Papa Coco's Recovery Journal

[Papa Coco]

Journal Entry for Thursday, September 22, 2022

I'm examining why it is that I write too much.

Reason 1) Long-awaited validation: I recently asked my T why I can't stop writing once I start. He told me that he has found that people who were not listened to as children often grow up feeling the need to tell everything to everyone. Now that I'm finally being listened to I feel compelled to keep sharing. On this forum, I don't have as much need to give backstory as I do with non-traumatized peers. This is because my peers on the C-PTSD forum already know what it feels like to be like me, so I don't need to explain myself to you. But still, my posts are long, and I'm always kind of afraid that I'm breaking rules by posting longer posts.


Reason 2) I've swum with sharks: My need to explain myself in detail goes all the way back to my earliest memories. Here in the Seattle area, living with the Catholic families that I know, including my own, and all my Catholic friends' families, are like swimming with sharks. The one thing you never want to do when swimming with sharks is bleed. In a Catholic family, every member seems ready to pounce on whomever shows the most vulnerability on any given day. They are ruthless judges, trying to preemptively attack before being attacked themselves. They call it "love" but it's not. It's fear. Fear that looks like aggressive bullying. Being vulnerable in their presence insights a feeding frenzy that's just as frightening as swimming with sharks who smell blood in the water.

It was my experience that we defend ourselves against our own parents, siblings, and peers, by making sure we explain ourselves quickly and completely so we can stop the criticism that we know is about to swamp us like a tsunami wave. My other Catholic family adage is; I call having been raised in a Seattle Catholic family and school a full-contact sport, or even better, a demolition derby where each member is just trying to survive the others by sharing and spreading the damage. I got smashed into so now I have to smash into the next person, so we all share and spread the emotional damage to each other, all while trying to be the survivor of the game. In my Catholic upbringing, the goal was to survive my family, not trust them. To them, life was a competitive sport. You can't trust anyone who's competing with you instead of loving you as you are. My family and friends were so quick to talk over each other, that simple family gatherings were loud. Everyone was trying to talk louder than everyone else in an attempt to be the offender rather than the offended.  They all wanted to be the hammer rather than the nail.

Reason 3) Adages are great, but backstory is also great: I very much love short adage-type quotes, like "they all wanted to be the hammer rather than the nail" because in very few words, I sum up the whole story. An adage is a short summary of a long story. The problem for me is that as a listener I don't learn as much from the adage as if I can hear the whole story behind it. I'll forget an adage in an hour, but a story often sticks with me for life. As a retired adult educator, I know that storytelling is the best teaching tool. People seldom remember facts they were made to memorize, but they often remember stories they were told. My life is my story. One of my homemade adages that I use a lot is: There are more novels walking on sidewalks than there are on bookstore shelves.  Each of us is a novel (or a series of novels) just waiting to be written. When I tell the backstory of my life that shows how I came to believe an adage, well...that's when I connect with souls.

Reason 4) Backstories connect us: Adages are fun and powerful communication tools but telling the backstories of my real life is how I connect with people soul-to-soul. And connection is what I personally believe is the purpose of life itself. When I think about good vs. evil, it seems to me that ANYTHING I do that's meant to connect with other people is considered good, and ANYTHING I do that's meant to isolate, betray, trick, bully, offend, break connection with other souls, is the definition of evil. I disclose stories about my life because when I do, I discover that other people have lived much the same experiences that I have lived. Our stories draw us closer together, and that's the purpose of life itself.

So I write long posts because I want to share and learn but I don't want to hurt anyone with bad advice or a misunderstanding. Because I am so social, too many people thought I was having a great life, and they didn't believe I could understand what they go through. I want people to know I'm on their side and that I have good, solid reason why I DO understand their fears, anxieties, etc. I feel connected when I share that my life wasn't all it appeared to be.

Reason 5) It's safer to share than to advise: Having been blamed for my family's problems, I hate giving advice. It ALWAYS bites me back in the end. It's too dangerous. I'm not a professional, I'm not qualified to tell you what I think you should do. BUT I am qualified to tell you what I've experienced or witnessed. If you find any good information in what I've shared, it's in your power to decide whether to see any correlation between us. A good adage for this is "I'm one survivor telling other survivors where I found a lifeboat." What you do with is it your right to do with as you wish.

