From fighting myself to finding myself

[OwnSide]

I've decided to restart my journal for a number of reasons.

For a while now I've been wondering about the purpose of sharing. How would it help me to have other people know how I'm feeling? I seem to be bottling up and then posting a lot at once, not always in rational terms, and ending up with a cringe/vulnerability hangover. Which discourages me from posting again, and then things build up.

Recently I've experienced some feelings of belonging in a peer group. It helped me realize that if you want to belong somewhere, you have to show up. I tend to isolate. And when I do meet someone and like them, I will hang out with them a bit and then distance myself to test their interest. It's how I build trust, but it peters out a lot of friendships before they even really get going. I think I do this with the forum too. Despite all the support I've been getting I have ambiguous feelings about my sense of belonging and I think part of that has to do with my patchy engagement.

I've also been doing some songwriting and this theme of wanting to share keeps coming up. Despite my surface values that say it's more considerate to limit emotional reveal, I think there's a part of me that really does want to be seen. I've talked to people in real life who tell me about themselves and their past in depth, and it's not a burden to listen. I feel honoured to be invited into their world. I've begun imagining that someone might someday feel similarly about me.

Some activism feelings have also been coming up for me. Particularly when I see things happening to my sister that remind me of my trauma. It might not be trauma yet for her, but I know where that road leads over the years. At this point I don't yet feel like I can influence the situation significantly. But it is a mission for me. I also think about someday leveraging my experience to help others, maybe through art or work.

For all these reasons -- cringing over my previous journal, wanting to feel more integrated on the site, satisfying the part that does want to share, and healing for someone other than myself -- I'm making a commitment. I would like to post here in the journal at least once a week. It can be about anything. That's the trust part. I'm not pushing myself to share things before I'm ready. I'm pushing myself to show up. I've seen myself make habits and it's amazing how something peripheral can become a part of you through repeated exposure. I think that could happen with this.

[Armee]

 

That sounds like a good experiment! And I find myself doing the same in friendships....being a great listener but rarely opening up about myself. That's a good thing to remember - what you said about how it feels when someone opens up to us. I'm going to remember that the next time I'm holding back with friends. Thank you!

And please, use this space to engage however you wish and however is healing for you. There is no right or wrong way here. You can share too much or you can just write about the weather. You can come multiple times a day or once a month and you'll be treated and welcomed all the same. Take a long break if you need to. The members here will tell you they'll be thinking of you and that they'll welcome you back when you come back from your break. It's true. I feel as close to people who post monthly or less as I do to people I interact with here every day. We all use the site differently and for different purposes and that changes over time too.

Once I completely fled the site. Deleted my account because I got scared. Welcomed back all the same.

I'm glad to be part of your new journal. 

[milkandhoney11]

That's a wonderful resolution, OwnSide. I have found that speaking up more about the things going on inside me has been surprisingly positive. I still worry about making myself too vulnerable or sharing too much (I don't want to become a burden) and there have been some times when I have shared my emotions and the responses weren't too great, but overall I am really glad I am being more open. I've been bottling my emotions up for such a long time and never dared to speak out no matter how much I was aching to speak, but now it feels good to be finding my voice. And what feels even better is to be heard and appreciated.
Before I found this forum nobody ever cared about how I felt. There were a few people who knew about my depression and suicidal ideation, but the number of people who ever asked how I was is terribly limited, I think I could count them on one hand. But now that I am sharing more on this forum and on some other channels to, I am starting to feel a slightly greater sense of belonging, which is wonderful. And I was surprised to discover how many people have actually experienced similar things and will understand how much you are struggling...
So, I really hope that this experiment will help you find a sense of belonging, too. I hope that expressing yourself will help release some of the pain stored inside you and I hope that you will find that the responses you receive are warming your heart and giving you courage to move on.
And, yes, I also think that this is a form of activism. It's so important to break the silence around issues like this and end the stigma related to so many mental health issues, so if this is something you can achieve by sharing just a little more, I think a great many people would be grateful to hear your voice 

[CrackedIce]

I definitely resonate with what you said about relationships and belonging.  A lot of times when joining or participating in a group (even this site) I have a nagging feeling that my membership is tolerated at best and have found myself doing the same testing withdrawal.  That inner critic goes wild after each post!

I'm looking forward to your future posts!  I've spent some time the last two weeks connecting with other C-PTSD survivors and it's a wonderful feeling to have these conversations and validate our feelings without having to explain or worry about the context.  We're not alone.

[Papa Coco]

Ownside,

I'm happy to hear of your recent decision to disclose more of yourself. It's a beautiful gift to give yourself, and I'm honored that I can be a part of what you are hoping to open up with. I have SO MUCH respect for people who take the courage to open up. I'm proud of you for this. Welcome to the world of vulnerability and letting others in to your world.

