Master of my Seas Journal

[Master of my sea]

M&H, Papa Coco - Thank you both. Your kindness means a lot. I feel neither brave nor inspirational right now but your words are a great support and comfort to me. I wish I could say more to each of you but I am struggling today.
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I feel like I taken a huge step back today. I have steadily been feeling better and my symptoms have improved each day yet, yesterday, out of nowhere I was hit with a couple of FBs. I'd had a really bad night, so maybe tiredness played a role?
I had one FB in the morning and I have no idea what triggered it. But for a while, I kept getting these flashes of images and smells and sensations. That alone was hard enough to deal with but then as well as that, I just kept seeing the other person involved. I don't know how to refer to him. It's always just HIM. Sometimes it was just his face, sometimes it was as if he was stood in front of me. Doesn't sound like much but, seeing his face........
Usually I just try and get through my FBs and move on. Anything to get rid of the images and feelings. Yesterday I tried to actually pay attention to what I was truly feeling. The emotions I always try and run from. It was really hard but I was able to focus myself enough to pay attention, even for a little bit.
I became aware of how small I felt, just so little and insignificant. I felt so sad and so scared. There was also a profound sense of loneliness.
These feelings persisted through the whole of the FB but when I started seeing HIM, there was a feeling of complete defeat and hopelessness. Like there was no escape, I was stuck, and this is how it was going to be. I could feel this right in the pit of my stomach and my whole body felt so heavy. And my fear....that transformed into terror. This is the first time I have acknowledged that feeling. He terrifies me, even now and I think after the event, he always did. I just hid from it. I was never threatened to stay quiet or anything at all like that. They didn't need to, but the terror was there all the same. The FB yesterday and seeing HIM so clearly just brought all that rushing back up.
I never felt that same terror about my H, he made me feel sick and ashamed and dirty, but I was never scared of him. Not in the same way. His abuses at home and within our relationship were not usually physical in any way. But the other one, he still scares me now and I haven't seen him in years. There was something else about him. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing. Loved, respected and so highly thought of yet underneath that mask, I knew there was monster. I had to continue to socialise with him and act as I normally would. Regularly made to hug him and stand and have conversations, staying and helping him clean up. Everything that I was doing before, now felt so wrong and disgusting and I wanted to be anywhere but there with him.

I feel so defeated that this has come up and knocked me back. I felt like I was doing so well. I was asked this morning if I had had a NM last night....I did. I don't know what I did in my sleep to make it apparent, I didn't ask, but I clearly did something for it to be obvious that I was having a NM. It was not a good night.

Now today I just feel so sad and that defeated and hopeless feeling is still with me. I have lost count already, how many times I have just burst into tears today. I keep looking at the clock to find that an hour has passed and I didn't even know. I've just been off in a different world.
There was more that happened yesterday but I have run out of steam. I'm going to go now and try and regroup a little bit. Just wish I didn't feel this way again today 

[milkandhoney11]

Oh my, Master of my Sea, this sounds like a dreadful experience and I understand that you are so upset. Flashbacks like these are incredibly difficult to handle and I am so, so sorry that you are feeling this kind of distress. Reading your words made me feel very sad about how the world (and especially these men) have treated you. You did not deserve this at any time and neither do you deserve this overwhelming sense of hopelessness. I can only imagine how terrible it must have been to see his face again and feel him standing in front of you.
However, I also want to say that you have shown most remarkable courage and strength when you decided to accept these feelings instead of hiding away from your emotions. Right now the pain that has come along with this FB may seem impossible to bear, but U know that you will find a way through it and I would like to suggest that you are actually making a huge step forwards in your healing journey rather than a step back.
I don't know if this makes any sense to you and I am quite obviously not an expert, but I feel like real healing can only take place when we accept our feelings and work through our memories. In his book "Complex PTSD: From surviving to thriving", Pete Walker said this: "Learning to stay self-supportingly present to feelings fear and shame, abandonment and depression, is the deepest level of recovery. When we are able to do this, our recovering has reached a profound level."

So, just try to be gentle with yourself for now. I understand that what you are going through right now is very hard to bear but I believe that you can get through it and that there will be better times coming.
Please, reach out if you want anyone to talk to at any time, we're here for you and want to care for you when you sit with all your pain. I wished I could take all this burden from your shoulders and somehow make this situation better for you.
Gentle hugs if you want them

[Armee]

Sending along hugs. I know it feels like a step backward, but I don't see it that way. You are healing and processing. It's a terrible process but your mind needs to play it out to put it away. 

