Out of the Storm

***POSSIBLE TRIGGERS ***
Hello,
Well, this is my first attempt to keep an online journal.  I hope it turns out better than some parts of me expected. Even right now I have that non-stop critic and perfectionist that constantly try to guess other people's opinion of me  (which are either too nice or too humiliating) and make me read the sentences over and over again and telling me I have too much flaws to be a perfectionist and my writing will probably be full of mistakes and unworthy of reading.
However, I'll keep on because I know that I am entitled to share my experience, feelings, opinions, etc. because I am a human being. It is sad that it took me so long to realize that I am only human and talking about myself is pretty, pretty and pretty normal and nothing to be ashamed of and I like making mistakes because it is a great way to learn if you realize them.
Okay, I feel better now. To be your own mother is great  :) .
I wanted to write about this feeling I had these days. I feel as if I abandoned myself. I think I still spend too much time to keep imaginary perfect me (or just real me?) alive inside. It is like my whole dreams and the shiny, talkative, happy, funny me living in a very, very distant land inside me and on the outside I have that frozen, reckless, "I don't care about anything" me.  However, I actually do care too much and I am not in a very nice phase of my life (in terms of financial independence and a lot of stuff).
I feel like I am waiting for some magical power to come and do everything for me. I keep reminding myself it is time to realize you are an adult but I still depend on my childhood coping mechanisms, too much. I  feel shattered and away from myself and frozen and it is scary. It just seems too hard at times and I just want to give up, but I can't because I promised myself that I am going to try. 
I think I just need to accept the fact that recovery is really a slow process. I need to be patient and do my best to be real me because I don't want to feel like a frozen clone of me, anymore.

Welcome! :D

QuoteI think I just need to accept the fact that recovery is really a slow process.

Yes, exactly  :thumbup:  Give yourself permission to move at your own pace. Thanks for joining!

glad you're here, berceuse.

being patient about recovering is something i've had to work hard at over the years, so i can totally relate.  i was a doer, a fixer, if there's a problem, i did something about it as quickly as possible.  more than one, many times. 

these days, recovering from c-ptsd, i discovered it is a process, much more than i would ever have thought.  i've been in recovery for addictions, but it's never been like this.  this does take time, determination, and, above all, patience.  ups and downs, sometimes sideways.  one thing i've discovered, tho, is that as long as i keep moving, even if it's backwards at times, i'm making progress. 

i was also the perfect person, could logically figure out just the right way to be, what to say, how to do.  shedding that skin hasn't been easy for me, and i still find pieces of it clinging from time to time (ewww, that sounds gross, even to me!).  i also get that feeling that it seems too hard sometimes to deal with all this.  those are the times i just ask for strength to get me through this day.  so far that's worked - i'm still here today.

i think all these 'things' you're feeling and going thru are just part of the recovery process.  as we are transitioning from where we were to where we want to be, things can get crumbly and stumbly at times. 

i loved your statement about being your own mother.  kind of like being your own best friend as well.  we really do need to be our own whatevers in the best way possible, don't we?  that made total sense to me. 

hope to hear more from you.  you'll get there. 

Thank you for your replies.  :)

Okay. I just need to unburden myself but I don't even know what's wrong exactly or what to say.  I just feel so overwhelmed and confused. Even the smallest pieces of work make me feel anxious. I am literally having a hard time to understand what I read because of the anxiety. Lately, I have these ongoing daydreams? or  fantasies? that I tell people what is wrong with me biologically. I mean I  try to prove something is wrong with me (in my fantasies) to my friends or almost anyone I know. Then, these people respect me and understand what I am going through.  But I have never been diagnosed with anything (except depression which was three years ago I guess). I have never been diagnosed with C-PTSD either but this is the most suitable explanation of what I have been living my whole life. May be I am wrong. I don't know. All I search for is validation and love from another person but I am sick and tired of being controlled by those unfulfilled needs. I know there are people whom I can trust and who loves me and I do not want to keep questioning their love and trust but I can't stop myself. I am so afraid of being that broken and hurt  and disappointed again. Especially by someone whose favorite words are "I love you". My whole concept of love is actually scary.  ;D

ya know, i think love can be scary.  we've heard the word plenty of times, but too often it came along with pain, expectations, and/or unrealistic responsibilities.  instead of being unconditional and accepting, it had all kinds of strings attached.  yeah, scary.

i can certainly relate to wanting to have something wrong physically, something 'tangible' to show/tell others.  i can't say how many docs i've seen over my lifetime, telling them symptoms that they basically ignored.  i, too, believe they were c-ptsd related, but rarely has anyone shown the inclination or energy to search for a root cause.  no one was asking 'why is this happening?'

i'm sorry for your terrible anxiety that you're experiencing right now.  it just plays havoc with everything in our lives, making it so difficult to get through the day in a semi-straight line.  like you said, even the little pieces get hijacked, and it takes so much energy to get back on track.  no wonder you're feeling overwhelmed and confused. 

take heart.  i'm glad you posted, and i hope that, even if i can't help you, you know that you're not alone.  big hug to you, berceuse.  i hope the rest of your day gets to be a little smoother.

