Self-Care and Self-Educating, ch.1

[Wife#2]

Tea,

Breathe. First that. Second, feel the anger. Allow yourself that. A simple thing like who put the lid on the milk should not have become what it became. You're so very right. It wasn't about the milk. It was about him having an opportunity to scorn and he took it.

One last thing, though. You made the best decisions you could make at the time you were making them. This may be what you needed to spur you out the door, it may not. Even if it doesn't, you are making what you hope to be the best decisions for Tea. You are working slowly to be better at thinking of Tea first. This is, thanks to your youth, not an easy transition to make! You are doing the best you can with the skills you have - and your newfound, small but growing self-confidence.

None of us, not a single one, is living in your house with you. We do not know your struggles or your strengths. Only what you tell us here. We can and do sympathize and empathize with what you face each day. We admire your strength for handling it as well as you have thus far. THIS is why we do not judge you if you use this to find the strength to leave. Nor do we judge you if you decide this is just not the right time.

Yes, I would love for you to feel good about moving out and beginning your new, independent adult life. I want that for you very badly. That doesn't mean it's the right thing for YOU, even if you are angry. Only you can know if, by the end of your work day, you still feel that moving out is the best decision for you right now.

Just being able to feel your anger and know it's justified is a Mount Everest accomplishment!

I am proud of you regardless how this plays out. I hope you find some time in your day to feel proud of yourself, too!

[tea-the-artist]

Thank you Wife#2. Thanks for understanding I wish I could say more to show thanks but I am grateful for what you said.

It ended up not blowing up in my face, but my brother came to me saying I need to start doing dishes regularly because after my dad picked him up from his course, they stayed at my work campus parking lot for 2 hours while my dad lectured him about doing dishes (and when my mom and I got in the car, he said they only go there just 20 minutes before we finished work UGH!!! liar!!).

He vented to me some, and after he left thekitchen  I was kind of in a dazed state, with a plate in my hand. I put it down after standing there for a while and went upstairs and dazed some more. I was thinking "well this is it. i'm making my move to text Pansy" but I never did. Just thought "I can't be doing this. This is too much... This is too petty to have become an issue (even though he said my dad thought he was taking advantage of my mom since she ends up doing them pretty often but that's my fault)."

Again, I didn't reach for my phone to text anyone (I think if I did, I would have impulsively texted).

I'm just really angry my dad lied. And I could TELL! And when I was doing dishes, he had this tone of voice that I get when I'm trying to test the waters and make sure nobody hates me or is annoyed with me. Asking me,

"who's milk is that in the bottle in the fridge?"
"mine." (lie: it was the bottle I poured for my mom on Tuesday, but left it in the fridge since she didn't need it)
"Oh. Cos I was about to say 'Uh ohh~ somebody forgot their milk! *chuckles*"
"Hm.

But not did I realize while I was washing dishes that he lied and was testing waters, but he was also trying to PLEASE! To joke. Possibly fawn. Make sure I can laugh with him after he must have berated my brother in the car for hours about dish duty. Put one kid down, lift the other.

Anyway, I've been short with him since. I'm sure my brother will notice and annoy me about needing to change that so no issues rise up. If he does (what, Tea? use it as grounds to move out??)

I didn't say anything to my brother when he was venting for that short couple minutes. I'm still just really tired of it. I'm not mad at him for it, even though months ago he said he would stop coming to me to vent or talk about what dad's done or said. If he feels comfortable continuing, I won't stop him. I almost cried afterwards though. I think that was the real feeling that it would for sure push me to move out. My heart was racing at the thought of making it real. But I guess I'm not tired enough.

Or no... I guess it's still not the time yet. I felt very ready. Ready enough like my "old self" who figured she'd deal with the rest when it comes up. I've never really been good at future thinking. Procrastinate homework? Sure! Prospect of incoming failure due to procrastinating? Never heard of it! Didn't say a word about the field trip till the last minute in 7th grade. Didn't ask for reading help until I was in tears at my incredibly slow progress as a 3rd grader. Didn't work on that science project until the night before when my mom confronted me.

In a way I think... future thinking would be self-care. For me at least. Not future thinking that involves me drasticizing hypothetical situations. But future thinking that takes care of the Me in the future.

If I eat now at this normal eating time, my stomach won't hurt later.
If I work on this project now, in the future I won't feel guilty about not starting it sooner (likely causing me unnecessary stress that I proudly wave around as "Working best under stress/time crunch").

If I move out now, the Me in the future will have a much easier time recovering.
The Me in the future won't be around the same people who took so much from her Self and her childhood.
The Me in the future will consistently be around people who understand my pain, or at least show that they're trying to.


