Today I realized that... (Part 1)

[Kizzie]

Awesome WB! 

[Rain]

How did I miss this, Whobuddy!!   Most awesome like Kizzie says.   

[schrödinger's cat]

I realized this week that one of the most important things I've got to learn is authenticity. Sorry for the wonky word. I mean the opposite of faking it, pretending, ignoring problems, creating a nice little virtual reality where everything in my family's past that was horrifyingly tragic gets a twee little Disney makeover until all that remains are 'challenges that we've overcome' and that have 'made us stronger'. I keep slipping back into that mindset. It was all I was taught. But it's making my symptoms worse. Honestly. If I spend thirty minutes every morning acknowledging that YES, I had a * past and now I hurt and I have CPTSD, then it's like a load is taken off my back - like I can breathe again, like I can see things clearly, like I have hope.

NOTE: I'm not saying "we should all confront our pasts right now", because sometimes it's best not to. Be safe. When I look at my past and go "EEEP" and run to distract myself from remembering it, that is a way of acknowledging that the real is in fact real. I mean, if you take a look outside, realize there's a blizzard, and choose to stay indoors, you are in fact acknowledging that yep, there's a blizzard outside. The lack of authenticity I mean would have us go: "aaah, what a gentle little breeze, surely 'tis the harbinger of spring!"

[Whobuddy]

I hear you Cat! I want to be authentic, too. First I am having to learn the difference between real me and not real me. I have been pretending so long and in a life now that I arrived in because I was pretending.

It is so great to have found OOTS so at least now I am not on this path alone.

[Kizzie]

"Authentic" - it's just the perfect word Cat!       and   

[brainSTORM]

I have to take (by force if necessary) the opportunity to stand up for myself.  I have to take action.  I have to!

Forget the fears and what-if's.... just do it... NOW!

I don't have to be perfectly good all of the time, swallowing everyone's emotional bologna while choking my own.

For the first time I texted my dad; something I knew he wouldn't want to hear, about how he makes me feel unimportant.  I was panicking, pacing, nervous, scared of his reaction.  And to my surprise he acknowledged by feelings.  OMG, I almost fell over!  OH, the relief!!!!  I'm giving myself a HUGE pat on the back and high-five while dancing a jig and whistling.  It's just a baby step, but one that I've avoided for 30 years.  I'm on a pride-high now, and trying to enjoy it.

Dear ICr- Go sit in the corner and shut up!! You are the one that should be ashamed of yourself!!  And if you speak up, I'll beat your @$$!!

I don't have to address my abusers.  But I do have to address the junk leftover in my head! -- Breakthrough!

[schrödinger's cat]

    Congratulations! It's a good point you make, about taking the opportunity to set good boundaries. A lot of times, I still drift into waiting for "a good time" or for "the right moment" or something, and that's not always so very helpful, I'm coming to think. So this was inspiring.

I don't have to be perfectly good all of the time...

Yes. Exactly. Hard to learn, that. But SO freeing.

[Kizzie]

Yay Brainstorm   I love that you are having a "pride high" and well you should 

[Anamiame]

Just because I'm going through this again, it doesn't mean that the work I did prior is null and void.  It's not that I'm a failure, but have reached a new point in my healing. 

And that I'm O.K.  That I'm going to be okay. 

[voicelessagony2]

Is it OK if I realized something yesterday?

Yesterday, I realized that when I get triggered from exercise - any type of physical exertion, really - it is my resistance to, or denial of, specific childhood memories about physical exertion, that I have kept repressed all these years, that causes such intense and confusing emotions that discourage me from even trying any type of exercise.

*Triggers ahead for anyone with bullying in their history*

As a kid, running was always a problem for me. I had (still have) scoliosis and tibial torsion. These conditions were not severe, and they were not discovered until I was finally taken to a doctor at *AGE 15 or 16* when it was too late to do anything about it. My feet pointed outward, and my knees inward, so my running was slow and looked ridiculous. I remember being maybe 9 or 10, and my step-father and his son, who was much older and visiting from out of state, laughing at me, and mocking me for running "like a duck."