So, in summary, I'd rather write a little too much, then too little. If sharing my life with others contributes to us feeling connected rather than alone, then I guess that's why I write posts that tend to go on a bit too long.

[Papa Coco]

Journal Entry for Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Strange. On my main Forum page, there used to be a topic to discuss sexual abuse, but for some reason, today that topic is gone, along with my long-running post about it. I'm sure it's my navigation skills that are preventing me from finding my own thread, and that in a day or two it'll show up again. These forums are, at times, a bit difficult to navigate around in.

I told my T yesterday that I want to explore the idea that my CSA has done more damage to me than I've ever given it credit for. He was happy to hear me say that. I believe now that he's been aware for many years, that I avoid the topic, broach it from time to time for a few seconds, then blame all my current day trauma responses on everything else I went through.

It's bizarre for me to realize how I've been minimizing it for so many years.  But I wasn't really just "minimizing it." It's more like I was compartmentalizing it. For brief periods of time I would live within the traumas of the CSA, but then I'd leave it and slam the door on the part of my brain that holds the memories.

I had to confess to my T yesterday that when I think about the events of my CSA, I can only focus for about 10 seconds or so before I start to feel terror building in my chest and stomach. Even now, as I write this, I'm feeling my heart rate climbing. If I don't get it under control within a minute or two I'll start getting dizzy and need to lie down and put on some music or something to distract me back into slamming the door again.  I'd say that's pretty clear evidence that the poison from that abuse is still coursing my veins and I really do need to address it.

My T is such an amazing man. He took great care yesterday in slowly telling me that he was glad I'm ready to start exploring the violence around my CSA memories AND that he promises to never push me. He told me that any time I want to stop, he'll honor my need to stop. He spent about 5 minutes in the session convincing me that I will be in full control and that he will not, not, not push me. I can't find the words to really express how much comfort that gave me.  My last T was a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist who just wanted to get it all out in the open and get it over with. When I'd go into hyperventilating and shivering in his office, he'd just keep going. Now, 20 years later, with a good therapist, I get the chance to calm down and trust that this man isn't going to force me to go into memories that will effectively shut me down again for another 20 years. He'll respect my pace and let me choose when to start and stop the memories.

Anyway. I've been living alone again at the beach for a few weeks. My wife is coming down next week to spend a week with me. Thank goodness she's so okay with me isolating like this. I suspect having me out of the house is a relief for her too. She tells me, all the time, that the way we give each other space is as good for her as it is for me. One benefit is that we've been married nearly 40 years now and we never, ever, EVER fight or bicker. We are glad to be together when we're together, and glad to be apart when we need time to ourselves.

But being alone like this presents another issue of me having to manage my depression to keep from dipping too deep into it. Isolation is my guilty pleasure. It's the ONLY time I feel like I'm completely safe. Even with a wife of 40 years who loves me and never fights with me, I still feel judged and "on duty as a fawn" when I'm with her. It's TRAUMA!  I know that, But trauma responses don't get better just because we recognize them. So I still feel judged and "on duty" whenever anyone, ANYone is in the room with me. Even dogs and cats. In order to feel safe and at peace, I can't have a pet in the house either. It has to be my own fortress of solitude for me to feel like I'm free to be myself. The trick is to remain in isolation without falling into the pits of despair and depression. It's a precarious game I play with myself. Being alone to feel good, but not letting it become life-threatening depression.

So...that's what's happening in Papa Coco's recovery process now.

[Master of my sea]

Hi Papa Coco,

I am so pleased to hear that your T has taken the time and care to reassure you that this is all at your pace. That you hold the reigns and have the control in this situation. I hope that knowing you have the control now, that you decide, will help you open up with your T about your trauma there. It sounds like you have a really good relationship with your T.

I'm glad you have been able to get away and just be. Sometimes that is the best medicine.

