Papa Coco's Recovery Journal

[Papa Coco]

Chart and L2L

You both make great sense to add to what I'm experiencing.  L2N you are really hitting home with your comment that the trauma embeds itself into our DNA and to every aspect of our physical system. Rooting it out may not be 100% possible. And that helps me to better accept that I may spend the rest of  my life getting a little better each day, and even if I never reach 100%, I'll still feel better in 10 years than I do right now.

Chart, the tapping is something I only play with when someone brings it up. I know, from my years in adult education, that adding physical stimulation to emotional learning greatly increases the learning, I assume it's because of what you just said, that it connects the left brain to the right brain and engages all of me while learning.

I'm committing now to use tapping more often than just when people talk about it.

You've both helped me to remember to not get too excited about this. I often go all in, and ruin the experience with too high of expectations, or even too high a sense of obligation to make the new trick work.  I need to relax into who I am right now and stop pushing myself so hard to become who I want to be tomorrow.  Truely pondering the world around us is where absolute peace resides. I often say that God's address is: The present moment. Any time I try to connect with spiritual forces to handle the past or the future, I get squat. When I can first enter into the present moment: via breathing, focusing on temperatures and sounds and feelings of the floor on my feet, that's when I can connect with the spiritual reality that surrounds my physical presence. God's address: the present moment. If we want to find spiritual release, we have to go to the present moment to do it. There's so much peace in just accepting who and what and where I am right now.

I'm glad you responded how you both did. It's helpful. Keeping me from trying too hard is a big help. I just feel this urge to "do better" so I'm not left behind or punished for being who I am rather than who I'm supposed to be.

Hypervigilance was a big help in my career, but it's a double-edged sword in my personal life. Sometimes just calming down and accepting what is...is healthier than constantly pushing myself to be better every second.

[Chart]

Okay I'm back but still can't remember what that "second thing" was... PapaCoco Your posts are so rich and full of small but poignant things. I could respond for hours. But just quickly I wanted to say, I think hard work is good. Trying hard is good too. We have to work. The problem is when we think just because we've worked hard we should see and feel results. Therein lies the subtle danger. I don't think feelings work that way. Often our brains need time to make the changes on the deeper levels that the prefrontal can come up with in a snap. It's the Judgement of our Process, Efforts, Ourselves, etc that can mess us up and we have to give more time and patience to. I think sensitive men have a double weight. We are protectors who couldn't even protect ourselves. This is a terrible thing I've grappled with with my family, and often went too far in the other direction with (like you mentioned PC with your work and family).

I can work hard, and put myself on the front line for my children and partner, but ultimately I am damaged. And that damage is going to slow things down, AND radically alter nearly all my perceptions of myself, what is happening, and what I've truly accomplished. It is an intensely Zen puzzle.
Sending love and thanks L2N and PapaCoco. It feels REALLY good to connect. Thank you 🙏

[AphoticAtramentous]

Keeping me from trying too hard is a big help. I just feel this urge to "do better" so I'm not left behind or punished for being who I am rather than who I'm supposed to be.
Hypervigilance was a big help in my career, but it's a double-edged sword in my personal life. Sometimes just calming down and accepting what is...is healthier than constantly pushing myself to be better every second.

I think we humans tend to often forget that a lot of healing can come from actually doing... nothing? Not everything of course, some things we must work for, but some things only come to us when we are able to let ourselves calm and live in the moment. We are not machines to be run 24/7. We are living beings with complex thoughts and bodies.

Regards,
Aphotic.

[Chart]

 

[dollyvee]

Hi PC,

I think a lot of us raised by narcissists think we have to be something other than we are because who we were was never good enough. So, we keep thinking if I looked a certain way, I would be in a relationship, or whatever it is. Perhaps by stalling, your brain is holding onto the belief that you're not good enough the way you are and keeps thinking that you have to be this "thing" to be loved, or to love yourself. I think too, it's hard to grasp or pinpoint when it comes from a very young age.

Another thing that is interesting is the association with hoarding and narcissism. I ran across this idea on Raised By Narcissists on reddit and it sort of hit home. My gm was a hoarder and never threw anything away. Someone postulated that narcissist don't live in reality and keeping an attachment to objects is an extension of that. I find myself sometimes keeping things and not throwing them away as well, maybe as a learned behaviour?

Sending you support,
dolly

[Papa Coco]

Chart, Aphotic, Dolly, Thanks for the responses.