In some other news, I picked back up Pete Walker's book and finished chapter 2 (so I've completed I think 4 chapters now?). Not sure what made me stop reading (always been a slow and inconsistent reader after middle school), but I learned a lot and realized a lot. Something to note:

Unstructured social situations however, like attending parties or just hanging out can be considerably more triggering. Spontaneous self-expression feels like the same setup for disaster that it was in childhood.

Either way... relating often involves hiding a great deal of anxiety and discomfort.

I've always felt this. Not always knowingly, but definitely felt this. That other day when my friend was wanting to come over even though I said no. I talked about this in my lonely childhood thread. First the anxiety about having to be social.. then the distance and lonely feeling when I MUST endure it anyway.

I want to bounce off this and say that I think I may have been grounded and aware that I was yesterday. At least I think... I was trying so hard to think about what was going on around me as I was being driven to work. How the trees looked. So pretty, I like the colors fall brings right before the leaves fall down. How trees blew in the wind outside my work window. I like how the golden and red-golden leaves glimmer in the sunlight as the wind hits them. I didn't just "see" trees as images.

I always felt like my mind has been racing so much. Thinking of what I'm going to think about next. Thinking of what I'm going to write in my next journal entry. What situation I'm going to drasticize next. Daydreaming.

Must be why I can't relax. I donno.

[tea-the-artist]

Oh and something else I read in the book! It's always surprising when I come across relatable text!

...in cases of verbal and emotional abuse our capacities to be comforted by eye-and-voice contact are undeveloped or seriously diminished.

Honestly need I say more? It's  horrible the power adults have to totally ruin helpless children and babies so easily. Often without even realizing.

[Wife#2]

Tea,

Take some time to be kind to yourself, please? This is a process, not a finish line. Processes move forward and backward, then forward again. Sometimes, they surprise us and move sideways. That's why none of us may judge the other about where you are on your journey. As long as you are physically safe, for now that may have to be enough. It's not for me or anyone else to say.

So, daydream if that helps you get through your days.

I wish lots for you, but as the cliché says - if wishes were Porsche's, poor men would drive (ok, a little modernization - I hope it made you smile). So, I'll be right here beside you, cheering on your victories, helping you keep steady when victory eludes you.

By the way, you amaze me that didn't snap off at dear old bro, 'What does your failure to do dishes, and getting lectured because of it, have to do with me?' You have more fortitude than I have! I say kudos to you!

[tea-the-artist]

Wife#2 I'm honestly trying so hard I hate feeling "so close" only to go back on it because it feels like I'm hurting myself. I know I'm not a bad person but I feel like I am not only for wanting to leave but for dragging my feet about it. I wish i could just so easily daydream and be OK about it but it's so unbearably embarrassing that when I'm shaken out of it I feel so miserable because nothing of my daydreams are even tangible. I don't get to stare at the lake from my friends' apartment windows. I don't get to tell off my parents about everything. I don't get to be my own characters who have soothing and meaningful relationships. I don't get to be them as little kids going to the beach with nice and safe adults and play in the sand or get ice cream cones or get protected when a mean person stomps on the sandcastles we made. I don't get to be open and honest to a brother who would for once in his life let me speak about me and not about him.

I can easily daydream of all of that, but it hurts to come out of it, whether to go eat or work, and realize that it's not real, not in my access. It's all just a daydream.

[Wife#2]

  True, we can't turn back time and have those who let us down suddenly turn out differently than they are. One thing you can do is one small kindness for yourself. You already take little Tea to the park, that's great! Maybe give her that beach visit one day? The visit where it's ok to get sand in your pants and shoes, to eat ice cream and make a mess on your shirt, to pretend to fly a kite when all you really want to do is run along the water line.

I really believe that your FOG is lifting or lifted pretty well. It's that Obligation that's still getting you. Feeling obliged to maintain other people's status quo and/or happiness is a pretty heavy burden. It's small wonder that you have so little energy to try to break free. Even thinking about it can be tiring.

So, self-care. Even in a tiny way. Write something that makes you smile. Then crumple it up and burn it (to keep it private). Then, smile when you think about it. Maybe it can be - 'WHO CARES ABOUT THE MILK?' You'll know what small thing can make you smile.

[tea-the-artist]

So sorry for the late response Wife#2. I ended up taking a break for a lil over a week just to kind of stop thinking for a while.

Maybe not really "stop thinking" but to just exist and not think so heavily about my trauma. I ended up blogging a bit about it to just get the feelings out but mostly I played the new pokemon game and did some painting.

