Post-Traumatic Growth Journal

[SenseOrgan]

TW/politics (sorry for that!)

Few. What a day to start this journal!

I'd been trying to formulate my aims for this journal, as a reference point. But reality decided it was showtime even before I wrote the first post. I took a huge step today and I rarely ever say this, but I'm proud of myself.

Someone whom I got to know a few months ago and had been texting with from time to time came with a huge surprise. We had never discussed sensitive topics, so I was shocked that he sent me a picture of himself wearing a maga hat out of the blue. No context. Just bam, in my face. He's not even from the US, which adds to the shock I experienced. It was the night before the US election and my anxiety around that had been steadily rising for a long time apart from this incident.

It was a big trigger. Fight flight. Eventually I managed to partially park it and meditate. That in itself is a huge achievement for me. I slept on it, but was fighting with it at the moments I woke up during the night. Sentences started to form. Slowly but surely it became clear to me where I stand in this matter. How this is not a respectful way to communicate. It was not so much about politics as it was about manners. The basics.

A boundary had been crossed and I was forced to speak up or remain silent. Hiding or showing my true colors. Fawning or fighting. I was not having it this time. Not anymore. Enough with letting it slide and playing safe. My boundaries matter. I matter. People need to take that into consideration.

I took my time to fine-tune what I wanted to say. A civilized, polite message. But very clear and very firm. It felt right. I had to do it. I owed this to myself. It was a big thing for me. Triggering many layers of attachment trauma.

The nerves were coursing through my body. I felt indignation and anger, where I normally only experience fear and shame and that nagging sense of cowardice. Good. Progress.

I pressed send. My heart was in my throat. I noticed it. Didn't allow my thoughts to hijack me. Focused. This was right. It had to be done. And I did. For me. Authenticity. Victory!

[Chart]

Congratulations Sensorgan. You describe it very well!
 

[rainydiary]

I appreciate you sharing your experience and am here in the US processing what has happened. 

[SenseOrgan]

@Chart
Thank you for your kind words!

[SenseOrgan]

@rainydiary
And I appreciate your interest. Good luck over there!

[SenseOrgan]

If there's one detrimental turn I "took" in life, it was the one leading away from connection, towards isolation. I was already in my late thirties when I got in touch with the extreme loneliness I'd been increasing every day. It felt as if I had been driving in the wrong direction my whole life, and somehow had to find a way to turn around before I drove off the cliff.

I've opened up a lot since. Yet in daily life I'm mostly alone. Literally. I retired on disability a long time ago. For that I'm eternally grateful. And it has become a challenge in itself.

A chronic sleep disorder dictates a lot of recovery during the day. It often leaves me so tired and dysregulated I'm happy to get the basics and the healthy routines in. A trigger happy stress system makes it hard not to add more overload. By attempts to connect, for instance.

From time to time I take my chances anyway. Some of that has payed off. Some of it blew up in my face. In the end, I don't mind the negative experiences that much. But I do mind how they impact my already fragile health. I can't afford much in this regard. And I can't afford to continue living such an isolated life. My resilience isn't what it used to be.

I'm surviving. I'm in a perpetual state of semi-burnout. Little stress tips the balance. I moved house almost two years ago. I never succeeded in getting my place organized. It remains a big mess. It's not necessarily just a lack of energy. My mind stopped working with me. Certain simple things don't compute anymore. Like how to organize a cabinet. I've rejected help offered by friends. It gives me more stress to have them ask where to put what cup and so forth. Once I accepted one friend to do it for me. It drove me nuts not being able to find stuff after that.

This entry has drifted off to nowhere. I'm posting it anyway ICR!

[rainydiary]

I am currently working through the ways I isolate and keep myself at the surface rather than connecting.

[SenseOrgan]

rainydiary
That's great. And possibly also painful to see. I've noticed I can be very subtly not authentic and therefore disconnected.

[SenseOrgan]

I just woke up with a nightmare. I was being humiliated by school kids. This remains a fear of mine till this day. Gosh, I'm amazed this issue had become unconscious again. My physical development was behind that of other boys. This felt very vulnerable at school. Especially in puberty. Paradoxically I was one of the strongest. It wasn't so much that I feared physical conflict. It was my appearance that formed an easy target. I was short. It was years later than other boys when I started to grow into a man. This was sometimes used to tease me with. I retaliated. But it didn't protect my already low self esteem from these blows. My physical appearance was an important factor in what my self image formed into.

When I was late, I had to enter the school building via the playground of the elementary school classes. I was terrified the kids would bully me and a teacher would mistake me for one of the kids and stop me from going in.

