Jazzy's Journal: Omega

Started by Jazzy, June 02, 2021, 11:00:45 PM

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CactusFlower

What a sweet sign! Glad you found something better on a different route. I can see how the situation on the block would be upsetting. Here's to new routes and nicer people.

Jazzy

Armadillo:

You're welcome! Thank you for your positive reaction!

Yeah, it took a lot to put my name up there, and honestly it took me a while to process the fact you read it, which is why I couldn't reply earlier. It's good though. It's really helped make real who I am and what I've been through. I just couldn't really accept it before. I'm glad you found inspiration in the positivity I wrote, that's wonderful! :)

It was all so horrible! Thank you for acknowledging and affirming that, it also helps a lot.

I am 110% determined to be positive right now though, so I must say there is silver lining in it. I can teach myself nearly anything. There's no way I could have afforded a basic education in computer science, never mind my specialty. Because I was able to learn on my own, I just kept learning and taking more and more courses, then found jobs which would pay for "on the job training". I've ended up with a ton of certifications and qualifications I wouldn't have been able to obtain otherwise.

Being abandoned and alone so much is harder to find a silver lining in, but I think it's made it possible for me to survive and heal on my own, without a licensed therapist.

Thank you though, your words mean so much to me!  :hug:

Jazzy

Rainydiary:

I'm sorry you can relate to those nasty things as being triggering. It's so brutal! We should be able to see things in life like this without such an overwhelming reaction.

The detour was great though! It was exactly what I needed. I love how things like that work out, our sub-conscious minds are truly amazing!

Thank you for your empathy. I hope you're doing well today! :)

Jazzy

CactusFlower:

Thank you! I'm glad too! :D

Quote from: CactusFlowerHere's to new routes and nicer people.
:yahoo: I absolutely love this! Cheers!  :thumbup:

--

Which colour do you like for your name? It can be any colour, but I'm not sure what a good one would be for you. There are no cacti where I live, but I looked it up and there are lots of colours of cactus flowers.

Also, do you prefer to be called CactusFlower or Sage?

Jazzy

Wow, it's been quite a day today!

I pushed too hard to "not feel hurt" by all the things going on recently. I still want to be better than I am, even though I'm doing great compared to how I have been in the past. I just kept hitting triggers today, then I would bring my mood back up, then run in to another trigger.

I was really feeling it while I was making dinner. I was tired and my legs hurt and I just felt so bleh. I had the motivational music going, and I was trying so hard, but it wasn't enough. I was barely keeping my head above water. I thought about going outside because exercise has been helping lately, but a lot of triggers were outside today.

Half way through dinner I realized that I wanted to practice using my left hand, so I worked on that. I took my time and tried to encourage myself even though I didn't really feel it. It went pretty well I think. It could still be better, but today is my first day!

After dinner I did the dishes, trying to be careful about how much water I was using, but trying to still use enough to get them rinsed off well. Drying them is much less stressful though, so I started to get lost in thought and just dry them on auto-pilot. After a minute or two I noticed something felt strange, so I looked down and saw that while I was on auto-pilot, I had started using my left hand to dry the dishes.

It hit me that this was my mind getting back to acting how it is naturally after a lifetime of being forced to conform. I just started crying big tears of healing. It was so powerful that I could barely hold my head above water, and yet my mind is just living its best life.

Then I felt so good, everything faded away. I really started to feel the music and ended up dancing around my house for an hour straight! 4 months ago, I was doing less than 600 steps per day. I danced for 900 steps in an hour after dinner! Wow!  :aaauuugh:


So much for feeling tired and sore! At one point I wondered if I was still sore but just not paying attention, so I tried to pay close attention, but my muscles were feeling fine. They still do! I'm continuously amazed at how powerful the mind is. "The psychosomatic effect" is generally accepted as truth now-a-days, but this is incredible. I wouldn't call that much power an "effect", I'd call it a cause.

