Blueberry's Journal

[sanmagic7]

sending you soothing tea and nourishing soup and the hope that you get better quickly, blueberry.  big hug from across the room cuz i don't want to get sick as well!                                                               

[Blueberry]

Thank you! Certainly, stay on your side of the room. No point in you getting this too. In the night I was awake and felt better and thought woohoo! I can probably even get back to the work I enjoy by Friday. Noooooooo. I woke up this morning with all the cold symptoms back in seemingly worse form, except fever's gone.

So what does this tell me? I need to concentrate on things other than work. Paid/professional work is not the only barometer of health. Other things count too. Am I doing adequate self-care? Cleaning my teeth? Showering? Washing my hair? Do I even feel any impulse to do these? Or am I having to force myself? Am I doing basic housework? Am I looking after my pets adequately? Am I finding ways to experience moments of joy?

[Lingurine]

I do hope you can find room in your heart for all of those things Blueberry, get well soon!



Lingurine

[Blueberry]

Well, I did a little bit of tidying today, which helps me feel better, less depressive. And I went out into the garden twice and poked around, looked at what was blooming. I also finally acted on the impulse to look out my window from my bed onto the garden with binoculars. That was interesting and colourful. My garden almost always brings me joy.

I am feeding my pets, at least. (I always do that). Yesterday an acquaintance came by and did some longer-term pet care for me, which means the pets are happier today. And a friend brought them some extra delicious food yesterday and another dropped by with a donation today too.

[sanmagic7]

got a smile on my face that you were able to get into the garden (always one of my favorite places.  i miss having one) and that friends have been helping you with the animals.  that's so very cool.  it gives you more energy for just getting well.  yay! 

[Blueberry]

This morning I even felt well enough to go into the garden and take the animals with me. They had great fun, racing around and eating. I was a bit quieter and calmer with my time, tho I did hang out a bunch of laundry. Yeah, so back doing some housework too.

[Blueberry]

Noting to myself more than anyone else that I'm having trouble again with showering and washing my hair, i.e. I find anything and everything else to do instead.

[sanmagic7]

you'll get there.  loads of hug.

[Blueberry]

Thank you sanmagic for the encouragement and the hugs. An article 3Roses linked on another thread has helped me understand why self-care is so hard.

So for the rest of you who read my Journal and have problems with self-care, here's a good read: http://www.new-synapse.com/aps/wordpress/?p=1911

[Candid]

I've been affected by that article too, Blueberry. Now I understand why I know what I could do for self-care, but I don't do it. Occasionally I might have a go at it, but it always falls down very quickly.

[Blueberry]

It's official! I've been observing myself today and I find all sorts of 'useful' things to do to avoid doing things in general and especially to avoid practising and doing trauma-processing. I can process really small stuff with EFT (tapping) and all the bigger stuff with Screen Technique in Stills (as opposed to Films). So therapy homework this week is try some processing at home. And I've spent all day running away from it.

As a more minor example, this morning early I remarked to my Little Furry Animals that I just had to go and have a shower and hair wash, like it or not, since I'd been putting it off for about 2 weeks. Then I put if off some more by doing a little tidying up and this and that. Tidying up is definitely useful in my apartment, no question about that. But in that moment shower and hair wash definitely had priority. Had I put it off any longer, I wouldn't have had time before some appointments including work-related. So  I did finally have a shower and wash my hair. But even more important was the realisation that I was putting it off.

And then instead of taking some time today to try and feel into what was going internally / emotionally to make me want to put off showering, I spent the day running from that too, by: sleeping, doing crosswords, playing patience (card game), reading the Internet news (for several different countries too), eating. Any readers may think there's lots of time left today, but actually there isn't in my time zone. Right now I have not read much of what everybody else wrote here today on purpose. I wanted to write this.

I know in therapy yesterday I immediately got to the emotion that has been putting me off from doing processing at home. It's fear. Fear of being overpowered by whatever comes, but as my T points out, I have a number of methods to avoid being overpowered: making the Still minute, like the size of a postage stamp, putting the screen it is on far, far away so it's just visible on the horizon, and putting up a special shield made out of transparent armour. I can even tint the armour to make me feel safer. And then I can remind myself that it is presently 2017 and everything and especially everybody on the screen is a memory only.
So it's more a fear of feeling overpowered rather than actually being overpowered.

And the other fear / worry is the exhaustion to the point of physical weakness that comes when I do EFT. Though I know that this exhaustion is just a sign of how much work, how much processing is going on. As you all say on here: "The only way is through." I've been avoiding that a bit by doing other things. Don't get me wrong, one of the most useful time-fillers I have is reading and writing on here. Making steps IRL is good too, but I think some of those steps would often come easier and with less effort if I worked more on releasing the blockages behind them by doing trauma processing.