Sending you support in your next steps and gentle hugs if you want them

[sanmagic7]

hey PC, i can definitely relate to the 'talking too much' thing, especially your first point about not being listened to, but also about swimming w/ sharks.  interesting stuff.  thanks for sharing.

i get the whole feeling safe only when you're alone bit.  for me, tho, it's the pressure from former expectations to be 'on' when someone is around.  weird how it can be the same feeling coming from different sources.  oh this wild and wacky beast we call c-ptsd/trauma.  love and hugs

[Armee]

Papa Coco I will write much more here when I have the ability to. For now, warm hugs and safety as you cocoon from the expectations of other living creatures. Stay safe. We all need you too. I credit your story with helping me understand what was happening with me too. I had never heard such a clear explanation of what happens with memories but the simple descriptions in books made me doubt myself while yours helped me see what was happening is...well...how it happens. I've been torturing myself for 4 years.

So no expectations but I want you to know how valued you are and I am so sorry what happened to you. I wish you didn't have such knowledge to share. Hugs to you, hugs to the little boy, and hugs to the brave 19 yr old.

Slowly will be so important. Important to go slow and gentle, important to go through it and give it the grieving that it needs.

Much love from me,

Armee

[Papa Coco]

Recovery Journal Entry for Monday, October 3, 2022

IFS was recommended. On DollyVee's recommendation, I bought the book Self Therapy, 3rd edition by Jay Earley, PhD.  I'm almost through chapter one, and like with any good book, I'm already learning. Today I read a bit about the many personalities that live within me, and that each and every one of them is on my side, even if what he/she is doing that's making me crazy. My therapist already uses this method on me, but he's never called it IFS. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is all about identifying, respecting and healing the various different parts of myself, and I've been doing it with him for so long that I never really grasped that I can do it myself without his help. Earley teaches that it's easy to just go to my fractured part and ask it to reveal itself, and it always will.

After breakfast, I sat on the front porch and enjoyed the cool Autumn morning as I put on my socks and shoes. I was thinking about chapter one and I decided to start asking my different parts why they do what they do. I have a part that makes me isolate. I have a FANTASTIC marriage, grandsons, friends...but I choose to isolate for weeks on end. I have a part that coerces me to eat sugar and fat and salts all night long in front of the TV, making me fat, lazy and I'm aging way too fast because of my nightly TV/Binge-eating private parties. I have so many parts that cause me to live in ways I don't really want to live, but I'm comfortable doing so and I can't seem to stop doing things that don't serve me as an adult.

This morning, on the porch, texting with my wife, I decided to start my exploration of my parts by asking Mr. Isolation why he makes me isolate all the time.  I got an answer immediately.

He said "You don't have any boundaries to keep you safe from other people, so I give you boundaries." He showed me my front yard from where I was sitting. "I gave you a yard that no one else can see from the street. You can't protect yourself from being betrayed by your neighbors, friends, and loved ones, so I'm giving you a private fortress of solitude to keep you safe. As a child you couldn't stop people from calling you horrible names. Your own family betrayed you constantly so you would work for them and not ask for anything for yourself. For almost your whole life you couldn't stop your family from telling you how worthless and needy you were and how lucky you were that they loved you anyway. So, I've given you physical boundaries to protect you from your loved ones, peers and superiors. From the street to the front door is your private yard. I encourage you to keep the shrubbery as tall and thick as you can so no one can see you sitting peacefully on your front porch. I encourage you to lock your front door when you're in the house, and to keep it locked for a week at a time because that locked door is the only boundary I know how to give you that you'll accept."

Okay, so that just happened, and I immediately felt the need to run into the house and tell my journal about it. I'm feeling comfortable about how Mr. Isolation is trying to help me. I feel like I'm grateful for how much isolation he's given me over the past few years, but I'm also hoping that he and I can find a new way to help me comfortably, happily and successfully hold my emotional boundaries before my wife retires and we start living together at the beach 24x7. If she retired today and came to spend the Holidays with me in this tiny house, I'd be mortified. BUT it's only because I've learned that locking everyone out of my life is the only way I can uphold my boundaries. If I can learn how to love myself and not accept the nasty things people say about/to me, I can stop hiding out and isolating from my own, wonderful, life-partner. My wife is my sunshine. It bothers me that I need to be alone when I have this amazing person who is committed to always loving me, always honestly, and always without any malicious manipulations of any kind.