I recommend you don't force yourself to be TOO open at first or to the point that you feel terrified. We all know that being ourselves was a punishable offence in our childhoods, and we are all very carefully wiggling ourselves free of that old, outdated training that still grips us.

My recommendation is to push yourself gently to open up just a bit at a time. Each time we respond with love and acceptance, your lifelong fears of being vulnerable will feel a bit safer, and the next time will be a bit easier. Let your disclosures build up comfortably. Courage is not the absence of fear, it's feeling the fear, and moving forward anyway...but the good news is, we can all open up slowly. We don't have to become an open book on day one. 

Most of us on this forum have admitted that we feel fear when we write too much. Most of us have deleted a lot of our own posts due to the fear of being too naked. But most of us are also realizing that once we've opened up a small crack in our protective shells, that the small crack was immediately filled in with love and respect and care. This is a very compassionate forum with some, otherworldly caring people in it. I simply can't say enough good things about the love and compassion on this forum.

I began opening up and sharing my deepest self with coworkers a few years ago. Here's what happened:

I am a very social person, who makes friends quickly, but who also hides away in isolation for long periods of time because I don't trust the friendships I make. (It's trauma. This makes  no sense in the real world, but it makes perfect sense in the world of trauma. We want one thing, then are terrified of receiving it). I was born with a sense of humor and a deep need to connect with others. People knew only that one, social, self-protective side to me. (Which is often defined as Imposter Syndrome). But my own inner loneliness was becoming unbearable. When actor and comedian Robin Williams took his own life, he shocked the world, and some of my friends contacted me to tell me they hoped I wouldn't follow his lead. I realized, some people DID see through some of my inner pain. So, when I started FINALLY disclosing to my coworkers that I have been suicidal since I was 12, and have been silently dealing with chronic depression and anxiety my entire life, and that my family has been abusing me since birth, the first reaction from my coworkers was "I never thought I'd hear you say anything like that" and "I thought you had the world by the tail."

What happened next was lifechanging. These people, who I thought had their lives in check also, would turn solemn and would ask, "Can I tell you what happened to me?"

Just by the fact that they asked, told me that they wanted to tell me, but were afraid to. So they asked sheepishly for permission. How can I not love someone like that? Of course I said yes.

Then, with the sincerest vulnerability, those people would start their disclosure with "I've never told ANYONE this before..." And then they'd tell me the most shocking stories of what they'd been through or were still going through. From there, our friendships deepened. Some of those folks have made it a habit of staying close with me even though I've been retired from that work team for over two years now.

I like to think about the old saying about how we have two hands; one for giving and the other for receiving. And that love isn't meant to stay inside us, love is meant to flow THROUGH us. We learn to accept it, and then give it out again. We become a conduit, rather than a blockaide. And whatever we give is what we receive. If we give a closed off, fake persona, refusing to let people know what's inside of us, we get friends who give off a closed persona and refuse to let us know what's inside of them as well.

Speaking for myself, I have a lot of friends, but most of them are not very close, because they won't open up. I don't enjoy being with someone whose keeping secrets from me, even if those secrets are their own personal feelings.

So I don't blame those who left my life back when I was too scared to be real with them. I leave people who do that to me to. Not out of spite, but out of a loss of interest. What fun is it to hang out with people who are keeping secrets from me?

Again, I'm so happy to hear you're easing into this with us, and it is always an honor to feel trusted enough to be a part of someone's deepest trust.

Big hug

[OwnSide]

So I told a close friend I thought I might have CPTSD. I won't make myself give a detailed account but the interaction shook up my confidence. Reading your replies is helping restore my faith a little bit. 

[dollyvee]

Hi Ownside,

I understand your concerns - everyone on this forum is just essentially a bunch of faceless people who could be saying anything. If CPTSD has given us anything, it's a survival mechanism and alertness to danger. I learned that it wasn't safe to share in a narcissistic family, that those vulnerabilities would be mocked. So, I'm also learning to show up and put the old "stuff" aside.

FWIW I didn't think your old journal was cringe or oversharing at all. It sounded like you were someone exercising healthy boundaries with their feelings.

I'm sorry about your friend's reaction. I remember being told that "oh, your grandmother just loves you a lot" which doubled down on not being heard and gaslighting her "abuse" (still a hard thing to say). Sometimes people lack the understanding about the subtleties of abuse. It doesn't always have to be a big "thing" that happened. So, if you weren't beaten etc how can you be so affected? 

