn't wanted to say anything sooner because she didn't want me to think she was stirring the pot but that basically lots of staff members really like working with me and think I am a kind doctor and that I am 'beautiful' and a 'head-turner' and that the women I felt were undermining me don't like this, and feel competitive and annoyed by this!
Now, as many of you with CPTSD can testify to - self-image is VERY poor when you come from the background I come from, so I was absolutely shocked. I don't relate those positive things about myself at all - both on the physical front and internally. Most days I have horrible thoughts that I look awful, ugly, my features are unattractive, and that I am not as good as other doctors, that I am undeserving, and don't have a good character nor am I deserving of respect so to hear all of this, just stuns me.
She told me in depth that she was so happy when she found out I was to be stationed at her site with her, that she and others can 'just feel' my goodness and that i really care about others, and that other people comment that I am lovely, kind and compassionate. She said she feels I am 'real' and that when she witnessed things the mean girls were doing/saying behind my back to sabotage me, that she became exasperated and when she spoke up, she was told by one of them to 'just leave it!' and stop talking about it. She said the culture amongst those women is that they are all shady and try to make others look bad so they can get ahead and that it gets very toxic.
I liked her from the beginning before I knew any of this, she was always so dedicated to her patients and always willing to help and it makes me so sad for her that she has had to go through this. We chatted for a good two hours and she kept telling me that I make a wonderful doctor and colleague, and that people feel drawn to talk to me because I give off an impression of caring, empathy and understanding and that i am 'the full package' with the character, intelligence and looks.
Then another colleague texted me on a separate occasion to ask if the well-known mean consultant is jealous of my fan following and when I asked her what she meant she said 'it took you so quick to fit in and be liked, people like you and listen to you, its remarkable to see, please carry on being who you are'.

I never heard anything remotely positive growing up so it feels so alien and so kind of them to say. I was starting to feel really triggered, anxious and panicked when the mean ladies were doing their behaviour that I started spiralling into crucifying my character with thoughts of how useless, shameful and stupid I am, that I am an embarrassment that to hear these kind words just made all of it melt away.
Luckily though, its come to the end of my placement in this speciality and now I am moving onto another speciality but not before first having an extended break, which I am very excited about.
I hope this is positive feeling stays for a bit longer, at least...