arpy1's journal

[arpy1]

I have been depressed for most of it, quite often to the point of fervently wishing to die.

oh dear, i'm afraid that was this morning. again. (some years ago, i made a conscious and final choice that i will never allow myself to take action on the desire, becos i will never do that to my kids.  they have lost enough people, especially when the baby died.  i will not cause them that kind of pain. that's my choice even though i have to keep reminding myself when the desire gets its claws into me strongly) 

i was so grateful for your lovely post, dear sb, that i sat and cried. just becos you sounded like you cared about me even tho i am half a world away. so thank you, it really means a lot this morning. and thank you for the hug, the essence of which got here despite the distance!

i know that i feel this bad at the moment becos i am in process of changing meds and that when the new ones kick in i shall be a bit more human. i also know that i chose to do this change becos i need to get control of my body and my health. i have to just hang on for a bit longer and in a couple of weeks i may be able to start living a bit more actively.

you're right about the Inner World being the thing to concentrate on; and the three things, health, finance and relationships. it is a bit worrying that at the moment the only one i am working on is health.  i am still pushing myself to go to the gym, even tho tbh i find it unbelievably boring.

Van der Kolk's book The Body Keeps The Score   made me realise that i need to start to 'get back in' my body. for decades i have treated it with little more than disdain. the teaching in the cult was very much that we make our bodies submit to us (as we wear ourselves out in the service of God....)  and believe me, many of us ended up with 'burn-out', and still carried on... what a warped view this was and how cleverly manipulated we were to keep us under N's control. another thing i look back on aghast and wonder how i could have been so blind. and of course when i was married, my body meant nothing, becos i was caring for my husband's, (i was his 24/7 carer for years) we all revolved around him and his pain. and he made sure it stayed that way.   

anyway.  getting my body back, owning it and looking after it is the one thing i am making those baby steps in. my finances are slowly deteriorating the longer i am unable to work.  and the best i can manage relationship-wise at the moment is this forum.  the thought of interacting with people is enough to send me into EF territory so i choose isolation.

This is where hobbies come in. I'm not ashamed to say I have plasticine, clay for baking, kiddie paints and crayons, sewing needles and lots of coloured threads, and a box of bits of old broken things that might be useful for who-knows-what one day. The biggest artform for me is gardening: cheap (often free) entertainment that's enjoyable, therapeutic and gratifying. In the horrible times when I had no garden, I'd have a mini-garden in the biggest tray I could find.

i love this, becos you sound like a woman after my own heart.  i have a room full of stuff. when i had to give up the pottery studio, i moved my bed into my lounge so as to create a workroom out of my bedroom. however, the sad fact is i have all the stuff i need, and a dear little patio to play in, i have no energy and so i am doing nothing. it's like there is a deep seated guilt about doing things that are fun. like i am wasting my time. and becos i know i should, that it would be good for me,  it becomes a huge pressure too - so that, strangely, i feel just as guilty about not doing those things.  i ruin my life with guilt. and then i feel too upset and depressed to do anything.  what an idiot!

[Dutch Uncle]

I like reading this journal. 

[arpy1]

  D/U

[arpy1]

o god, you are really good for me, sb! you make me laugh and make me feel heard, and make me feel like maybe it's not quite the end of the world yet! 

i am up for the holding hands with a bunch of us, round the tissue box, btw, but if you want me to dance, it'll have to be red wine  and chocolate.... i'll bring the bottle, you bring the choc, ok? 

[arpy1]

ok. today.  this is what i learned:

today i woke up (as i often do) in a huge flashback. proper biggie, very upset, very afraid, totally tense etc etc.  so i got Mr Walker out and read the EF Management steps. and tried one or two, with mixed results i have to say, but at least i a) recognised quickly that it was a flashback and b) tried to manage it. 

i did my best to breathe and to do a bit of relaxation, which helped a tiny bit, but better than nothing. i tried to work out what was prompting it, and this is what i came up with:  i remembered i had a doctor's appointment today, and that i had decided to go to the gym.  (i meant to go yesterday but i only managed to go shopping and had to come home).

so, basically i woke up to two things 'to do'.  and that was the trigger. why?