Mr. Isolation is helping me the only way he knows how. The problem is that with physical isolation, I'm putting strain on my own marriage and friendships. I can't just ask him to stop, because physical isolation is still the only way I know how to find emotional peace and safety.

So, I am going to try to read chapter two today also. Now that I've connected with Mr. Isolation, I need to know how to work with him to move him past my childhood fears, to see if he'll help me find emotionally mature ways to guard myself against feeling belittled and betrayed by the people who love me.

[dollyvee]

Hi PC,

Oh wow, that's great! It feels pretty incredible to connect with those parts doesn't it? It's a direct communication to what's actually going on. I'm sure that as you talk to and reassure Mr. Isolation about that you're an adult and can manage your boundaries now he/they/it will step back and allow you to speak to the part that was hurt and show you what happened with your boundaries.

Sending you support,
dolly

[paul72]

That's awesome Papa Coco.
I've got to get that book! (thanks dolly too)
Just want to send positive wishes your way. Mr Isolation sounds like a fierce protector. I'd like him
I'm very grateful for this sharing and am just trusting this process alongside you.

[Master of my sea]

That's amazing Papa Coco 
You always have something incredible to share and I find your story inspiring.

I hope you manage to find that balance and can come up with new ways with Mr Isolation to support you as you need now 
Sending you good luck and positive vibes on this next step in your journey.

[Papa Coco]

Dolly, Phil, Master of my Sea, Thanks for the support. Even though we're all virtual, and may never meet each other in person, I find a lot of strength in us sharing our life struggles and successes with each other. Gaining control over a lifetime of being controlled by Emotional Trauma Reactions is not easily done alone. But being a part of a community that is on the same trajectory is comforting and strength building.

Dolly, you're right about how it feels good to connect with these parts. It feels loving, not combative. On so many levels I feel like I made a new friend yesterday when "Mr. Isolation" so quickly explained why he gives me the only boundaries he knows I'll accept.

I only got started on Chapter 2 yesterday. I'll read the rest of it today. The author says that if the trauma responses are old and have been with me for a long, long time, that it could take up to 2 years of going through the steps of making peace with all my parts. That's okay with me. I measure my success by the year anyway. I can say I'm a better person today than I was 12 months ago. So now I can look forward to who I might be this time next year.

My wife has some vacation coming to her, and is planning to drive down to the beach tomorrow. I'll spend the whole day with her and she'll be staying for a week. It's going to be so nice to see her, especially since I've made my new friend, Mr. Isolation, and now I know a bit more about why I tend to pull away. My wife is not someone to pull away from. My need to isolate is not her fault. I'm just lucky that she's okay with it. In fact, she tells me that she likes the time alone also.  I know that we with C-PTSD can be skittish in relationships. My own skittishness has cost me a lot of relationships over the years. I know that just because we're doing okay with my quirks right now, it doesn't mean I shouldn't try to fix this isolation problem so that we can go another 40 years happy together. 

One of my favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou who said "Do the best you can until you know better. When you know better, do better." Well. My marriage has done okay with what I knew. But I know better now, so I owe it to myself and my wife to do better. Now that I've met Mr. Isolation I can't un-meet him. I know better now. I have to do better. He and I are going to work this out. I'm going to find a new way to uphold my boundaries, so I don't 'have to live alone in solitude so often.

Chapter two, Here I come! Show me how to deal with Mr. Isolation!

[Armee]

I hope so much that you, Mr. Isolation, and Mama Coco have a peaceful and connected visit. Your parts work is inspiring.

[Papa Coco]

Journal Entry for Thursday, September 6, 2022

Panic: Did I lose a friend?

I have an internet friend that I stay in touch with, but we don't really know each other's home addresses or phone numbers. We've been very close via email for quite some time. A week and a half ago, after I hadn't received an email in 5 weeks, I accidentally got out of the habit of checking daily for his emails. Today, I realized I hadn't checked the email account in a while. I checked my inbox and found he'd pinged me 12 days ago. That's less than two weeks.  I had probably just checked for an email from him 13 days ago, and after 5 weeks of nothing, I just got out of the habit of checking email. Life's been busy for me, and...well...I felt awful and immediately responded today with a letter apologizing for not responding sooner. I asked how he was doing, and again, apologized for not catching his email for over a week.

