Recovery notes Mar 23

[jamesG.1]

Another of these 'ere brain dumps.

So, progress in fits and starts, but it IS progress.

Just coming down from a relapse. Causes... Let me see.

1. Lack of personal space and time. Young un is back from Uni, has raging ADHD and is feeling the lack of her own age group. She's not happy, needs a job that can get her her own place, and there's a heap of attitude. Proper in-our-faces stuff. She's not a bad kid, but she's noisier than a drunk howler monkey and is a classic tiktok generation airhead. My poor head is just overwhelmed, and she's there all the time. There's just no downtime, no space to think, and my coping mechanisms have been obliterated. I'm irritable and resentful, which is not like me. The entitlement is ringing all my bells, and I'm right back there in my trauma period, losing battles I really need to win. Try as I might, the only way to deal with it is to just accept that my life is on hold til someone is silly enough to give her a job. It doesn't wash well. I gave up 13 years of my life to deal with other people's lack of logic, and I really don't want to do it again. There are signs she's getting closer to sorting herself out, so there's hope. But yeah... for recovery... awful.

2. Just turned 60. Didn't expect the emotions with that. The loss of the best years is the thing. What a wasted life. Sheesh. I think I need to feel it to forget it but the waste.... argghhh. Not just those 13 years but all the years before that, even the good ones. Indigestable for a while. All you can do is shrug and try and steer the ship by the bows. Just not worth the mood. But it will go when it goes. I sincerely want to move on, but it's a * of a thing to just write off a life or to pick over the house fire trying to pull keepsakes from the ashes. The good is glued to the bad. Good memories pop into your head like picnics with a backdrop of impending hurricanes. Desperately sad to think how I didn't have a clue what was coming. I knew both my partner's family and mine were toxic, but I never imagined the way they'd rip us apart and trash us. Recently I've been mulling the injustice thing, which I thought I'd put away. My sibling is still out there. There's no contact, but his influence on me appears in so many forms. I self-sabotage, keep a low profile, and avoid mutual connections, and his poisonous view of me lurks like sediment at the bottle of a fine wine. You know it's there, so your pour slower, you tense for the last sips. Do I have to wait for him to die before I'm free of that...? man alive. Tough. Enough already. So, yeah... sixty. I want to live. It's time.

3. Physiology. The body has its own agenda I'm afraid, and the production of cortisol and adrenalin is a law unto itself. The triggers are not always obvious, but they nonetheless cause floods of gunk that warp my judgement, make me hard to be around and scream at me to just pull the plug on my life and run. Talked to the doc about this, and my dissociative tendencies and the plan is to send me off to a specialist NHS PTSD unit, most likely for EMDR. I think it's a good idea. Let's see. It's certainly not going on its own, and I'm sick of trying to work through it. I CAN work through it, but it's a zombie walk if I'm honest. I don't want that anymore... has to go. Will let you know.

4. Relationships. It's very clear to me now that I chose to be in a relationship when maybe... maybe... I shouldn't have. If you were in a fire, you don't get a job in a blast furnace. It's a real trial at times. Some of it is me, some of it is the past, but some is classic stuff... boundaries, personal freedoms, personal space. Where is it C-PTSD and where is it real battles that need to be sorted, like they do in any relationship? I find this hard. Really hard. I had the four most important people in my life batter me into the ground, day by day, week by week, year after year and every fibre of me is on alert to stop that ever happening again.

People are flawed, they have good and bad days, and even the best of people will push the boundaries if the conditions are right (or wrong). But when are you simply making the same mistakes again? The abuse I suffered started small, little gates gently closing, then being locked behind me, my escape routes blocked with a gentle click and not a slamming door. Then it ramped up, the proverbial burning frog, unaware that the dial on the hob is heading towards destruction. So, now, I overreact. Even then, I feel like I'm letting things slip. I just can't see it objectively and my view of things, especially when my cortisol levels are coming over the sea wall, is utterly unreliable. But my partner has been amazing, and she shows total loyalty and in her own, admittedly firey, way, she's fully supportive. I ought to be OK.

But I'm distant. Locked in a defensive posture, I just don't trust ANYONE.

I think I was terribly naive before, I just didn't think people could, or would, sink to the self-serving indifference to the discomfort of others I eventually witnessed. I NEEDED that changed, I was a sitting duck for exploitation. What I couldn't believe then, or now, is that the numbers would be so against me. I didn't have one angel among the devils, I was outnumbered, outgunned and out of my depth. It changes you... as it should, but it's changed me too much, way too much. My view of people, compounded by politics and public life which I think is at an absolute low point, is at rock bottom. It needs work, because it isn't realistic. You can't have such a polarised viewpoint. Angels to devils. People are never perfect and rarely... rarely, are they utterly demonic. Our abusers are not super-villains, they are pathetic shambling excuses, trivial morons and clumsy selfish narcissists who's major crime is their idiocy. They are scared of the light. It's tragic if we become equally averse to the best in people.

But being in relationships while you try to learn relationships again is tough. Work experience in bomb disposal can be short-lived. A friend of mine says that are actually five horsemen of the apocalypse, war, famine, plague conquest and.... relationships. He has a point.

But you have to try.

[Kizzie]

I have to go but wanted to post about one of your issues before I do at least. I just spent time in an in-patient program for anxiety and depression (and trauma symptoms but they didn't deal with those) and one of the helpful group topics (they weren't all helpful) IMO),  was about boundaries and asserting yourself in a respectful, calm way.  It sounds like your daughter could use a bit of that given she is moving into adulthood and independence and is driving you around the bend.  The key is using "I" statements versus "you".  E.g., I feel frustrated when you xxxx and I'm asking you to xxxx so we can all be happy and comfortable living together.  We're all adults and need to respect one another and treat each other with consideration."  Sometimes our children don't realize they've left childhood and must treat us differently than they did so we have to teach/remind them.

Hope this helps!  It really has helped me.

[Mandox]

Hello,
I'm 57 and your post really resonates.  I also sometimes wish I'd stayed single and sometimes I'm thankful I don't have kids.  It's really hard for us and I feel my own pain and suffering reading your post.  You have a right to what ever you need.  You don't have to ask permission to obtain space.  Maybe we can put the guilt aside,  and just tell our loved ones what we are doing, what we need, ask them to trust and love us even though we can't explain the problem very easily and do what you can.  A night away in a hotel, agreed limits and quite times.  Silence or non-verbal days on your part.  I know this all easier said than done.  I'm sorry for your suffering.  Be well and bravo for seeking to recover and for all your huge efforts and thoughts and surviving!