more recovery notes

Started by jamesG.1, November 15, 2020, 07:25:25 AM

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jamesG.1

new stage.. probably the final ones now.

some significant changes of late, some very hard to articulate but I'll try.

main thing is the sudden drop in background anxiety. It's been about 2 weeks now, but sound sensitivity and hypervigilance as a whole just seemed to melt away.

Why is the question.

Well the most noticable events that explain it start with an increased security with work, now booked for three years with a raft of staff benefits. Big for me, because the trauma and it's aftermath, and even the years leading up to c-ptsd were a mess career wise. Money was flakey, security non-existant and I was in an industry that just went on shrinking year after year. During c-ptsd it was twice as bad and I lost a lot of money, but as soon as I ditched freelancing, my world really changed.

I think its a big part of C-ptsd that you pitch all your issues into one big basket, and being ill with this thing just obliterates your ability to steer your own ship. It doesnt help that c-ptsd is usually caused by toxic controlling relationships where more often than not, our security is in the hands of others. Often, they are as incompetant as they are cruel. Getting back control of the basics, especially money, is vital. Feeling safe and under full control is a huge weight off the shoulders.

I think I've also let a lot of things go recently. Big in this were the silences and judgement of the people around my trauma, rather than the people who caused it. Maybe its no suprise that people didnt see what was happening, narcicists and alcoholics are careful not to broadcast their manipulation to the world at large, but all the same, you need that intervention to ground you and to confirm what you are experiencing is extreme and not normal.

But the reality is, people don't intervene. There are loads of reasons why, I think, but the why doesn't matter. You need it, it doesn't happen, and then that reinforces the impact of the trauma, because it feels like judgement in favour of the abuse. But it isn't, its just people keeping out of the cross fire, making light of stuff or just being lightweight. Who knows why? But what matters is that you cope with the problem without waiting for that kind of intervention. It takes a lot of strength to stand in this kind of storm and not blow over, but you have to do it. Going under is not an option. But once you have that strength, you have it for good.

I've changed so much recently. I think I've lost an innocence in a way, but I think it needed losing. I guess I wanted a life full of a kind of love that rarely exists in real life, and a sort of relationship justice that everyone would pull towards. That people behaved so badly was a shock to me, and I thinki I've been waiting for the last 5 years for it to be rectified in some way, most desirably by everyone I know carrying me aloft and shouting... "you were right, you were good, they were wrong, they were bad." Yes, ridiculous, but something like that. I'd been treated so badly, and had so much avoidable tragedy dumped on me that I must have felt it would be addressed. It was absurd, so surly everyone would notice?

Well, no.

So, I think that I have been letting this go, and together with my new work and financial security, I'm becoming someone new. And it's working. You don't return to life before the trauma. There is no normal to return to, I really see that now. You build a new normal, brick by brick. Accepting its a new life is really important. The trauma can't be removed, it's a part of your new reality. Somehow it has to be just one more brick in the wall you cobstruct around the new person you become.

And another thing, you have to walk away from anyone or anything that hurts you or keeps the trauma alive. ANYTHING and ANYONE. Your life, a life with as much right to happiness as anyone else's, has to be protected. Toxic people have to go. Jobs have to be left. Unconditional love is a lie, all love has to be earned. Blood relation is not a free ticket for a narcicist to run riot in your peace of mind. You can be happy, but only if you stop these people from sucking out your wellbeing each and every day.

I'm not saying it's easy, separating from these people is hard, painfull. It draws a lot of criticism and abuse, but once the separation happens, life changes.

It's been a long, long road for me. At times it nearly ended, but I hung on.

Keep at it everyone, it will pay off.

woodsgnome

#1
James G wrote: "...You don't return to life before the trauma. There is no normal to return to, I really see that now. You build a new normal, brick by brick. Accepting its a new life is really important. The trauma can't be removed, it's a part of your new reality. Somehow it has to be just one more brick in the wall you construct around the new person you become."

:yeahthat:

Perhaps it's like the ancient practice of alchemy, where the goal was to find an ultimate object (the Philosophers Stone), to be derived by melting down and combining all sorts of elements, like a grand chemistry experiment. Cloaked in archaic language (to avoid persecution by the 'authorities'), it usually didn't result in finding its intended object, but often something appeared that proved useful, even surprising.

I suppose it could be said that when all expectations were at least altered, if not shed entirely, the new result might seem strange at first, but then it slowly begins to prove to have been worth the effort. Good for you on finding a new trail, JamesG. I wish you well with your new 'normal' and can indeed fashion new bricks to insert as you build the new life.

:hug:

Not Alone

Thank you for sharing your encouraging progress and wise words. The following resonated with me. It took me some time to get to the place where I knew/believed that there's no going to a place like there was no trauma. I do understand that now and it is freeing.

Quote from: jamesG.1 on November 15, 2020, 07:25:25 AM
You don't return to life before the trauma. There is no normal to return to, I really see that now. You build a new normal, brick by brick. Accepting its a new life is really important. The trauma can't be removed, it's a part of your new reality. Somehow it has to be just one more brick in the wall you cobstruct around the new person you become.

jamesG.1

I think for me the issue has long been that I wanted the same moral support I gave others. But that just won't happen. Life is too short to sit here waiting for validation. I've wanted it very badly, because the treatment I recieved was just shameful and breathtakingly selfish, so I just wanted and needed someone to endorse that, because the lack of endorsement reinforced the trauma. Silence felt like the world was endorsing my treatment at the hands of my four protagonists.

Letting go of that search for validation and to accept that the people you most hoped would appear on the scene with support are never going to arrive, is huge.

You have to make all of your focus about the now, the future and your own personal security. It's not selfish to do that, it's a necessity. But yes, you have to let people go. You don't say that you are doing it, there are no declarations, you just stop longing for what will not happen and you get on with your life.

If the trauma and aftermath are lonely places to be, then who can ever say that your recovery is selfish? It's just you and your world now. You can build it however you want.