progress

[JamesG]

been a really interesting month, I've been meaning to post in detail but time is very short. Some big changes in the CPTSD issue and I'm determined to relate them at some point because it's been a great lesson in how persistence pays off.

This thing is beatable folks. It was created by negative repetition, but it can, CAN, be beaten by positive repetition. The brain is an amazing piece of gear and it can repair if it has the space and time to do it. I've been through some very dark patches with it, as many of you are experiencing now but truly, it will go.

I'll write something substantial on what I've learned and what has worked for me so well recently once my deck clears, but there is one very simple thing to know, it is natural to react as we have all reacted. Do not pay any attention to any other message on that, there is no measure on how we react other than what the chemistry and physical reality of the brain says it will do. Trauma is a natural response to things that should simply not be happening. Ours is a natural and normal response to events that are neither natural, or normal.

Hang in there everyone, every battle has to end.

[woodsgnome]

JamesG wrote: "Ours is a natural and normal response to events that are neither natural, or normal."        

Deep breath, as my Icr wants to scream "yes, but..." It knows the truth of this, but can't handle my being comfortable or positive; it wants me to stay in a submissive/defeatist frame of being.

I want to say it takes willpower also, but being natural needs no conditions. Remembering to be kind with myself might be new, but it's also a big step on the way out. It's a huge leap to accomplish just that, and then to sustain it, but when I can get there even temporarily, I can then rest in knowing that yes, this is my true nature and, dare I say--right.

I hope you can stay in this zone, JamesG. Thanks for sharing the outlook of the heart, and not what happened to it.

[JamesG]

I think it all comes down to removing every influence on your sense of self that simply is not you. You don't make yourself into yourself, you just get rid of all the backseat drivers, bullies, malcontents and parasites that have found their way into your thoughts. 90% of my recovery is going to be down to getting out from under these outside voices and accepting that I am more than enough as I am, was, and will be. It's an odd truth, well it is certainly so in my case, that the loudest voices undermining me were also the most flawed. In the final reckoning, I am looking back on some very broken people who needed to extend their influence to feel that they mattered at all. That is the definition of a narcissist, an angry nobody who is terrified of the world and needs a trapped audience for their desperate ranting. They chose us. Taking apart the insecurities and working out who the voices belonged to has been epic for me. So much of what I thought was flawed about me were often strengths and those that were flaws are just that, flaws, like we all have, to err is human. We are no less or more than anyone else but for a narcicist, only diminishing others will make them bigger, "for me to win someone else must lose."

The sheer normality of us is the cure really, there is nothing wrong with us, and never was. The injury we carry belongs to others and to escape it, we have to snip, snip, snip at the spider's web until we are no longer connected.

[Blueberry]

  James! Good for you! And inspirational for me. Good of you to remind us of positive repetition. Being serious not sarcastic. 

"for me to win someone else must lose."

Oh dear, at least 3 members of FOO see it that way.

[helliepig]

You are fab James

[Contessa]

Oh wow James

the loudest voices undermining me were also the most flawed

What a realisation. That is a marked moment in recovery, that downward spiral has halted. The spell that breaks the curse... no matter what metaphor is used, that is a critical moment.

One step forward, two steps back can now shift to one forward, one back. Without knowing, it will be two forward, one back. Then three. That time will slide by. I should say I hope it will, but you've just taken back enough control to do more than hope.

[jamesG.1]

hop skip jump, then a downright sprint