Hypervigilante's Journal

[hypervigilante]

Today, I guess, I'm starting my journal.  This tool seems great.

I am staggering right now and facing crisis. I didn't know I was capable of "freezing" because I didn't recognize it. But I sure recognize it today. And this week. And in my M.

Sometimes I miss the me that used to stay positive all the time.  Other times I miss the me I haven't discovered yet.  The one with more sides of my personality that I haven't gotten to meet since it all started.   

I'm neither the half-empty me who naively squandered other parts of me, the younger one who didn't really know what she was all about yet, but was really sure she did and was argumentative about it, or the one who has a calm heart and loves herself for all of it.   I love and strive for growth mercilessly, but sometimes I wish I loved it less. Maybe I'd be less exhausted.

I worry incessantly. I'm pretty good at it.

I know I need a T in my new hometown. Moving so much makes it difficult, as soon as I feel good about one T I have to leave. Financially it's difficult to accomplish right now as well.  As it always has been - but it happens to especially be right now more than ever.

My old T got a letter I sent her and called me a week ago. I want to call her back, but not until I can tell her that I'm doing well.  I still feel responsible for the world's behaviors, actions, and other's feelings.  I want her to feel appreciated and not always thought of in times of distress.  Isn't that weird? She's my T. I'm pretty sure she'd be alright with that.

She could recommend someone for me up here probably, she's offered before.  But I'm falling on my face again and I know I need a T. I always have known, this whole last year without one has been rough.  I just want to work on recovery, but life gets so much in the way. I don't want to admit to my T that I'm calling in need.  When for so long I've meant to call her in thanks, but never did.  It makes me feel selfish and undeserving.

My BF is great, but I struggle to allow that all the time.  I just want to get better at this.  Sometimes I am, and it feels great.  Others are like today.

[hypervigilante]

Do we just hit reply to continue writing? Hahaha, I am about to at least for now.



VERY Emotional swing of a day.  I worked out yesterday after feeling frozen for so long that I felt like I was climbing through mud.  I even felt myself frozen on the treadmill mid-run.  It felt comfortable to feel so relaxed and at stable peace while performing an activity.  It reminded me to stay out of bed, but also made me worry slightly for my head space.

So I am on this proactive emotional regulation effect into this morning where I complete some productive activities.  My college roommate is moving back into my place, we just bought new furniture that arrived, I wore new pants I allowed myself to buy, and I just felt like the king of the world.

(Pants might seem silly and irrelevant... but not unless you knew how deeply-seeded my monetary issues are.  I actually bought myself clothes. Earned them, deserved them, and wore them. This is a huge win for me that I'm sure will be expressed at a later time.)

Work had an amazing seven hours of hang-ups that led me to be required to pull an all-nighter, which wasn't made aware to me until 7PM this evening.  This is something that would normally be within the parameters of the job, but tonight I cannot do it as I have to drive people to a destination tomorrow safely at 5am.  I had to decline and do as much as I could, but leave after a few hours.

Through a lot of webs that felt out of my control, I had to leave unfinished work behind.  I take extreme pride in getting my work accomplished, and I don't care how justified I may be for leaving.... I left. I am struggling with blaming myself for everything.  I don't like to perform even at a standard level let alone a sub-standard level when it comes to my work.  I enjoy my work and I like to get better and better at it.  But this hang-up is something that is unacceptable in my field and I fear not just the professional repercussions, but what it does as it bruises my self-perception.  I don't want to launch into heavy-handed criticisms that are so easy and almost comfortable to revert to.

I just want to see myself operate at a frequency with peaks and valleys that are closer to each other than this crazy line graph I've got going on.  I want to stabilize so badly, and I work so hard at working hard that I don't want to see that slip away from me.

[hypervigilante]

This weekend has been a fully, loving weekend.

Well it ended that way, but there were some real hurdles in between.

I just want to write in this journal here to remind myself that getting in touch with the icky-black-tar feelings never last forever.  Sometimes they seem to build on top of each other; as they grow, I have a tendency to shrink and try to "obey" before they break, but they only grow stronger. Ultimately, sitting inside them for a few minutes helps carry them through the sludge and make it to soothing grounds.

I want to hold onto this feeling of resilience and euphoria for having a fully phenomenal day after what felt like weeks of bad ones.  If I keep up the exercising, both physically and mentally, eventually I will get a break-through.

