Secrets

[Coco]

Some of my symptoms I'd like to overcome are: I don't have an appetite or remember to eat - I don't feel hunger. I think it is because I have totally shut out my body because I can barely tolerate the feelings of fear and urgency and danger that it constantly produces.
I am afraid to sleep and always avoid it, when I lie down to sleep I become very scared and lay there very adrenalized for hours, and that interferes with my daily life.
I'd like to dissociate less.

I had an experience today that illustrated to me that perhaps my inner map of the world is not necessarily accurate. This is both frightening and exciting.

I have always wanted to study but I have never been able to concentrate or remember things, because of my CPTSD. I have also felt an overwhelming hopelessness and that nothing I can try will ever work. Learned helplessness. It has robbed me of a lot. Recently I found a diploma available locally (miracle!!) where I can attend classes in person and earn a degree I am excited to have. I met the lecturer via serendipity and he offered me a place in the course without me even having to apply. He said classes would be held on the day of the week I happen to have free of work. It was very exciting.

Then I received an email outlining the timetable, and the day of classes had been rescheduled to a day I DO work.

I was already in a bad, two or three week long triggered state. Before that I had been in numb paralysis. I knew intellectually I had CPTSD because I was diagnosed with it a few years ago, but I had no concept of how it applied to me. I guess I was in denial or something. This whole event has been very awakening for me, but I have crammed myself with too much information about trauma, CPTSD, the body, and codependency, and now I feel overwhelmed and pressured and urgent and like the prognosis is bad and like I have to heal right now and I feel confused about where to start or how to access good help.

When this email about the different day happened I knew I had to tell my manager that I had applied for a course. I knew I would have to lose that day of work and have less money, and that I would have to tell her I couldn't work one day a week. I already don't know how to manage money and can't afford to have less. But I couldn't betray myself by letting this opportunity pass, that was out of the question. I knew that me leaving a day might inconvenience my workplace and I was afraid that they would feel I was entitled and arrogant and selfish and ungrateful.

I was very triggered by all this. I felt a lot of guilt and fear. I sometimes felt angry. I mainly went numb and paralysed and dissociated with very strong undercurrent of terror coursing through my body constantly. I became absent. I began to feel that these levels of stress hormones will begin to undermine my health. My insomnia and lack of appetite became exacerbated. I thought constantly about how to tell everyone at work I was going to break out of the mold and expand in a different direction and study.

I expected:
To be fired
To be shamed
Them to look at me with disgusted looks on their faces
Them to act coldly towards me
Me to be hurt and confused
Them to be very disappointed with me
Me not to receive an answer or solution and be left in limbo


What happened:
I dissociated and a facade overtook. The facade did a genuinely good job of seeming calm when it delivered the news.
The manager touched me lovingly on the arm in celebration. She said congratulations and she was so excited for me. Her face and voice and body language genuinely meant it. She said she would juggle her schedule and the schedules of two other staff members so that I could simply swap a day of work and not have to lose one.
When I was in my office conducting a consultation with a patient, she told other staff members. When I emerged, they surrounded me in love and goodwill and celebration. They were all smiling and it wasn't fake. They were asking questions about what I will be studying and what kinds of careers it might lead to. They were very encouraging and supportive with their voices, their bodies, their faces, their vibes. I didn't know what to do and I began verbally saying that I probably wouldn't be able to finish it, then I dispersed the energy by making jokes.
Then after work I received a message that they have organized it so that I can start my course right away. I had left it to the last minute to tell them and the class starts tomorrow and I'd said I was happy to miss the first few weeks while we worked something out to cover my days. And now I can go tomorrow, because people there are going out of their way to help me, for no reason other than it must be natural for them to help and support people.

I was very overwhelmed and amazed and found it all very incredible. I only have experience of people wanting to destroy and undermine me, of people stopping me and placing obstacles and punishing and hurting me.

It is showing me what I unconsciously expect from people and how that is not the reality any more.


