Berceuse's journal

[berceuse]

***POSSIBLE TRIGGERS ***
Hello,
Well, this is my first attempt to keep an online journal.  I hope it turns out better than some parts of me expected. Even right now I have that non-stop critic and perfectionist that constantly try to guess other people's opinion of me  (which are either too nice or too humiliating) and make me read the sentences over and over again and telling me I have too much flaws to be a perfectionist and my writing will probably be full of mistakes and unworthy of reading.
However, I'll keep on because I know that I am entitled to share my experience, feelings, opinions, etc. because I am a human being. It is sad that it took me so long to realize that I am only human and talking about myself is pretty, pretty and pretty normal and nothing to be ashamed of and I like making mistakes because it is a great way to learn if you realize them.
Okay, I feel better now. To be your own mother is great  .
I wanted to write about this feeling I had these days. I feel as if I abandoned myself. I think I still spend too much time to keep imaginary perfect me (or just real me?) alive inside. It is like my whole dreams and the shiny, talkative, happy, funny me living in a very, very distant land inside me and on the outside I have that frozen, reckless, "I don't care about anything" me.  However, I actually do care too much and I am not in a very nice phase of my life (in terms of financial independence and a lot of stuff).
I feel like I am waiting for some magical power to come and do everything for me. I keep reminding myself it is time to realize you are an adult but I still depend on my childhood coping mechanisms, too much. I  feel shattered and away from myself and frozen and it is scary. It just seems too hard at times and I just want to give up, but I can't because I promised myself that I am going to try. 
I think I just need to accept the fact that recovery is really a slow process. I need to be patient and do my best to be real me because I don't want to feel like a frozen clone of me, anymore.

[Three Roses]

Welcome!

I think I just need to accept the fact that recovery is really a slow process.

Yes, exactly    Give yourself permission to move at your own pace. Thanks for joining!

[sanmagic7]

glad you're here, berceuse.

being patient about recovering is something i've had to work hard at over the years, so i can totally relate.  i was a doer, a fixer, if there's a problem, i did something about it as quickly as possible.  more than one, many times. 

these days, recovering from c-ptsd, i discovered it is a process, much more than i would ever have thought.  i've been in recovery for addictions, but it's never been like this.  this does take time, determination, and, above all, patience.  ups and downs, sometimes sideways.  one thing i've discovered, tho, is that as long as i keep moving, even if it's backwards at times, i'm making progress. 

i was also the perfect person, could logically figure out just the right way to be, what to say, how to do.  shedding that skin hasn't been easy for me, and i still find pieces of it clinging from time to time (ewww, that sounds gross, even to me!).  i also get that feeling that it seems too hard sometimes to deal with all this.  those are the times i just ask for strength to get me through this day.  so far that's worked - i'm still here today.

i think all these 'things' you're feeling and going thru are just part of the recovery process.  as we are transitioning from where we were to where we want to be, things can get crumbly and stumbly at times. 

i loved your statement about being your own mother.  kind of like being your own best friend as well.  we really do need to be our own whatevers in the best way possible, don't we?  that made total sense to me. 

hope to hear more from you.  you'll get there. 

[berceuse]

Thank you for your replies. 

[berceuse]

Okay. I just need to unburden myself but I don't even know what's wrong exactly or what to say.  I just feel so overwhelmed and confused. Even the smallest pieces of work make me feel anxious. I am literally having a hard time to understand what I read because of the anxiety. Lately, I have these ongoing daydreams? or  fantasies? that I tell people what is wrong with me biologically. I mean I  try to prove something is wrong with me (in my fantasies) to my friends or almost anyone I know. Then, these people respect me and understand what I am going through.  But I have never been diagnosed with anything (except depression which was three years ago I guess). I have never been diagnosed with C-PTSD either but this is the most suitable explanation of what I have been living my whole life. May be I am wrong. I don't know. All I search for is validation and love from another person but I am sick and tired of being controlled by those unfulfilled needs. I know there are people whom I can trust and who loves me and I do not want to keep questioning their love and trust but I can't stop myself. I am so afraid of being that broken and hurt  and disappointed again. Especially by someone whose favorite words are "I love you". My whole concept of love is actually scary. 

