Sceal's Journal

[sanmagic7]

honey, no matter.  i can't tell you how many times i've slipped up on this particular quest, backslid, went on a sugar binge for days before righting myself, so to speak, and getting back on that horse.  not before i was ready, tho, and i don't doubt that you'll do the same when you're ready.  nothing to be ashamed of or guilty about - we all do it. 

that gallery thing was a biggie, too, and so emotional for you.  please, don't beat yourself up (is that advice?  i'm just saying that cuz i care about you.  if you don't like it, ignore it, ok?)  we're struggling with this beast, grabbing it by the horns at times, while at other times it bites us in the butt, and we have to re-group, pull ourselves back together, and go at it once again.

i just heard someone say that failure isn't falling down, but not getting back up again.   i see you get up over and over again.  you've got that warrior spirit within you, even if you can't always feel it.  i hope you can be gentle with yourself and know that you're not alone in falling with these things.  love you, sweetie.  sending a big hug full of gears and pulleys.

[Sceal]

honey, no matter.  i can't tell you how many times i've slipped up on this particular quest, backslid, went on a sugar binge for days before righting myself, so to speak, and getting back on that horse.  not before i was ready, tho, and i don't doubt that you'll do the same when you're ready.  nothing to be ashamed of or guilty about - we all do it. 

that gallery thing was a biggie, too, and so emotional for you.  please, don't beat yourself up (is that advice?  i'm just saying that cuz i care about you.  if you don't like it, ignore it, ok?)  we're struggling with this beast, grabbing it by the horns at times, while at other times it bites us in the butt, and we have to re-group, pull ourselves back together, and go at it once again.

i just heard someone say that failure isn't falling down, but not getting back up again.   i see you get up over and over again.  you've got that warrior spirit within you, even if you can't always feel it.  i hope you can be gentle with yourself and know that you're not alone in falling with these things.  love you, sweetie.  sending a big hug full of gears and pulleys.

I usually have to eat so much sugar in one setting I feel sick and tired of it all. That usually works for longer period for me. To overdo it, makes me feel so disgusted that I can't bare to touch it again. But this time it didn't work. Either because I didn't eat enough, or because the last week was just too hard. Or maybe both. I guess I could analyze it, but that too wears me out, and it's not very tempting to become even more worn out - eventhough perhaps it might help me in the long run. I'll think of it.
I did however manage to avoid going to the store and buy more snacks yesterday. Hopefully I can continue this way.  Just wait it out.

And no, honey, that wasn't advice. That was something else. I'm perfectly okay with those kinds of sentiments.  Thank you.

The other day someone said I am so resourcefull, I've heard it before. More times than I can count. And it's a compliment, I mean it's a good thing right? To be resourceful? But my brain doesn't agree that I am. If I were, wouldn't I be better by now? I've fought this for so many years. If I were truly resourceful shouldn't I have moved on, or be able to use my past as some kind of way to help others, or I don't know.. Something?

I'm not really suffering right now, as I don't really feel anything. I still get thoughts and questions though. I guess without emotions, I also don't have hope for the future. There's no hope that I will actually make it.  But is that an emotion? Lacking hope? Or is hope the emotion?
It's confusing.

[sanmagic7]

isn't resourceful something that means you can take a situation and look at it from different angles, figure out various ways to come at a problem, something like that?  that's my take on it, and i think you do just that.  you are making progress, even if you can't see it at times. 

this isn't a race, there are no judges here to tell you what you 'should' have accomplished by now.  it's so different for everyone.  you've been speaking up more often in group lately, have been running out less.  that's progress.  we don't have to leap over tall buildings at a single bound to realize progress.  that only happens in comic books.

the fact that you didn't buy sweet treats on this last trip to the market is progress.  it comes slowly at times, spits and spurts, but it all counts.  no matter how many steps back we may take at times, we always know that our forward movement was something we accomplished at least once, so we can get there again.

your voice here also sounds stronger.  more progress.  i see it all over the place with you.  love and hugs.