I have a boyfriend. He is very kind. I don't know why.  I don't know if we're not close or not, but we are best friends and he genuinely accepts me. Sometimes I am badly triggered for a long time and I can't do housework or sleep or eat, I stop even really seeing the physical world, not connected to it, it's blurry and irrelevent, and when I'm like that I know it is socially disappointing and not what a person or woman is supposed to be but he NEVER shames me or mentions it or even infers that something unusual is happening or pressures me. Not even subtly - I'm hyper sensitive to body language and face and subtle cues, which may also be annoying to live with cos I'm always immediately "Are you OK? What's wrong?"
Anyway. I don't know if he knows how much I hide.

I don't know how to talk to him about CPTSD. I don't seem able to come straight out with it.

I asked him today, "Do you notice sometimes I seem really tense, and other times I seem less tense?"
He said yes. He said it kindly and in a way that it was OK. I kind of wanted to talk to him about some of the things I've learned but I think he already knows.... I think he knows by observing. He has also seen quite a few episodes of me engaging in a tango with various family members so I guess he can comprehend somewhat.

He said he knew my work people would accommodate me because I am a valuable employee to them. He said he could tell and knew I was very stressed about it but he hadn't challenged me about my thoughts because he didn't think I would believe him and he thought if he said things that were opposite of what I was feeling, he'd make me feel confused and worse and not understood. I had been saying to him things like "I'm going to have to get a night time job"  and he bought that up and said he hadn't thought at the time it was that bad, but he had chosen not to disagree with me because he thought it was best if I saw for myself how it played out.
I admitted that if he had disagreed with me, I would have thought he wasn't in touch with reality and didn't understand the world.
I talked a little bit about how this shows me that what I expect from people isn't relevent any more. I had worried myself into a frenzy expecting to be treated the way I've been conditioned. My work people are my new surrogate family and I guess I superimposed all my stuff onto them. All of this is so automatic and beyond my conscious control (for now!) Even when a part of my rational mind knows I am getting carried away, I can't stop (yet)

I know I am valued by my employers. To me being valued means being controlled. You are playing an inviolable role and if you dare move out of it, you will be destroyed, abandoned, pushed out, threatened. Being a valued or skilled member of a team means, to me, in my subconscious world, that you stop existing as an entity and stop being allowed to want something different. You are absorbed into the whole and have to live out of loyalty to whatever organism you are a part of.

It looks like it is possible that the outcome will be the best possible one, the one I didn't feel worthy to ask for, the one I didn't think I deserved.

When all of this had happened I went a bit numb and dissociated again and my boyfriend was trying to be excited with me that I'm going to study now, but I was engulged in a sadness grief feeling and couldn't even engage with him at all. I don't know why he puts up with it. I must have personas or aspects of my personality that make up for all this weirdness.

A child part of me writes this. This isn't my polished personality writing. I like that. My body is having warm hot flushes but it's pleasant.

Last night I heard a loud crash, a series of loud crashes, down the side of my house, like someone or an animal was running down the side of the house between it and the fence. I was alone. I immediately stood up and went outside to face the danger. I walked right to it, right to the source of the sound to confront it. The way my body moved was different. I was strong, focused, bold and alive. In those moments I felt more like myself, more awake, more comfortable, more vital, than I have in years.

My body throws constant fight or flight at me in normal mundane safe circumstances yet when there is a potential for actual danger, my body becomes calm and happy and confident. It knows what to do.

What a paradox.

I couldn't find the source of the danger, but it was nice to go outside. It was great to feel confident.

*Triggers coming* my cousin was repeatedly raped by her father, and she was abused and shamed for saying things about it. He was protected. This was mainly before I was born/when I was little. She has grown up to be attracted to violent men, and who can blame her. One time, her boyfriend had broken a glass door and was threatening to cut her with a huge shard of glass. This same thing happened to me when I saw the scene from outside: I became emboldened and confident and alive and awake and present. I walked straight into that scene, straight to him, totally calm and focused, and made him leave. He did leave. I have no physical strength.