well i realised that i have this terrible fear of having to do things.  in the cult (sorry, most things for me go back to that) there was constant activity. i mean, continual, unremitting, compulsory activity. didn't matter if you were exhausted, sick or what, the thing was that if you didn't want to do a particular thing, that indicated that you had a selfish, bad, independent heart (having a bad heart was the worst thing you could be)  and that you 'didn't love the Kingdom'.  so i learnt that no matter how much i didn't feel i could cope with a thing, i had to suck it up and get on and do it. willingly. and enthusiastically and with 100% committment (otherwise all the pejorative terms, selfish, bad heart etc applied anyway).  the one time i refused ( i was in the middle of a huge breakdown at the time, off sick, probably suffering from cptsd by that time already) to go to a meeting, i was told by the elder of the house that the terms of residence in the community included committment to attend 100% of meetings, therefore if i didn't go to this one, i couldn't live in the house.  this was my home  for god's sake, where the f was i supposed to go.  anyway, i flipped out, and immediately packed a bag and walked out. ( i think it shocked him; possibly he was just trying to call my bluff). i went and stayed at my brother's i think. i returned of course. i had no alternative. to leave the church was to be under the judgment of God.

anyway. then i finally left the church a while later and got married to my husband. and more of the same:  he was someone who retreated into his sickness when things got too much, so he was constantly 'dropping the ball' at the worst moment, leaving me to carry the responsibilities for the kids, the home, him, etc etc.  i could never rely on him. so again i was in  an intolerable situation with no escape and no choice but to suck it up and carry on. i had to cope now becos i had two kids. (three if you counted my husband... which i often did).

so i realise why i have this deep fear of 'having to do things', being forced to cope with the un-copeable,  having to force myself when i felt so exhausted and ill.   i ran on empty for decades. 

and, like you say, southbound, the truth is i am still  burnt out. deeply, completely burnt out.  so 'having' to do anything, even the smallest thing, just triggers me into a huge flashback.

when i told the doc about it he said that every time i share something about the JP he is more shocked about how awful and how dangerous it was/is. i guess that keeps on being a shock to me too, as new realisations hit me about just how much it wrecked my life.  it is so devastating to realise that my life was wrecked and damaged seemingly beyond my ability to repair it.

and yet, here i am, trying to repair it nonetheless. 

[Dutch Uncle]

today i woke up (as i often do) in a huge flashback. proper biggie, very upset, very afraid, totally tense etc etc.  so i got Mr Walker out and read the EF Management steps. and tried one or two, with mixed results i have to say, but at least i a) recognised quickly that it was a flashback and b) tried to manage it.

Awesome arpy1. Really. Baby steps. Two in one go even. 

This cult... They really did you in.  What a forced labor camp. 

Perhaps this webpage will help you a bit in distinguishing different types of commitment. It popped up immediately in my mind, so I think it might apply to what you posted today: the Forced Commitments you were coerced in.
http://www.traumahealed.com/articles/discover-your-core-commitments.html
Read at your leisure, or not at all. 

[arpy1]

thanks, i just read it. ouch. several nerves touched. good article though. 

[Dutch Uncle]

A few more  then. 

[arpy1]

now it's 9.35pm and i am just about winding down after an exhausting day in and out of flashing back to the JP and like these shocks keep going through me of just how bad it was, and just how much it has harmed me. i don't know why i still get a shock. can't understand why i haven't internalised the facts yet and can still disbelieve myself, even when i am in EFs like today.  it seems that something inside me just can't accept the truth of it.  still. after all this time.

it's been two years since i made my final exit. i still feel disloyal, like i am the traitor even tho i know that the truth is i was the one betrayed over so many years.  it is a mystery. maybe that's the purpose of horrible days like today has been; so i can finally believe what i know to be true.  what the doctor said about how shocked he feels every time i tell him something else about them helped me. kind of affirms that i am not making it all up, and that it was as bad as i think it was.

but whatever, now i feel like i have run a marathon. emotionally and physically exhausted.  very poorly in my mind.  i have to go to sleep! maybe tomoro will be better.