Thank you sanmagic7,

That was/is exactly how ı feel "wanting to have something wrong physically, something 'tangible' to show/tell others." Thank you for your support, too.

Recently, I have this memory which keeps reminding itself or I keep rememebering it because my mom is at home again after a long time. So, I want to talk about it.

Before that I feel like giving a little personal history so that I may feel less detached from myself. I actually remember just a few times I feel grounded in my entire life anyway. (May be this is a lie or exaggeration or this is the inner critic speaking. I do not know.)

***possibble triggers***

Anyway I lost my dad when I was six and then grew up with an emotionally unavailable mother and a grandmother (who might both have npd but I am not sure).
I actually can not remember my mom (not even her face, or any memory) before I was six. My first memory with her is that her telling me my dad is dead and she did it by showing me a photograph taken in the funeral (I do not know why sb needed to take a photo in the funeral) and simply telling me "Your dad died" and nothing else. I just remember the photo clearly and saying "Hmm". That's all. They did not take me to funeral. May be she just wanted to visualize it so that I can believe. It made me quite angry for a time (after I found about CPTSD and emotional abuse, etc.) but I just feel really numb right now and cant remember any rational explanation that I told to my inner child (which felt like a good self-protection and affection so I thought ıt must be the 6 years old me.)
Anyway, I found the photo at home when I was in college and before that I thought I had imagined it and the death of my dad did not actually feel real until I was in highschool. It took me 10 years, I guess, to realize he is really dead. I think I have dissociated throughout all these years because whenever I felt alone (which was all the time) I imagined that he is actually alive and the reason they told me he is dead is because he is seeing another woman or has another family, etc. (just any story that is a little bit reasonable was fine for me) and he would come and take me from home. I had quite a lot of escape fantasies. ( I still use fantasizing/dreaming as a coping mechanism a lot but I just want to have a real life although to some extent dreaming has been benefical. Anyway this is the subject for another day.)
It was the times when I needed the support most but I was the supporter instead. It was always mom's needs, sadness, troubles, joys, etc. My mother and grandmother, who is dead now, used to argue every day when I was a child. Seriously they kept arguing about the same things over and over again every day throughout my childhood. I cant remember any of them right now. Anyway so my mom had a lot of things to tell and she was always right because she had lost a husband, she had a terrible and ill mother who shows no sign of love although she is the one who take cares of her and the financial trouble (my sisters were at university at the time). It was really tough for her I know and I remember feeling really sad for her but it was really tough for me too. But noone accepted that I might be really sad too. Noone actually asked what I felt. My mom just pretended to be listening (in the best case scenario). Most of the time she did not answer to me when I was telling something or she just started talking about herself (how somebody offended her again and she was always right and innocent).
And for years I thought she was right to do so, to behave me as if I were non-existent and I always need to listen to her and not talk about myself at all (because it is selfish) and everybody except her was offensive and selfish. I really believed her and the worse I believed that was love because she kept telling me how much she loved me.

It actually took me years to realize that I felt really sad and scared after my dad died.

Okey, I really need to stop here. I was going talk about a memory but now I dont have the energy to do so.

I just found this between my notes of Pete Walker's essays. This is like the summary of my social life.

"Here is a verbal diagram of a typical critic-looping scenario. The need to escape the "indanger" feeling that is triggered by socializing or even the thought of it excites the outer critic's judgementalness and subsequent isolation-seeking behavior. Extended withdrawal however, reawakens a relational hunger and the impulse to connect. This simultaneously reverses the critic from outer to inner mode, which then laundry lists one's own personal inadequacies, which in turn creates self-pitying persecution fantasies, which then reinvokes the outer critic mode of inventorying one's self-righteous resentments of others...ad infinitem...ad nauseam - all in the "safe" hiding of silent disengagement. This is also a common thread of the fabric of an addiction to worrying."

Anyway I guess it was hard for me to share that stuff last night, because I really had a tough time to fall asleep and my heartbeats were so fast. However, I do not regret talking about it.

just want to say that you've been heard, and kudos to you and your courage for sharing everything. 

Thank you sanmagic7 :)  I really needed to hear that.

QuoteBut noone accepted that I might be really sad too. Noone actually asked what I felt. My mom just pretended to be listening.

I can so relate to this.  No one saw you.  How painfully invisible you must have felt.  The adults around you, their needs were more important than you.  You were the child.  You needed to be put first.  That's not fair to use you like an emotional sounding board for her own needs.  My mom did the same.