My email was returned to me saying his email account was closed.

Logically I know, as a mature, grown man, that there are two possible scenarios at play here. 1) He could be in trouble. With all the hurricanes and fires and public shootings, my mind can't help but ask if he's okay, in which case, as an adult with a caring nature, I'm worried about him. 2) The other scenario is far more frightening to me. My traumatized self is filling in all the blanks, and is feeling sure that since I didn't respond within 12 days of his last email, that I've been cut out of his life.

TRAUMA: This is more about me than about him. I have a hard time believing he'd cut me out of his life for not responding quickly enough after his 5 weeks of silence. I keep telling myself: "This is TRAUMA" as I try to not freak out and go into serious self-deprecation for being a bad friend. I'm in a serious Catch-22 here. To make myself feel better, should I hope that he is hurt so I don't have to feel like he's cut me out of his life? I don't want THAT! I don't want him to be hurt. But I also don't want to find out that I'm being blocked by someone I care about.  I don't know which scenario I hope this is. Both are bad.

I am sitting at my computer feeling like my insides are on fire. I'm burning up from the inside out. I'm feeling obsessed. How can I find him? I don't know his phone number? Did I hurt him? Am I still that bad child who got ignored, betrayed, left behind because I didn't please my parents, siblings, peers enough? Is this whole thing my fault? Did I cause him pain?

Now it's time to rely on what little I know about IFS:

I've only read 1 1/2 chapters of one book about IFS, and I've listened to 1 podcast that had IFS mentioned in it. That's what I know about IFS. But I think I know enough, so far, to lead me to the following realizations about what's happening in my body right now:

My Inner Victim: I have a lot of inner victims and I don't know yet how to name them all. But today I'm talking about an inner victim who has been abandoned, ghosted, ignored, and beaten up by my own friends and family. That inner victim is terrified right now, assuming the worst, that my friend has given up on me because I'm a bad, shameful person. My Inner Victim believes I've been abandoned AGAIN. How that inner victim speaks to me is he lights my insides on fire. Right now all my organs are almost ready to combust. My ears are turning red from the extra blood flow to my head. My inner victim is terrified like he was when my best friend smacked me at age 10 and turned my entire school into a mob-bully situation that lasted for the rest of my childhood. My inner victim is terrified like when my mom, dad, brother and sisters would ignore me and refuse to talk to me because they were unhappy and I was being blamed, (usually I was innocent) for their mistakes. Back when I was a Christian, I once had a group of Christian friends tell me that our weekly bible studies were cancelled, only to later find out that these so-called-friends had moved the bible study and didn't want me to know. I never found out why. Today, my own son won't talk to me because I don't support trump. My inner victim remembers all these stories plus a few others, where abandonment was my punishment for not being good enough. My Inner Victim is making me MISERABLE this morning. I've been betrayed, ghosted, ignored, tricked and left for dead so many times that this is just too similar for me to get past without this distress.

My Inner Protector: IFS teaches that when our inner victims go into pain, our inner protectors jump into action and do things we aren't always sure we want them to do. I have a lot of inner protectors, but today's protector is the Fawn. My Fawn wants to find my friend somehow and apologize until my knees weaken. Then I want to fawn over him, give him gifts and love and money and whatever else he needs...until my inner victim stops being terrified and cools my organs back down to 98.6 degrees F.

There's a chance that something else has happened, and that my friend will create a new account and contact me again. For that scenario, I worry like any friend would worry. Is he okay? Is he hurt? Is he in some kind of trouble?

But I'm a traumatized adult whose been down the road of being ignored and "shut out" of people's lives just for being me or for something I didn't even know I'd done but I got blamed for anyway.

Because I'm a trauma victim, my IFS family of inner parts are all engaged this morning making me obsess over losing ANOTHER friend and worrying that he hates me now.

Thank God my wife is here with me for the next 10 days. She'll keep me distracted, hopefully until this inner victim calms down and stops heating me up from the inside out.