[sanmagic7]

ya know, i think love can be scary.  we've heard the word plenty of times, but too often it came along with pain, expectations, and/or unrealistic responsibilities.  instead of being unconditional and accepting, it had all kinds of strings attached.  yeah, scary.

i can certainly relate to wanting to have something wrong physically, something 'tangible' to show/tell others.  i can't say how many docs i've seen over my lifetime, telling them symptoms that they basically ignored.  i, too, believe they were c-ptsd related, but rarely has anyone shown the inclination or energy to search for a root cause.  no one was asking 'why is this happening?'

i'm sorry for your terrible anxiety that you're experiencing right now.  it just plays havoc with everything in our lives, making it so difficult to get through the day in a semi-straight line.  like you said, even the little pieces get hijacked, and it takes so much energy to get back on track.  no wonder you're feeling overwhelmed and confused. 

take heart.  i'm glad you posted, and i hope that, even if i can't help you, you know that you're not alone.  big hug to you, berceuse.  i hope the rest of your day gets to be a little smoother.

[berceuse]

Thank you sanmagic7,

That was/is exactly how ı feel "wanting to have something wrong physically, something 'tangible' to show/tell others." Thank you for your support, too.

Recently, I have this memory which keeps reminding itself or I keep rememebering it because my mom is at home again after a long time. So, I want to talk about it.

Before that I feel like giving a little personal history so that I may feel less detached from myself. I actually remember just a few times I feel grounded in my entire life anyway. (May be this is a lie or exaggeration or this is the inner critic speaking. I do not know.)

***possibble triggers***

Anyway I lost my dad when I was six and then grew up with an emotionally unavailable mother and a grandmother (who might both have npd but I am not sure).
I actually can not remember my mom (not even her face, or any memory) before I was six. My first memory with her is that her telling me my dad is dead and she did it by showing me a photograph taken in the funeral (I do not know why sb needed to take a photo in the funeral) and simply telling me "Your dad died" and nothing else. I just remember the photo clearly and saying "Hmm". That's all. They did not take me to funeral. May be she just wanted to visualize it so that I can believe. It made me quite angry for a time (after I found about CPTSD and emotional abuse, etc.) but I just feel really numb right now and cant remember any rational explanation that I told to my inner child (which felt like a good self-protection and affection so I thought ıt must be the 6 years old me.)
Anyway, I found the photo at home when I was in college and before that I thought I had imagined it and the death of my dad did not actually feel real until I was in highschool. It took me 10 years, I guess, to realize he is really dead. I think I have dissociated throughout all these years because whenever I felt alone (which was all the time) I imagined that he is actually alive and the reason they told me he is dead is because he is seeing another woman or has another family, etc. (just any story that is a little bit reasonable was fine for me) and he would come and take me from home. I had quite a lot of escape fantasies. ( I still use fantasizing/dreaming as a coping mechanism a lot but I just want to have a real life although to some extent dreaming has been benefical. Anyway this is the subject for another day.)
It was the times when I needed the support most but I was the supporter instead. It was always mom's needs, sadness, troubles, joys, etc. My mother and grandmother, who is dead now, used to argue every day when I was a child. Seriously they kept arguing about the same things over and over again every day throughout my childhood. I cant remember any of them right now. Anyway so my mom had a lot of things to tell and she was always right because she had lost a husband, she had a terrible and ill mother who shows no sign of love although she is the one who take cares of her and the financial trouble (my sisters were at university at the time). It was really tough for her I know and I remember feeling really sad for her but it was really tough for me too. But noone accepted that I might be really sad too. Noone actually asked what I felt. My mom just pretended to be listening (in the best case scenario). Most of the time she did not answer to me when I was telling something or she just started talking about herself (how somebody offended her again and she was always right and innocent).
And for years I thought she was right to do so, to behave me as if I were non-existent and I always need to listen to her and not talk about myself at all (because it is selfish) and everybody except her was offensive and selfish. I really believed her and the worse I believed that was love because she kept telling me how much she loved me.

It actually took me years to realize that I felt really sad and scared after my dad died.

Okey, I really need to stop here. I was going talk about a memory but now I dont have the energy to do so.

[berceuse]

I just found this between my notes of Pete Walker's essays. This is like the summary of my social life.

"Here is a verbal diagram of a typical critic-looping scenario. The need to escape the "indanger" feeling that is triggered by socializing or even the thought of it excites the outer critic's judgementalness and subsequent isolation-seeking behavior. Extended withdrawal however, reawakens a relational hunger and the impulse to connect. This simultaneously reverses the critic from outer to inner mode, which then laundry lists one's own personal inadequacies, which in turn creates self-pitying persecution fantasies, which then reinvokes the outer critic mode of inventorying one's self-righteous resentments of others...ad infinitem...ad nauseam - all in the "safe" hiding of silent disengagement. This is also a common thread of the fabric of an addiction to worrying."

