Blueberry's Journal

[Blueberry]

candid, good to see back around.  Thanks for the link. I will check it out but not tonight.

Blackbird, um, do you love normal spinakopita or made with stinging nettles, ground elder etc? Thanks for the praise on getting rid of cravings. 

Today I woke up either with an EF or just very tired. I didn't really want to do any of the things I listed as possibilities for today nor in fact any of the things on my Highly Recommended list, which includes basics like getting up, taking my meds, feeding the Little Furry Critters. I did get up a few times but went back to bed. I fed the Little Furries because they can't procure their own food and it's not their fault I have EFs. I guess it was some form of EF because being 'just tired' wouldn't continue that long.

Sometimes making progress, which can include doing things which could be emotionally tiring or seem to include some hurdles, can set off an emotional flashback. So things like cooking meals that involved a bit more work, a few more steps than usual.
Or maybe it was because I set a friend a limit yesterday but not before allowing her to talk too long about something I didn't want to listen to. My inner voice was saying "I don't want to listen, I don't want to hear this" but I let her talk and didn't pay too much attention. But obviously not paying too much attention didn't provide me with enough buffer. She has CPTSD too and although she can tell me about things stressing her in the present, like her next-door neighbours, and I can confirm that she's not in the wrong etc, like the kind of validating we do on here, I didn't feel like and didn't invite a long spiel from her past. Not from her childhood but still past.

It wasn't till she got onto talking about people who talk too loudly triggering her and then mentioned a mutual acquaintance from a group we both belong to that I decided to put my foot down and say "I don't want to talk about that group."  myself on here. Instead of accepting that, she commented that "it's a red flag" for me. I decided to neither agree or disagree but simply say "It's not useful to talk about that group", to me that is. It might be to her but I've already stopped her on that and said that I find this group pretty dysfunctional and that's triggering for me. So it really annoys me now thinking about it that she thought it would somehow be OK to mention this group again. There's a bit more to the whole issue than this, at least more history.

The most important part at the moment I suppose is that I allowed somebody else to use me as a "listener" for her problems whereas she's not 'hearing' me when I've set a limit e.g. not talking about "that group". She doesn't have to agree that the group's dysfunctional but she has to accept that I don't want to talk about it anymore because it is triggering for me. I'm hearing between the lines that the effects of sexual abuse are worse than the effects of emotional abuse and what I call verbal/intellectual abuse, which was rampant in my FOO. I guess that's a type of psychological abuse.
So next time, if there is a next time: cut her off early, as soon as an inner voice demands it. Because when an inner voice of mine actually demands something it's usually high time, 5 to 12 kind of thing, so not a good idea to ignore. Putting someone else's needs above my own. So I'm making note of that without slamming myself over it. Just another thing to practise.

[Blackbird]

Sorry, just saw this now. I love normal spanikopita  But with love to try differently.

Kudos for setting boundaries, I need to do that constantly, it's so tireing. It's not even their fault, or ours, we're just wired to be triggered. 

[Blueberry]

Well, I finally sent an email to M and F. It's just on financial and inheritance issues. No past stuff. Since I've actually sent it, I'm not posting it in here under Recovery Letters. Nonetheless, it's not easy for me stating what I think would be best in the present and future since that's different from what M and F are suggesting. Nor is it easy because of my recently setting a couple of limits via email. Not that there's any reason they would even read it tonight far less finish discussing it themselves and send a reply, but to be on the safe side, I've closed my email. The progress is that I've not shut down the computer and left the room which is what I did last time I sent those difficult emails. Yay! Progress.     

[Blueberry]

So just posted under having a hard day (or hard night?) No, actually, it's maybe not such a hard night as I'm awake and beginning to realise why yesterday was hard. After posting under Having a Hard Day, I'm now capable of writing in my Journal. [To help with readability of long posts / walls of text, I'm going to bold rough topics per paragraph or so.]

A few things from the past few days: 1) dreaming about FOO - I came across my sibs, their SOs, and kids, somewhere outside going for a walk, but they were all turned toward me each family as a little group. In the nearer group my SIL with whom I have a number of problems was very dominant - I didn't really notice the others. In the other group, I noticed particularly the kids and was happy to see them. B1 I noticed too, that wasn't as bad as noticing my other SIL. I would have had to get past SIL and the near group to get as far as the further group and especially the kids. That actually felt nightmarish. In the past I had nightmares about coming across FOO all the time, I'd always try and hide and not be seen. This time I was seen but it didn't feel good to me.

Maybe that's the message too. I decided a number of months ago not to have contact with my sibs before I get over the nasty happenings last summer just in order not to lose contact with the kids (all under 12 years at the moment), especially my god-daughter. Does that sentence make sense? The old me, before last summer, might have swallowed the pain and kept in some form of contact with sibs and SILs in order to keep in contact with kids, but the new developng me decided: "No. Not worth it. Me and my healing and peace of mind go first." The only contact I do have with the kids now is the occasional card I write and send or birthday cards and presents. And none of that with their parents. I know it's a tricky situation, but I feel at the moment that none of what went on last summer had anything to do with the kids.