From age 6 through most of my school years, we lived in the most remote wilderness there is in this country. There was a school bus that picked up kids from that area, but the houses were so far apart we could not even see each other from one house to the next. Our house had a long driveway that crossed over a pond and a creek, and the bus driver refused to drive down the driveway, I guess it didn't seem stable enough for that large of a vehicle. As a result, I had to walk up the driveway, which sloped upward to the main road, and it was probably a couple hundred feet, from the house to the road.

The problem was, because of the landscape, the bus could not be seen until it was pretty much right there, so I had two options: Walk up the driveway to the road at a certain time and wait for the bus (and stand for what seemed like eternity in sub-zero temperatures, brutal wind, ice, and snow much of the time) or wait until the bus could be seen, which meant I was expected to RUN because for some reason, nobody on the bus had any patience to wait for my slow a** to walk all that way.  (To this day, I have never really forgiven my parents for not just driving me to the bus in a car. They sat in the warm house, drinking hot coffee, watching me SUFFER.)

Of course, kids being kids, they would lean out the bus windows and scream insults, mocking me, and when I finally got on the bus, none of them wanted me to sit next to them, so I would walk all the way to the back of the bus, and all the way back up to the front, and every kid would spread out on their seat to make it super obvious that I was not welcome to sit there. Then the driver would yell at me to hurry up and sit down.

That was not my only problem with physical exertion, either. I experienced sharp pain in my side whenever I ran for more than a minute or two. It would be bad enough to make me stop - but, with kids screaming out the windows at me, I dared not stop. I told my parents but they scoffed, especially my step-father. "Pain? What do you know about pain? You're a kid!" I don't get that pain any more, and to this day I don't know what would have caused it, but I know it was real, and physical, not psychological.

In school, obviously Physical Education class was dreadful. I never found anything I was good at. PE teachers - yes, teachers, adults - mocked me, and pointed me out as a negative example to the other kids. I was beaten up by a bunch of girls after school one day, and bullied on a regular basis.

It's not a big surprise then, that these memories haunt me and cause an overwhelming sense of shame, anger, and hurt feelings, even today, when I go to the gym, or even exercise in the privacy of my own home. Then yesterday, I was on the exercise bike, and I tried an experiment: I allowed myself to look at the memories, instead of ignoring them like I usually do. I decided to just pretend that I could change my own history. I pretended that the little girl running up the driveway was cheered, encouraged, and accepted by the other kids, by my parents, and by other adults. I am taking the first little steps to re-parenting that sad little girl in the way she should have been.

[Whobuddy]

I was very moved by your post, Voice. I am so happy that you are reparenting now. You truly deserve it! You were so strong to put up with that treatment and then keep on keeping on. Now you are here and you can heal. I am sorry you had to go through that. And what is it with parents watching their kids suffer??!!

[anosognosia]

 

Today I realised that I was caught up in the Karpman's triangle of drama as the perpetrator and rescuer role.  Whenever I was doing something "bad" (ie not studying quietly in my room), I was a perpetrator to my dad. He would beat me physically with scars to show.

Whenever I was breaking my head over desperately trying to find the "right thing" to do to appease my narcissistic, wounded father I would be the rescuer. 

What an unfair position to place a little kid in. 

[Kizzie]

Hugs to your younger self , you can sit next to me on a bus any day 

And a BIG cheer for turning things around by reparenting yourself       

PS - I used to get pains like that in my side whenever I ran and it was a stitch which I think came from being so tense all the time - tightly coiled muscles and shallow breathing do not make the body happy when you put it to work. Once I learned to stretch out and warm up before I ran (which I hate to do by the way) I didn't get them as frequently or as bad. 

[lonewolf]

I'm not crazy. THAT it really is inappropriate for 25+ year old men to try to seduce 13 year-old girls. How did I ever think this was okay?

[C.]

After 15 years at one company I've changed jobs a couple of times in the past couple of years.   I used to categorize people at work in to the categories of "trust" "medium trust" "don't trust."  Through learning about empathy and appropriate people interactions on OOTS I now see more layers with people, like that person lacks empathy, that person is critical or on the flip side that person shows empathy, doesn't criticize, etc.  I feel like I'm working towards the ability to simply minimize contact with those with the unhealthy qualities rather than either try to "win" them over, be hurt, or be confused.  And I have pretty accurately assessed the healthier people with whom I would want to have contact.