I want to remember how I had repressed feelings build, but after sharing them with a caring friend, I achieved some peace. No answers, just peace.
Instead--
The answers came to me in my dreams where I found the sources for all the things that were really eating at me.  I felt relaxed to know quite where my triggers came from, and I finally could see justification for some of my outbreaks.  I kinda wish I was in a place to not need justification so badly, but hey. Little victories.

I feel healthy and happy, loved, and I still feel like I'm protecting myself well.  My bf and I are closer than ever because of honesty.  Moments of hurt when honesty wasn't practiced, but huge relief when it was, and I did what it took to make sure he understood exactly what I meant.  No mixed messages, no empathy practiced and independence squandered- I was on my side with this one.

And he met me there as well.  Which I feel is representative of life.  "Nothing is permanent in our wicked world, not even our troubles."  When you want to doomsday prophesize, allow yourself to be surprised by yourself.  You're much more resilient than you think.

I have such a strong desire to open up my books on CPTSD again to celebrate my progress and continue on the journey, but I recognize that I really need to pause and sit in the stillness and wrap myself in a big  for just a while.  The practicing can wait, I have the rest of my life for that.  Today, I am embracing peace.

[hypervigilante]

Thanks so much for the positivity, BeHea1thy! You helped me repeat that moment tonight by highlighting it for me.

[Kizzie]

It was so helpful to read your post Hypervigilante as I have been struggling with feeling like I am coasting a bit in recovery.  Embracing the peace is a much more positive way of looking at things. 

Glad you are savouring those moments when they come.

[hypervigilante]

TW featured

Okay.

It's been nearly 5 years since I've written in this journal. I really loved being able to revisit parts of me I didn't quite understand yet, and feeling like I've untangled bits of it here and there.

Today I just have an urgent need to express a growing part of my psyche as it nurtures relationships. Out of the relationship I was in when I last wrote, with tons of blindspots and healing mechanisms, growth, learning, peace, love, grief, and yes I am still pretty bitter about some of the huge lost time and money. Working to let that go.

I experience identity-crisis in relationships. My fawn ramps into super-drive.

I came out as non-monogamous in that relationship and the relationship suffered. Non monogamy really aligns with my values and identity for now, and it doesn't go without mentioning that it aligns well with my intimacy boundaries. But more than anything, I love giving myself a chance to avoid holding myself to a standard I don't even want to participate in! These ideals I was simply spoon-fed as the only way to be alive, and I'm wrong if I don't fit in. I'm out and proud today, and happy to take space for the things that work for me even if it's not the easiest or most convenient experience. (I realize if you're reading, that doesn't mean I can't see that it works for you. I just realize what works for me. I ask for simple respect of this current truth of mine I'm exploring.)

Two relationships have developed since being out as non-monogamous; not overlapping, if it's worth noting.  Right now I'm experiencing a relationship that's been ongoing for about a month and it's teaching me in real time some of the most progressive experiences which I'd like to unpack. In fact, it's  a great friend turned SO and I have a lot of feelings based on a violation of trust I displayed last night. I'm not sure this post will be linear or informative... I prefer to let the intuitive flag fly today.

I already struggle with the concept of relationships, ownership, possessiveness, space, hence my insistence on non-monogamy. I recently realized through a great convo with another friend, which in good trust, unleashed my realization::

"I don't want to offer anyone enough of me not to love me."

So this concept, explaining so much of my fears, has been tested against my attachment to a securely attached man. (For the record I just scored 48% avoidant, 26% anxious, and 26% secure! An upgrade from previous years! Anyway---- back to Safely-attached.) He is really present, patient in my life in seemingly the healthiest of ways. He really respects my space when I need it--- as just one weekend ago I had an EF in his company over the span of a weekend. After that week I needed (forced) space, and he honored that, lived his life, as did I.