I need to use IFS somehow now to talk with this inner protector AND this inner victim and ask how we can get past this without fawning over someone. In non-trauma reality, I did nothing wrong. But in my personal Trauma-reality, I'm guilty of being a bad person all over again, without even knowing I'd been bad. My victim is in his place of horror, and my protector is champing at the bit to help my Inner Victim by finding my friend and fawning until we're okay again.

Unfortunately, what I know about IFS is from the first 30 pages in a book and one 45-minute podcast. I don't have an IFS therapist, so I'm going to have to figure this one out on my own.  And if my friend is not trying to lock me out, but is in some kind of trouble, well...as his friend I want to be there to support him, but I can't, because his emails are all shut down.  This is a conundrum that normally would drag me into serious SERIOUS anxiety and depression at the same time. But this time, I'm going to try to calm down the anxiety and guilt and shame by using it as a case scenario to work on learning how to communicate with all my various different people living inside me. My protectors, and my victims, and my own self.

When I get past my inner victim and inner protector, to find my true core self, I do now believe that by my pure nature I am a caring person. So I know that even if I were emotionally healthy right now, I'd still be worried that my friend is okay.  So, either way, if he's not okay, I'm worried as a friend. If he's hiding from me, then I'm worried for myself. I don't want to go through this painful, agonizing sense of abandonment again.

All I can do for the time being is trust that this friend is a good friend, and he's not intentionally blocking me. I'll obsessively check my inbox several times a day to see if he's created a new account and is trying to connect with me.  This friend is a good guy, and I trust him. But this is TRAUMA and TRAUMA does talk to us. So, I'm sure this is just my trauma talking. But still I worry that if he's not ghosting me, then is he hurt or in some kind of trouble?

Meanwhile, it's good timing that I'm reading about IFS and how it can help me bring comfort to my Inner Victim without my Inner Protector sending me into a tizzy trying to find this guy, blame myself, apologize until I'm blue in the face, and then give him my lunch money to make up for how bad I am.

[Armee]

Gentle hugs, Papa Coco. 

I do this all the time too. And as an outside observer I can see that even though a traumatized part of you thinks those things in the past happened because you were bad....that was never ever true. You were never bad. Not ever. 

Now you hope your friend is ok, you remind yourself that you did nothing wrong. And hope that IFS and your wife work some magic because  I know that no matter what we know logically the trauma voice is louder and scarier and more distressed. 

[dollyvee]

 Hi PC,

I was just speaking to t about something similar and taking things personally, thinking it's me that's done this. It's hard when we're traumatized not to think that.

I noticed that in your descriptions with IFS you didn't mention the most important part, Self, which is always there which makes me wonder if you are in Self when looking at your inner "victim."  It's also interesting that in the book, and IFS in general, they are not called victims, but exiles and it makes me wonder if you are not looking at this part from Self, but from another, maybe judgemental, part. I'm not an IFS expert either however. If you go by the book, you also need to spend time (quite a bit as I understand) getting to know and reassure the protectors before meeting and unburdening your exile. That being said, I've had exiles (and not one carrying pain but had to hide) pop up right away. As I'm doing IFS myself too, perhaps I needed to tell them, thank you for showing up, I understand you need to be heard, but I need to speak with the protector more.

Hope you're able to find some peace,
dolly 

[Papa Coco]

Armee, Thanks for once again giving such caring and nurturing feedback. And I agree that, not only for myself, but for you and most of us on this forum, that we've never really been bad, but we've been accused of being bad any time we didn't give some sociopath somewhere enough of ourselves. Bullies hate us no matter how good or bad we are. And as children, we didn't know how to separate our true selves from what our caregivers and peers told us we were. I know, in reality, that if I'm being shut out, it's not because I'm bad, it's because my friend had issues and I got caught up in one of his own EFs. But, like you said, the trauma voice is louder and scarier than the voice of true reason.