When I was a child, my mother forbid me from ever wanting attention. I can remember being a toddler and whenever I'd do anything that all toddlers do to get attention, Mom would tell the big family, "Don't anyone look at him until he behaves himself." She did that all the time. She did it to everyone. As I grew older, sitting in the car, and seeing "hippies" in VW buses, or walking in the malls and seeing traumatized Vietnam Veterans walking around in public with long hair and beards, she'd tell us all, "Don't look at them. They just want our attention." I grew up terrified of getting attention. I also grew up craving attention. As an adult I put myself on stages, performing, singing, or public speaking, and when audiences would clap or respond, I'd feel a sudden panic that I had done something terrible by "wanting their attention."

That being said, when I post something and don't get any responses, I feel terror. I don't use that word lightly. Terror is a fear of certain annihilation. If I get attention, I feel afraid, but if I put myself out there and get ignored, I feel terror. I'm being ignored. I'm being punished. I've crossed a line. I'm not behaving properly. As a result, I have deleted many posts over the years because I didn't get a response and I felt like I needed to retract my post before I humiliate myself any further.

When I thank you all for responding to my posts, I'm not just being nice. I'm truly thankful, deep down in my chest and the pit of my stomach, that you responded. One would think that after all I've done to put myself in the spotlight over the years that I'd somehow be over this, but wow...I'm not over it. In the 1990s I gave standup comedy a good try. I performed in local clubs, volunteer activities, and corporate retreats. I was a hit. I always, always got big laughs. BUt the stress was so heavy on me that when club owners started offering to pay me to headline, the terror of being heckled or not being funny enough forced me to quit. The attention was something I craved enough to actually commit to performing standup, but the stress of that attention went to war in my head and heart and caused me so much distress that I had to quit. The other thing I hated was how the world treated me differently after I started performing. I worked in a very large organization and knew a LOT of people. As soon as I started performing, people started treating me differently. They gave me attention even when I wasn't in the mood to accept it. It's like they wanted to ride on my coattails and be known as someone who knows a comedian personally. They gave me respect I hadn't earned. It felt like a ruse. Like I was a fake. Like I was getting attention I didn't deserve. I felt exposed, used, like I was their property now. When I quit doing it, I was reaching a point where I had to decide if I wanted to pursue fame or not. WHen a person starts to reach that point of possible fame, everything about their life changes. I did it as a side-hustle in the evenings after work. When it got to where I had to decide which career to keep and which to let go of, I chose to let go of the truly frightening one. The one that brought me the most attention had to go. I TRULY understand when a celebrity takes their own life. People wonder, How could they be so unhappy when they're so famous? Well, that much attention is really hard to deal with unless  you're a narcissist. And I'm a lot of things, but I am no narcissist.

I am ranting. I had NO intention to writing this today. But when I read your responses to my post, I fell down this rabbit hole, wanting to make sure you know that I truly appreciate the love and attention you, and many others on this forum, give in my direction. You give me so much peace by the kind things you say to me. (I'm about to start crying, so I need to change subjects).

Journal Entry for Sunday, June 30, 2024

My heart hurts today. It's been hurting ever since I started reading Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender, by Dr. David Hawkins. When I say my heart hurts, I mean it literally AND metaphorically. I'm going to call my doctor on Tuesday and ask for a referral to a cardiologist to make sure I'm not on the verge of a heart attack. It feels like constant anxiety. Like I've been drinking gallons of espresso or something. It started out slowly. I would follow the instructions in chapter 2 about how to lay still and let myself feel the emotions without talking to them or distracting myself from them. The idea is that a single emotion can carry a thousand memories, and as I just let the emotion have its moment in my body and mind, it will dissipate and release itself from me permanently. It seems to work. At first, while I was allowing the pressure to release from my body, my heart would start to palpitate only during the release. But as I did this more and more and got to where I started to become aware that I can allow myself to feel any emotion at any time, the palpitating began consuming more and more time during the day. Now, I'm to a point where ANY emotion, launches this pressure in my chest instantly. I am palpitating for more than 50% of my waking life now.

IF this is a physiological reaction to my letting go of 6 decades of heartache, then that's what this is. If it's because I'm about to have a heart attack, well, I should probably get a doctor to advise a course of action. The book says that the body will fight back once I begin to let go of my protective suppression, expression, or escape. Once I stop suppressing feelings, medicating feelings, expressing them through "acting out" or distracting to escape the emotions, they will release, but the body will fight back because it's terrified of the emotions. I know that I have lived 6 decades with a broken heart. When my family refused to let me pursue anything I wanted for my life, and proved over and over that they were important and I was a useless burden, it broke my heart. I live with strong connections to my own pain but also to everyone else's pain. I feel broken hearted over all the pain that happens to everyone on this earth. I cry at the news sometimes. People I don't even know are being bullied, starved, thrown out of their own homes by bad parents, and I can't not feel their pain when I see it or read about it. My heart has been broken since I was an infant, and I've used every trick in the book to not feel that pain, but so help me God that pain is there. It's always been there, and now that I'm trying to stop suppressing it, my heart hurts physically AND metaphorically at the same time.

