Hope's Journal 2024

[Hope67]

Thank you so much everyone for what you wrote.          

[Hope67]

2nd December 2024
I am just clearing out some papers, and came across some notes I wrote that I'd like to keep here, and shred the paper copy:

The notes are from Christy Gibson's book 'The Modern Trauma Toolkit' (2023)

p.9 "A traumatized mom might be detached from her children to protect from her own pain."

p.20 "It's not the event, but the response, that matters."

p.21 "In many cases, the most damaging person that causes trauma is a parent, which is unexpected and scary for a child."  "developmental or attachment trauma."

p.22 "When something happens and we feel isolated when we deal with it, that's more likely to cause a future trauma response."  "It's hard to be a parent when you never knew what safe parenting looked like from your own childhood."

p.27 "The aim of this book is to help you to find skills, tools, and concepts to move toward post-traumatic growth."

p.36 "Own point of view.  Person you're interacting with.  Person watching the overall scene.  The more distance, the less pain is re-experienced."

p.42 "the brain turns neutral signals into scary ones."

p.43 "her anxiety seems to live in her guts."  "gurling in her stomach"

(wow, I really relate to that one, my guts often speak out loud - lots of gurling noises)

p.48 "I believe that the body is the best initial doorway for trauma responses" Somatic therapy.

p.50 "Recent research shows that feelings are just an interpretation of physical symptoms, an expectation of the emotion that makes sense in the context."  "Likewise, if people are conditioned to believe that when their heart pounds, it represents fear, then that is the emotion they will interpret.  By associating the racing heart with excitement, you can change this emotional experience."

p.51 "all emotions are perceptions in the brain."  Creating new neural linkages. (this gives me hope - the neuroplasticity of it)

I found those notes to be quite uplifting and also relate to them.  I can shred the pages now and keep the notes here.  It was good to re-process what was written by typing it here - but the actual hand-writing of the notes also is a great way for me to process things.  I am hoping to remind myself to keep more written journals active - to look at current thoughts and feelings - but so far, I've been tending to write out notes from books that I'm reading, rather than journalling very much.

I am feeling stressed lately by some issues relating to in-law relationships - but I think I'm managing to keep my head above water and handle those things.  But it's challenging, and I've been finding that I feel quite angry about some things, and wish that people could be more up front about their intentions and what they want - rather than using passive agressive kind of means to communicate. 

I might take a break from social media this coming few days - not sure whether I'll definitely do that or not, but I think it's nice to do that sometimes, and is a good break - so maybe I will do it.  I'll see how I feel.

Hope

[AphoticAtramentous]

Thanks for sharing these quotes, Hope. They were very insightful for myself! I'm especially drawn to:

p.50 "Recent research shows that feelings are just an interpretation of physical symptoms, an expectation of the emotion that makes sense in the context."  "Likewise, if people are conditioned to believe that when their heart pounds, it represents fear, then that is the emotion they will interpret.  By associating the racing heart with excitement, you can change this emotional experience."

Perception is an incredibly powerful thing. Since I've started taking some antidepressants, I have felt my heart beating faster in my chest. At first, I automatically assumed that the medication was making my body more anxious. But when I looked at my smart watch, I could see absolutely no difference in my average heart rates before and after taking the meds. And it made me realise, perhaps it's not my body that's changed but my own perception of my body. My heart isn't beating faster, I'm just recognising my own heart beat more. And this quote that you've provided came at a great time to solidify that theory. So thanks for that!

I'm sorry you've been having some troubles with your in-laws. Wishing you all the best with it. I also highly support your idea of a social media break!

Regards,
Aphotic.

[dollyvee]

Hi Hope,

I'm sorry you have to deal with the passive aggressive behaviour from your inlaws. I find it so difficult to deal with as well.

Sending you support 
dolly

[sanmagic7]

i'm with you hope as you go thru all this.

i found those passages comforting in some ways.  thanks.  love and hugs

[Hope67]

Hi Aphotic, Dollyvee & SanMagic,
     to you all.  Thanks for what you said.
Hope

[Chart]

Hi Hope, stopped by to catch up. Sending good thoughts.
 

[Hope67]

Thank you Chart - much appreciated 

24th December 2024
Wow, I love those kind of dates where the date is the same as the year.  There's a word for it, I think, but I don't know what it is.  But I like them.

Thankful to be coping reasonably well with the seasonal stuff - having mentioned that I like receiving Christmas cards a few days ago, I ended up getting a card I wasn't anticipating, and regretted getting that card - but I have coped, and put it out of my mind as much as I can.  This time of year is bound to bring up so many things - and it has been, but at the same time, I am coping.

I have stuff I want to write about, but don't feel there's much opportunity to do that yet - but I hope to write more over the coming weeks, as and when the opportunity arises. 

Hope

[sanmagic7]

hope, here's to coping - with the holidays, surprises, or otherwise.  we'll get thru this.  love and hugs

[Armee]

 

[dollyvee]

 

[Chart]

 

[Hope67]

Thank you all so much         

[Hope67]

31st December 2024
I am just going to include a few quotes/notes that I took from books I've read in recent days - so I can shred the original notes and keep them here in my journal.  They may not make sense to anyone else reading necessarily - but I wanted to include them here for my recollections.

