Accepting Myself

[Blueberry]

I've decided to start a new Journal because the possibility of going inpatient has given me an immediate shift in priorities.

First I wondered about entitling this journal 'Getting by' as in 'Barely hanging on' but then decided on the idea which formed itself at the end of T appt. on Thursday: It's quite OK for me to be who I am now, with all my difficulties, instead of trying to be some ideal version of who I am. And it's quite OK for me to do things at my pace.

My T had asked me what Tool I possess which would help me even want to get up in the morning and that bolded sentence came slowly up from the depths. The Tool is allowing myself to slow down enough to feel that I am OK just as I am and just as I do. It's helping already. For instance, today I finally made myself something warm to eat. It was packet soup but for the past idk 10 days I haven't even been capable of making that. Today I was also finally able to sit down and work out the latest Corona regulations and how they apply to me, ie. I need to go back into lockdown until next Wed. when I get my booster shot. The regulations have very recently changed - a week ago lockdown wouldn't have been an issue for me, just for people who haven't had their first or second jabs, but now it is an issue for me. But my brain was a little on strike and I didn't understand. It's pretty important to be able to understand that kind of thing, putting it mildly.

So focussing on accepting myself and knowing that with this self-acceptance I will move forwards in ways I hadn't even planned on.

[woodsgnome]

I love how you've described this shift. To many, it probably wouldn't seem like much, as they have never walked this lonely path.

Be patient, and kind, to yourself. Savour the warm food, enjoy the space you've created for yourself. It may have been unexpected, but sometimes that is the truest road to peace.

               ~~       ~~

[Not Alone]

Blueberry, I want to support you and affirm, it is very okay for you to be who you are now and to go at your own pace. Sending you lots of care.

[rainydiary]

Thank you for sharing Blueberry.  I resonate with what you wrote and will be thinking of you as you navigate each next step. 

[Snowdrop]

It's quite OK for me to be who I am now, with all my difficulties, instead of trying to be some ideal version of who I am. And it's quite OK for me to do things at my pace.

It's absolutely OK, Blueberry. Thank you for writing this, I found it helpful too.

[dollyvee]

Hi Blueberry,

I hope you find the self-acceptance you're looking for and sending you support for what you're going through right now.

dolly

[Armee]

 

Blueberry.

What you write about self-acceptance is beautiful and wise. Those moments of self acceptance can be very healing, too.

I wish you were not suffering and struggling with self-care, but there is no shame in it. If you go to inpatient treatment I wish you warmth and comfort and healing there.

[Blueberry]

Thank you all for your good wishes and validation   

Yesterday I came on here but had no idea what I could write.  I had this idea (or rather I think a part of me had this idea) that now I'm accepting myself there's nothing to write about. Strangely, it didn't mean there's nothing to do! It was not a sit-back-on-laurels moment.

I had quite a successful day today. Took my meds, ate 2 meals, drank large mug of ginger tea and some water, did most FurBaby care, ran a few errands which also meant I was outside in the fresh air, did some cleaning and tidying so one room looks better than yesterday.
Found a little flowering snap-dragon under my tarpaulin in the garden. Very surprising because it's been down below 0°C off and on recently. Didn't think the tarpaulin would make much difference.

What else? Got a letter from LL. Sigh. But I didn't start panicking. In fact after a little while I took my anger and pounded some feta cheese in a bowl and then made and ate my tomato, lamb's leaf and feta salad! So instead of pulling back and/or self-neglect and/or SH and/or addiction, I used the energy to complete something I actually have trouble with!

With this new self-acceptance I'm also feeling less hurried and 'pushed about'. Non-self-acceptance leads to minor and constant EF? I wonder if there might be something in that for me. I felt hurried and 'pushed about' as a child, mostly by M but also by B1. Today a memory came of me and B1 doing some household job together. He was waiting for me to finish some part of it so he could continue. Instead of just waiting those extra couple of minutes, he was tapping his foot and making impatient noises and gestures. That kind of thing happened quite often actually. But today with the memory came the realisation that   1) he didn't HAVE TO react that way, he chose to     2) explains at least partially why I get so edgy when somebody is observing my work or waiting for me to finish something       3) explains at least partially why I react to small noises

Today I also started looking into inpatient places which offer trauma therapy instead of just a place to go and get back on track. There are disadvantages and advantages to both types. It certainly won't happen till the New Year anyway.

[rainydiary]

I appreciate your share, Blueberry.  I appreciate the reminder that acceptance can be an active and ongoing process as opposed to a single event.  I hope you continue to find what is supportive to you.

[Not Alone]

        

[Armee]

 

[Blueberry]

I'm feeling good about putting things to sell or give away on an Internet platform. There has been some interest already. I don't have any way to take photos but a friend has been helping me bit by bit. I pay her to help me clean or sometimes other odd things, so photos fit in with that. Some things I put on the platform without a photo. This is something I've been wanting to do for about a year. It feels good to be working on it now. Things are flowing better and I'm feeling better able to let other objects go, bit by bit.