[Sceal]

Thank you for the reminder, San. 

---
Dad called me the other day, super excited, asking if I wanted to hang out. Which is something he never does. I wasn't feeling up to it at the time, and asked if we could postpone a day. Which was fine by him. We went to have dinner on a diner (something that doesn't really exist here), the food wasn't amazing, but just passed for okay. I had suspected he had an alterior motive, I kept waiting for him to bring it up. But he never did.  I am still suspicious, but I think I will invite him to go do something next time. See if it can strengthen our relationship.  I've worked on his birthday present. It's a drawing of his boat, nothing amazing. But I hope he'll like it. And I hope he'll replace the other poorly boat-drawn drawing he has. 

I worked out at the gym again yesterday. And it felt uninspired moving out of my home and down to town. But the workout picked me up. Although today I can feel I pushed it a bit too hard. I don't have an injury yet, but my muscles are sore - which is normally fine. But they are a bit too sore, and my energy has been utterly depleted. So I ended up eating a litre of ice-cream and loads of pasta. Not great choices, but at the time I didn't care. I still don't. Because I feel nothing. Not even shame. I've written it down on the week-chart that I bring my therapist, that the past 4 days there has been no shame. But it's just because there has litterally been no emotions. Usually within a day shame pops up. I am tempted to write shame in, because I fear she's going to misunderstand. But then, would that be lying, or would it just be that I have been unable to reckognize any shame? My focus has been generally low, so it wouldn't be strange to assume I've dissociated and simply forgotten.
i don't know.

I'm writing her the letter for tomorrow. It'll be over 3 weeks since I last saw or spoke with her. And suddenly I feel unprepared. I feel I used to have more questions for her, but they are just gone. Because I don't care?

A lady at SA centre last week said that she could see I've lost hope for a better future, but she'll hold the hope for me for a while until I'm ready to take it back. It was a nice sentiment. But I also think she's right. I don't have hope at the moment. I can't see the future, I don't even care about the future. I don't want anything. My education means nothing anymore. Me not having a job doesn't mean anything. But I'm not sad.
I just can't see it.

might babble again later tonight here. we'll see.

[Sceal]

Finished the birthday gift for dad today. It's another two weeks until his birthday. But I think I'll just give it today.
I'm not very good at giving gifts at the day they are supposed to be given. It's a mixture of wanting to get it over with, and also I hope he'll be honestly satisfied with it.

Technically supposed to do a lot today. unsure if my energy levels are back up for that. There's a fog outside, the news says that spring will finally be here once the fog subsides. We'll see about that. It's more or less pointless to trust the weather rapport in my city. We can have all four seasons within a day. And that's something that occurs relatively often. But going outside in fresh air will be nice. I probably need it.

Shoot, I'll just get the day started - not like i have anything better to do.

[sanmagic7]

sceal, sweetie, i have a feeling you need a break.  that's one of my telltale signs is when i feel depleted and don't care. 

i think it's so cool that you painted a gift for your dad.  i love those kinds of gifts - they're my favorite.  i have several drawings, prints, sketches from otherss - my fav kind of art.  when i get a place where i have more than one room, i'm sure i'll put them all up.  here, i only have 2, but they're from native american artists and have a strong spiritual aspect to them.  soothing. 

i also have some other art from various places that are special to me as well.  it's a gift that keeps on giving, to my mind.   i'm just glad you're still actively pursuing your passion? is it?  sounds like it. 

love and hugs.  glad you're still moving, even if you're not feeling much of anything right now.

[Hope67]

  to you Sceal, and I hope your dad likes your painting that you've done for him.  I am sure it would be a wonderful gift.

Hope you are ok.