[arpy1]

ok today is a very, very bad day. loads of 'community' dreams, EF on waking, did my best to go with it, stay in my body and feel my feelings, which helped, but now i just feel incredibly wiped and poorly in my head. 

i was supposed to go for a colonoscopy (to check progress or otherwise of the microscopic colitis) on friday, which involves a lot of nasty prep. just felt like i couldn't handle it, and have been getting more and more anxious (not the procedure itself, that's no problem, it's having to go and interact with humans and hold myself together etc.) so anyway i decided to do a bit of self care, and actually cancelled it. now i feel simultaneously guilty and relieved - and a bit proud of myself that it actually occurred to me that i didn't have to do it if i couldn't cope with it.  i guess i was still in 'i have been told that is what i am going to do therefore i must do it no matter what' mode.  funny how ingrained it is, so that it takes a while for me to realise i have choices about what i do.  i feel rebellious! idiotically.

southbound, once again, your kindness made me leak (from my eyes, obviously - hush!)    your validation of what i experience means that i feel heard. and when you're stuck alone and afraid in your own thoughts, that means an awful lot.

That doc's a 'keeper'... It's as powerful as it is rare when someone expresses our 'frozen' feelings for us.

yes, it is rare, i am grateful beyond words for him.  he has asked me to see him fortnightly, notwithstanding my objections that it's not necessary and he's too busy etc.  and he has always said i can ring him any time if i need. what a treasure. i am expecting him to leave at any moment, altho when i admitted as much, he promised he wasn't going anywhere. humph, we'll see. he'll be the first person not to run out on me just when i trusted him, if so. 

I haven't seen the cult story on the forum and I'm now reasonably certain it isn't here. You haven't written it.

like you, i have a lot of stuff, journalling, letters etc on file, but i don't know that i am capable at the moment of pulling it all together into a coherent whole. pretty much like my head, it's all bits and pieces of memory that surface at different times, thoughts and feelings that rise up and overwhelm me and then subside into the mud again.

how to express it all? maybe if we could do that, we would have achieved that 'holy grail' of integration and transformed our experience into a narrative - apparently that is what is needed in order to be able to move on fully.... well, it sounds like a plan to me...

it really helped me to think of how i am feeling in terms of 'burn out'.  i had forgotten. but it is just like i was when i did burn out all those years ago.  only this time it is worse, deeper, and i can't seem to recover and bounce back like i managed to then. (or at least, i felt i had;  in retrospect, it was simply that i ran away into marriage (oh god, that was some refuge!) and never dealt with anything. not surprising then that it came back and bit me on the bum again, really.) oh crap. anyway, the term is useful becos it reminds me i am actually, genuinely ill, not lazy, selfish, self obsessed, weak, ridiculous etc etc... i have just burnt all my resources up.

i think today is going to be a day of nothing again. and, as far as i can manage, guilt-free nothing. i may wash up the dishes. at least i had a shower and got dressed.  and read a bit of Pete Walker, only a bit, but better than nothing. and i did go to the gym yesterday....

[arpy1]

why do i always feel such a liar when i say that i am ill?

[Dutch Uncle]

Because the cult told you so.
You would loose everything when you were ill, so being sick must be a lie, you told yourself. In the few cases the cult didn't call you a liar outright.

Right?

[arpy1]

gulp. are you sure it's not just becos i am a liar, weak selfish etc etc......?    but this is 'all in my head'....  isn't it?

you're right, and it wasn't just mental illness. (good christians didn't have breakdowns or mental illness. if they did, it was selfishness,wilfulness, negativity, refusal to receive the healing of God... )

so much about me was disallowed. everything that didn't fit the model of being a'Kingdom sister'.

that just evoked a memory: i remember when i was in a breakdown, in about 1987, when i was living in one of the houses in the midlands, saying to the elder of the house... (same elder that told me i couldn't miss the meeting that time)... that i didn't know who i was, i just felt like 'Sister X' becos there was nothing about me that expressed any individuality or creativity that was just mine.  he just wasn't able to understand what i was talking about.   he kept saying 'but arpy1, you are a really good sister... which really i guess, said it all.

that was all i was required/allowed to be. a generic 'good sister'.  conformed. submitted.  and in no way different, or special or individual.  just sister X.  god.

[Dutch Uncle]

I'm so sorry to hear that. Awful.

You probably know why you've left, even though perhaps not in words. And I'm happy you did. You bring a unique individual story to this site and the world. I love to have the one and only arpy1 around me.
Feel welcome to share all of you. 

[arpy1]

thank you, dear D/U.     all this remembering is a bit painful, i must say! do you ever feel like you're sitting on top of a mountain that's just bubbling up under you waiting to explode? today seems to be one long flashback. sorry to be such a wimp but i think i am in pain