I am sorry that you have gone through this too Jdcooper and thank you for sharing it. That was how I felt exactly: invisible.

The thing with anxiety is that it is getting worse and worse for a while. Yesterday, when I was reading about 100 traits of personality-disordered individual and emotional abuse in OOF, I got really anxious, triggered possibly and I realized I show a lot of physical response/ bodily responses to anxiety.

The thing that drew my attention was I was blinking my eyes quite a lot when reading about emotional abuse and it was like a nervous tic. I actually stopped reading because of the blinking. It had happened before, once. Luckily, it did not last long.

The other thing is that I have hyperhidrosis which is excessive sweating in some body parts (in my case it is my hands and feet). I have it as long as I have known myself and I learnt that it happens because sympathetic nervous system is overactivated and the SNS controls the fight-flight reponse in case of danger.
(I have seen docs about sweating but they just surprised how sweat can drip from my fingers and no physcial cause for it has been found.)

And also the palpitation and contracted muscles and cold, sweaty hands and feet and in some cases shaking.
So, what my body thinks as "Danger" varies from performing little tasks like sending an urgent mail to reading about abuse online or to talking to someone I am not very comfortable with, etc. So, there is not an exact definition of what my body perceives as as "danger".

And I want to help my poor SNS which only does his/her job to protect me.

I am soooo exhausted of living in the "Panic mood". I am literally exhausted, low-in energy most of the time and when I am in this panic mood, I can't think, everything seems so overwhelming and I literally stop functioning and I feel like an animal who plays dead.

I do not want to live like this anymore. I do not want to waste great amounts of energy on feeling anxious and restless over nothing.

So, How can I relieve an autonomous nervous system who decides on its own when to interfere and how to interfere.

I looked up the definition in Merriam Webster Danger is "exposure or liability to injury, pain, harm, or loss" May be, I can remember this next time.
Another thing is that I am trying the mindful breathing, it is actually paying attention to your breathing. Beforehand I thought it was taking deep breaths so I couldnt handle taking long-deep breaths and felt even more anxious.
So, it is good that I understood it is focusing on how you breathe normally, not forcing you to breathe in a particular way.

I walk a lot. It helps but I cant go for a walk every time I feel anxious because of nothing.

I am thinking of starting jogging early in the morning. I tried that for some time and quit. I remember it felt good actually. I am going to give it another try. I think it can be helpful to relieve my stress symptoms.
I really want to form healthy habits.

Hello berceuse, I think it is a good idea try jogging again, maybe listening to some nice music or talks or motivational materials while jogging.

Hello, threetrees. Thank you for your reply, I will try that.

I am just gonna write whatever comes to my mind. It is so disorganized but it is okey I guess.

**possible triggers**

-It is okey to feel confused at times.

-I think I have been dissociating a lot recently. My vision blurs a lot (which is a sign of dissociation for me)

-This week, I caught myself many times saying "You are stupid," outloud. I think I do that when ı start to have feelings for sb. It is no wonder I have never had any sort of relationship.

-I do not know who I am, what I like, how old I am even. May be I am in a flashback. ı dont know that either. I am not feeling small or hopeless (I usually feel that when I am in fb) It is not like that. I feel completely anonymous, without identity, I feel like nothing, a complete nothing. (may be this is a different kind of fb.)

-I remember crying and saying "I do not have any memories," when I was a child. (I was propably in elementary school)

-I really would like to help myself to live the life to the fullest, to feel alive but I need myself to do that and I dont even know where I am.

-I used to do "parts work-inner family therapy"  http://sfhelp.org/gwc/IF/ifs.htm   . I stopped that for a while. I guess I am afraid of becoming more and more divided inside and I really need "me" to manage the parts work and I dont know who is in charge right now.

-I feel dead.

-I tried jogging but I dissociated during that too and I felt disappointed. I dont know what I need to wake up. This is like a constant sleep.

-I pierced my ears because I thought a little bit of pain can make me feel alive. It does not hurt that much and no it did not wake me up.

-I sometimes feel I am too full when I try to take a deep breath. There is no extra space inside me to take a deep breath.

-I know this feelings will pass. I had times when I felt more alive and less confused
but now feels like forever.

-Reading usually worked well for me to realize what I am living. But, now it is too much, too.

-Patience is a good virtue and I lack it. I usually feel like I am the only one who needs to wait all the time. Of course, it is not true.

-I feel like I am waiting permission from sb to start living.

-I allow quite a lot of people to tell me what to do, how to feel, how to act...

-I hate when sb tells me to wait. I feel anger when sb tells me to wait. I hate waiting. I don't even know what I am waiting for and sb telling me that feel as if they are the authority to decide who waits for how long to get sth they wanted, it makes me quite angry. And of course they cant understand I am angry because I will be having that stupid smile in my face.