I'm not sure if I'm following everything but you say you were never threatened to be quiet and maybe these are 2 different abuses and I haven't kept track but at least one of them you were threatened explicitly to keep quiet. And whether explicit or not...we do.  It feels inexplicable but we do. You are not wrong or abnormal. This is how the brain and body copes with these abnormal events. 

[Master of my sea]

M&H - As always, thank you for your kind words and support. They mean so much. It's been a tough couple of days but hopefully things will start settling down soon.
I have the weekend to myself so am going to really try and get some 'me' time in and try and come back to myself a bit more.

Thank you for the hugs

Armee - I'll be honest, I am struggling with seeing it as a step forward at the moment, everything just feels so horrible. I know it is, but it doesn't feel like it, if that makes any sense.

I have honestly never looked at it as a threat before. I think because there was no direct threat, I have never viewed it like that. It wasn't 'stay quiet, or else', it was just 'Stay quiet'. I have never been able to get certain people, that know about this, to understand why I didn't say anything sooner. I just didn't. I was told to keep quiet, so I did.

[Papa Coco]

Master of my Sea,

I agree with M&H and Armee that this step deeper into the details of your past trauma feels like a step backward, but it is actually a breakthrough.

Once again, back to three analogies I often fall back on, of peeling the onion, or opening Russian Dolls or picking the low hanging fruit.  I wish it weren't so, but it seems that the way to releasing trauma is to look at it, feel it, focus on the fact that our adult selves today are now safe from that person or event, accept it, and release it.

Our brains are on our side. They're helping us release this. When it first happened, it was so huge that it blew our minds. So to "live through it again" in order to heal, our genius brains know that if we were to see the entire trauma again at once, we would be as shocked and terrified and traumatized again just as badly as we were the first time it happened.

So, as our brains hear us asking for healing, our brains honor us by releasing metered information and sensation back to us slllllooooooowwwwwwlllly, and carefully, and lovingly. As much as it hurts and frightens you to be dipping into this next layer of the onion, or next russian doll, or next level more difficult of the fruit,...basically into the deeper details of your traumatic events of the past, your brain is lovingly giving you just enough so that you can handle it, feel only a portion of the massive trauma that happened oh so long ago, and carefully, lovingly, live through it for a few days or a week or so until you are able to breathe easily again and sort of "accept" that it happened.

That quote the M&H gave you from Walker's book is so well said. The best thing you can do for yourself is try to focus on staying present as your adult self in 2022 until this past life EF works itself out. If we choose to push the EF back into its hiding spot, it will just have to come back out another day. I'm a very strong proponent of prayer. I don't necessarily know who is listening to our prayers. It may be some all-seeing god, or some angels, or it could be our own highest consciousness of our self. To me it doesn't matter, because just by praying for the strength to get through this one EF at this time always gives me the strength to get through this one step.

So much of what you and I and M&H and Armee, and all our friends on this forum are going through is like a recovering alcoholic trying to just get through one day at a time. In our case, it's also getting through one EF at a time. I often find myself thanking my brain for giving me a deeper glimpse into my trauma and I ask my brain to help me accept it before giving me any more than I can handle today.

Sometimes I liken these EFs as a chance to do the 5 stages of grief. denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I have found that I go through all 5 stages for each EF. Like eating a Thanksgiving feast, we don't eat the whole meal in one bite. We eat it one forkful at a time. Each forkful gets to go through all 5 stages of grief.

If we measure our healing yearly rather than daily, we can see that each EF that we processed, all added together, make a noticeable difference on a yearly basis. I'm far healthier today than I was last year on this day.

I've been doing these EF processing for almost 40 years. Two nights ago I had another brand new one that hit me like a ton of bricks. I was watching a commedian on TV on a stage. Suddenly I could see and feel and smell the stage that I was on for my 2nd grade Christmas show at Catholic school. I could smell that odd smell of the wood and wax on the floor of the stage. I could see my feet walking toward the "stage left" exit of the stage. I was a marching toy soldier, who'de been put at the front of a line of toy soldiers because I was the tallest. Somehow I missed a cue and led the other soldiers the wrong way. At first I ask, Where did THAT come from? Then, of course, I figured, well, it's Holiday season again, and my time of year to have these EFs. But how strange. I could SMELL the floor and hear the clomping of the hard soled shoes of all us toy soldiers.  It wasn't a big deal, until I went to bed and started thinking about it. That's when I remembered being gently guided by my shoulders by an adult man who was saying, you can stay late after practice tonight because we're going to do something a little different.  Which, of course, leads to the massive EF that started all of this in 1979 when I first remembered being abused in the church basement in 2nd grade.  My point is that the EFs are still coming, but now, after working through them, I'm getting better at not panicking. Believe you me, 20 years ago when I finally got a good Trauma therapist, the EFs were so terrifying that I'd often spend two weeks in bed, unable to determine what year it was now, and who my wife was, and what city I was in.