Of course as expected I got into a couple emotional flashbacks. I could tell, and I kept thinking to myself "Ok I feel this but I'm not seeing this as an adult." Monday a student came into test and I couldn't test her without student info and while she argued with me (calmly but still rude, saying that I didn't know what I was doing and that I didn't know procedures for a job I've had almost 2 years), and immediately after she left I cried, even though another student told me I handled it well.

After my shift, I ranted to my mom on the way to the car and before I opened the door, she said "Dad doesn't want to hear all this" and I said "Of course not" angrily and slammed the door shut. I cried all the way home and blasted my music. The whole time I felt like a child. Of course nobody wants to hear about it.

When I got home I expected my mom to show up so I could finish talking but she never came to my room and that sent me further into flashback. I was visualizing myself screaming and stomping around until the floor broke but all I did was hold in sobs. It felt suffocating but after a couple hours it passed.

Then yesterday my birthday I finally brought up moving out to my mom. Didn't go well, for obvious "mom won't let me go" reasons, but also "abuse enabling parent isn't looking at the situation clearly." In the end we made nice (or I did, even though she didn't bother to have a real conversation with me, but we were in her office so in retrospect that wasn't the appropriate place) and I just talked about some things I bought over thanksgiving weekend that I was excited about receiving in the mail this week.

Last night was so confusing, I got a wonderful and long message from Pansy who had such heartwarming things to say about me (which unfortunately still I couldn't feel, but appreciated). My brother and I talked about his course and joked around and laughed about the all nighters we pulled while we were in college.

But then later it felt like some internet friends were ignoring me even though it was my birthday and no one said anything. That maybe no one really talked to me because I'm always talking about how I'm suffering at home, that I'm too emotional, too angry, cuss too much, yell too much, write too much. That like... whenever they see my username, it's "ugh, Tea's suffering. what's new?" or "ugh what else does Tea even have to say." That if I wanted them to send me birthday wishes, I have to be cool and likable and funny and entertaining.

I can't tell if it was silly to expect that, or to expect them to see that I mentioned it was my birthday, but still it sent me back into an EF. My friend Peach had forgotten until late at night when she saw the one birthday message I received. And Lily never messaged me at all, still not since early last month when we hung out and she told me she still liked me.

I don't feel angry about Lily, just kind of tired. I don't feel like I'm really in her thoughts at all, despite knowing that things may not even be great on her end. But I feel like a yo-yo and again I feel ready to drop things. But I'll wait it out like usual.

And now today I feel kind of groggy and tired. I had a lot more to say but I'm too tired to write.

[Wife#2]

First things first... belated, but still...



HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Even though it's really painful when we feel forgotten, sometimes we have to remember that our friends have stuff going on, too. It might not be as big or as painful, but they get distracted, none-the-less.

Anyway, I am thinking of you, sending you BIG HUGS for your birthday.

I'm so sorry you had such a tough time with that one student. Funny, it's so much easier to hear the negative stuff than the good stuff? At least someone SAID the good stuff, and that matters.

One last  for your birthday!

[Three Roses]

 

Happy birthday!

[annakoen]

Chiming in to sing you a happy birthday song!!

[tea-the-artist]

aww thanks you guys  i really appreciate that!

and yes Wife#2 I think it's important to remember those who did wish me happy birthday and sent me nice messages. I think the feeling of being ignored really outweighed and overshadowed them. the really long meaningful message, I know it meant a lot to pansy to write me that, and I know she really does care a whole lot about me as if I were her little sister.

maybe whenever something like this happens, I'll look back on the letters and messages and add words of my own to say to myself, to little Tea, so maybe it'll be an extra oomph to help her feel like those words are really true.

[tea-the-artist]

Last night I told Peach about some surface level aspects of cptsd. I told her about the emotional distancing I've been feeling and noticing lately, and a little bit about dissociating and a bit more about emotional flashbacks. while we were talking some stuff she said I think was attempting to spark some "awareness" or something in me. it felt that way at least, when she said sometimes I just need a friend to cry in front of, and how she felt better to do that instead of staying in bed and crying until she fell asleep.

like I always say, logically it makes sense. I also told her about shame i feel about it, though I don't feel she quite understands the extent of the toxic indoctrination that cptsd comes from. but I think she understands that saying "just let your feelings out to them" is massively easier said than done.

I think I'm glad I talked to her. I think I say "I think I'm glad" because I do feel kind of floaty right now. Not really emotionless... maybe.

These last couple weeks I've been becoming a little more aware of when I go into emotional flashbacks. Especially Tuesday night. And this morning and sometime yesterday I think, I was aware I may have been dissociating just for a short few seconds. Minor, but it felt like I had fallen out of my body, especially this morning. I was trying to tell my mom something, and I "fell out of body" and could actually feel it. Like maybe my self was tilting out ways. After I blanked I knew what happened.