English is not my mother tongue so sorry for any possible mistakes.

#When I was doing the inner-family-therapy (on my own) I realized I have a part who is really angry and named her after the Hindu God, Kali. I don't know if this is weird but visualizing parts of me helps me to reconnect with myself.

"Kali is the Hindu goddess (or Devi) of death, time, and doomsday and is often associated with sexuality and violence but is also considered a strong mother-figure and symbolic of motherly-love. Kali also embodies shakti - feminine energy, creativity and fertility - and is an incarnation of Parvati, wife of the great Hindu god Shiva. She is most often represented in art as a fearful fighting figure with a necklace of heads, skirt of arms, lolling tongue, and brandishing a knife dripping with blood."
Source: http://www.ancient.eu/Kali/

She is a part of me that is alive. May be, she is the protective, angry mother (in a good way). I don't know.
I actually had a dream in which I had four arms and I was rubbing my shoulders with those extra two arms  :) it was quite funny actually but it was a time when I felt I was helping myself.
Then, I ran into Kali in Heinrich Zimmer's Myths and symbols in Indian art and civilization and felt a connection. She might be symbolizing the feminine energy, that creative and protective energy and I love it.

#Forgetting yourself is a terrible thing. I found that I noted this in my diary (I mean not in the online one, I have a written diary) which is:
"Flashbacks create temporary amnesia about one's essential worthiness and goodness." Pete Walker's essay on inner critic

#And I am beating myself up, for two weeks, calling myself stupid, idiot when I look into mirror or when I am walking in the street and then I answer outloud "I am not stupid" but usually it did not sound very convincing and I feel like a crazy person who is having a fight with herself in the Street.

#I guess this was another episode of flashback. In "Part's work" Pete Garlech recommends to ask questions (date, age, gender, etc.) to the parts to get to know them better. When I asked the date, that part of me answered 2004. If I did not made it up... and why on earth will I make it up? I am not really eager to stuck in the past and feel like a ghost and live in isolation.

#If I understood this right, some part of me got stuck in 2004 and all those feelings (all/most/some??) belongs to the experience (I dont know what it was) that happened at the time. My past is quite foggy. I remember telling this to my therapist (I am not seeing one anymore). Is this dissociative amnesia?? I am not sure about diagnosing myself but then I think I am the one who is living with myself so I must be the one who knows what is going on with me. It scares me a lot to put so much trust in me. I know it is a terrible thing to say but it does. I have a fear of abandoning myself because when I needed most I can't seem to find myself. This is the pattern of my relationship with mother. I have an absent mother inside. Am I the absent mother? No, I don't think so. May be, I just keep choosing the wrong person to ask for help.  Then who am I? A bunch of parts who are barely in touch with each other?? I don't even understand if I am behaving myself in a good way/or just continuing with self-abuse/or nothing is that binary.

#The good thing is visualizing helps a lot. This is the thing I learnt today again. 

#I have been to a really good place where I really felt like myself, talk like myself and it felt really good. There are a lot of nice people here and outside who speaks and listens with an open heart. I don't want to forget this fact.

#Nothing hurts as much as isolation did for me. I love people. I love being with people and thinking that something with me is toxic and I need to stay away from people hurts a lot. I don't want to do this to myself.

#I think I needed to look at the past to make sense of that confusing and paralysing state, what I think of as C-ptsd. I believe it was necessary and really beneficial. Ât least now I dont think I am crazy/needed to be hospitalized/kept in isolation for the sake of humanity.  I am not doomed. These are big steps for me. I accept that I am a normal, regular human being who is equally capable of doing anything as everyone. I don't want to forget that, too.

#However now I started to focus too much on  what I lack now or did in the past. I started to give too much care about what I lack and I am never grateful for what I have.

# I am still alive.
# I am healthy.
# I have a place to live in.
# I have a job.
# I have dreams (a lot) and I am capable of making them come true. (at least some of them)

I am really greatful for all these things. Thank you universe!

thank you for that great reminder, berceuse.  i, too, felt like i'd gotten stuck, kind of wallowing in what had happened, but i feel like i've turned a corner and am now more present-focused.  it feels better.  so glad for you that you're feeling more like yourself.  it's wonderful to hear.  yay for you!   big hug!

It has been almost two months since my last post and I have been going through some changes in my life recently.

I moved out of the city where I stay with my sister and mom  to another city in my home country.