In my morning meditiation today, My "guides" (Whoever gives me that voice in my head that answers questions) pointed me toward feeling like this is a form of detox. The only detoxing I've ever experienced was when I quit smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day in 1988. I detoxed for about a month. My heart raced. I was irritated. Etc. When my son was in a rehab facility, I could visit him on Sundays. He told me about the 3 days of detoxing they put everyone through, and described it as this horrible feeling of anxiety and rage that didn't stop until the chemicals were finally out of the body. THat's how I feel right now. Like I"m detoxifying from emotional stimulation. At times I want to burn this book and go back to feeling numb again. I want to get stoned or drunk (I'm sober 10 years now, so I don't want to risk that again, but hoo-boy do I ever think about how nice it would be to drink myself numb again). Whether this is some form of emotional detoxing or not, it's what it feels like, and in the book, Hawkins recommends pushing forward and not giving up.  I'll get a doctor to validate for me if I need medical intervention, but if they just tell me again that I'm having anxiety attacks and that I'm not at risk of a heart attack, then I'll know I'm still on the right track and that a day will come when this either fixes me or kills me. One or the other.

My 10 year old grandson, whose birth ten years ago prompted my son and I to both quit drinking, and who is the reason I chose Papa Coco as my name on the forum, is going to race his 1/4 midget race car today for the first time. In about a half hour Coco and I are driving up to the race track and watch proudly from the stands as he fulfills the dream of his lifetime. A week ago was his last training session. I was there as he stood next to his car sobbing. I asked his mom what was wrong, and she said, "Nothing. He says he just can't believe he's actually getting to drive this car and he's so grateful to us all for helping him that he can't stop the tears."  I bring this up because when my grandson asked for attention, his parents. his grandparents, and a handful of aunts, uncles and cousins all came together to support his dream of racing cars. This family is doing for him what all our families should do for all their children. They're supporting who he wants to become. (Okay, crap! Now tears are streaming down my face again).  He's getting what we didn't get. Just like the beautiful souls on this forum, we are being the good people that we didn't have around us when we needed them. We're making up for it by supporting others in ways we felt unsupported. (My heart is starting to throb again). I need to go. I need to stop rambling. I need to get dressed, and get in the car to head to the track and watch as a whole family's efforts play out in a boy's dream.

I love being a member of this forum. I love you people. Love, to me, is about connection. I feel connection with you all, and that's why I say I love you people.

[NarcKiddo]

I hope you have a wonderful day at the track. Such fun.

And I am really glad to hear you are going to get the palpitations checked out. I hope they are just a sign of the emotions surging and are not dangerous - but I know how worrying they can be in their own right as I get palpitations quite frequently.

 

[Lakelynn]

Awwww, what a heart twisting post Papa Coco. First reading about the attention that was denied you throughout your formative years and then how you felt about the attention you received with stand up, among other things. Your grandson's story is such a good example of hope realized and your observations of the power of generational healing. I hope you got plenty of photos and more importantly, shared his thrill of the event.

This is the one thing I constantly think about now that my grandchildren are growing up and new great grandchildren are going to be added to my life early next year.
How can we be attuned to their needs, even when our own are demanding attention? Only through the commitment to stay present each day, for as much and as long as we can.

Yes, I too would seek out medical opinion. It's very scary to have your heart behave in ways it doesn't normally. Sometimes when I have pushed myself beyond my tolerance for reading things, I've noticed the same kinds of physical reactions. For me it was migraines. I allowed myself some time and space to back off. Now, when I read things which that cause a gut reaction, I say, "nope, not ready." It's worked for me, it might for you.

[Papa Coco]

Journal Entry for Monday, July 1, 2024

I'm feeling a bit better today. Not quite so emotional.