2) (another thing from past few days) remembering how FOO especially M and B1 used to berate me for being on my own when I was growing up, and call me a "loser". "You don't have any friends, you're such a loser". Remembering was triggered by my going on a talk /guided tour on my own on Saturday and going to some sort of other event on my own for max. an hour on Sunday. On the Sunday event, I was actually gleaning information and making a couple of decisions; in this particular case having somebody with me might have been just distracting. I didn't miss anybody anyway. On the Saturday event, it was easy to chat to the other people on the tour and I didn't feel lonely or awkward. I personally don't even have a problem being on my own! It's just this old memory. And the fact that this loser/failure theme out of my past is pretty painful. I do do things with friends, I'm not even on my own all the time or anything, but I also happen to like being on my own too. And I certainly prefer to do something / go somewhere on my own than not go at all, just because I can't find anybody else interested in going. Aha, yes, this topic came up in T for some reason last time. Maybe that's why it's come up again now. I'm working against FOO and their mores

When I try and write Recovery Letters of anger to post on here, the anger disappears, as do the words. So for the moment I'm posting these realisations on here. Like the amount of hurt with the loser/failure theme. I also thought today: is that what caring parents do? Accuse a child of being a loser/failure for not having (enough) friends? In what way is this accusation going to help?
I don't actually remember F joining in, but he didn't say anything to the contrary either. And B1, though not actually that much older than me, had a position of great importance in FOO, especially his opinions, his word, in some ways he was a bit like M's partner. So the accusations from him, which also went uncommented by F, hit really hard.

3) my own email to M and F recently. It's good in a way that there's been no answer, on the other hand, I could do with an answer sometime to know where I stand, since it's on financial issues. It's only been a few days though. It seems longer. My feeling for time is often all pretty mixed up. Something to do with being in Inner Child mode some of the time, apparently.

[Blueberry]

Trigger warning!!!! Sexual abuse




Spill over from OP's thread on sexual re-activity:

I joined in M once pulling B2's pants down. My grandparents were even in the room, it was totally open, above board what M was doing. I wouldn't have initiated it. GM left the room in tears, calling me a heathen, but M, her DD, she didn't call anything.  Now my reaction to GM ignoring M's behaviour and focussing on mine is    At the time I felt kind of defiant. It's just GM, who cares? I also thought to myself that I wasn't a Christian anyway, so why care?

It's not till I wrote this in the other thread, that I thought "Wait a minute, GM was reprimanding me and I guess was upset, but didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with what M was doing? It's OK for an adult to do that to a kid, but not between kids? Or what?" Now there's no question in my mind, of course it's not OK between kids, but it was learned behaviour on my part, as is mentioned on the other thread. And I certainly did not initiate it. 

(My sibs don't remember M doing this kind of thing to any of us and/or they see it as 'normal behaviour' for that generation.)

[Blueberry]

I'm having trouble getting on with stuff today. I literally start to do something then pull back physically and try something else or do nothing. I have phoned a few people to organise this or that next week, but basically not one of my more active days. Then I remembered I'd written on here before that before there's a breakthrough I tend to have a few days of this type of thing. So it's good I wrote that!! It's helped me notice and remember. So I don't need to berate myself.

There was a bunch of stuff I wanted to write but now I can't seem to. Maybe on some other thread? Or maybe it really is just too early for me to see it black on white.

[Candid]

So I don't need to berate myself.

There's never any need for that, Blueberry! We're doing our best, and that includes some days of wallowing. I can only make appointments on a good day -- some days I can't even make the calls -- so to me you are The Star.

The other stuff you want to get down will come clear in your mind, and then you'll know whether to start a new thread or put it here. All things in their proper time, right?

[Blueberry]

Thanks Candid. I guess I mean it might be easier to stop berating myself when I remember that I often have a few down days before something comes up to the surface. But nothing seems to be coming up to the surface right now. There are things I could be doing like getting in touch with the 5 senses BUT last time I berated myself in therapy about not doing the things I could be doing to get out of this, T said he didn't agree with forcing myself to do something when part of me doesn't want to. It's better to try and find out what's preventing me. We have been working on a method to find what's holding me back but I don't even want to work on this new method. T's suggestion remains: don't force it. Which also means: don't berate yourself for not forcing yourself to do it.

[Blueberry]

Aha! Where's a lightbulb emoticon when you need it?

Over at OOTF I checked out The 5 Stages of Grief and discovered that after Bargaining (which I've been doing with FOO in setting limits and in discussing financial stuff via email) comes Depression and then Acceptance. So atm I'm at stage 4    This means that my present difficulties are to be expected. Other people have been there before me. As I've discovered in the past, depression is a symptom for me, not even necessarily the worst. Just because I'm feeling depressive atm does not mean that I've gone back to square one!

[Candid]

Good for you, Blueberry! I see you pushing yourself and I admire you for it, but when Depression hits it's time to take a break.

T said he didn't agree with forcing myself to do something when part of me doesn't want to. It's better to try and find out what's preventing me. We have been working on a method to find what's holding me back but I don't even want to work on this new method. T's suggestion remains: don't force it. Which also means: don't berate yourself for not forcing yourself to do it.