Maybe the mind still is not fully appreciated, but the school of hard knocks has taught me better. I'm excited to try to work in to incorporating this in to an artificial intelligence. I actually had a massive breakthrough a few days ago on that topic. I don't think I can really get it out there at this point in my life, but it has potential to "revolutionize the industry", as they say.

I have a feeling I'm going to fall asleep sometime soon-ish and sleep solidly for quite a while. It's been an exhausting day, both physically and mentally. That's fine though, it's so great to be able to sleep peacefully!

Jazzy

P.S. I feel anxious telling people that I've been dancing around like that. I've always been afraid of people who dance, because they seemed crazy to me. It's good though. It's a good workout and good emotional release as well. Another thing is that I have been so bad for so long. I deserve to be equally as good for at least as long. :)

Not Alone

Jazzy, I read your survivor story. I had so many thoughts and feelings when I read it. What sticks out the most to me is feeling really sad that young Jazzy was alone with nightmares every night of your childhood. That breaks my heart.

You are very courageous to have written your story and then to share it. Wow.

Not Alone

Quote from: Jazzy on June 17, 2021, 12:46:02 AM
After dinner I did the dishes, trying to be careful about how much water I was using, but trying to still use enough to get them rinsed off well. Drying them is much less stressful though, so I started to get lost in thought and just dry them on auto-pilot. After a minute or two I noticed something felt strange, so I looked down and saw that while I was on auto-pilot, I had started using my left hand to dry the dishes.

It hit me that this was my mind getting back to acting how it is naturally after a lifetime of being forced to conform. I just started crying big tears of healing. It was so powerful that I could barely hold my head above water, and yet my mind is just living its best life.

Then I felt so good, everything faded away. I really started to feel the music and ended up dancing around my house for an hour straight! 4 months ago, I was doing less than 600 steps per day. I danced for 900 steps in an hour after dinner! Wow!  :aaauuugh:


:cheer:              :cheer:                 :cheer:                Awesome!

CactusFlower

Quote from: Jazzy on June 17, 2021, 12:46:02 AM
It hit me that this was my mind getting back to acting how it is naturally after a lifetime of being forced to conform. I just started crying big tears of healing. It was so powerful that I could barely hold my head above water, and yet my mind is just living its best life.

Then I felt so good, everything faded away. I really started to feel the music and ended up dancing around my house for an hour straight! 4 months ago, I was doing less than 600 steps per day. I danced for 900 steps in an hour after dinner! Wow!  :aaauuugh:

That is awesome! Neuroplasticity is such an amazing thing, isn't it? congrats!

I just saw your previous message. Pretty much, I like any color but orange. I'll try to include a small pic here of a cholla (pronounced CHOY-ya) flower I like, that might eventually go in that tattoo I talked about. Either name is fine, I wasn't sure what to go by when i started on the boards. Sage is not my first name, but it is my middle name, and that felt a little safer at the time.  But ya'll are awesome people. :) 

Jazzy

Notalone:

Thank you for reading my story! That means a lot to me. I feel good that you had a lot of thoughts and feelings. That tells me that I was able to connect, or at least have an impact, on you and others who read my story. I hope it wasn't too much though. There is a lot of pain in that story.

The nightmares were literally torture. The most physically painful thing I can think of is my heart surgery, when they broke all of my ribs. I'd rather go through that 100 times over than have all those nightmares every night. It was my entire childhood. That's literally thousands of nights... and yeah, alone...

Thank you for your encouragement and calling me courageous! That is really nice. :)





Jazzy

Sage:

Yes, it is amazing!  :thumbup: Thank you!

Okay, I made a note that you don't like orange, so I don't use it for your name. I picked the color "Deep Lilac" (#9840B8) out of your profile picture here. I hope that is a good one. I can update it if you prefer another colour, just let me know!

I find it pretty tricky to upload pictures here, so I upload them elsewhere and just put a link here.

