Bermuda's Memories - Overflow Journal 1

[Armee]

I get it. And it's a hard thing to write honestly.

Even the thing that brings me true happiness, my kids being ok, that too comes with immense grief and sadness and fear.

Some people have had such hard lives that you simply cannot imagine a happy or safe place and the world is legitimately filled with triggers.

[Bermuda]

I feel like I have been especially bad at interacting with other posts even though it brings be so much comfort when people interact with mine. I don't know why I struggle so much with that. I have been reading the posts. I always worry I would accidentally say something offensive, where as here in my little spot my opinions can be wrong and that's OK because it's mine. I also just feel like everyone else is so much better at being comforting, and I don't know how. I want to be more... intimate and personable? I find it difficult to comment. I don't want to be cold and distant.

I have finished my assignment that I was dreading and I feel oddly compelled to post it here. I hand it in tomorrow. I am kind of nervous, but I have had time to come to terms with the things I wrote and I feel ready to take ownership over my words... If that makes sense. So here it is, I am just going to Google translate it to English because I can't be bothered.

The assignment:

Any day can be a good day. It's just a matter of perspective, but I don't mean my perspective. Contrary to popular belief, you cannot choose to be happy, and no amount of smiling will turn a bad experience into a good one. What you give is not what you get. That's definitely not what I mean by any day being a good day.

The day started badly because I slept poorly. After an episode of sleep paralysis, I woke up far too early. I heard a bang outside. I carefully looked out the window, where I saw a child sitting on the street and crying. Someone had thrown his ball on the roof, so I went outside, climbed to the top of the fence and pulled myself onto the roof, then I kicked the ball down to him. I went back inside where my friend Diana was still sleeping. I looked in the cupboards. They were empty except for half a bag of pinto beans, some flour and a potato, but we had no money to buy food. I started cooking the beans and half the green potato. I kneaded flour together with the boiled potato and then I added baking powder, salt, water and vinegar and formed the dough into two small circles. When I put the potato bread in the oven, I burned my hand so badly that it instantly turned black. It didn't hurt at all, but it smelled grilled. I knew it was bad. I added oil and spices to the pinto beans before going outside to cut some aloe vera for the burn. Outside I saw a snake drying out on the gravel. I scooped up the snake with the lid of a bin and moved him to a shaded place where he could hide.

When Diana woke up, we ate beans and potato bread together. When she saw my hand she insisted that I rinse off the aloe vera and put toothpaste on it instead, which I did. Diana spent the rest of the morning painting while I battled my executive dysfunction. I ghost wrote an article for a friend who had too much work to do. It was 42 degrees outside and we had no internet, so I had to go to a cafe and sit outside on the curb to send an email. An employee who was on break came out of the cafe and told me to leave, but luckily I had just sent the text.

Someone tried to get into the car with us while we were stopped at a red light, but we reached around and locked all the doors. Diana had her hand on the hammer and I had the screwdriver that we always had with us, but we didn't need to use them. When we got to work, my boss asked me if I could babysit his baby for the coming week because he wanted to attend a funeral. I said I would help.

Diana had a rough night, although mine was going well until someone made an inappropriate comment. Diana left work early to drive me home because I had a panic attack. I panicked the whole way, and when we got home we noticed we didn't have the key. We had locked ourselves out at night. Diana, without hesitation, wrapped her arm in her dress and punched a hole in the window. She reached through the broken glass and unlocked the door, then went straight to the bathroom and gave me a cold bath and then sat down next to me. I plucked the glass from her arm with tweezers as we laughed and cried. I used the money I had earned to order Diana pozole verde with extra cilantro just the way she liked it, but I couldn't eat.

You would think it was a very bad day. It's easy to feel like every day is bad when we place more value on things outside of our control than things we do control. Although my experience was not positive, an understatement of fact, I made positive choices. For me, for the child, for the snake, for my friend, for my boss and for Diana, it was a better day than it could have been. It's a good day.

[Moondance]

Thank you for sharing your assignment with us, Bermuda.  Very well written, I see the beauty in it.  It reminds me I need to see the choices I have made throughout the day and make that the reason the day was good. 

Every time I respond to someone on here I struggle with my response. I have deleted a few of them.  Thank you for having the strength to say it out loud when I couldn't. I think that happens to me alot.  It's like the thoughts are stuck inside me and I don't even know it.

to you if that's okay, if not please ignore.

[Armee]

Bermuda, it was really nice seeing a response from you in my journal today. It helped me reflect further on what I was feeling and what happened. At the same time, please don't feel like you have to. Your own recovery is most important.  You have a ton to offer the world and I hope you can heal enough to take and give what you were meant to and have the right to.

You're so right in your story and it was so poignant, even when put through Google translate. It must be beautiful in your own words. But yes you are right. Often what we had was the ability to treat others kindly and make the choices we had available in a way that stayed true to who we are despite the circumstances. That's a powerful way to be and I think the rope we've held on to to start to get a foothold out of our pasts. That's what has allowed happiness to take hold in my life. Thank you for sharing this and I know it was hard to put some of that out there. I'm glad you did and I hope the internal repercussions for doing so are bearable. Hugs if they don't feel intrusive or uncomfortable.

[Papa Coco]

Bermuda,

I enjoyed reading your assignment. It is rich with feeling. I believe that the difference between an artist and a craftsman is the artist can embed emotion and thought into the work. As I read your words, I felt real emotion and thought. You truly are an artist with your words. I'm truly impressed.