I put some old boots to give away on this platform and a collector asked if he could pay me for them and the postage! so I'm thinking about that. Mostly I just want people to come and get stuff because packing up parcels and taking them to the post-office (max. 5 min. walk from here) is one of these things that can really exhaust me. That's something for me to accept about myself and I do mostly too.

Yesterday I watched part of Bessel van Kolk's talk. It was interesting for me. One thing it made me remember is that I was sometimes in a very bad way in the past. He showed results of some studies on efficacy of different treatments, showing how some would help the patient for a while but then symptoms would worsen again when the treatment ended, whereas other treatments e.g. EMDR for ptsd (not necessarily for cptsd) could reduce the symptoms to such an extent the patients wouldn't have the criteria for the diagnosis anymore and it would remain that way. So I realised that I'm always just kind of scraping by, even with treatment. Yes, I make progress but 'not much' can throw me for a loop again. I'm still highly reactive and hypervigilant. My hypervigilance drives some people e.g. neighbours up the wall.

I think I may have written this before in a previous Journal, but I think I have a fairly bad case of cptsd. Of course I don't mean to say I'm worse off than anybody else here because 1) I can't know that and 2) comparing doesn't help anyway. It's more that I'm accepting for myself that this is the way it is, this is the way I am. If I go inpatient, it'll be maybe the 11th time? in 21 years. I've lost count. I think I only went inpatient once for SI but it really only was ideation the way Pete Walker writes about it, I wasn't actually at risk of doing anything. In fact, I wasn't even put on a closed ward. So all those other times it was just because I couldn't manage anymore and/or outpatient treatment wasn't intensive enough or didn't give me enough of a feeling of security that I could work on things. Or something like that. Or sometimes it's even just that I need somebody else to do all those jobs e.g. looking after FurBabies, cooking, washing dishes, cleaning that is either done by somebody in my absence (FurBabies) or automatically done in the clinic (cooking etc.) so that I have energy for therapy and therapy homework and self-care and very, very basic looking after my surroundings, i.e. you do have to keep your room a little tidy in a clinic, especially if you're sharing a room with somebody else, and you have to do your laundry.

I think it might be a good idea to go inpatient to get some input from other trauma Ts. Maybe somebody else could help me a little using EMDR. I do think my current T really understands me very well and mostly helps me well. But still sometimes another T or group of Ts in an inpatient setting have different ideas and can move things in a different way. Of course sometimes they try way too fast with me and destabilise me completely. But I hope I'm getting better at saying "No! Stop! Slow down! Leave me alone."

With thinking/realising how bad my state of emotional health used to be - well, when Ts asked me 'dumb' questions like "Why do you do xy instead of pq?" (very triggering) and I would go crazy in my head and feel like screaming hysterically (and even did sometimes when pushed way too far), I was in a really, really bad state. In fact, even now I realise I can't really write what I wanted to because trying to means I'm in danger of going back into a dark place I don't feel capable of going to. So better not. (Good self-care I say to myself now.) I think my present T might have overestimated me and my emotional strength or underestimated how much confronting other people and standing up for myself take out of me. These activities are still very difficult, very triggering. His idea is that I won't heal from the past unless I show myself in the present day that I can take these steps. But I think now there is something missing. I need some additional steps, some additional help before I can the steps he suggests. And what is more - they take so much out of me! They are so strenuous. I think there is more trauma stuck there than anybody realises. To do with how I was treated growing up in FOO - intellectual, verbal, emotional and psychological abuse. Idk if anybody else talks about 'intellectual' abuse but I do. Because I grew up in a household of intellectuals, cognitively very intelligent, who spent their time proving how stupid, illogical, irrational I was. I wasn't actually that stupid intellectually/academically but the atmosphere I was in made me shut-down often. That was interesting in the van Kolk presentation. There was a slide or two showing a brain in Freeze, there was almost nothing going on. Mostly a big white expanse. I know I was Frozen. By my second year at school when I wasn't even 7 yet, I was wondering what was wrong with me. Among my first encounters with a psychiatrist as an adult, I was asked when the depression started. I said "7yo" and was told that was impossible, children that young might be sad but not clinically depressed. Actually I now know that I was showing signs of traumatisation by that age though I was probably clinically depressed as well and certainly unhappy.

It's time I left that dark space because even writing about it now makes me leave my current-day Adult a little bit. Still, thinking about it is a form of acceptance. The dark, confusing and sometimes hysterically-raging space isn't all of me but it's part of me. Better leave it again. My GP has said before - a good number of years ago and then this year -  that I got a little too close to the fire or the furnace. This fall and early winter that happened a few times when I was trying to do my T homework. I hadn't properly realised that till the past couple of days. I will tell my T in January.

[rainydiary]

But I think now there is something missing. I need some additional steps, some additional help before I can the steps he suggests. And what is more - they take so much out of me!

I feel this way a lot too and appreciate you speaking it and knowing yourself so well to recognize it.  I will be thinking of you as you take each step forward and sort out what makes sense for you. 

[Not Alone]

Blueberry, just want you to know that I read your post. 

[Blueberry]

Thank you Notalone and rainydiary. It feels good to be heard.