Something I had read a while ago, and I'm not sure how accurate it was, but it said something either "when you're diagnosed with/aware that you have a mental illness(es), you're more likely to display the symptoms more often because you feel less pressured to suppress and hide the symptoms you may not have been aware of."

I think it may just be an increased awareness. Because I'm sure before I knew about cptsd, I experienced plenty of emotional flashbacks. I'm sure I dissociated as well, and now I just am noticing it more and more, the more I educate myself and work towards being more mindful.

[tea-the-artist]

Also the other day I read that it isn't necessary to unpack trauma. I'm going to find that post because I feel I need to pin it here.

It's okay if you can't deal with everything immediately.

It's okay if you experience trauma and you need to take a while to sort through it. You are allowed to choose to unpack something when you have the energy and emotional stability to actually wade through it. You don't have to process everything as soon as it happens, you can put it away until you have the spoons for it and it doesn't mean you're repressing it. You're allowed to acknowledge something has happened and you're not in a good place to sort it out in your head.

You can take a breather and take your time and process at your own pace.

Although we experienced ongoing trauma and not a singular traumatic event, I think this still applies.

I have the tendency to quickly analyze and solve whatever I've learned about my past right away as soon as I recover memories or think back to things I already remember. It's a nice effort, and I should give myself credit for wanting to do that for my own betterment, but it is a taxing thing. It's still hard to figure out where to start first so I try to tackle a lot at once or consecutively.

I of course haven't moved out yet, so I think it would be beneficial to me to put recovered memories on the back burner until I've moved out. Maybe I can say, "I didn't deserve that. Little Tea didn't deserve that" if it gets to be really upsetting.

And in the meantime while I'm still living with my FOO, I want to spend more time

• learning to be more mindful/aware when I go into emotional flashbacks
  - living here inevitably will bring about triggers, but being mindful will help to start managing them better


• learning to identify when I "fall out of body" and when i dissociate while people are speaking to me


• telling myself good things
  - like complimenting myself
  - validating myself (through either my main self (speaking out loud, thinking) or a "self" in the form of daydreamed characters (so far, Shiro, Jhendu and Hama take that role. interestingly enough, they are all men)

I think truly, thats what I can manage for now. I'll focus my readings to mindfulness and understanding inner children and emotional flashbacks.

[tea-the-artist]

I've been pretty relaxed lately. I got a new tablet for my birthday so I can read pete walker's book a lot more clearly! but somehow everything seems fine. I may have jinxed myself.

I do feel like my family is trying to suck me in. While I don't fully believe they know how miserable I am despite appearances, I can just tell it's a tactic to keep me here. Only my mom knows I want to move though.

I haven't bothered to go deep into fully analyzing memories, but in the car ride to work I saw a person walking near a grocery store. I don't remember if they were carrying anything, but it reminded me of a four years ago when I was in college. It was so hot out, I think I was carrying bags and walking a long way between stores because the bus wouldn't return for another hour.

I remember crying at some point. When I was in the car I was thinking how at the time I must have felt sad that no one would come to help me. Not that anybody needed to, but I was sweating and incredibly uncomfortable. And of course I was by myself. I'm getting those same feelings again... remembering things like this is so tough, because I start to cry like I am now. I can't tell if I'm feeling self-compassionate or feeling sorry for my past self (I was 20) or if it's the beginning of an emotional flashback.

I'm feeling a lot of other memories trying to come up, just getting feelings of what my atmosphere felt like a decade ago or almost 2 decades ago or 5 years ago and so on. Just the thought of trying to comfort a younger self and her abandonment issues is tiring.

And now I'm getting the high school lunchtime memories where my friends would walk off without me before I got a chance to put the leftovers in the trash. How they wouldn't wait for me to go find a table after picking up their food if I was just behind them in line, how I would always stop by the drinks or condiments and wait for them all to pick up their food so we could find a table together.

Of course it had nothing to do with them, but rather my parents, but I still felt some kind of misery toward them. Sometimes I would try to walk slightly ahead of them so I'd be first in line. And in the future I'd do the same, though sometimes that backfires and it feels still like I'm left out because they're conversing behind me.

I wasn't really trying to unpack any memories today, it just happened..

[Wife#2]

HUG.

I understand always feeling just out of step from everyone else. I remember similar things in high school. Lots of stories, but that's for my journal.

That's one reason this journal is such a healthy, healing place. Those memories that just pop up, we can unpack them here. It really helps. That there are people who understand those feelings (lost, lonely in a crowd, hurt but can't really say why) and can tell you that you are/were completely normal to have those feelings!

Sometimes, it's enough to just have enough energy to get through today. Let tomorrow worry about tomorrow.