I read 'From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir' which is written both by Lisa Marie Presley and her daughter Riley Keough.  It's a MacMillan book dated 2024.  It was an amazing book - really interesting to read - having the experiences of Elvis Presley's daughter (who was a similar age to me) and his grand-daughter - it's definitely a book I'm glad to have read.

My notes from it are these:

p.71 Lisa Marie Presley's words: "It was about how things looked, the way things appeared seemed more important than feelings.  My Mom would never allow herself to lose control.  Everything was in its place."
(I relate to this with regard to my own relationship with my M - I think she was similar in this regard).

p.255 Riley Keough's words regarding her brother Ben's death: "I was in the most pain I've ever been in my life, but I also had the deeply transformative experience of surrendering to that avalanche of pain and not trying to avoid the grief.  This was a huge lesson for me - the only way out is through.  You must allow pain in to free yourself from it."

(I think that's really poignant and listened a lot to those words)

Riley Keough went on to say "We're told not to cry from the moment we're born.  We spend much of our lives trying to dissassociate.  When we feel something bad we try to make ourselves feel better, because we're afraid of it."
She went on to say:
"...Ben made me realise that every little thing matters, every little mundane moment, every flash of joy, All the pain." and she also said "Learning to hold joy and suffering and indifference and hope simultaneously."

(I thought Riley's words were incredibly mature and meaningful, and I wanted to keep those words here in my journal.  I'm grateful she wrote the book, and brought her mother's words and her own to the page, and shared them with people in the world.)

I also read a book by Lorna Sage called 'Bad Blood' which was I think a memoir of her life - she'd be a similar age to my M, so I wanted to hear her experiences for that reason.  I found it very helpful to read that book.

Some notes I took from that book:

p.37 "she dusted and scrubbed and mopped and ironed, but with self-scorn."

p.69 "Perhaps gossip as a communal art form actually censors out the unacceptable, rather than exposing it?"

p.70 "...suddenly charmed with the young woman his daughter had become, when he flirted and worse with her friend Marj.  The paradox is that if you add a hint of incest, the whole thing looks more innocent, or at least more impulsive."

p.72 "This family, though, is dangerously fissile, falling apart, orphaned, since nobody wants to play the part of parent."

p.75 "...turning her into a sexual object before she'd even properly recognised her own wants..."
(I relate to that too much)

p.112 "tense, self-conscious, embattled, as though something was supposed to go wrong."
"Their families didn't like their marriage, nor did the village."

p.133 "the reassurance of routine with the freedom of wandering off."

p.156 "disgust and self-doubt that had spoiled her own concentration at high school."

p.172 "Grown women were being spanked as a form of foreplay"

p.174 Post 1955 Rock'n'roll.  "teenagers post 1955 were a tribe apart."

p.176 "frustrated longings for a more glamorous life."

p.197 "so many brides were bulging to the alter."

p.216 "1950's glamour was grown-up and 15 year olds dressed to look like 30 year olds rather than the other way around."

p.244 "If we got married we would no longer be legally in the guardianship of our parents."

p.246 "Having such a secret was like having cancer a disease which couldn't be mentioned except in shamed whispers."
(She was referring to having a child out of wedlock)

p.247 "so ingrained still is the notion that nature is bound to adjust your feelings to your condition, unless you're a monster."

(I am glad I read that book, it helped me feel more of a sense of what growing up in the 1950's might have been like for my parents' generation and the societal taboos and related aspects of that).

I also read a book by a UK comedienne called Fern Brady, called 'Strong Female Character' (2023). That was also a really interesting book - she talks about her later diagnosis with autism, and her experiences.  I only wrote a couple of notes from that, which I shall also write here:

p.181 "I wasn't showing sufficient shame, that I was intellectualising my past experiences to hide the secret pain I felt." and she went on to say "You have to understand, with a lot of these people, they're projecting their own feelings of shame onto you."

I'm glad I read those books, and got quite a lot out of each of them.  I'm thankful to them all for sharing their experiences.

***********
I shall shred my paper notes now, knowing I've kept some of them here. 

I've also recently read an article about Estrangement by Audrey Helen Linden and Elizabeth Silence which looks at Parent-child estrangement and Psychological Wellbeing.  I've shared a link to that in the resources section of this forum, incase anyone is interested in the article.

I am at the point of having read the article, and I'm inwardly processing it - and maybe at some point I'll feel as if I can put some of my own feelings and reactions to my estrangement in a summary that makes sense to me - currently I have so many different thoughts and feelings about it, and realise I've not necessarily tried to really describe or process them in any understandable way. 

I think this will be my final entry for 2024, and I'll start a new journal for 2025 in the coming days.

So thinking about adding some final thoughts for 2024 here, and might add to them later, if I get any further thoughts.

Hope

[sanmagic7]

an interesting array of books, hope.  i did grow up in the 50's and my one word for it is 'repression'.  thoughts, feelings, sexuality, curiosity, cancer ( i never heard that word mentioned out loud, always in a whisper), mental health, self-expression, etc. - it was all repressed.  if it wasn't mentioned, wasn't talked about, it didn't happen. and i remember the beatles and how they opened the door to let that out, were a breath of fresh air which blew away the cobwebs moldering in our minds.  they were much more than a band for me.  they were a doorway to me. a very different time and place, difficult to understand if you weren't a part of it.

it's been a year, once again.  i look forward to going into a new year with you.  love and hugs