Sending you support,
dolly

[Papa Coco]

Ownside,

In your first post you said you are starting to feel the urge to share more of yourself with others. And that in your songwriting, which is your expressive art, the theme of opening up keeps coming up. It reminds me of that old saying from Anaïs Nin — 'And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.'

You also said "It helped me realize that if you want to belong somewhere, you have to show up." Because you said all that, I'm feeling like you took an important step of disclosing some of your personal truth to a friend. It feels to me like you were feeling compelled to take that step. That's awesome. I'm sorry if he or she didn't respond well, or if your own anxiety is flaring up on its own just from having opened up, but I think it's awesome that you took that step anyway.

Trauma adds anxiety to our efforts to disclose and open up to our friends, whether that anxiety is warranted or not. My therapist often tells me that I "can't become more potent in life without a little anxiety." It's par for the course. He also encourages me to take it as slowly as I need to. Peel the onion one layer at a time. Deal with the anxiety from the last layer before I take on more anxiety in the next one. The truth sets us free, but we don't have to push ourselves to disclose too much or too fast. We are allowed to take it slow.

As your peer on this forum, I want to support whatever personal decision you choose to make with how you handle your own personal information. If you choose to continue moving forward, opening up a little more to others, I'm here to support you as best I can. But if your anxiety wants you to slow down or stop disclosing to others, I'm here to support you as best I can with that also.

[Hope67]

Hi Ownside,
I'm glad you're here, and that you have shared some things - I hope that you feel ok to have done so, I know how daunting it can feel - I felt like that when I first posted and I still do sometimes, even though I've posted more frequently over the years.

I wanted to wish you the best for 2023.

Hope 

[rainydiary]

Ownside, I am sorry about the experience with your friend.  I wish that others we care about were always in a place to receive and support what we need to say.  Your story matters and I am glad you are here.

[OwnSide]

You are all so kind.

I have been reading The Body Keeps the Score. Fantastic way of processing for me. I get right there, all up in my left brain and my frontal lobes where I can think clearly, and I get to read and take notes which is a potent anxiety-reducer for me. Nothing centers me like a research project. One thing that's stuck with me is this quote: "What is critical is that the patients themselves learn to tolerate feeling what they feel and knowing what they know." (p.127).

I've known about CPTSD for almost three months now and I keep wondering where am I supposed to go? What's the path? What am I supposed to be doing? I'm learning so much and yet it seems like I'm going nowhere because I feel worse. Maybe this is neurodivergency factoring in but it seems like I'm just mulling over things constantly. The analyst in me does not want to peel the onion one layer at a time, it wants to cut straight through to the centre and get it in the pan and turn it into something useful.

I keep thinking there must be some trick. If I just do things right I won't have such a problem. Be more mindful. Exercise. Talk to people. Something. Because I guess the alternative is to admit that something major happened and it's going to take a while to heal from and while that's a very validating prospect that feels true more and more often now, I can produce a lot of counter-arguments. Especially when I'm having a good day, or a new coping mechanism is working temporarily, or I'm reading about some key symptom/experience I don't have.

So it's been push and pull. I'm fine. I'm not fine. Nothing makes sense. Suddenly everything's clear. Repeat. Which felt really cyclical and aimless and I wondered where I was really going with this. But I think I've been learning to tolerate feeling what I feel and knowing what I know. I'm beginning to notice where I can sit with things and where I still run away inside my head.

I will probably continue to move at the agonizingly slow breakneck pace my brain is demanding. But now I am a little more aware of the need for pacing. I think that's why I find myself oscillating -- my brain is trying to give me breaks. I trust it.

[OwnSide]

I remember being told that "oh, your grandmother just loves you a lot" which doubled down on not being heard and gaslighting her "abuse" (still a hard thing to say). Sometimes people lack the understanding about the subtleties of abuse. It doesn't always have to be a big "thing" that happened. So, if you weren't beaten etc how can you be so affected? 

Is there somewhere on the forum where you discuss this further? I have been asking myself the same thing and would like to learn more about "the subtleties".