All my life I've looked a lot younger than I am. Objectively. People treat you according to how they perceive you. Less seriously, in my case. I'm 44 now, and people sometimes still refer to me as a boy. While the life I've lived makes me feel a couple of hundred years old. It's very painful to me. It ties into not being seen by my M.

I think a lot of guys my age would love to look like thirty. For me it remains painful to hear people think I'm so much younger. I can see it hurts because I'm attached to being perceived a certain way. The need for validation keeps me from feeling the rawness. I'm fighting with this reality in my mind because it brings up unresolved trauma. So I haven't fully embraced how I actually look because I haven't fully let in the hurt it came to represent. I'm fighting against the hurt, not against my appearance.

[Chart]

 

[SenseOrgan]

Chart

[SenseOrgan]

Posting on this forum is triggering, I noticed. ICR has gotten pretty loud. I'm afraid to offend people. To slip in something which really hurts somebody who is already in such a difficult position.

I've spoken about very personal matters elsewhere on the forum, and I'm afraid to be reprimanded for the content because it's rather radical. It's also an attempt to speak my truth, which I feel is important for me to do much more often.

I'm trying to get a feel for the forum culture here, so that I'm clear on the bandwidth I can operate within. Part of that is out of respect for other members, and part of it is out of avoidance. It's the latter that I've tried to challenge by taking some chances. Because I'm new here, this is an opportunity to experiment a bit. It does feel like I'm risking losing something valuable.

When I'm in a new social situation, I don't set the tone. I wait for others to take the stage while I assess how aspects about me would be accepted or not and filter accordingly when I do engage. I'm afraid of conflict. Beneath that I'm afraid to become the target of anger, judgment, condemnation, ridicule. Something old and nonverbal which hoovers over many social interactions.

The past six months or so I've had a couple of incidents where I chose my own needs over that ancient reflex to go for the safety cage of avoidance. I'm slowly learning that it's OK to have needs, wishes, boundaries and a personality and that I deserve my own loyalty to them. I can see that such a shift of commitment, from what I don't want, to what I do want, is significant and ripples out in all facets of life. It's like finally getting on my own team. I think it's time to re-read Steven C. Hayes - A Liberated Mind; How to Pivot Toward What Matters.

[Chart]

 
Oh boy, there we have a subject that goes deep. "Who hurts who and how and what's too much and unfair... can we disagree without our emotions getting involved?"

Yes, Sensorgan, you approach Pandora's box with this. The Forum has been good for me too, pushing some of my limits, in both directions. I've definitely hurt others here, but it's never intentional. So heartfelt apologies and we can move on, still frieds. Sufficiently distant it doesn't cut too deep. Not the same with family members. That can take decades to move past. But here we can test some emotional waters and see what surfaces. But everybody's sensitive and no one seeks out to denigrate. Ee are like children still, learning and wondering what is truly us and fair.

I think all this is very very important.
 

[SenseOrgan]

Thank you for sharing that Chart. It's helpful to learn about your experiences with this subject. I did expect things to work in the mature and constructive way you describe. It gives me some peace of mind to have that confirmed. I resonate with your perspective. We're all learning as we go. And family, yeah, that's on another level of challenge. 

[SenseOrgan]

I see myself slipping into the danger zone. Into the existential void. Day after day I sit here, looking at a screen. At home. Alone. I have nowhere to go to and nothing is expected of me by anyone. I don't have to worry about food on the table, a roof over my head, health care, or material things. That's great. And deadly lonely and unfulfilling. It's such a paradoxical situation.

A chronic sleep disorder has been sapping the life out of me for decades. Some periods are worse than others. Currently I'm in a worse period. I'm tired of dragging my corpse around. Of making myself do those hard things that do help to feel less bad. I notice that the discipline which has helped me to stay somewhat afloat for many years is waning. I never had problems with intrinsic motivation. Not even during the darkest periods. I kept exercising, eating healthy, meditating, looking for ways to increase my quality of life, and so forth.

Ultimately, none of that means anything when I continue to lead such an isolated existence. It undermines everything. I will never be anything which remotely resembles healthy in isolation. Never. This is not a new insight. It's also nothing I haven't attempted to address in various ways. Those ways, however carefully chosen, keep ending in overwhelm and often a greater sense of isolation. I've had some great success mixed in with that too. It's the sustainability where it rubs. I feel trapped.

This is what I marinate in when I'm alone. I can't accept that this is it for me, for the rest of my days. And I don't think I should either. After all the things I've tried and inner sparks followed, I keep ending up here. I had enough positive experiences to know that I have it in me to relate to others in a joyous, fulfilling way. That this is a vital part of me that has been starving for so long. I did get a taste of belonging and of who I am in a safe, social context. How to have even a little of that in daily life appears to be incredibly hard to arrange for me.