It gets better. For me, the way it works now, is I finally, FINALLY understand that my brain isn't torturing me, it's helping me very slowly work through each detail one by one in bites that, as much as they hurt, I am able to handle them.

For now, I send you my own loving support as a fellow traveler through the past. I'm not out of the woods either, but I'm becoming better and better at handling its rugged path. I can't help but feel connection and empathy with each soul on this forum. We are the trauma survivors who have decided to stop pushing the trauma back into its hiding place. We're the brave souls who have sought help and support so we can finally begin to release our trauma responses, and so here we are, together on path to healing.

Be kind to yourself. Thank your brain for believing in your ability to handle the bite of information she released to you in these flashbacks, pray for the strength to stand as your adult self, and reassure your child self that she's safe from that man now. If we trust our brains' abilities to know how to meter information at the right pace, these flashbacks are one-way stepping stones that move us forward out of the trauma and...Out of the Storm.

I'm pulling for you. We're in this together.

[Master of my sea]

Papa Coco - As always, I smiled when I saw your post. You always say things so well and always give me a new perspective or something to think about. Your kindness and support mean a lot to me

The fact that I actually need to allow myself to feel all of this and pay attention to it all is finally, really start to sink in. It's something I have known, I have been told but as the saying goes, You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. I feel like this applies here. I needed to be ready to feel, ready to give it that attention. Knowing I need to and actually being able to, are very different things. I have tried to push it away at times, when I have been feeling so overwhelmed but that seems to have just made it worse. I have just tried to deal with each moment as it comes.
My little boy has been my port through this storm. He has snapped me back to reality on more than one occasion and he has also stopped PAs and helped me ground. Just by being there, by being him and him needing his Mum. I have also been writing...lots. Up until now I have written very little of this event down. Having it in black and white seemed to make it just too real. When it's just in my head I can (or could) shut it out and even in therapy there were times where I was just so detached from it, like I am telling someone else's story. But writing it down was almost impossible or would just trigger me too much. But coming on here and making that first post, well it made a huge difference. I wrote it down and nothing happened. Nothing except I felt the weight of it shift, just a little. It sat a little better. So I wrote some more, on here and in my personal journal. Today I have been writing in my Thoughts Dump, so far I have written almost 2 pages. I've had to stop for now as I was starting to zone out and lose myself a bit. I was starting to shiver and my foot was shaking away but I'm impressed with how much I have written today. Then when I combine it all, it's quite a lot. The more I write, the more that weight seems to shift. It doesn't feel any lighter yet, but I feel like I have a slightly better grip on it.

Papa Coco, that's awful. I'm so sorry that happened to you. I don't think I will ever truly be able to comprehend all the evil in this world and why children ever need to be part of it. The damage people cause just to satiate their own wants is despicable.

The thought that I will learn how to manage these, that they will not always control my life in such a way, is a comfort. I do not see a light at the end of the tunnel but I can feel that there is one there. It's just way off in the distance. Being here on the forum, talking with people like yourself, it gives me hope that day by day, I can close that distance.
Instead of running away, I feel like I am slowly turning to face everything. It's scary to think about how much I have to pick through and untangle but I'm trying to remind myself that, these things HAPPENED, they are not HAPPENING. That's it's safe to feel what I wasn't able/allowed to at the time.

You're right. We are in this together. I don't think I have ever felt this sense of community and understanding. Not that was real, or genuine. The members of this forum have been a light on a very dark night for me and I will forever be grateful to everyone.

[Armee]

Oh hon. They didn't need to explicitly threaten you. They told you to be quiet. They are soldiers. They are strong. They have guns. No explicit threat needed. And the confusion kept you quiet for longer. Not being able to trust what happened because you were drugged. I'm sorry your friends don't get it.

I know it doesn't feel like forward progress.  it's just going backwards needs to happen to rebuild. Just going forward doesn't work, sadly. Wish it did. 