You're very brave to use your real middle name. I've been here a few years, and until I wrote my story, I wouldn't have dared use anything close to my real name. Good job!  :thumbup:

You're an awesome person too!  :hug:

Jazzy

Working on using my left hand more is going well! It's not easy, but it is much less challenging than I was expecting. I guess it is easier to go back to default than to force myself to do something differently. That makes sense when I write it, but it is hard to realize that after being forced to be someone other than myself for so long.

While I do want to make my left hand dominant again, I also want to work on becoming primarily ambidexterous. It is so nice to be able to just use whichever hand is closer/available, instead of shuffling things from one hand to the other, or reaching across my body unnecessarily.

Interestingly, there's much more to this topic than which hand to use. I find it is more about how other things are arranged and organized. When I place things on the right side of me, I use my right hand to pick them up, because that one is closer. When I put things on the left side, it is easier to use my left hand, because it is closer. After thinking about this, I realized my fridge has been set up for a left-handed person. I didn't do this, but it is appropriate, and seems very interesting to me.

Another key point is being able to use whichever hand is available. I'm not sure how to describe it, but it feels very "good/proper/natural" to be able to do that. Instead of moving something from my right hand to hold it in my left, to make room to pick up another thing with my right hand, I just pick it up with my left hand. Instead of moving something to my right hand, or reaching across my body because my right hand is stronger, I just use my left hand. It's faster, but that's not really the point. It feels like I was only using half of my potential before, and now I am using much more of it.

Plus, I've never met anyone else who is ambidextrous! How cool is it to be able to do that?! "W" may have tried to destroy my uniqueness, but I'm turning that around and making myself even more unique :D

I imagine I've already done the hard part, changing my non-dominant hand, so it is easier for me to just balance them out now. However if I can do it, I'm sure anyone else can. It's just like anything... one small step at a time, and a lot of positivity!  :thumbup:


:grouphug:  :)

Jazzy

So as the truth of what I've been through is becoming more real to me, I'm also accepting that my parents, mostly my mother, are the ones who did this to me. I'm a bit angry, but mostly I just want her out of my life now. I don't even want to call her my mother anymore. I've started calling her "the witch who raised me." It is not the nicest thing, but neither is how she treated me.... comparing the two, I think I'm being much nicer.

"Witch" is the worst name I could think of for her, because her religion tells her "Suffer ye not a witch to live." I don't really want her to kill herself, but if she embraces so much hatred in her life like that, then the consequences are her own.

That's not to say there is anything bad or wrong with witches. While I don't believe in anything spiritual, I really like most of the witches I've met; I find them to be positive and helpful people. I also find the Wiccan creed to be quite good. I wish more people lived by it, or something similar.

The short version of the creed is: An' ye harm none, do as ye will.

Will doesn't mean "whatever you want", but more like willpower. It's the thing that you strongly desire in your life, i.e. what you apply your time and effort in to obtaining. A more modern interpretation would be something like:

As long as you aren't hurting anyone, take action to turn your dreams and desires in to reality.


What a wonderful motto to live by. :)

Armadillo

Anger is a really good and pure emotion to feel toward her, Jazzy. I know how complicated it is, especially when you believe religious beliefs or mental illness is at the root of the behavior but she didn't have to treat you that way. With my own mom it is mental illness. I know she has no intention to hurt others and yet her behavior does. For a very very very long time I allowed myself to feel no anger because she's mentally ill. I'm finally starting to recognize the feeling of anger in me and there's been a big transformation for me in terms of healing and non longer hating myself so much because I don't need to bear the responsibility for how she treats me or harms me even if it is unintentional.

I don't mean to make it all about me and my mom, but just wanted to share that I think your anger toward your mom is healthy, earned, and beautiful because it shows how much you are healing.

I'm also SO EXCITED that your brain is switching to using your left hand too. This is your brain healing. Yay for your new-found rediscovery of ambidexterity! What age were you when you were forced to switch hands?

Hope67

Hi Jazzy,
I also read  your description of your life and experiences, and found them thought provoking too.  Wanted to send you a supportive hug - you have been through so many things -  :hug:
Hope  :)