[milkandhoney11]

Ownside,
I've only learnt about CPTSD last year so it's still quite new to me but what you wrote really resonated with me. I'm finding it frustrating to not be making any progress and I feel like my suffering doesn't get any better. I'm learning so many things about myself and my abuse and I read a lot of books about trauma because I feel like this awareness is only going to help but when I'm in a flashback the pain is still as overwhelming as before. Why does it not get any better?
I keep feeling so helpless and hopeless and just don't know what to do. I guess part of this is because of my difficult situation (having lost my job, living completely on my own, etc.) but I can't really see my situation improving. I know there must be a light at the end of the tunnel somewhere but I can't afford it to take years and years to finally get a glimpse of it. I simply don't have the strength to wait for that long. I feel like I can't endure this pain for much longer, so (like you) I keep wishing I could find some kind of shortcut but then I read some of the stories on here and I realise that this trauma is probably going to stay with me till the end of my life and it's just such a debilitating prospect.
I mean, it's wonderful to have found a community and I am so grateful for all the amazing people on here. I really don't know where I'd be without the support of all of you here on this forum but sometimes I look at all this pain that we all are experiencing and I can't help but feel discouraged because I simply can't understand why there must be so much suffering in this world.
So, the truth is that I don't have any advice for you. I don't know how best to cut the onion and I don't have any strategy that helps to heal faster. I just want to say that I completely understand your frustration and honestly feel for you.
Take care

[dollyvee]

I remember being told that "oh, your grandmother just loves you a lot" which doubled down on not being heard and gaslighting her "abuse" (still a hard thing to say). Sometimes people lack the understanding about the subtleties of abuse. It doesn't always have to be a big "thing" that happened. So, if you weren't beaten etc how can you be so affected? 

Is there somewhere on the forum where you discuss this further? I have been asking myself the same thing and would like to learn more about "the subtleties".

Hi Ownside,

I thhink Dr. Ramani's videos are a good place to start maybe. Have a look at the Five Kinds of Parental Narcissism and How to Deal with a Narcissistic Parent. She also deep dives into the different kinds of narcissism on her other videos if those apply.

https://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=15015.msg127301#msg127301

Sending you support,
dolly

[Armee]

Hi Ownside (and for Milk and Honey a bit too)...

The beginning of healing is very overwhelming and the way you put it Ownside of the constant cycling between fine/not fine, having those days you feel pretty good so why mess with it, and the agonizingly slow breakneck pace...that's all so spot-on. I also very much am the same way about research and understanding the science and logic behind things. I think it's ok if that is how you are tackling things at first because the scientific understanding will help you have a framework to understand what is happening and has happened to you later when you are ready for the emotional part of the work.

You can't really force yourself to be ready, it sadly doesn't work like that. Things come up when they come up. My T used to say stuff like "trust in the unfolding" and "all roads lead to Rome." It drove me CRAZY! I thought he was saying that if I worked on whatever silly insignificant issue that came up all my problems would be solved. And that felt very untrue. But what he was really saying was that things come up as and when we can handle them and the things are all pretty connected even if they don't seem like it. Progress on one piece will eventually lead to the next piece. That layer will kind of fall off and show itself when it is time. And you'll have more skills to deal with it from having worked on the prior layers.

It is slow and it is expensive. It is not fair. There is a long stretch that feels worse. But if you look under the feeling worse part you'll probably find something that is different and better. For me, mindfulness was a big piece of the skill set I needed to feel better. Unfortunately mindfulness is also what allowed me to notice the mess that was there and how terrible it all felt. You're kind of breaking yourself apart and rebuilding yourself as you go.

I know so well how discouraging the whole thing is and how sometimes it can feel like we'll never be better. That's not true though. We all have our dark days and this time of year is a particularly triggering one for many of us regular posters here on the forum, so right now you are reading during a time when we are all deeply struggling and it seems darker than it is.

I know for myself I am significantly better than I was 4 years ago when I was completely unaware and dissociated. I would never want to go back to where I was even though I thought I was OK, coping fine. On the outside I might look worse to some people but I know I feel so much better. As you go along healing at first you take a tiny baby step forward and then get knocked back thousands of feet and feel further behind than before. But the next baby step you take gets you a little further than your first baby step did...You're still further back than when you started though.

Soon enough though you are moving forward incrementally more than you are falling back, even though you do still fall back and you do still have symptoms. Eventually you'll be knocked down some but won't fall backward. You won't lose your progress even though a symptom has flared up.

Even though right now I am in the midst of processing something so terrifying I couldn't even let myself know it was there for 25 years, even though I feel real bad, I still would never ever go back to 4 years ago when I thought I was fine but wasn't.

3 months ago it felt like I fell down when I could finally admit that this bad thing happened (on top of all the complex trauma). But I didn't. I gently sat down. I did not fall backward on the healing path. I'm not further back than I was. I have all the tools I need right now to get through this part. When I stand back up and a start moving again I will not have lost any ground and will be so much further ahead than when I sat down in the first place.

It's OK to go slow. Fast is counterproductive with CPTSD. But notice and relish the things that feel better along the way.

It is not all dark and hopeless though there are plenty of times it feels that way. Keep going, keep it slow. Second to second if you have to. And do things that feel good. Go sit outside and listen to the birds. Go for a walk. Watch something funny on TV.