Anyway I guess it was hard for me to share that stuff last night, because I really had a tough time to fall asleep and my heartbeats were so fast. However, I do not regret talking about it.

[sanmagic7]

just want to say that you've been heard, and kudos to you and your courage for sharing everything. 

[berceuse]

Thank you sanmagic7   I really needed to hear that.

[jdcooper]

But noone accepted that I might be really sad too. Noone actually asked what I felt. My mom just pretended to be listening.

I can so relate to this.  No one saw you.  How painfully invisible you must have felt.  The adults around you, their needs were more important than you.  You were the child.  You needed to be put first.  That's not fair to use you like an emotional sounding board for her own needs.  My mom did the same.

[berceuse]

I am sorry that you have gone through this too Jdcooper and thank you for sharing it. That was how I felt exactly: invisible.

The thing with anxiety is that it is getting worse and worse for a while. Yesterday, when I was reading about 100 traits of personality-disordered individual and emotional abuse in OOF, I got really anxious, triggered possibly and I realized I show a lot of physical response/ bodily responses to anxiety.

The thing that drew my attention was I was blinking my eyes quite a lot when reading about emotional abuse and it was like a nervous tic. I actually stopped reading because of the blinking. It had happened before, once. Luckily, it did not last long.

The other thing is that I have hyperhidrosis which is excessive sweating in some body parts (in my case it is my hands and feet). I have it as long as I have known myself and I learnt that it happens because sympathetic nervous system is overactivated and the SNS controls the fight-flight reponse in case of danger.
(I have seen docs about sweating but they just surprised how sweat can drip from my fingers and no physcial cause for it has been found.)

And also the palpitation and contracted muscles and cold, sweaty hands and feet and in some cases shaking.
So, what my body thinks as "Danger" varies from performing little tasks like sending an urgent mail to reading about abuse online or to talking to someone I am not very comfortable with, etc. So, there is not an exact definition of what my body perceives as as "danger".

And I want to help my poor SNS which only does his/her job to protect me.

I am soooo exhausted of living in the "Panic mood". I am literally exhausted, low-in energy most of the time and when I am in this panic mood, I can't think, everything seems so overwhelming and I literally stop functioning and I feel like an animal who plays dead.

I do not want to live like this anymore. I do not want to waste great amounts of energy on feeling anxious and restless over nothing.

So, How can I relieve an autonomous nervous system who decides on its own when to interfere and how to interfere.

I looked up the definition in Merriam Webster Danger is "exposure or liability to injury, pain, harm, or loss" May be, I can remember this next time.
Another thing is that I am trying the mindful breathing, it is actually paying attention to your breathing. Beforehand I thought it was taking deep breaths so I couldnt handle taking long-deep breaths and felt even more anxious.
So, it is good that I understood it is focusing on how you breathe normally, not forcing you to breathe in a particular way.

I walk a lot. It helps but I cant go for a walk every time I feel anxious because of nothing.

I am thinking of starting jogging early in the morning. I tried that for some time and quit. I remember it felt good actually. I am going to give it another try. I think it can be helpful to relieve my stress symptoms.
I really want to form healthy habits.

[ThreeThrees]

Hello berceuse, I think it is a good idea try jogging again, maybe listening to some nice music or talks or motivational materials while jogging.

[berceuse]

Hello, threetrees. Thank you for your reply, I will try that.

I am just gonna write whatever comes to my mind. It is so disorganized but it is okey I guess.

**possible triggers**

-It is okey to feel confused at times.

-I think I have been dissociating a lot recently. My vision blurs a lot (which is a sign of dissociation for me)

-This week, I caught myself many times saying "You are stupid," outloud. I think I do that when ı start to have feelings for sb. It is no wonder I have never had any sort of relationship.

-I do not know who I am, what I like, how old I am even. May be I am in a flashback. ı dont know that either. I am not feeling small or hopeless (I usually feel that when I am in fb) It is not like that. I feel completely anonymous, without identity, I feel like nothing, a complete nothing. (may be this is a different kind of fb.)