Hope 

[Sceal]

Thank you San and Hope
My dad did like the drawing, my mom too. I'm not sure I've heard my mom compliment my art when she didn't know I was standing within earshot. It was new.
It's not a drawing I'm overly proud of, it's a subject theme I don't enjoy doing. Not because it's bad - it's just not fun for me.
Not sure if I would call art a passion, but more a need. I need to create, and I need people to apprechiate it and compliment me for it. Although, that also leads to a negative side of it. I never feel good enough, and I rarely if ever trust the feedback I get. Especially if it's overly positive. I think it's a side-effect of having worked alongside so many artist from around the world (independently) trying to improve and cheering each other on. And knowing where the standard goes in certain areas of the industry. An industry I'm not good enough to enter into, and also an industry that doesn't exist in my own country. Not to that degree anyway.

I brought along my letter to my T today. It touched upon different subjects but she wanted to focus on the dissociation and my questions around that. She started drawing on the white-board, she knows I like it when she gets technical and theoretical - because then I don't have to search within me so much. It doesn't have to have anything to do directly with me always, it can lead to hyptheticals. Of course, it's a bad habit of mine to control the conversations in that direction. So I let her steer it back to me on the examples she used.
She tried to explain The Self, the part of me that deals with everydaylife, that deals with the academic, the bills, the shopping, my calendar, working out etc. All the main activities during the day.  And then she went into the other parts, the confusing parts. The dissociative parts, that doesn't really have a name. Though we named them after emotions. In my case. Shame, Fear, Anger. And she told me that once these each had individual purposes, to make me survive. Shame tends to make me "fade out" mentally, because I can't fight or physically flee. Fear tends to make me flighty in the sense that I become like everyone else, await for the threatning person to do their thing and I'll do whatever I can to not stick out. And Anger... well, I don't have any contact with anger. I get annoyed and irritated like everyone else.. But angry? No. Every single part of me rejects anger. Drawing lines towards flight, fight and freeze reaction as well as tolerance window. And that they are somewhat seperate from The Self, but still part of me. Just a different part of me that has different needs. And sometimes they get triggered and they pop up into the foreground overshadowing The Self.
It's confusing.
And while writing this down I felt I had it figured out, but then I re-read what I wrote and now I'm back at being confused. Hopefully one day I'll get it. And hopefully soon, I worry I wont be able to re-integrate these other parts into The Self without knowing and understanding this whole thing.

She kept asking me and looking at me for reactions. And I felt I fell short of her expectations. I had no reaction. I felt nothing. No provocation, no disagreement, no relief, no rejoice. It was like trying to understand a recipe of something advanced, like.. knitting or fancy embroderies. (I picked crafty recipe's for comparison because I have serious trouble reading them and following them whenever I try. Just so no one things it's a metaphor for intertwining lines and such) Should I have reacted? Does my lack of reaction mean something? If so- then what?  She said that sometimes people start reacting emotionally when talking about this, or they start dissociating. And I didn't.  I guess there's no right or wrong here. But it confuses me.
I asked her if there was a "general rule" about how long an episode can last. She said it could be a few seconds to a few days.

I asked her if dissociation and an EF is much the same, because the way it's described to me... it sounds alot similar. It's easier for me to tell when I'm in a flashback, or afterwards, if it's a visual one.

So, lots of thoughts. Lots of confusion.
It's getting close to being late here, and I have homework to do for DBT group tomorrow. Time to get on it.

[sanmagic7]

since there is no right or wrong way to do therapy, the fact that you had no reaction is just more information gathered about you.  hopefully, she was able to pick up on the fact that you were confused.  that was a lot of information to toss out at once - i'd be confused, too.

perhaps, something like that just needs to be presented more slowly, like going into depth about one part at a time until you're able to understand it.  i know that when i'm in the doc's office, and they do that kind of thing, i stop them, go back to the last thing i understood, and have them repeat, maybe explain from more than one angle till i get it.  and sometimes it still doesn't work and i'm still confused.

so, no, i don't believe there should be any expectations on you to react or not.  this brain/mind stuff is very dense and intense.  yeah, some people may react emotionally to what she told you, but you're not them.  i hope you can discuss this confusion with her next time, and decide it you want to understand it further or not.   if so, hopefully she'll find a way to be able to explain it differently,  if not, it just may not be the right time to go into this for you.

i had an artist friend who also had some of the same feelings about her work.  all i know is that any of the creative arts are risky because they come from within you and they are judged by those outside you.  i think all that we creative types can do is the best we can, and do it ultimately because we enjoy doing it, love to do it, or need it to be done.   i give you a lot of credit, sceal, for putting yourself out there.  your art is an expression of you, and to my mind, that's always wonderful.

love and hugs, my dear, love and hugs.