I'm scared to death of daily life things but not scared of violent men with weapons??.... My dad is a violent weaponised man. Maybe those men are familiar to me and I know how to approach them. Maybe it is the unfamiliar, civilized men who unnerve me. I don't know the next move.

Physical violence or the threat of physical violence is easier to trace than emotional and mental abuse, abuse that threatens your very right to exist. At least episodes of physical violence I have endured or witnessed are finite, they have a boundary between time, a beginning, middle, end, as well as, importantly, a visible impact that can be proven and referred to. There is no real question about what happened.  Also, the body is involved in physical violence and the body responds somewhat. Emotional or verbal or mental abuse, gaslighting, manipulating, undermining your reality.... the body can't act, there's nothing tangible to lash out against. So it freezes and stores and festers. Not that the physical violence isn't horrific. I just notice my particular system right now is much more prepared, eager in fact, to face a physical predator than it is willing to navigate the nuances of human relationship and a self in the world.

[Candid]

I dissociated and a facade overtook. The facade did a genuinely good job of seeming calm when it delivered the news.

You think it's a facade? Could it be the authentic, wonderful you?

people there are going out of their way to help me, for no reason other than it must be natural for them to help and support people.

Or maybe you're a genuinely lovable person, just as you are!!! Who knew? 

It is showing me what I unconsciously expect from people and how that is not the reality any more.

It shouldn't have been in the first place, but what a revelation.

At least episodes of physical violence I have endured or witnessed are finite, they have a boundary between time, a beginning, middle, end, as well as, importantly, a visible impact that can be proven and referred to. There is no real question about what happened. 

Emotional or verbal or mental abuse, gaslighting, manipulating, undermining your reality.... the body can't act, there's nothing tangible to lash out against. So it freezes and stores and festers.

Yes, that was my experience with butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth Mother. It's just occurred to me that undermining my reality was the worst thing she did... and that's saying something.

Not that the physical violence isn't horrific. I just notice my particular system right now is much more prepared, eager in fact, to face a physical predator than it is willing to navigate the nuances of human relationship and a self in the world.

Yeah, me too. I've recovered from all my physical injuries and have been known to confront enraged men. I don't know where that courage comes from. But the * I live with, that's a different matter.

Anyway... I'm so thrilled to hear you're taking your degree, to say nothing of all the affirmation you received from your boyfriend and workmates. It's all good!

[sanmagic7]

congrats, coco, on so many levels - getting that class, how supportive your workmates are, not having to lose a day of work after all, the kindness and sensitivity of your bf, and the realizations you have discovered about yourself and your world. 

i, too, have that vibe against violent men, or the threat of them being violent.  something in my eyes or my aura - something tells them not to muck with me cuz i'm not having any of it.  it is a wonderful feeling, like you described, so strong, confident, and just no-nonsense.  i don't know where i got it from, but i'm glad it's there!

so goes the progress of your own healing process.  one foot in front of the other, grabbing those opportunities as they fly past, and being brave enough to follow them through.  a glorious story!  so very happy for you!

[Coco]

Things I know:

Governments, agencies, courts, police, military, media, education system, medicine, psychology, cannot be trusted
Humanity is controlled and suppressed
Putting any effort into anything is pointless
I am exhausted
There is no point in trying
I can't do this
Helpless/hopeless
Everyone hates me
I am completely unlovable
I cannot be sure of anything
Nothing is stable, nothing is predictable
There is something extremely bad about me that I can't identify or change (based on family members' attitudes towards me)
Any time I show any personal power or will, it leads to profound punishment, disaster, negative consequences
I have no self
I have no rights
I am not allowed to feel
I am not allowed to be honest
Physical reality isn't real/doesn't matter
I can't/don't really exist
I have to find a way to be perfect, yet trying is pointless
Nothing is logical. Up is down, left is right, black is white, nothing is as it seems

These are a few. My mind is descending into fog, trying to shut me down. I'm fighting through 

I collapsed. My spiritual legs buckled beneath me at some stage, and I retreated. I have been... existing.