Dolly, Thanks for chiming in also, as you and I are both in the IFS learning mode right now. I chose to call this my Inner Victim because I don't know enough about IFS to know why a person would be called an "Exile." I expect that as I read deeper into the books and learn more about how IFS works, that I'll begin to grasp the reason for why "exile" was chosen to describe the victims inside my head. For now, I understand this person who is inside me as a victim, so for now I'm temporarily calling him that.  I'll call up my inner Maya Angelou and repeat another version of my favorite saying, I'll call him a victim because that's all I know. When I know better, I'll do better. Ha ha. My own customization on Miss Angelou's great wisdom.  Luckily, for now, even though I really don't grasp the whole concept of IFS, what little I do know is proving to make this a much lighter hit to my Inner "Exile" than it normally would be.

I spent a lot of time trying to communicate with my Inner Protector and my inner Exile last night. I don't know how I'm supposed to talk with them, but I'm trying anyway. They had me change my verbiage from saying that I've been abandoned many times for being bad, to saying that I've been abandoned many times for not giving bullies what they wanted. 

My missing friend is in no way a bully. If I'm being pushed away, it's because of his own pain, not his anger.

Mild Trigger Alert: I see pain everywhere, all the time:

One thing I try not to talk about too much is that I have a profound sorrow for the amount of pain that's in this world. I was driving through Seattle one night on the freeway and was noticing the changes that have taken place over the years, and how the concrete fences and retaining walls that surround the freeways are now covered in graffiti. I was praying at the time. (I'm no longer a christian, but I have more proof than I need that we are connected through some great creative force which I believe is God. I talk with this creative force a lot...many times per day...and find it really helps me navigate life). So as I was in this state of meditative connection to the great creative force of God, I saw the graffiti and heard the words said, quite clearly in my head, "So many people crying out in pain."  Normally I'd call people who deface other people's property "bad people", but in this state of meditation I found myself seeing people who damage other people's property with angry, aggressive writing, to be in pain. They're crying out in pain the only way they know how. They want the public to see their anger. I believe anger and aggression are always responses to pain.

Another of my absolute favorite movies is The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is about a teen boy who has C-PTSD so bad that he's been hospitalized twice for it. It's the most beautifully written story of a teen boy with trauma that I've personally found. Toward the end of the movie, as young Charlie is back in the psyche ward, he's talking with his therapist and says "There is so much pain. And I don't know how to not notice it." The therapist asks "What's hurting you?" Charlie answers, "No! Not me. It's them. It's everyone. It never stops. Do you understand?"

Well, I for one understand. I have watched that movie so many times I've memorized it. The author really understands trauma. Those lines could have been torn right out of my own head, because for most of my life, I've felt not only my own pain but everyone's. It's part of why I can't watch the news. Every news story is about how pain is being doled out to people. For some reason I'm just always, always aware of the fact that we are all connected, and through that connection, I just can't stop feeling other people's pain and fear.

I don't know if that's a good thing or bad, but it is what it is. I believe that feeling my connection to everyone is a good thing, but the fact that I connect more through pain than joy is a sign that I'm tuned more toward resonating with pain. I can connect with other people's joy too, but I find that I tend to be biased towards the negative. I see the pain much more quickly than I see the joy.

People have tried to talk me into going for a Masters of Social Work so I can become a therapist, but I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I can't separate myself from other people's pain. Look at what a returned email from a friend whom I've never met face to face is affecting me...I can't imagine how much damage I'd endure if I had a caseload of people in pain looking to me to help them get better. I was a volunteer one time, advocating for victims of sexual assault. After a few years of helping people get through their traumas, I had to resign because I couldn't stop crying myself to sleep every night. I was just a 31-year-old kid at the time. I'm double that age now, and as I age, I feel other people's pain even more than I did back then. No way could I ever be a therapist. I'm too connected to the pain.

I'm rambling. This feeling of my friend cutting me out of his life is eating me up, but the IFS work is really, really helping to give me a new hope that maybe this time, I can better process how I respond to it. My core SELF is a compassionate person who values soul-to-soul connection above anything else in life, so no matter what, even my healthy core SELF will feel some natural pain over losing this friend. I hope, in the end, to feel the loss of my friend without punishing myself for whatever it was that shut down his email addresses.

Meanwhile, I still have a bit of hope that he'll reconnect with me and tell me how this was all just an innocent email quirk of some kind.