I agree with Armee, that there is no crime in reading our posts more often than responding. Sometimes I allow myself to feel like I "should" respond even when I can't find the words to respond with. Those forced responses are some of my worst, and most disconnected responses.

Best to respond only when you feel the urge. And if that urge comes rarely, then so be it.  Authenticity comes from only saying things that you truly feel you want to say, and when you want to say them.

Again: Beautiful writing on that story. Thank you very much for sharing it.

[Bermuda]

Your replies have meant so much to me. I don't usually feel so in need of praise, or I don't know... I tend to the be opposite of someone who likes compliments... But this time I really feel better. It means a lot to me.

It's so strange, I don't write about this period of my life often. It's kind of the half-way point in my escape. I had some rudimentary sense of normalsy but the C-PTSD was extremely pervasive and retaumatisation was constant. When I reread over what I wrote I just have this feeling like every day I was walking through thick wet cement just trying to make it out in time. We both did, no one else I knew did. It's a very heavy feeling.

[Armee]

It seems like a sizeable step in healing that you feel good about having shared!  It might mean that your nervous system is calming down a little bit and seeing that in the present it is safe to be seen by select people you've determined can probably be trusted.

I'm so sad others did not make it out of the situations that chase people who get the hardest starts to life. I'm sorry. I know they did not deserve those things that happened and that took them from you.

I'm glad you and your friend made it through that cement though. It took so much strength and will and there were so many obstacles just to survive each day. So many obstacles each day. Also, your friend has very good taste in food. Posole Verde I would order every time and any time. Perhaps you'd be able to treat yourself to your favorite food after you turn this in.

It was really well written and I can't imagine exactly how hard it was to write but I do know it was hard and worth feeling very proud of.

[Bermuda]

I have been a bit quiet since the group call. I realise it. I realise a lot. I have been very conscious of myself lately, not necessarily in a negative sense. I have finished and passed my exams which has rested my critique a bit. I am critical, but right now it’s more hyper aware. I think a lot about how I’m perceived.

I think about how I was sitting during the exam, how I was sitting during the call. I think about how my body language reminds me of someone I once knew. I don’t think my body language represents me well. I am not sheepish. I’m not shy. I look like a target, but I am not. I can see how some people pray on people who carry themselves how I carry myself. But that’s not me. I can be fierce. I am snarky and aggressive in a fun way. Maybe I can’t remember the last time I was those things, but I feel them inside me.

I know loneliness is on topic on our next call and it hits me so hard. I struggle so much with my identity and expressing that and embodying who I am supposed to be. I am constantly trying to be the right amount of existing, and that’s hard enough without needing to gauge every minute detail of someone’s reaction to me.

I invited someone from uni to a language event with me, and they said yes, but I haven’t written back. I don’t know what the appropriate amount of words for a reply is. I’m also terrified of someone getting to know me. I am terrified that those in the group chat will get to know me. I am terrified my professor knows something about me. I am worried that this person will be in my next course with me, and I’d rather them not know my name.

I will have to talk. The whole point of the event is talking.

It is what I want. It is my hardest struggle. Existing in the eyes of others is being vulnerable enough to bring me to tears.

[rainydiary]

Bermuda, I resonate with the difference between one's external and internal experiences and wanting while also fearing building connection with others.  I hope you will continue to find adjustments that help you move in the direction you'd like.

[rainydiary]

Bermuda, I resonate with what you mention about some of the biggest challenges being things that were happening in daily life which are harder to point to and see.  They also seem to be things others could dismiss which makes it harder to be "believed."  I hope that you write until you feel complete with writing and that it is supportive to you in the long run.

[Moondance]

Thank you for sharing this Bermuda.

[Armee]

I think you're right. And the "big T" things in a lot of cases happened probably because of that environment you were formed in.

It's really really hard to write the story down. There's so much. Take your time and take care with yourself. Nothing is more important than that.

[Armee]

 

[Bermuda]

I have been wanting to share random thoughts so badly. Being locked out made me realise how much I depend on this forum for basic human interaction. It's sad. I am sad. I deleted lots of posts. I have been feeling vulnerable.

I realise that posting this is probably going to cause judgement. I usually try to avoid that, and honestly I feel a bit judged on this forum already and I know part of it is me and my hyperbolic nature which is completely CPTSD related. So, judge me. It's fine.


I talked in our private discussion about random social interactions in public and how much they get to me. Another one happened after that. I tried to stand my ground, my quicksand, whatever.

This elderly man stopped me in the courtyard of my children's school which is shared with some flats. A teacher looked on as he stopped me, exaggeratedly looked at me up and down. He appeared to have glaucoma in one eye, so I didn't find it too odd that he was very very close to me. He asked, "What's that?" I thought he was talking about my bike. "Where's that from?" I said, "Italy." Then he said, "No, not that." He poked my chest. I thought he was talking about my purse. I have a special holster style cycling bag. I pointed to the logo and said, "Spain." He got even closer. "Not that. Your shirt." "What is that?" I looked down and saw I was wearing a shirt from the Animal Liberation Conference. I said, "Oh, California." I could see the teacher in the background growing increasingly concerned about this old man. He gave me a very angry look and said, "Good luck with that." Instead of backing down, going away, not replying. I smiled and said, "Thanks."

Thanks.

That's my rebellion, and frankly I'm proud of myself. Finally an appropriate response to a public situation.

[Armee]

Thanks was a very strong response. That jerk was in your space and trying to scare and belittle you. I'm sorry that happened, at the same time I'm proud of you. I'm also sorry you feel judged here sometimes.