****TW****
A few weeks ago I was watching TV with people I live with, when a news story came on about pedophile sex traffickers in another country - I have forgotten which one.
As I watched, in the customary amnesic daze I am typically in, something powerful and energising emerged within me. It was a version of me, and she had on a particular black outfit and had a particular silver gun. She knew she had to go to that country, find the people who were abducting, raping and filming children, and kill them all. She even knew where, locally, to get a black market gun (subconscious awareness? The mind is amazing). This aspect of me was so powerful, so complete, so definitive, and 'I' agreed with her that this was really the only reasonable way to spend our/my life. I am sick of knowing what I know about the world and doing nothing. Millions of people know what I know and more, and we all do nothing. We are culpable. It's complicit, it's negligent. Going over and hunting down these sickos, shooting them, would be a statement. I knew it wouldn't make a dint in the whole picture but at least it would be some action.
I was so invigorated by this internal personality and her convictions, plans and ideas, that I stood up and announced to the people I was watching TV with, that this was what I was going to do. They laughed. This happens to me often. I say something and people think I'm joking. I insisted I was going to do it, and explained why. They explained why it wasn't a good idea. I sat back down, beginning to disconnect again. I remained energised by the idea but over the next day or so, reasoned that I wouldn't do that plan after all.

My 'normal' day to day self is not someone who could shoot another, even a pedophile. I am so hypersensitive to violence that I cringe if any violence or hint of it appears on TV, in conversation etc. I can't harm insects. I have an exaggerated physical, mental and emotional reaction to any violence at all.

***END TW***

In the ensuing days, the emergence of my black-clad vigilante ninja self with her silver pistol and emboldened attitude, was a source of curiosity to me. I know that standard psychology, substandard as it is, has managed to recognise the existance of sub-personalities and shadow selves. I know about Inner Family Systems. I also know about DID. I started vaguely wondering what this self represented.

More things have happened since and I've done a heck of a lot of obsessive research, which leads me back to the list of 'what I know'.

I think trauma victims may have difficulty getting on with life, considering 'what we know'.

Particularly in the case of CPTSD - a lot has to be happening for trauma to be chronic and ongoing. A lot of adults and people have to be complicit and a lot happens that teaches us complete powerlessness, lack of trust in ourselves, life, others, and lack of faith in the process of change.

Spending time with people with DID has taught me that what I think is me, my personality, is simply a collection of memories, associations, connections, programming, conditioning. It is impermanent and incomplete, and it is not the whole reality. It makes me realize that the entire program I live by can be changed, deliberately. Truth? Hmmf. Does it even matter? What IS it?

Something in me wants to re-create me. It is my turn to choose now.

[Coco]

How can you motivate yourself to participate in the world when you know it is all a giant lie, and a ticking time bomb at that?

My central struggle is between finding meaning, engagement, pleasure, a LIFE for myself, and knowing it is all corrupt, pointless, fake, superficial and pointless.......

It is NOT the simplified short hand my inner critic resorts to - that I'm lazy etc.

It is what I KNOW. Deep down. I can't un-know it. Can I retrain myself, reframe it all, decide again, take another look? I haven't been able to connect with anything much in physical reality. I can't chase money, success, I don't care about any of it. I know that in those moments when you think you are about to die, when your whole universe has been decimated, none of that matters. I know that possessions and superficial aquaintances and platitudes and nice shoes and the type of car you drive don't matter. They don't save you in those moments. They have no impact whatsoever.
So how can I chase them now? I know they are meaningless. I have pursued what would save me in those moments, but of course that is intangible, not something I can define or own.

Aaaah. This is coming together and beginning to make sense. This is my work. Reconciling those moments of hyper alert photographic memory where nothing in physical reality could be trusted, relied on, or good. Where nothing mattered but surviving this next moment. I am locked in that mode permanently, just with lower adrenaline levels. But that is no-man's land, limbo world. Moving through the world but not in it. Dead while the heart still beats. I will not let earlier life circumstances do this to me forever. I am here, awake, I exist. I have to either stop physically existing, or start fully existing.