[milkandhoney11]

I'm so glad to hear that you are able to process things a little bit more easily these days. Journaling can be really difficult because it forces us to accept and reflect on everything that has been going on but I have found it very helpful, if not to say "therapeutic" in the past and I hope that it can bring you a little bit of clarity and healing.
I think what you're doing is really brave and you can be very proud of yourself. There are a lot of things still to untangle but how you are dealing with your EFs and traumatic memories is very courageous and inspiring.
I really hope you can get closer to that light at the end of the tunnel. You deserve it.

[Master of my sea]

Armee - I honestly can't believe how long it's taken me to see that for what it really was. I almost feel silly because I didn't look at it that way. So thank you for that, you have helped me see it for what it was and that has helped me to start looking at my behaviour afterwards a little differently. It's incredible how one detail can change the whole picture.

M&H - It is only in the last couple of months that I have actually been able to keep a journal. I have tried many times but I have always struggled to write one. Some of it is old fear, I wouldn't have dreamed of keeping any sort of journal or diary, growing up. If I had, you can guarantee one of my siblings would have found it and taken great delight in reading it and tormenting me with it. Then I just found it hard to start writing on a blank page. It just so happened that I found a C-PTSD journal on amazon that had charts and symptom trackers and a structure. I have used it every day since and I have recently just started my second one. Now I have actually started writing I just can't seem to stop. It is therapeutic for me, when I am writing or typing, I imagine the memory or whatever it is I am writing about, is flowing out of my head, down my arm and onto the page or screen. This flow often has a colour too. But it helps me feel like I have got it out and contained it. I can then come back and readdress it at any point. Closing my journal or turning off my laptop is very symbolic to me, like I am closing the door on it for that day or that moment. It helps me feel calmer and more in control, I suppose I now feel like I have an outlet whereas before, I never really did.
It helps me unjumble my thoughts too. There are times where I just write, without thinking and then when I can bring myself to read over it, it's all over the place. I go off on different tangents and bounce back and forth between subjects/events. I am then able to start to rewrite it and put it in order. This helps me see things clearer. The jumbled mess is the first draft, the organised timeline is the completed project. It seems to be helping me process things a bit slower because I have to organise what I have written and I do it in stages.
I feel like none of this makes sense and I have done what I have just described. But then again maybe not. If it doesn't, I'm sorry

[Master of my sea]

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I feel restless tonight. Almost agitated. I don't know what to do with myself. I have quite literally spent the past 4 hours bouncing between ideas and when I'm not doing that, I'm off in lala land. Just completely zoned out. I am watching a program and the amount of it I have missed because I wandered off into nothing in my head. This is why I tend to just rewatch stuff and can struggle to start new programs or watch films that I haven't seen before, I struggle to stay in the room and I end up missing a lot. When I do watch something new it can take me watching a couple of times to get all the information. Not always, but often enough. What I have on at the moment, I have watched so many times I have lost count but it's comfortable for me.

I have written in my journal, I have spoken to my Mum, I even came on the forum but I still feel restless. I got out my sketchbook and pencils as I thought I might draw. I've got an idea in my head that I have wanted to start on for a while, I just can't get the motivation to start it. So I decided to come back here and just start typing. See what comes out, might surprise myself. You never know. Or it could just be a bunch of ramblings

I'm struggling with even doing this. My concentration is almost zero right now. It's odd, I don't feel anything. I'm not sad, or happy or anything. I just...am, this evening. That doesn't even make sense. I don't really know how else to explain it. I'm here but I'm not fully here. A part of me off, exploring.
I keep thinking of different events throughout my life. Well, my childhood. I don't know why I'm thinking of these things but I'm seeing them from a very detached place. I know how these things made and still make me feel, yet, I don't seem to be feeling any of that. Just seeing these snapshots of crappy moments. But if I try and focus on one, whoosh, off it goes and the next snapshot comes on.
I have been thinking a lot about when my C-PTSD actually developed. I was diagnosed by the things that have occurred in my adult life, my childhood never really came into it, at the time. Then when I was with my last T, he was the one who started to highlight the fact that my childhood was traumatic. It wasn't just 'a bit rough' or 'not that bad'. There were times when it was really bad and some pretty crappy things happened and people treated me pretty poorly. This was not only within my FOO but my social circle too. So that leads me to think it developed in childhood. Maybe this is why I'm thinking of those things. I'm thinking about when this developed so it would make sense that I am remembering things from my childhood
But why do I feel so detached? I don't understand. I'll be honest, a part of me is grateful for that detachment otherwise I think I might be overwhelmed by it all.