I actually already gave up on my escape fantasies before I did that. The only motivation I had was that I did not want to live in such a crowded, noisy, and tiring city.  It drained me for seven years. I went there to study in university and stayed to find a job.  My plans were to start working full time in a job of which I have no interest. I was working there part time and also doing some freelance translation. So, instead of putting myself into something I have never wanted I decided to choose uncertainty.
I had met  a friend who also wanted to move out of city to some small coastal town so we did it together. Now my only income depends on freelance translation but I guess I will manage to live. I hope so. It has been two weeks since I moved.

The reason I am writing is because I easily lose contact with my feelings or self?? and If I can lose contact with my self then who is the I? I really dont know. I guess I am trying to talk about my feelings.

I feel like I have a lot to talk but my brain feels like it is trying to process what I am living. So, I dont quite understand what I feel. I dont even know what I am talking makes sense. I feel like I have a rubber ball in my head instead of a brain right now. 

It usually have been like this for me. First the act comes and then the thinking process which propaply I should do before the action but it is okey. I generally am happy with that with a few exceptions.

Anyway, the thing is that I know I show the courage to create a space for myself and it is great but I dont want to live that as somebody else's life. I dont want to feel distant or disconnected anymore. I am always somewhere between the old mind patterns created by trauma, my past or whatever and the shining-bright future/*-like future depending on the situation. I am really addicted to fantasizing, daydreaming about things and it is not fun anymore. It is taking my whole energy and presence. I think this is dissociation. I know I started that when my father passed away and I couldnt talk with anyone so I was always imagining him alive and he will come and save me from home adn I did that for 10 years until one day when I was lying in bed I realized he is really dead and noone is coming. My grief process started with 10 years delay and at the time everyone in my family was continuing with their natural lives or I thought so. So anyway this is an very old habit which is not protecting me from anything anymore. I dont need any protection. I just need to feel fully alive and present. I want to feel what I am doing.

Thank you sanmagic7 by the way. I know journals are personal and I dont need to expect replies but I feel a lot better  when someone sees me.

i do see you, berceuse, and i hear you as well.  another new start person - there are several of us right now. 

sometimes i do things on a sense, a feeling, intuition - i don't know exactly what it might be - and also work it out within my mind afterwards.  this move i made was originally scheduled for a year from now, then june first.  as it turned out, the idea of moving out of there became more and more urgent to me, and i was out of there and here by may 12.  don't know why it had to be, but it did.  it's possible that with different timing, i would not have found this place to live, which is really what i needed.

so, until that rubber ball disintegrates a bit and you are able to figure more things out, best wishes with all of this for you.  i have faith it is exactly what it was supposed to be.  big hug!

"he did it by showing me a photograph taken in the funeral (I do not know why sb needed to take a photo in the funeral) and simply telling me "Your dad died" "

THIS IS TERRIBLE!  :((((

Thanks sanmagic. I love to believe this was exactly what it was supposed to be and I am happy to hear that you also made a new start and it was a little bit unplanned. I actually enjoy more when things do not follow a strict plan. I am not a religious person but I sometimes like to think that I am part of something bigger (indeed I am part of this world) When I did not push so hard to do what I want and when I want, in other words when I go with the flow, I feel more peaceful. However, it also sounds unreasonable to me but reason is not the only way to know things, I guess and I wish the best for  you too.

Hello Carnation. Yes it was terrible and I really had thought it was my imagination and there was not a photograph and then I really found the photograph. It was exactly as I remembered.

I am writing with long intervals but this is the only place where I can tell without the feeling that I am living in pain body (I am reading the Power of Now) and I am a masochist who enjoys pain (may be ı am?) and thinking and talking about things that happened years ago. This feeling is not mine actually. It is the imaginary reaction of people when they listen to me. (I dont if if this is inner or outer critic and I dont want to check the term right now.) So, I try not to talk about this things with my friends or sister, etc.

I can't guess other people's feelings and I do not need to guess or check or control? other people's feelings. It is too much. I try to remind myself that I do not need to guess their feelings and then act accordingly when I go too deep into the ic/oc loop. There is no room for my feelings.