It's just that every physical action seems so empty. "The world is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Fck.   

[Candid]

Coco, I want to take issue with some things on your list, if I may.

I am exhausted I understand. I have many of the feelings you describe, and they make it hard even to get out of bed.

Everyone hates me The only one who matters is you. If you hate you, the game's up. But you don't hate you. Your list shows you're still in there fighting for the light.

Nothing is stable, nothing is predictable That can be scary. On the other hand, it can be a Very Good Thing. It means you can chart your course and have the Universe rearrange itself to accommodate you.

There is something extremely bad about me that I can't identify or change (based on family members' attitudes towards me) I've fought this one for decades. When your FOO uses you as a trash can from the start. you look and feel like a trash can. I was in my 50s when I saw they'd simply done what was convenient for them, and all the things 'wrong' with me were of their invention. And this is what they taught you:
I have no self
I have no rights
I am not allowed to feel
I am not allowed to be honest

You have to claim those rights for yourself, but first you have to get on your own side -- and stay there.

I have to find a way to be perfect, yet trying is pointless When it comes to people, the notion of 'perfect' is pointless. Everyone's born wanting to be the best they can be; it's the basis of self-esteem. But again, 'trying' won't work until you're on your own side.

Your fantasy about killing child abusers/murderers is an important message. What you want to do is silence the abusers in your head. You've already got a list of what they taught you about yourself and your place in the world. You can go through it line by line and say That isn't true, That isn't true, That isn't true. Write out the opposite: what you want to be true. What's good about you as you are. At this stage, bugger the governments and the world at large, just focus on yourself and your intrinsic goodness.

How can you motivate yourself to participate in the world when you know it is all a giant lie, and a ticking time bomb at that?

Think of it more as a giant playing field, albeit not a level one. There's not a ticking time bomb, just your soul urging you to stand up and be the best person you can be before it's too late. Healing is urgent, for all of us, no matter what stage we 'wake up'. As Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world". But adore yourself first. You have to build your hope and strength from the inside so you're no longer exhausted at the thought of getting out of bed.

My central struggle is between finding meaning, engagement, pleasure, a LIFE for myself, and knowing it is all corrupt, pointless, fake, superficial and pointless...

With respect, your central struggle is between you and you. All of you wants a better deal and your spirit will go on fighting for it. The discomfort is good. First accept, and then love, all the parts of you. That might mean that first you have to think of all the things They said about you, and yell at Them: No! That's a lie! I am not that person! But don't stay there too long.

It is what I KNOW. Deep down. I can't un-know it. Can I retrain myself, reframe it all, decide again, take another look?

You may well find it was all a dream, a big fat lie.

I haven't been able to connect with anything much in physical reality. I can't chase money, success, I don't care about any of it.

That was self-protective, a good thing. Now you can choose better. When all of you is going in one direction, it will feel right. No resistance = more energy, a bit of sparkle. You'll find the things you do care about. Money and success may well be irrelevant, but they tend to come easier when you've figured out Who You Are (not what They said) and run with that.

I know that in those moments when you think you are about to die....

All good, this paragraph, but you aren't about to die. When you are, you want to look back with a smile on your face and say: I was who I was, and it was good; and I did what I did, and that was good, too.

So how can I chase them now?

You can't. You're too worn out and everything looks hopeless. A new perspective changes everything.

This is my work.

And so say all of us!

Where nothing mattered but surviving this next moment. I am locked in that mode permanently, just with lower adrenaline levels. But that is no-man's land, limbo world. Moving through the world but not in it. Dead while the heart still beats.

There's a stronger you waiting to reanimate this corpse. How about you stop struggling and let her get on with it?

I will not let earlier life circumstances do this to me forever. I am here, awake, I exist. I have to either stop physically existing, or start fully existing.