I do wish I could actually focus on something though. At the moment I feel like I'm just waiting for bedtime.

My son isn't here this weekend, so I have a lot of time to myself. I feel this could be playing a role in my restlessness and agitation. He has been such a comfort whilst I was navigating Remembrance weekend and all that it brought up. He was grounding and demanding and as always kept me on my toes. So not having him here with me feels a bit odd. It's been hard working dealing with an EF and FBs and a small person, but he is the perfect distraction. Maybe I'm slightly worried about how well I can ground and keep myself together, without him here pushing me in the right direction. (My boy will never truly understand all that he does for me just by being there <3)

I don't know. All I do know is I have ants in my pants and bees in my brain tonight. Makes for an interesting combination.

[milkandhoney11]

Master of my Sea, I am really sorry to hear how restless you have been feeling. I wished I had any advice or explanation to give you, but I'm afraid I come empty handed. All I can say is that I know this feeling all too well.
For me, it often comes after an especially intense emotional flashback. It's as if all the pain and anguish I have been feeling the past few days whilst I have been stuck in this EF quite suddenly fades away and is replaced by a strange "emptiness" (for lack of a better word). In a way, it feels good to not have to endure all this sadness and fear, anymore, but it is also a very strange sensation that I don't quite know how to handle.
Sometimes I think that it is a kind of dissociation that protects me from my trauma for some time because it knows that I have been enduring too much the days before. It's as if my brain was trying to force me to take a rest and gather my strength after this long and terrifying flashback. But you're right, this weird detached sensation can at times feel even more confusing and agitating than the previous EF before I simply can't understand where this feeling is coming from or why it is happening.
So, I'm afraid I really can't give you any support in this situation other than saying that you are not alone with this. I have experienced this kind of empty restlessness myself several times before, so I can promise that you will get through this eventually, but I wished I could explain why this happens or what you can do to about it.
Maybe some of the others here have a little bit more experience with this and can give you some more tangible support, I just wanted to let you know that I am thinking of you and hope that you will soon be able to feel a little more like yourself.
Take care and be gentle with yourself as you deal with this restlessness and try to uncover some of your childhood memories.
You are so strong and I fully believe that you can keep yourself together even when your son isn't there, but feel free to reach out any time if you want someone to help keep you grounded

[Papa Coco]

Hey Master of my Seas

My heart is with your heart right now. The dissociation you're feeling is something I've spent many, many, many hours being tossed around in.  In your last post you said "But why do I feel so detached? I don't understand. I'll be honest, a part of me is grateful for that detachment otherwise I think I might be overwhelmed by it all."

Congratulations! You've hit the nail on the head. This is exactly why you're dissociating. What I, myself, have learned to do is to stop, accept the dissociation and thank it profusely for protecting me from whatever I'm too afraid to look at. The dissociation is one of your Protectors. Your protectors LOVE you. They are here today, just like they were 30 years ago, doing the only thing they know how to do to help you not be totally overwhelmed. You said it best in an earlier post, when you referred to how your core self knows these things HAPPENED, but certain parts of your brain think they are HAPPENING. By loving and thanking this protector--who thinks these things are still happening--for protecting you, it can sometimes relax the protector and allow you to come back into the room with the world.

For me, these dissociations come when information is getting close. You don't want to throw the protector out, because then...well...no protection. But building a trust bond with the dissociation, thanking it for softening the blow, and maybe even talking with it (which is what I do), to say, "I really do want to know what is hiding in my memory, but thanks to you, I'm not going to be washed by a firehose. I'm ready to just see a little bit of it trickle out for now." Sometimes my protector doesn't leave completely but retreats just enough to help me see just a little bit.  I don't strive for perfection; I strive for progress.  A little at a time. Being better than yesterday is my goal.

I'm impressed by your courage, and your commitment to working through this. So far, I've not seen an easy path to healing. So far, that path proves to be rocky and muddy, but it's the path and we're taking it! And for those of us who talk about it in safe places such as this forum, we are taking that path with friends. So much better than trying it alone.


