Blueberry's Journal

[sanmagic7]

wow, blueberry, you're really moving right along with your processing.  good for you.  i'm impressed at how you keep going at it.  you're getting there!  big hug.

[Blueberry]

Thank you sanmagic!    It helps me when someone else notices the progress too.

It seems that the processing is working because I don't feel so much fear in my stomach when I now read my own post about processing the magpie break-in. I feel a bit calmer in general. I didn't get up when I intended today, but sometimes that is also a sign of processing in the subconscious.

[Blueberry]

I didn't get up when I intended today either. Sometimes when there are too many things on my day's could do list, I just don't get up. Even though I don't have to do the things since they are under could do. I've been putting off doing some trauma-processing all day. Doing it might get me more motivated.

But I did do some particular small important thing this week that I've been putting off for 4 months. 

I do feel much calmer about the magpie now, so that must have been working away in my subconscious for past couple of days.

I helped a good friend today IRL via the phone. We've been helping each other on and off for years with this psycho stuff, nothing new there. When it's a real emergency or an EF has being going on for several days, then we both take that seriously for the other person. But a less good friend with CPTSD phoned later in the day and just wanted to chat,  (though that turns into 'this is where I am atm and this is what has been going on emotionally'), I felt so exhausted all of a sudden, I refrained. I couldn't possibly support anybody else, that was my feeling.

Well, I do remember and will hereby remind myself, that I tend to move forward in either actions or realisations or both and then have the feeling that I either drop back a bit or stagnate. But actually I'm probably not doing either, I'm probably re-sorting and re-grounding and re-energising so that I can move forward again.

I would like to eat some chocolate, but that's not the solution. I don't have any at home anyway, wisely enough.

Last night I dreamt that somebody got hold of my advertising brochures, tore them up and scattered the bits all over the place. The basic theme has been common in my dreams/nightmares in the last 8-10 years: somebody comes and ruins something of mine. For a long time I had dreams about my part of the garden ('yard' for the N.Americans on here  ), that neighbours dug it up, or planted their own things in my part, after destroying my plants, once I even dreamt that the landlord came and paved our whole garden in concrete. Compared to some people's nightmares this will sound like chicken feed, but for me it used to feel so frustrating and so unfair during the dream and I also felt so powerless. People came and did things, over and over again, and I couldn't seem to stop people destroying my part of the garden. While I write this a permanent image of B1 is hanging around.

So one thing behind these bad dreams will be my powerlessness to stop B1 harming me psychologically and physically in my childhood / teenage years (and later) and my inability to enforce boundaries with him. He was older and bigger (still is, but that was particularly bad for me in the first 20-odd years of my life) and I wasn't safe from him anywhere if he wanted to have a go at me. And nobody was there to protect me from him.

[sanmagic7]

i lost my response.  i think i said that i hope you're safe from him now, and that those dreams seemed very telling about the powerlessness you've felt with him. 

your strength is really coming thru.  sounds like you needed a break to re-think just what your next step is.  not a bad idea.  you're doing so well.  big hug to you my dear.

[Blueberry]

Thank you san      I am safe from him now.

I don't feel very strong atm. I feel very weak in fact. but that is undoubtedly 'something' telling me I need a break. I was reading in my diary last night and saw that my T warned me after one trauma-processing session that it was likely I'd be pretty exhausted in the days afterward. Ah ha! I thought yesterday, that is what is going on now too. Not surprising. I had Abuser no. 1 and my fear of her through all the years on the processing screen this week. Not surprising that that's knocked me for six. And then add to that all the progress I've been making IRL in the past week... It's really no surprise I'm feeling so exhausted.

Yesterday I felt overwhelmed at the thought of putting respectable clothes on. So I didn't. Spent day in a fairly old t-shirt and fleece jacket and shorts I wear for gardening or mucking around the house. Even though I had contact with one client and other freelancing colleagues. I had got to the point where I just didn't care. I knew it was a choice of go to the effort of putting something more business-like on and then collapse, or remain in gardening clothes and work and then meet up with colleagues. So I chose latter.

Thank you for telling me my strength is coming through San, because I really don't feel it. So it's good to hear from somebody else.

[Hope66]

Hi Blueberry,

I just wanted to pop by and say that I admire the fact you managed to still meet up with your colleagues yesterday, and that you chose to wear your Gardening (more casual) clothes to do that - I am sure you would have looked fine, and probably 'more relaxed' (outward appearance) and there's nothing wrong with that.

