Forging New Paths

[sanmagic7]

I'm good the way I am!

lovelovelove this!  and i totally agree with it.  love and hugs, blueberry.

[Not Alone]

I'm good the way I am!
I said so in occup. T and am still thinking so. 
That's big. Especially since I had the impulse in occup. T to say "despite xyz" but then didn't!

It's also a sign that a big new path is being forged in my brain and in my soul

That is big! 

                

[Armee]

 

That's huge! (And yes, you are)

[Blueberry]

Thank you all 

It's a little more difficult to believe today. Today I did almost zero - lay around in bed dozing and doing word puzzles. Have only begun to do things since it got dark. Yet I can think: "I'm not a bad person for having done more or less nothing. That is, my activity or lack thereof doesn't define my worth."

That's huge too, I realise now as I write.

_____________________

I almost went down the rabbit hole and wrote some things to an uncle in response to an email from a few years ago asking how I am. It is nice he asked and it's on me that I haven't responded yet, but still none of that means I need to bare my soul and be honest about it or anything other than superficially honest.

Recently I've been thinking about a quotation over on OOTF, which I've posted under Favourite Quotes on here so as not to have to search OOTF again:  Every interaction w/ PD persons results in damage — prep beforehand and make time after to heal
It's an apt reminder to me atm. Especially since it reminds me to ask myself whether I need even have an interaction with e.g. a FOO mbr. A particular FOO mbr may or may not be PD but they're part of that whole dysfunctional FOO system and all my interactions with that results in damage to me.

[sanmagic7]

i think that quote is spot on, blueberry.  i like it.

years before, when my D would take time off from her daily routine, she also had a lot of negativity towards herself.  i would tell her that those down times are times for healing.  just like weightlifters cannot do the same muscle set daily, for fear of overextension or tearing, so do we need those down times to heal.  please, be gentle w/ yourself, ok?  you need that as much as doing, doing, doing.

by the by, i, too, have been tempted to get in touch w/ others who have not been good for me.  my T told me that's also part of the grieving process.  love and hugs

[Blueberry]

Thank you san for your support and for that information about the grieving process.

I no longer believe I'm good the way I am. But I do know that having had that realisation, I will be able to reach it at some point again. For now my ICr is having a field day. It's the middle of the night and I've been reading Holocaust writings and/or writings on survivors. It's useful for me as an escape. Used to be useful for other reasons too, but now not so much.

[rainydiary]

I hope the ICr eases up a bit.  I resonate with what you wrote.

[Blueberry]

Thank you rainy. It helps when somebody can resonate some way.

____________________________
I'm so angry at FOO.

[Armee]

 

Anger at FOO is appropriate! Turn that anger to them instead of letting that iCr chew you up

[Blueberry]

Thanks, but I'm not sure how atm. Though you're right, anger at FOO is appropriate.

[Blueberry]

I took the anger and turned it into something productive for me, at least for a while. I unpacked some more things and put them away.

Then I wrote a very minor non-confrontative email to a FOO mbr and have since been zoning out reading/listening to holocaust survivor testimony and doing SH. tbh whatever I do atm I do SH too.

I came back on here to write a quotation from a holocaust survivor who was a child during those times. He said they had to leave their flat to go to the camps and since then the feeling of security disappeared because even if they later had roofs over their head the feeling that they belonged somewhere was lost forever. Because once the roof of your childhood is taken away, it's not the same anymore.

That's trauma. Obviously. But something about it speaks to me. Otherwise I wouldn't read these testimonies. It's poignant and it holds true for now though what traumatised most of us on here was something different. But still that early security was taken from us, or maybe it was never even there to begin with.

[Blueberry]

*** TW Holocaust***

Possibly this should be somewhere other than my Journal. But I'm not sure where.

Years ago when I first got heavily into reading testimonies of Holocaust survivors, after a while that would kick start me into getting going again because I'd think to myself that if they managed to get on with their lives after that deprivation and indescribable wordlessness, then I would be able to too. Iirc it would take hours or even days of reading, but I'd get there eventually. But that doesn't work for me now. Undoubtedly there was an element of 'should' in there, and 'should' doesn't work for me anymore.

But now I also see and sense and hear more of what these survivors went through. Possibly because I am better aware of the nuances of feeling than I used to be? idk.

One reason I have been reading and listening: so as not to feel my own pain bubbling up atm. And it is bubbling up.

One of the survivors said the only reason he survived the Holocaust as a child and was able to remain sane and go on to have his own family was the love of his mother that went so deep it accompanied him even after she had gone. I didn't feel that maternal love. People can say they were sure it was there or it was expressed in another form but I don't think or feel that it was.

Another survivor cried at particularly poignant parts of his own story, reminding me of the places where I have cried when telling of my past.

I think some other things too but I'm too tired to write and I also don't want to trigger anybody on here in any kind of way. I certainly don't want to lead to any kind of Holocaust discussion or denial or anything like that. Because I'm not denying it at all. Far from it.

[Blueberry]

It's hard to leave that up, what I've written in the past 2 posts on my Journal. But so far I'm leaving it.

The words in the testimonies remind me of the callousness of FOO. They knew what they were doing to me at least partially, they still know what they're doing and they don't care. So long as things run the way they want.

[Armee]

I'm glad you posted what you did, Blueberry. I found it helpful to read.

[Blueberry]

Thank you Armee.

Now I realise that I really need to a) get off the computer and b) re-ground. So I'm writing that to be accountable to myself.