--


Before I log off: I want to address the eloquence of what you wrote in an earlier post about how you feel colors and energy while you write, and how you can feel the energy move through your arms as you close your journal. That is mind-blowing for me to read. Fantastic. I've written three full length fiction novels about a boy who lived through what I lived through and I can't remember ever being THAT physically attached to my writing. You are really on to something. I get chills when I picture that energy flowing through you. To me that just shows how deeply connected you are physically and emotionally to all of this. (I'm going to bold this next sentence because it is so important to me). In the big picture, being connected physically, emotionally and spiritually all together is the absolute, ultimate goal of everything we do to heal.  I'm impressed and motivated to see if I can one day become that connected to my own writing.

[Armee]

Oh Master of My Seas....yeah just from the tiny bit you shared over in my journal about your childhood. Yes. This CPTSD started then. It tends to set us up for more trauma and more severe reactions from it. I also forgot to address it over in my journal too what you said about being treated like you had it better because ypu grew up without the trauma of his presence....that's something I get told too. There's a tiny amount of truth to it but just a tiny. We were in the womb absorbing the stress reactions and being shaped by it, and we grew up surrounded by the trauma and dysfunction that his presence and then absence caused.

And the disconnection and dissociation yes is very common. That doesn't mean you have a dissociative disorder...the terminology gets very confusing its just that dissociating - disconnecting - is a coping mechanism your mind uses. For me dissociation was and is my worst symptom. I have had to work at it very hard in therapy for years now to even have some semblance of control over it and if that's something you end up needing more information on later I can share what's helped me.



You're doing great. I'm so glad you have your son to keep you grounded most of the time. That helps me immensely too. 

[Master of my sea]

M&H - You said to me So, I'm afraid I really can't give you any support in this situation other than saying that you are not alone with this. You have given me plenty of support, just by taking the time to post a response. You are so kind and understanding that I find your posts a comfort. So thank you for taking the time

Papa Coco - I realised a little while after I made that post that a Protector had jumped into action. I think writing it down helped me to actually make the connection. I did try and talk to them but it was like there was a wall I needed to get past first. I just wasn't getting anywhere. I ended up feeling really frustrated so, I left it alone. Yet yesterday I felt very much the same way, still restless and agitated and just zoned out. I decided to give it another go, and boy did I get a ride! It was about an hour after posting on Armee's journal that I managed to get through and get my Protector to stand back. I was ready with pen and paper and I just let the information flow. It took a couple of hours and a very sore hand at the end of it but I managed to attack some 'memories' I say 'memories' loosely as these are things I have been told about. I was too young to have any memory but the impact that the knowledge of these events has had is very real. My Protector jumped back in, in the end and I lost grasp of it again but I managed to get a lot before that happened. I think I may share it here.

I like what you said about the path to healing, So far, that path proves to be rocky and muddy, but it's the path and we're taking it! It was messy getting to where we are, it's going to be a little muddy and messy getting out it as well.

I have never told anyone before about the way I feel and what I see when I write. It would have just sounded crazy to the people in my life, but it felt safe to share it here. It's something that I first noticed in secondary school, whenever I was writing something I cared about, it had a colour, and I could feel it flow. The colour normally matches up to the tone or emotion of what I am writing. It can change multiple times, especially when I am journalling, here or in my personal journals. For example, what I wrote last night was a dark blue and the flow was quite rapid. I think it's quite cool if I'm honest

Armee - Your journal and that post helped me access that in a way I have never done before. I was able to talk to my dear Protector and get them to step back and let me see and feel and it was good to get it out. So thank you, you helped me to access this and now it's not stuck in my head I'm hoping to really start processing it.
You're right, there is some truth to it, but we still had to deal with it, just not as directly for the long term. The only person that has ever spoken to me about what my Dad did to my Mum that night is my Mum. None of my siblings ever mention it, they just focus on the fact that we didn't live with him and had the most minimal contact in the end. As I said to Papa Coco, I think I am going to share what I have written here.

I've always zoned out and lost my place and concentration, but I have always blamed it on being tired or just 'lost in thought'. It's only more recently that I have started to realise that I am actually dissociating. I still don't always recognise it, like in my post. But I do it a lot. Sometimes I'm grateful for it and other times, it drives me up the wall because I just become incapable of doing anything.
Thank you I really appreciate that and I'll keep it mind.

He's hard work but he is the one thing in my life that is constant and gives me a reason to keep going and keep fighting through this. He's been through a lot and his start in life was not what I wanted, and I hope I can undo any damage that may have been done before it takes hold. I am determined for him to have a good and happy life.

[Armee]

Do you know there's a word for that? Synesthesia. Senses get crossed and people who have synesthesia see colors or feel sounds for instance. It's always seemed like a cool super power to me. I don't have it but my niece does.