REVERSE, REVERSE
Last weekend and my EF:

I had the episode of crying on Saturday night, he held me and cried too, and didn't try to fix anything. By Sunday, in total emotional hangover style, I told him a story about my mother. ***TRIGGER WARNING*** She once had a friend over and I came up to her crying while she sat at the table. She completely ignored me,wouldn't look at me. This made me cry to hysterics, I was not even table-height yet (2? 3? language wasn't a tool I had a stronghold on.. I can't remember if I still wore a diaper, come to think of it). I'm crying the kind of cry that keeps you from remembering how to breathe.
By the time her friend uncomfortably noted that I needed her, my mom finally turns to me. She grabbed me from the spot and stormed me off into my flea-infested, always-treacherous room complete with holed mattresses that've never seen sheets. She screamed at me that I was so embarrassing in front of her friend, can't she ever just have one friend. [to this day, i empathize with her frustration. i'm a fawn.]
She left me there to cry. That pain I can still feel in my chest for that little girl right now. So lost, so ached, so alone.

FAST FORWARD TO :: this Sunday evening, one week since I tell him this story.

Sunday night he falls asleep before me, and I took some pictures of our place we left in a book of poems we were reading as he fell asleep. Next, I'm taking a video of him sleeping, playfully getting him to itch his own face. I graduate ..... this was the problem, .... to logging into the phone itself, justifying it by use of an app-only camera function. . . . You see where this is going. If you've been there, please reach me about it.

Within 30 minutes, I've completely done a heavy number of snooping...  in complete violation of his trust, succumbing right into the snooper's temptation.
(!!!!!!!) (I've never done this before in my life. I keep asking myself why. Still absorbing it all, mostly angry with me!)

I'm reading messages from his long-term ex and someone else he's speaking with---- and I checked his call log history. There was one really long convo after I'd spilled my guts to him that made me sink. It's like I kept looking until I found something to hurt myself with.

The truth is, feelings of resistance aren't there, it's not about feeling "threatened". I've always known his relationship with his ex is very important in his life, and I have a lot of respect for it. In no way do I want to make that small, make myself a priority--- I can appreciate that both things can be true in a person's life. What makes me most regrettable is knowing I'm not the same friendly resource compared to a compromised one, since things have progressed romantically with us. I give him the space to be, he understands that, but it's still always going to be different.

So when completing a self-evidence inventory, everything I found perfectly aligns with how he treats me, and the way we've negotiated our relationship.... but I am having a horrendous time forgiving myself for peeking. Well honestly I'm not even really trying to forgive myself yet. I told him immediately what I did, he asked if we could talk when he's not dead asleep, (fair!) and we patiently revisited it in the morning. This experience has so far opened up some really lovely conversations.

Though we are talking it out well, we're on a time crunch. (It's Monday, we each have full days planned.)  I gave him keys to lock up behind him at my place, which happened instinctively for me and is just as much telling, because I was worried I'd hold him back from leaving when he really needed to go and I couldn't trust myself not to get in the way. I wasn't emotionally ready to let the conversation, him, everything go, but moreso, I didn't want to make it worse, and I felt I deserved anything I got.

So at one point he's about to leave, so I took the covers fully over my head. Goofy, but honest.. My nature is to try to make the pain a laugh.

He immediately joins me in bed and holds me, asked what's wrong. The freedom to ask helped me find, "I feel so alone." He responded with, "I'm never going to leave you when you're sad."

So simple and so powerful, I just grabbed onto the sincerity of the moment, stifling tears, holding my breath, just trying not to disrupt that connection from absorbing. In that response, he reached the really triggered girl in her dump of a room, all alone, so scared, and no idea how to self-soothe but to self-blame. I just thought,  "my mom couldn't even do this", and through tears reminded him of my story. He understood, and just held, and it helped me so much.

Here is someone present, kind, and treating me with so much respect. It brings me so much pride to feel like I've ever come this far, and it also makes the inner critic really loud because I don't want to "F it Up". I want to get in front of my insecurities and somehow avoid the healing process and all the mistakes all together. What, I want to be perfect? It is sweet. We remind each other we're not perfect often. He's really important to me.

The more I realize how important he is to me, the more afraid I feel. I think it's going well, of course, but I don't want to reach too far into an uncertain future and exacerbate the present. So many feelings about this, but for now, I'll leave with the original writing I'd photographed to insert in his phone for his finding anyway::

i am trying to not
make you pay for their mistakes
i am trying to teach myself
you are not responsible
for the wound
how can i punish you
for what you have not done
you wear my emotions
like a decorated army vesy
you are not cold or savage or hungry
you are medicinal
you are not them

(Rupi Kaur, the sun and her flowers, 2017)



--- Advice from those further along than me? Concurrently working?