[Sceal]

Thank you San, for your kind words. I will re-read them later when I'm capable of it.

---
The group today was difficult, in another way than usual. We were going through skills to handle crisis situations. The skills we were going through today were:
Temperature change
Intense activity
Breathing
Progressive muscle tension and relaxing.

They are all good stuff, for when you're over activated. But I'm underactivated, or on the lower edge of my tolerance window. And all of these things that we did worked against it's purpose. It made me feel bad. Stomach ache, chest tightening, muscles tightening in my jaw, neck and shoulders and I gained a headache. But more than that, I felt dismay of my body. Shame, I suppose. Body shame. It wasn't very clear, this emotion, since I block out emotions so much these days. But my logically brain says that it was, I mean is, shame. Shame and disgust. I tried eating lunch, incase it'd help. It didn't. It ofcourse made it worse. I eventually managed to get my sorry * to the gym. I didn't do it very well. But I went. And I'm trying to acknowledge that.
My headache went away after the gym. But my self-esteem too a hit.

I hope tonight will be better. Or that tomorrow will be good.

[sanmagic7]

you know, those kinds of suggestions often work differently for different people.  it may have been too much too fast for you.  or you may have needed to only focus on one at a time, take a break before going on to the next.  all of this is one learning experience after another.  learning what works for us, what doesn't, how much, when, and on and on. 

i learned that yoga does not fit for me the way it does for others.  i have too much toxin in my muscles from absorbed emotions (my own diagnosis - at any rate, my muscles carry a lot of pain) so doing simple stretches, rather than relaxing me puts me in more pain.  the only yoga i've success with is yoga for trauma, and even some of that is too much. 

so, we keep trying and learning and allow ourselves to be just who we are.  i think that's the best we can do.

congrats to you for going to the gym.  you did fine, just what you needed to do.  it may not have been the same as what others do, but it is good just for you.  love and hugs, sweetie.

[Sceal]

It wasn't as much as learning new tools for me, this is my third round on this topic. I've been through it before. Several times, and  I've done them on my own too. But that was when I was more hypervigilant and constantly on guard and over-actviated and more above my tolerance window. I guess I experienced that they work best for me in those situations rather than when I'm underactivated as I am now.  It's good to know I suppose.

I'm calmer now. I've distracted myself for the past 6 hours though.

I can't do yoga either. I'm mobile in some muscles, but not in the positions and angles that yoga makes you do. Perhaps disconnecting from the body so much also makes it difficult to perfom those poses too. I didn't even know there were spesific yoga for trauma.

[sanmagic7]

yeah, i think that's a good thing to know.

i looked up trauma yoga on youtube.  that's how i found some that worked for me.  it's something that might be a good idea to explore again.  it was really very gentle, like lying flat and moving your feet back and forth.  small movements that were simple and straightforward. 

glad you wrote something that brought this to my attention again.  thanks, doll.   

[DecimalRocket]

I agree with San that things are different for all of us.

I don't enjoy yoga much either. I've done different more mobile types of body work. I guess it's because I feel more comforted being in my head and my ideas than doing something physical. I stll need exercise of course, but I don't do it for emotional healing.

I guess people have different mediums of healing. Some directly emotional, some logical, some physical, some with people or some alone. It's a combination of all for us, I bet, but I guess some parts are strengths and some are weaknesses we need to work on.

Anyway, take care.