Earlier on today, I thought I should be doing some processing and my mind went totally blank. I had no idea what I should or could usefully process. Now I know: a round or a few of tapping - "even though I have the feeling that I've been shirking a bit, I still love / accept myself". Otherwise I'll harangue myself too much for not having started Still processing at home earlier and not having done more EFT processing at home. And then probably a round or two of "even though I feel totally und utterly exhausted after tapping about the feeling that I've been shirking a bit, I still love / accept myself".

And now I'm going to promise everybody who might be reading this OR sitting on The Healing Porch that I'm going to shut down the computer without zooming off anywhere else on the Internet and go and do my tapping before I go to bed. Maybe I even need a corner on the Porch where I can do my processing? I can think on that after I've done my processing.

Thanks everybody for this wonderful, helpful forum.

[sanmagic7]

blueberry, i'm sure there is room on the porch or the beach or in the gardens or woods for you to do your tapping/processing.  you can have your own space totally alone, or knowing that there is someone there to help find a resting blanket for you afterwards, bring you some refreshments, or just sit with you if you'd like the company. 

i also read that article 3 roses posted, and it was eye-opening to say the least.  i've certainly had my own struggles with the concept of self-care and putting it off.  one of the things i've done that's helped me is to tell myself that i can't do x (something i enjoy or am looking forward to) until i take that shower, or whatever it is.  i don't know that it would work for everyone, but it has helped me.

for example, there were some attachments i needed to send to my daughter today for her to print out for my doc appt. fri.  i've been putting it off since mon.  today, i told myself that i wouldn't come on to the forum until i'd sent those to her.  kind of my own personal reward system.

good for you for closing down your computer to take care of your tapping.  well done, dear blueberry.  big hug to you.  sounds like you're making some progress!

[Blueberry]

one of the things i've done that's helped me is to tell myself that i can't do x (something i enjoy or am looking forward to) until i take that shower, or whatever it is.  i don't know that it would work for everyone, but it has helped me.

Unfortunately that doesn't work for me, I've tried it. I wouldn't take the shower and then I wouldn't do the thing I was looking forward to either. I actually often have a lot of trouble doing something I normally enjoy or I'm looking forward to. And also if I don't shower (or whatever I'm meant to be doing), then depriving myself of the other activity is a form of punishment. I do quite enough self-punishment anyway. Even an out-and-out reward for e.g. having a shower doesn't necessarily work. Although I did have a reward system going for a while, including using stickers, since there were inner children involved too. Or sometimes I could tell that an inner child and my adult needed a reward.

[Blueberry]

So yesterday I shut down the computer and went off to do my processing. I did a round of EFT to make sure I didn't start haranguing myself for feeling that I had been shirking. It went easier than I'd envisaged so I then went on to working with a Still on the Screen, looking at my reluctance to shower.

An image of one of my abusers came. I did pretty well with employing methods to keep the image small. The next part of the exercise is to envisage the connection between the image and me and then cut it. But you can't cut before you have a picture or a sensation of what the connection looks or feels like. First there were 2 flimsy, wobbly connections, one after the other e.g. one of them was a very, very long blade of grass. Really long, could never exist in the natural world. and I was surpised at that, thinking: This is going to be easy. But then

TRIGGER WARNING

the connection suddenly changed to the mouth of the abuser coming at me, like trying to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Yuk. I snapped out of the exercise and re-stabilised physically by stretching, pushing off walls and patting my arms and legs.

End Trigger Warning

And then I did another round of EFT, to reinforce that I love and accept myself despite feeling nauseated and frightened of the image. My therapist had told me to do that in my session the day before. I'd totally forgotten, as I often do after therapy, but I write these things down in my diary immediately within the session. 

Overall I felt good about having tried processing, including the more difficult form, for more difficult cases. EFT wouldn't work for the shower problem atm. It could some time in the future when the shower problem is much reduced. I can try the shower problem again with Screen processing or take it with me to therapy next session and try it with my therapist. But actually I'd prefer to try it again myself and see if I get a bit further or see if I can imagine even more protections so that I don't have to snap out of it, but can continue and cut the connection.

The interesting thing I noticed is that it really didn't take much time to do either of the processing types. That too made me feel good. It seems less of a huge mountain to overcome. And afterwards it was then good to do the kind of things I do to put off doing whatever I'm meant to be doing, e.g. I did some tidying, amalgamated my garbages and put the garbage out. That all felt good - doing easy little physical jobs. Reading or writing wouldn't have been so good.

[Blueberry]

Today I tried out some more trauma processing with Screen Technique. Topic: the feeling of fear about the magpie's break-in.
This time Screen Technique went even faster; I was really surprised. Atm I don't feel as if the topic is dealt with, though it usually takes a few days or even longer for the process to work its way down into my subconscious and then further my healing. Atm I'm not even sure what the magpie symbolises. I do have my suspicions though.

I now have a little list of topics waiting for either Screen Technique or EFT. I can give myself  for doing one today.