Quick review of yesterday's race day: We ended up spending just under 12 hours at the racetrack yesterday. My 10-y/o grandson drives very well, but this was his first race, and the first time he's ever been on the track with the 10–12-year-olds, most of whom have been driving since they were 5, so he was outmatched. His skills were excellent, but passing other cars was a struggle for him. Either way he had a blast. He got two trophies and was beaming with pride.  Coco and I went home exhausted. My aching knees were almost paralyzed by pain. Everything on the track is a long walk: the restrooms, the bleachers, the cars, the starting lines...everything is a long walk and my knees just couldn't take it, but still we had a wonderful time, and made all kinds of new friends. Even the kids (the drivers) were kind and talkative and loved talking to us adults about their experiences. Their parents are just as nice as they are. It was a good experience, but I'm going to start looking for another PRP injection for my knees. I almost can't walk anymore for any reasonable length of time.

I regret that I'm so chatty right now. I just have this intense need to be social all of a sudden. More than half of my life is spent wanting to hide alone in a locked house. But lately I've been craving community. I hope this lasts a while. I'm really not doing myself any favors by being socially isolated so much.

I'm aware now that I'm struggling to experience the sustained courage to step out of my depression and anxiety. At the moment I'm a bit more courageous than I've been of late. But I expect that the depression will return when I least expect it to, and I'll go back down into the dumps again. It feels good to feel good, but I have enough years under my belt to remember that feeling good comes and goes. My father-in-law (one of my favorite people of my lifetime) used to say, "Make hay while the sun shines."  That's what I'm trying to do now. While I'm feeling good, I need to log as much healing energy as I can. A day will come when the sun stops shining again.

Courage, for me, is the key. It's the balancing point. When I don't feel courage, I feel fear. I'm afraid people hate me. I'm afraid I've failed as a human, a father, a husband, a friend. I'm afraid of financial ruin, health disasters, etc. And when I'm afraid, I get depressed and/or filled with anxiety. I hide. I avoid conflict. I avoid putting myself out there. I quit comedy and singing and anything that might draw attention to me. I quit wanting to live. I want to die and leave this cold, cruel world. But when my courage kicks in, then I feel like helping someone, or donating my time, or joining a club, or writing too much on the forum, or taking control of my diet, exercise and health. I call friends and make lunch dates. The courage empowers me to start living outside my locked doors again. Courage is, for me, the precipice between surviving and thriving. If I can rally up a little courage, I can start living again. I have found that to be a tactic that works when it works.

I was just looking through old photos from my childhood and teen years and early marriage years from back when we used cameras with film and only had paper photos to look at. I saw a lot of times when I had courage. I think I only took pictures when I was on the good side of courage. Photos of when my children were born. When I was a happy kid and a happy young adult. I don't believe I ever took pictures during the depressions, so there are big holes in the years between my surges of photos to look back on. Photos are fascinating to me. We can be miserable for 23 1/2 hours a day, but happy for 30 minutes. So, we take pictures during those 30 minutes. Then decades later we look at a cache of happy photos and think, "Gosh I was happy back then."  They used to say, "pictures don't lie." But they do. They say whatever the photographer wanted them to say for long enough to click the shutter.

I'm planning to start Ketamine infusions again soon. They help a lot. I'll wait until August, which is when I typically go into a crushing dark depression every year. I think I like summer because as a kid, summer was when school was out, and I felt free from the bullying that was so bad. August is the countdown to back-to-school, and that's when I get dark and filled with melancholy distress. My courage might run out next month, so I should probably schedule an infusion for mid-August--assuming I'm going to need it.

Chest is still throbbing. I will be in an intensive therapy appointment all day today. Parts therapy on steroids. I have HOPES that I have a good experience and that I can put some ancient stressors to rest finally. I hope to say "RIP" to many of my internal parts who are exhausted from the pain they've felt for 60 years.  BUT expectations can be little boobytraps. If I don't get all the relief I want, I set myself up for a fall.

I'll stop before my rant goes on any longer.

Be well all,
PC

[Chart]

Reading and awash in your sharing. Overwhelmed with reflections I'd like to share, so I'm keeping it short... but know that you are touching me deeply with your wonderful words and stories. I'm here, and there, with you. Thank you so much for sharing. -Chart

[Lakelynn]

Papa Coco, I hope you are feeling better today. 

[GoSlash27]

Papa Coco,
 The most pertinent truism I can share tonight: Courage only exists *in the face* of fear, never in the absence of it.
 Sorry I can't elaborate more tonight; I'm kinda wiped out.

 Best,
-Slashy

[AphoticAtramentous]

I grew up terrified of getting attention. I also grew up craving attention.

I was going to quote the segments of this that spoke to me but your whole vent speaks to me! It's a suffocating dichotomy, of desperately wanting that attention, that love and affection, and yet also feeling like we're not worth it, and afraid of receiving attention... It is something I feel like I battle every single day. I'm sorry it's all so hard on you too.