I know it's a draining time for you currently, from what you've written, and I would like to give you a hug  and say I hope that you have a good day today.

You replied to one of my posts recently, and I so appreciated what you wrote.  I've not had chance to reply to that yet, but I will - and I wanted you to know your reply meant a lot to me.  Thank you.

Hope 

[Blueberry]

Thanks Hope  Your reply means a lot to me too. I actually didn't look fine in my gardening clothes, I really didn't. But I accepted that. Because as I wrote that was the only way in which I could go. Otherwise, better clothes and neater appearance + collapse.

I've done a few rounds of EFT (tapping) so far today and it's not helping noticeably, though it is good I tried it out. Possibly helping at subconscious level anyway. Sometimes I just have to leave my subconscious time. Because more and more EFT and/or screen processing just exhausts me more.

[Blueberry]

I can't remember where I wrote about daring to take up space by putting some chairs in the space outside my office where everybody else in the building used to pile junk of various sorts. I felt pretty self-conscious about these chairs for a while, as if everybody in the building was grumbling about them and noticing that nobody sat on them. But now clients are beginning to sit on them. so I feel less self-conscious.

Today I just lay around reading and dozing most of the day. It feels pretty lazy. Maybe I just needed a break? A few days ago I was close to exhaustion. I don't know. No time on Monday for lying around reading and dozing. I don't know how those of you who work 8 hour days manage it. I've been putting off doing any trauma processing or at least EFT. I could have at least tried that today. I didn't even go down into the garden.

[sanmagic7]

i remember about the chairs, blue, and am so glad that people are now using them.  good for you for sticking to your guns about that space and getting rid of the garbage.  it was an excellent idea and has produced excellent results.

i always believe that our bodies let us know what we need, and it sounds like yours told you that you need to just have time to do nothing that might be energy-sapping, or nothing of importance.  i call that physical and mental recovery/healing time.  i don't think there's anything lazy about it.  i'm glad you did it.  i think it's something we all need to do from time to time. 

big hug to you, sweetie.

[Blueberry]

Thanks san, that makes me feel better, about the lying around being mental recovery/healing time.

Work-wise I was quite active today and then this evening I went with an environmental association I belong to to a prize-giving. We won first prize in one of the categories. Something I've been involved in for years, even if through the worst years of exhaustion I was just there in mind.

[sanmagic7]

well, congratulations!!!   well done!  what a wonderful accomplishment. 

[Blueberry]

Noticed today that one of my pets is in a terrible state. I had a vet appointment on Tuesday and I just didn't go. Now I need to try to get one tomorrow before I go on holiday. I gave my pet some meds just now. Lying around is one thing, neglecting my pets is another and it's not OK. But that's what I've been doing. It's like with children - they can't do anything to help themselves, they rely on me to do that and when I don't, well, it's pretty bad. I've been neglecting myself too, but I could change that.

On Friday I'm going on holiday for a week. And although I'm sort of looking forward to it, I find getting ready to go stressful, so I tend to disappear under the bedclothes and sleep instead of doing anything useful in order to leave home for a week. But I know that at least the first 3 days of the holiday will do me a lot of good, and the remaining days probably too.

I'll be offline the whole time. Which is good in its way too. I can always waste a lot of time online.

[Candid]

I hope there'll be a lot of self-care in that holiday. If we're not taking care of ourselves we can't take care of our dependents or our environment. I hope it's a nice relaxing break.

[Hope66]

Hope you have a lovely holiday, Blueberry.  :-)

[Blueberry]

Thank you Hope and Candid! It's a place that makes it easier for me to do self-care. Not therapy! But an all-inclusive place. I will eat and drink properly and healthily because the food is there. The really unhealthy stuff isn't there       I won't sit up half the night reading instead of sleeping because lights out at 10 pm. There is an exercise program every day which is compulsory, so I will do it. Once I start, I will actually even enjoy the exercise.

It's a place where there is space for emotions, but in the first few days because of the exact program I'm doing, I am more likely to tap JOY than anything else, and it is essential for me to feel joy in order to want to keep going. Keep going looking after me, looking after my pets, getting up in the morning, taking my meds. In a word: self-care. I tend to forget that joy = essential, even though it's written all over my home in places. I still tend to discount joy as a luxury, as something superfluous. You 'have to' keep going. That 'have to' word I'm allergic to.

I will come back emotionally stronger. I always do.