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." A. Einstein
I have read something similar in "power of now". I do not know in which level of consciousness my problem is created and why I have such a hard time to be fully present. I really do not enjoy the endless painful loops in my head but I also cant solve it in my head. I try meditation for two years?? I am not sure when I started. I guess I am living in a big ball of dissociation. I just remember quite a few times when I feel fully present. (I mean when my senses are open-no blurs, no hard hearing, colors are normal,etc. I think this is dissociation?) One time was when I objected to my former boss (I think he was a narcissist -not sure- subject of another entry)
Anyway meditation is not going well. I am thinking about reading "body keeps the score" but ı dont have the money for it right now.
Today (in the morning) I decided to talk about relationships which is a real taboo for me. I have never been with anyone and whenever I start to feel a crush on sb I really really realy feel stupid. I mean you dont deserve to love any one and kill yourself kind of stupid. As I have maladaptive daydreaming (one of the terms I know :) and it is an addiction- quitting smoking was easier) I find myself calling myself stupid-idiot in the middle of the road or when I am looking in the mirror whenever I start to have feelings and of course with vivid scenarios, fantasies, whatever you call it) I know that in deep deep deep inside I am not emotionally crippled and I am a normal, healthy 25 years old woman who is not ashamed of her feelings, body, face etc.   I needed to talk about it because I started to talk  like (in real life) I dont need anyone, I cant love anyone, I am emotionally crippled, I would like to be alone. (No, it is not true, I am sick and tired of being alone and I think I am really going to cry when somebody really loves me and touches me but I cant even react in time when sb likes me, I just do all the things in my head. I am really stuck in my mind.) So, at least I am honest here and this really breaks my heart. Why feeling alive is so hard when I am in a place where I would love to be and  I am with people whom I would love to be around. I started to work in a pub which pays higher than translation and it is also great. However, I feel a giant frozen thing? is living inside me and I do not want to feel like this. I hate feeling like this. So, what should I do? Do not resist the Now ( I dont even like self-help books)
I feel a lot of anger but I even do not know it is for me or for mother or somebody else. I do not want to keep blaming people. I did it a lot. I dont know what to do.

hey, berceuse,

can i say something here?  i don't believe you are a masochist, i don't believe any of us are.  i do believe that we've gotten so used to pain that we can feel uncomfortable when it's not there.   maybe, subconsciously, we might at times, seek for something that will bring us pain because that's what feels normal.  but i don't believe we like pain. 

i once heard that the definition of a masochist is someone who thinks it's ok to be in pain, a sadist is someone who thinks it's ok to inflict pain on another.  that turned my mind around a little about those two terms cuz it did make sense to me.   if we go back to our beginning, babies don't like pain, and they don't think it's ok to be in pain.  they let someone know loud and clear when they're in pain. 

unfortunately for too many of us, that natural instinct against pain has been taught, threatened, or punished out of us.   we don't like it - we never did.   going back to a baby's reactions for what is normal and/or instinctual in humans has helped me a lot with these kinds of situations, including with emotions and boundaries.  babies know and they don't hesitate to speak their piece.  those are our natural reactions which have been buried.

i wonder if that big frozen thing is underlying fear, anxiety, or lack of self-worth for your new job, new surroundings, doing something you enjoy, not being isolated, meeting new people - all the things that go along with regularly being present in a pub atmosphere.  i would imagine it doesn't feel good at all.  hopefully, as you get used to being there and being more comfortable with being in that 'now', the big frozen thing will begin to melt.

the power of now is really a wonderful concept, one i want to be more invested in.  i live too much in the future or past, and just don't pay attention to now very much, unless i'm uncomfortable.  then, nothing else matters.  not a very healing way to live, i don't think.  and, if this is starting over, i do believe that i need to focus more on the now as well.  thanks for sharing that, berceuse.

sounds like you're a little stuck on the anger thing.  would it help if you wrote about it?  just simple sentences, like 'i'm angry at _____________ for ________________'.  then do it again and again, just to see what  name/person comes up each time and why you feel anger toward them.  i don't know if that's the same as blaming.  rather, i see it as simply putting that anger where it belongs.    that just came to my mind because writing things out has always helped me. 

be very careful not to stop yourself if a name or person comes to your mind.  whatever comes to mind is real, or it wouldn't be there.  just write it down, get it out.  you can think about it later.  i don't know if that would help you.  writing isn't for everybody.  but, maybe it would.

i think you're doing well with everything, my dear.  starting over takes time and energy, because it involves new ways of thinking, new perspectives, and new perceptions.  best with all of this.  big hug.

Thank you sanmagic, This makes a lot of sense to me

Quote from: sanmagic7 on June 29, 2017, 11:46:37 PM

if we go back to our beginning, babies don't like pain, and they don't think it's ok to be in pain.  they let someone know loud and clear when they're in pain. 

unfortunately for too many of us, that natural instinct against pain has been taught, threatened, or punished out of us.   we don't like it - we never did.   going back to a baby's reactions for what is normal and/or instinctual in humans has helped me a lot with these kinds of situations, including with emotions and boundaries.  babies know and they don't hesitate to speak their piece.  those are our natural reactions which have been buried.

The first person who was supposed to love me, did not love me at all and this hurts a lot. I am not a masochist. I had a nervous breakdown in the new job (I was washing the dishes and crying whole day-literally I cried for 8 hours on and off) I think this is the baby's reaction. 

i wouldn't doubt it.  my earth mother spirit wants to gather that baby in with love and caring and kindness, hold that baby speaking soothing, comforting words of affection until baby you feels the safety and love being offered.  you deserved to be loved as the innocent tiny human being you were, a miracle of life. 

here's to all our darling little baby selves who didn't get all that good stuff we not only needed but deserved.  what a wonder that we've survived and can gather here to help us get through to thriving in spite of it.   berceuse, i don't doubt your tears carried a lot of poison out of your body.  with that in mind, i'm glad for you.  big hug.