I agree with T here. I really do. And look what happened ... you got a :lightbulb:!

[Blueberry]

For a while I was processing sexual abuse. Now I've moved on to physical abuse. Not really consciously, it's just happened that way.

I knew a long time ago that my inner children hadn't forgiven my B for physical abuse, but I thought I had on an adult level. But really that maybe just meant keeping a lid on my feelings in order to manage to be in contact with B and not go ballistic. Or in fact in order to have contact with FOO at all.

In therapy we're working on keeping my momentum going. It's hard. I might have energy and motivation to get on with things for a few days or just a few hours or maybe just an hour. Then I have to re-motivate myself to continue. It can be something as simple as finishing washing the dishes or getting out of bed and staying up rather than giving up and going back.

I had the spontaneous image of a raging fire in a nuclear power station and B as a teenager. The raging fire seems to be B's violence but somehow not allowing myself to feel power/energy within myself is connected to keeping this raging fire at bay. I'm doing that because the rage feels dangerous.

* * * TRIGGER WARNING * * *

The rage was dangerous when I was a teenager. B was out of control and M and F didn't care. "Oh, he won't harm you", M said. Or "It doesn't happen very often." Or from both M and F "He only does it because you provoke him. And because you annoy him." And "It's all your own fault." One of the things that was dangerous was: he went into a ballistic rage and didn't care what I might hit e.g. with my head on the way to the floor. Because he was out of control. His face would be contorted with rage at the most ridiculous things, e.g. once because I dared to hit back. I suppose it wasn't ridiculous for him but rather a threat when victim refuses to put up with some of his behaviour.

Power and energy seem to be connected to violence in my mind and in my memories, probably in my deep-seated emotions too, like in layers of fear. So I've tried to keep this violence out of my life (except directed towards myself unfortunately) and in so doing, I cut off my own source of energy, because I didn't realise that energy isn't the same as violence. I've been doing that for years. Today I started self-talk: energy and power can express more than just violence. Violence was the path B chose. I don't have to; I can take my own energy and power and use them to keep going, managing my life, doing constructive things for myself.

The realisation is pretty new, needs a bit more time to  'mature' and become clearer e.g. my own goals, into what channels other than depression and suppression of feelings I can put this energy into. And undoubtedly I'll need to keep practising tapping that energy to keep going instead of giving up by returning to bed (and things like that), and keep practising finding a happy medium. If I open up to the raging energy too much and too fast, it'll destroy me (temporarily). That's not just the way it feels. It is that way. I've been too close to the fire before, several times. The results were never pretty, putting it mildly. Among other things they caused a set-back of several months each time and severe dissociation.

Although it is still hard for me to say with any real conviction: what B did to me was actually physical abuse. And even though he has apologised, that doesn't erase the effects. I've never been in a relationship, I'm too frightened of violence even though I was never black and blue and as B said himself in self-mitigation: I didn't have to go to hospital so it wasn't 'real' beating up. The word 'violence' was never used in FOO for that type of thing; I didn't use it either. I said he beat me up.

* * * End of trigger warning

Sorry everybody for the very long post.

[Three Roses]

It's your journal, it can be as long as you want.

I strongly identify with your feelings about violence in your FOO. There was a lot of violence in mine as well. It's very triggering to be around people that I feel I've irritated or annoyed, bcuz in my mind that is the first step to someone losing their temper.

I have a very skewed definition of the term "brother". That word does not have the same meaning to me that it does for the general populace.

[Blueberry]

3Roses, I have difficulty believing that there was "a lot of violence" in my FOO. Because "a lot of violence" brings up images where I think "FOO wasn't that bad". That's just the mindset of FOO, which I'm unfortunately still somewhat stuck in. By beginning to write about it on here I'll hopefully begin to accept more in my head that there was actually violence in my childhood/teenage years, even if it was often verbal and/or only threatened. But the physical was often enough to keep me suppressed, frightened and under control.

I'm actually triggered with merely being around people I could irritate or annoy, especially people in positions of authority (e.g. employers). It used to take a long time for me to speak up about any problems at work. In retrospect I can say my inner children were terrified of punishment, the kind of punishment meted out to children. I used to feel the fear at work, even though logically/rationally there was no way that this punishment could have occurred. I'm now self-employed, partially to avoid the constant EFs of when I have supervisors/bosses.

[Blueberry]

Today I've been staking my claim, so to speak. I've been putting signs and posters up on the walls outside my apartment and my office (same building) that make it clear that it's my space. Otherwise other people in the building dump their stuff there 'temporarily'. This is also a topic that's come from therapy with me setting boundaries around myself without even saying anything, simply demonstrating by body language: "you can come here and no closer" OR "Hey! This is where I'm standing. You can't move into my space and push me further back" Or "I was here first, you can't just come and push me out of the way." If I have to say it, I do. I've been learning that this year. But simply showing it can be effective too. Because then you don't have to argue with people or JADE.

Staking my claim is strenuous, so I've taken this break to write about it.

[Blueberry]

I have been working about an hour at something which is quite strenuous for me. I feel exhausted, though it could be an EF. So now I'm going to take a  break, quite consciously.  for me.