I hope that pain in your chest will dissipate soon, and it's really good to hear you're taking care of yourself and seeking a professional opinion! Glad your race day went well!

Your commentary is a pleasure to read, very insightful.

Regards,
Aphotic.

[Papa Coco]

Chart, Lakelynn, Slashy, Aphotic, Thanks so much for the comments. Your support puts much rest to my chronic fear that I talk too much.

My heart has been calmed. (On Monday I had my first experience with microdosing something other than Ketamine). I've spent three days now without any palpitations. It's such a relief.

This morning, during my meditation, I "talked with" a higher voice. I do this by writing stream of consciousness. No less than three full pages. As I force myself to keep writing until I fill three pages, I eventually start accessing wisdom that I'm not sure where it comes from, but it definitely comes from somewhere. This morning it dawned on me that everyone on earth experiences trauma, but only a portion of us suffer as result. It's kind of well-known that the trauma isn't what causes us to get PTSD, it's the lack of support post trauma that gives us PTSD.

I started to realize that I've had my heart broken every day since I was three because I felt betrayed by my family, betrayed by my school, and betrayed by God itself. My parents made promises that if I was good they'd reward me. Then after I was good, they changed the rules and made me feel like I still wasn't good enough to deserve what they'd promised. That felt like betrayal. I was betrayed by my catholic school when they taught me that God loved me, and then later told me I was going to burn in heII because God hated me. It seemed that everyone who promised to reward or love me, never came through on their promises when it came time to pay me with the love and acceptance that they'd lured me into believing I deserved. So, I learned that what broke my heart and left me struggling to make sense of life, is that I know, from relentlessly recurring betrayals, that I should never expect to receive whatever love or rewards I'm promised.

This led me to do an internet search on "living with betrayal". The first article that came up was a good one. A real good one. It's a short Internet article called Betrayal Trauma--The Impact of Being Betrayed. Here's a link: https://www.verywellmind.com/betrayal-trauma-causes-symptoms-impact-and-coping-5270361#:~:text=Seek%20support%20or%20treatment%3A%20It,themselves%20when%20they%20are%20betrayed.

If "A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet" then I guess I could also say that "PTSD, by any other name, is still PTSD." I believe that most trauma disorders are all the same, but they can be described in a thousand ways. For me, looking into Betrayal Trauma is just another example of me looking at CPTSD from another expert's perspective. All these different names for trauma disorders are just different names for the same disorder. But reading about them from different perspectives is proving to be helpful for me. It's good for me to look at something from all different angles. These are not all different types of trauma, they're the same trauma described from all different angles.

This article is well worth a quick look. It really helped me understand that being betrayed by people we can't escape from (Parents, churches, schools, etc), is at the root of a lifetime of residual relational trauma disorder, also called CPTSD.  I hope this article is helpful to others too.

---

I haven't digested Monday's microdosing experience enough to be able to adequately describe it, but I will say that for the hours I was under medication, I felt the truth that in the end, when our fear centers shut down, ALL OF US are going to find ourselves completely surrounded in absolute, pure, total, undistracted love. During my journey, I kept whispering, "Oh my God. Love is all there is." and "Oh my God. We're all going to be okay." and "I never want this to end." My practitioner kept whispering back, "It doesn't have to end. You can carry this with you."   

It's been a few days since Monday, and even though all my physical and trauma-based fears have come back online, the knowledge that pure love is the only thing that's going to exist when the fear center shuts down again, is giving me a new foundation of strength with which to handle the fears of daily living with CPTSD. I kept saying "We're all going to be okay" because, while the fear center was shut down, that was the only feeling left in my entire body. That we're all okay, but we just don't realize it while we live in this chaotic world. In fact, at one point, I whispered to my practitioner, "It's like...fish don't realize they've been born into water and we humans don't realize we've been born into perfect love." My practitioner whispered back, "that's right."

Time will tell how this affects me long term. The past few days have had triggers, but my reactions have felt less hopeless. I will try to write a good progress report in coming days. But for now, all I can say is that what I saw when my fear center was offline during the medication, is giving me a whole new foundation of love and safety that is making my chaotic, traumatized life a lot easier to accept.

Sending love to all who reach out for healing,
Papa Coco

[Hope67]

Hi Papa Coco,
I am relieved to hear that your heart palpitations have gone - that is really good.  It must have been scary when they were happening.  I'm glad you're ok after the microdosing experience on Monday - I hope you've been able to carry those positive feelings with you into the subsequent days.   
Hope