It's decision time, Coco. If you envision some idealised, 'perfect' self after a snap of the fingers, you're going to keep yourself stuck. There is no such person. However, that woman who went on a rampage against child-murderers has a flipside: a strong, caring Internal Mother who can help you every step of the way. Hold the vision in your head and simply do what you're moved to do.

[Coco]

I can't speak for other cultures, but I know that here in the West  there's a really strong culture of 'fixing' and 'improving' everything, all the time. It is a collective mindset of constantly looking for problems and imperfections and working to improve them. Social media has certainly turned up the volume on that.

It's quite pervasive. If I think about it, possibly girls and women are more subject to the 'lifestyle' elements of this constant quest to improve. Exercise, diet, natural medicines, make up and fashion of course, how to think positively, how to parent, how to be a better partner, how to manage time better. On and on and on. It can be problematic when it comes to health, with so many contradictory opinions putting pressure on people.

This drive to improve and eliminate problems sees us, as a species, make wonderful discoveries in medicine and science. It's what propels the whole marionette show of politics.

It also creates a subtext that becoming ill, for example, is a failure on some level. It means you didn't eat well, or allowed yourself to be exposed to chemicals, or didn't think positively enough. That your illness is something that must be fought and defeated. That it is unacceptable and you have to get back to 'normal'.

I have fatigue from my own lifelong quest to improve, get it right, crack the code, be better, change. I have not had a moment's true peace or self acceptance under the umbrella of this mindset. Don't get me wrong, I've had lots of happiness, but it hasn't been true relaxation because there's always something to fix.

But what about self acceptance?

Say one of us got into a prolonged freeze response for some reason. So for a week or so, we were suffering that type of energetic paralysis, you know the one, where you really can't bring yourself to get up and go out and do things.

I have always found those states particularly distressing because in the background of myself, I'm comparing myself to those possibly fictional people who burst out of bed at 6am, do some high intensity exercise of their own free will, practice mindfulness perfectly for 10 minutes, proceed to prepare an organic green smoothie for themselves and their children, (whose uniforms are all perfectly ironed, of course, with a nutritionally balanced wholefood school lunch already prepared), before applying fabulous make up and hair and swanning off to a high paid executive work day.

I'm not doing that. Lol. And my mind connects the fact that I'm not doing that with intense failure. I recognise that these are some symptoms of CPTSD within themselves - perhaps I have overexaggerated perfectionistic ideals, perhaps I am more black and white subconsciously than others..... yet I am blessed to spend a lot of time with a wide range of people and I have noticed that this external pressure really presses them all, especially the women. It's not just me. The difference is that my pain can be more intense and focused, so I'm more driven to find its sources. The other difference is my depressive tendencies mean I can't be bothered trying a lot of these things that my peers throw themselves into wholeheartedly, on a constant quest to be the best versions of themselves.

I know that ideologically, my culture is based on 'liberalism', a concept that discounts family circumstances, socio-economic backgrounds and other handicaps, and effectively says that every human has equal opportunity and if someone isn't a success, it is 100% because they have not tried or worked hard enough. I learned this at university recently and it makes sense, I can see that mindset in our culture. If people are obese it's their fault and they should 'just lose weight'; drug addicts don't deserve compassion because they've chosen their fate and 'should just stop', trauma victims should just 'get over it', poor people should just 'cut their hair and get a job', gay people should just 'go straight', etc. That kind of thinking.

What it creates is a lot of resistance to anything that doesn't fit into the streamlined version of an ideal human. Behind the scenes, it's all about making us productive, compliant consumers. All therapy, as I see it, has the aim of helping us to eventually conform to the 9-5 work day and buy things to keep the economy ticking. That's not necessarily bad.

I have no way to know if we are like this because of social conditioning, or if it's human nature.

Regardless, this is the programming my inner critic is armed with. Fixit fixit fixit fixit fixit fixit. Triggered? That's a failure, fix it. Sad? Procrastinating? Signs that something is broken inside, fix it.

I think we end up suffering more pain about our resistance to our condition, thinking we shouldn't be this way and not wanting to feel like we do sometimes, than the actual trauma-feelings would cause.