[hypervigilante]

Food:

I just looked in the mess that is this over baked sweet potato covered in mayo, hating it. I imagined cooking up this frozen pizza I have in the freezer, but that's for emergencies.
I'm looking at the potato, there are actual calories here. It just sucks, it's just sloppy, I just ruined it. I hate it. "but I have the pizza"

"You didn't earn it." somewhere said back to me

I knew I needed to retreat here.

I'm terrified about my financial circumstances right now. I have no money left. i haven't paid rent. i havent been getting by, i'm losing weight. the lights are on because i told coned to wait a month. but at least I had accepted my dream job offer. . . but it didnt start before covid. They confirmed a hiring freeze. the job doesn't exist, officially today. I don't know if it will ever come back around. it might. it might not. what's the point.

I literally told myself i didn't earn food. i work my butt off, and i take too much responsibility for everything. fawn fawn fawn fawn. flight. fawn.

but i just told myself i didnt deserve food. i didnt earn it. i didnt earn the money so i dont deserve to eat. it's my dad in there somewhere. i don't know how to fix it but i have a very serious problem.

[Not Alone]

You are worthy of food, care, and safety.

[hypervigilante]

Quite a while, I love this community. It's great to see everyone's recovery and active participation.

I'm alive! Honestly, even thriving for my standards. I thought it made the most sense to journal out some curiosities I'm living with and for some reason writing them in a journal isn't something I've chosen to do. I wanted to understand how what I'm wondering connects with my community members, maybe.

I have joined a program that is anonymous, it's a 12-step program, and we aren't meant to talk about it publicly by principal, but seeing that this is anonymous I'll just mention that Al-anon has been a bit of a life saver as long as I've been in the program. My program work there coupled with the pandemic drove me to reach out to my very favorite trauma based T who agreed to continue treating me, and I truly see so many of my CPTSD symptoms less in charge of me!

I think what I am trying to find the answer to relates to my feelings of self worth. Am I clinging hopelessly to someone I appreciate and who knows how to exist with me because ... why? Or are my dissatisfactions in the relationship purely internal. And this is what "real life" is like. I don't have any model to relate to, really, just what people say. Life is a series of choices. I can't tell if I have a future with this person, which just sort of makes me think it's because I don't. IT's not that I can't see one, I don't see them making one with me.

My bf goes to therapy with me, couples therapy, and I see my own individual T. We've been going for a year and a few months and really starting to get into some of the deepest work that's healing so many things we didn't see eye-to-eye on. It's been wonderful.

And yet, I don't know. I don't feel the sense of desire to build a whole life with me or a whole future with me like the one I longed for in my head or told myself existed or never existed. I had so many coping skills engaged for my whole life to deal with where I was at I don't know what's reality anymore.

With my T we uncovered a part of me that fantasizes about a future relationship having these three things: Someone who enjoys doing things with me and goes out of their way to do it, likes me, and wants to get to know me. Those are the three things I told myself I could find in adulthood and I clung to that desire so tightly because the world around me just didn't operate by those three principles.

I'm still grieving this discovery, I feel so sad for the young girl who just dreamt of this day because she was so alone. And now Im in a relationship with someone who doesn't have practiced access to their own feelings, healings, or desires. They don't know what they want much less communicate it. It's like we both want to be rescued by the other person's certainty and nobody will back down.

We were talking about building a future together and somewhere along the way those conversations stopped and changed direction. It's like I'm struggling today to invest in someone that I don't feel is invested in me actively in ways that I can understand, appreciate, and need met. When I just think about today, I feel great about his contributions. When I think about where we are headed, Im' so deeply uncertain if I'm wasting my energy in someone that doesn't see me and expereince me the way I'd dreamt of feeling.

I don't think this relationship will be the one I'm working so hard to make it feel like. Is that okay? Is that enough? Is that something I should be ashamed to be in? I judge myself for it. I can't tell if it's because I don't know what a real and healthy relationship looks like or if it's because this just isn't enough .

What I can say is that I feel the last three months alone have been huge for me to figure out how to fill these self worth gaps in all by myself, which always lifts the relationship up. I'm just really craving to be understood.