-I remember crying and saying "I do not have any memories," when I was a child. (I was propably in elementary school)

-I really would like to help myself to live the life to the fullest, to feel alive but I need myself to do that and I dont even know where I am.

-I used to do "parts work-inner family therapy"  http://sfhelp.org/gwc/IF/ifs.htm   . I stopped that for a while. I guess I am afraid of becoming more and more divided inside and I really need "me" to manage the parts work and I dont know who is in charge right now.

-I feel dead.

-I tried jogging but I dissociated during that too and I felt disappointed. I dont know what I need to wake up. This is like a constant sleep.

-I pierced my ears because I thought a little bit of pain can make me feel alive. It does not hurt that much and no it did not wake me up.

-I sometimes feel I am too full when I try to take a deep breath. There is no extra space inside me to take a deep breath.

-I know this feelings will pass. I had times when I felt more alive and less confused
but now feels like forever.

-Reading usually worked well for me to realize what I am living. But, now it is too much, too.

-Patience is a good virtue and I lack it. I usually feel like I am the only one who needs to wait all the time. Of course, it is not true.

-I feel like I am waiting permission from sb to start living.

-I allow quite a lot of people to tell me what to do, how to feel, how to act...

-I hate when sb tells me to wait. I feel anger when sb tells me to wait. I hate waiting. I don't even know what I am waiting for and sb telling me that feel as if they are the authority to decide who waits for how long to get sth they wanted, it makes me quite angry. And of course they cant understand I am angry because I will be having that stupid smile in my face.

English is not my mother tongue so sorry for any possible mistakes.

[berceuse]

#When I was doing the inner-family-therapy (on my own) I realized I have a part who is really angry and named her after the Hindu God, Kali. I don't know if this is weird but visualizing parts of me helps me to reconnect with myself.

"Kali is the Hindu goddess (or Devi) of death, time, and doomsday and is often associated with sexuality and violence but is also considered a strong mother-figure and symbolic of motherly-love. Kali also embodies shakti - feminine energy, creativity and fertility - and is an incarnation of Parvati, wife of the great Hindu god Shiva. She is most often represented in art as a fearful fighting figure with a necklace of heads, skirt of arms, lolling tongue, and brandishing a knife dripping with blood."
Source: http://www.ancient.eu/Kali/

She is a part of me that is alive. May be, she is the protective, angry mother (in a good way). I don't know.
I actually had a dream in which I had four arms and I was rubbing my shoulders with those extra two arms  it was quite funny actually but it was a time when I felt I was helping myself.
Then, I ran into Kali in Heinrich Zimmer's Myths and symbols in Indian art and civilization and felt a connection. She might be symbolizing the feminine energy, that creative and protective energy and I love it.

#Forgetting yourself is a terrible thing. I found that I noted this in my diary (I mean not in the online one, I have a written diary) which is:
"Flashbacks create temporary amnesia about one's essential worthiness and goodness." Pete Walker's essay on inner critic

#And I am beating myself up, for two weeks, calling myself stupid, idiot when I look into mirror or when I am walking in the street and then I answer outloud "I am not stupid" but usually it did not sound very convincing and I feel like a crazy person who is having a fight with herself in the Street.

#I guess this was another episode of flashback. In "Part's work" Pete Garlech recommends to ask questions (date, age, gender, etc.) to the parts to get to know them better. When I asked the date, that part of me answered 2004. If I did not made it up... and why on earth will I make it up? I am not really eager to stuck in the past and feel like a ghost and live in isolation.

#If I understood this right, some part of me got stuck in 2004 and all those feelings (all/most/some??) belongs to the experience (I dont know what it was) that happened at the time. My past is quite foggy. I remember telling this to my therapist (I am not seeing one anymore). Is this dissociative amnesia?? I am not sure about diagnosing myself but then I think I am the one who is living with myself so I must be the one who knows what is going on with me. It scares me a lot to put so much trust in me. I know it is a terrible thing to say but it does. I have a fear of abandoning myself because when I needed most I can't seem to find myself. This is the pattern of my relationship with mother. I have an absent mother inside. Am I the absent mother? No, I don't think so. May be, I just keep choosing the wrong person to ask for help.  Then who am I? A bunch of parts who are barely in touch with each other?? I don't even understand if I am behaving myself in a good way/or just continuing with self-abuse/or nothing is that binary.

#The good thing is visualizing helps a lot. This is the thing I learnt today again.