I really don't know how to be good to myself. The belief that I am unworthy of love and should kill myself because my existance is so unneceassary etc. (it sounds funny when I am writing) but I still hold this beliefs. I thought I am over this. Since the moving out, all the things I thought I was over (old self-destructive thoughts and even suicidal ones) are here again. The only thing that can stop these self destructive thoughts is alcohol. Why these beliefs are stronger than me?
So if there is a baby inside me, I think I have already killed her.

you know, berceuse, you've just made a huge change in your life, and i've found when i do that (such as my move back to the states from mexico), lots of old stuff rear their ugly heads.  i think it's because it's a transition phase - you're not yet used to being where you are, you've upset your old routine where everything was pretty settled for you, and you're not quite sure how to re-settle, re-establish your base of operations, or re-ground yourself. 

may i suggest you give yourself some time, be patient with yourself while your innards settle down again.  being good to ourselves can take some time, too, because we may have to learn who our 'self' really is and what that 'self' needs.  as you continue with your recovery, i have no doubt that things will fall into place.  you don't have to rush.

that baby may just be laying low for a bit while you get yourself together.  our babies have been tough.  they're survivors.   we're survivors.  you are doing what you need to do right now to survive.  in time, that might change.  hang tough, berceuse, i'm hangin' right beside you.   big hug to you.

Thank you sanmagic7,

I have really been going through hard times recently and "we are survivors" was a great reminder. Seriously, thank you very much for your precious point of view.
This time it was not all in my head (the dangers were not particularly belonged to the past but it was entangled with the past- I dont know if this is the right saying but ı dont want to search for it right now)
I lived the most terrible earthquake in my life last week. Luckily no one got killed but it was a terrible experience. My sister had just arrived to my new house when the earthquake hit and I just remembered how much I am scared of losing someone I love.

The job got worse and worse. I realized that I never stand up for myself.  I allow the bad treatment and never raise my voice against it. So, I hold onto 15?? years of anger (all of them, all the bad treatment (mom- sisters- grandmom- classmates-coworkers and me of course)). No wonder why I keep dreaming of having nervous breakdowns Thanks to MD they feel like real but I am gonna stop living in the dreamworld. It is over really. I had enough.
So, I had quite a few panic attacks in the work and finally quitted this wednesnay. I do not regret it at all.

I realized how far daydreaming has taken over my life. Even my reactions are not real. My feelings (especially love and anger) got stuck in an unknown world where the ideal me lives them to the fullest.  I spent almost every minute dreaming something (close relations, talking to sb I care, nervous breakdowns, funerals, the ones that I am heroine...).

I tried to be with someone I have no interest in and I felt nothing. I think I did it to feel something but I felt absolutely nothing. At least now I know that I am desirable.

I talked to a friend of mine about the panic attacks and she suggested me to find a safe place and I realized that I have never felt safe here. I have been having sleep problems since I came (mostly because of the overthinking-anxiety)
However I also know this was not what I wanted. I dont want to live in a popular coastal town where the life expenses are the same as the city life (also the stress). I really would like to be in the middle of nature. So I changed my plans or better say turned back to the original ones.  Another change will be coming for me and this time I feel more peaceful about it.

**Another reminder for me: Music is the biggest trigger of daydream loop. Listening to the genres that I am not very familiar worked a lot for me. No more playlists I guess and a great blog about MD: https://maladaptivedaydreamingguide.wordpress.com/

I guess I am getting a little bit better at becoming a silent observer. During my observations esp. yersterday I realized that:
***I refrain myself from resting, eating, drinking water (from meeting any humanly needs) till I finish a work (any kind of work-yesterday was about cleaning the house). Inner critic gets so violent that I simply cant stop working and at the same time I hear myself begging for water and a little bit of rest and of course I dont stop till the thing inside me is completely satisfied with the results.
***Outer critic peaks whenever I talk about deep, personal things to someone I care. (I was chatting with my housemate about some personal stuff the other night-it was really nice and I was not triggered etc., probably because of the alcohol.) Next day I literally woke up hating her and found her everly little gesture unbearable. The negative feelings went on and on  till I realized it was oc. The silence inside after I realized it was oc was the most beautiful part of the day.
***I am not a misanthropist as I claimed often. Being a misanthropist is just a safe zone to make me stay away from people. Although I seem to enjoy it, I know it is not a part of authentic me.