What would happen if I stopped trying to fix it and just accepted it? What if I AM exactly as I should be, and what if there is nothing 'wrong' with it? In reality, I've never hurt anyone else due to my symptoms. I've only hurt myself and that was out of self rejection and self hatred, which could be mitigated by acceptance.

[Coco]

Candid! Thank you for your beautiful response. Your wisdom emanates through the screen, absolutely awesome. Thank you for coming in here and holding my hand, coaching me through that, offering your time and intelligence like that. See right there? Evidence to contradict most of that list.

In that post, god, I was time-jumping, writing from different internal selves, trying to make the unconscious conscious. That list, for example, I wrote down as a way to see how absurd the deeply held, unquestioned, subconscious beliefs are.

I don't think I was very clear about what I was attempting to do out loud, because I was in an odd state.

Again, thank you for your incredible help and wisdom xx

[sanmagic7]

hey, coco,

when i hear questions about are these bad things human nature or socialization/social media, etc., i go back to when we were babies.  we knew we belonged in this world just the way we were, we never believed we had to fix anything, we valued ourselves as ourselves, we were ok with us as human beings, we let our needs be known and set boundaries - crying when someone did something that hurt us or didn't take care of us the way we needed to be taken care of us.  we were born believing in ourselves.

those beliefs got buried under the 'others' messages, but they were never our own.  the pressure, the expectations, and the 'encouragement' to be perfect, to fix anything that wasn't, and to keep at ourselves until we died - that all comes from outside.  that isn't us, it isn't our nature.  our nature is pure self-acceptance without a thought about it.

i, too, love what candid wrote.  now that we have some knowledge and understanding, we can make different choices, different decisions as to who we want to listen to, or how we want to be.  i think the word and concept of health is relevant here.  healthy surroundings, people in our lives, choices in our day to day living.  i believe that health is what we can reasonably strive for, rather than perfection.

perfection doesn't exist, so we'll never attain it anyway.  the sooner we can accept that fundamental tenet, we'll stop 'trying' and concentrate on being.  i'm not saying it's easy, but we can re-write our own script to be who we are.  time, patience, help, support, determination, courage - they're all necessary to do that, but anyone who has taken the chance to post on this forum already has those in place.  you've got them - you've just have to reach inside and find them and utilize them the best way for you.

keep going, coco.  you're still here, you still count, you're still beautiful just the way you are, valid and valuable.  big hug to you, sweetie.

[Candid]

But what about self acceptance?

That's what I prescribe.... and much of the time I can't even manage that much.    But IMO thinking we 'should' be anything other than we are is what keeps us stuck.

I think we end up suffering more pain about our resistance to our condition, thinking we shouldn't be this way and not wanting to feel like we do sometimes, than the actual trauma-feelings would cause.

A vicious inner critic -- and what IC isn't vicious? -- adds a new layer of pain over whatever's going on underneath.

What would happen if I stopped trying to fix it and just accepted it?

I do this intermittently, and it's a happier space until I hit the next environmental issue -- ie., one that's arisen due to compromised boundaries or instinct-injury. Then my outer world becomes a reminder that my reasoning powers have got me to this place, that I haven't protected myself in the past and am unable to do so now ... and then panic kicks in. Panic is obviously unacceptable, so I'll start the numbing-out routine.  This has come to include "It doesn't matter" (a calming thought) which morphs rapidly into "I don't matter" -- dangerous territory.

I'm in a different headspace now from the one that produced my last post. I've only just seen your and san's responses to that, so I re-read it. One of the many wonderful things about this forum is that other people's distress mirrors my own, drawing out answers applicable to me. It reminds me of Three Roses' advice to those who doubt their own perceptions: If you saw that happening to a child the age you were, would you think it was okay or would you know it was abuse?   And that's the genesis of self-compassion.

[Coco]

Holy moly. Pete Walker's a GENIUS, and I'm only reading the intro!

[Three Roses]