How can I express 15 (more or less) years of anger?
I am sooo tired of thinking, imagining about the same things over and over again. Whenever I dont express my feelings (which is most of the time) I start to daydream about telling them to sb. I dont remember how many imaginary nervous breakdowns I had and it feels real and tiring. I am angry to mother and sisters and I know it will be such a futile act to talk to them about it. Even when I am writing this I feel like something is choking me. Emotional isolation ( in my case love and anger are the most detached or unexpressed feelings) feels like some part of me is living in a desert island and is not thinking about coming to the real world. May be I can learn to feel safe here and now so it can be more attractive for detached part/s to live in reality.
What does safety mean for me?
A small place where I am familiar with all its surroundings. A tent might really be a good idea because a house seems so big for me to deal with. Plus I really dont want to pay bills and rent right now. I am also a little bit afraid of being alone but I am not eager to live with someone either.  A campsite where I can reach internet and continue working? An ecofarm?? I dont know yet. I think safety also means to bond with someone but I am not sure I know the difference between bonding and being used.

hey, berceuse, it's been awhile, but i've finally been able to catch up a bit.  reading your posts about your changes, about how you're finding out more and more about your true self felt really good to me for you.  i really liked how you're knowing where it is you really want to be (in nature) but that your latest move didn't quite get you there.  yet.

it rang a bell with me.  i'm living in this lovely room in a lovely house, but it doesn't quite feel like home to me.  i don't know where i'll end up, but i don't think this place is my end of the line as far as feeling at home.  it's a place to live for now, and i'm grateful for it, but i can't quite call it home.

i do hope you find just what you're looking for. 

i've also had those angry imaginary conversations with the people who have hurt me.  i doubt i'll ever have them in real life, but it was almost that i relished being able to say all the things to them in my mind that i couldn't actually say.  they would keep me up as well, often still do, but i'm beginning to learn that they're not very positive nor constructive for my peace of mind.  it's like they just keep going in a horrible loop with me saying horrible things to horrible people.   never any satisfaction out of it. 

i've begun stopping myself when i catch it now.  like, i'll yell in my head 'stop stop stop' until i switch the channel.  there are so many other lovely things and people (many of both come from this forum) to think about, and fall asleep to.  i like this way better.  not perfect at it, but better than before.

i hope, too, that you can find more productive ways of getting out those emotions that are hurting you.  thank you for having the courage to write a bit about them here.  i think that's a really good start.  big, warm, caring hug to you. 

Thank you sanmagic7. You listen from the heart and I feel validated and I really appreciate it. I need to say stop to angry loops too. You are right they are neither positive nor constructive. I hope you find the place that feels like home too.

I have been reading  Living Beuatifully with uncertainity and change and it makes quite a lot of sense to me.The book is mostly about some Buddist teaching and I am trying to follow some of the teachings which suits me. Now, I am working on staying present and it means I need to stop  my self any time I slip into a daydream. I discovered that stopping daydreaming means I need to sit with (the book also says something like that) some feelings which I usually express through detailed daydreams and another good discovery is that I have aaa lot of fear. :aaauuugh:  and panic emotions.
However, I am really decisive about living my life and feeling something now, not in my daydreams. So, it is okey. Starting with fear is not fun at all but thanks to it I know that I need to develop some other coping mechanisms and I think it is great :cheer:
I am going to write some of the things that are working for me and organize them later.

To stay present
* saying the date and hour and place
* 5 4 3 2 1 grounding technique for senses (5 see 4 touch 3hear 2 smell 1taste)
*When I catch myself thinking saying "I am thinking"
*If thinking becomes too unstoppable saying "I wonder what my next thought is going to be" (There is usually a 5 seconds silence when I say that)
*Ice massage esp to neck, forehead and ears. It really awakens me.
*Jazz or classic music (or anything different from what I usually listen to)
*Something nice to smell esp something with coconut butter or vanilla gives me peace.

In the long term
*Eating good (consuming much bread and sugar cause fatigue and brain fog for me)
*minumum amount of alcohol (dont ruin the next day)
*no tobacco (usually triggers negative thought patterns)
*taking care of personal hygiene (I start to daydream too much when I am not comfortable with myself now)
*daily cleaning (disorganized and dirty houses makes me uneasy and it is triggering - probaby reminds me of my childhood)
*daily routine (I havent tried it yet but I think it mmight work well for me.)

What to do when emotions overwhelm?
*Sit up straight
*Breath out (works better than trying to breath in when I feel like there is no space to inhale)
*Try Emotional freedom technique
*If I am not frozen with fear, try warm to cold shower, ice massage or anything relaxing.
*Sit with those feelings and look at them. What do I feel? Express it.

i think your lists are great, berceuse.  i've never been so organized. 

best to you with your new-found means of staying present, staying within yourself, and just allowing yourself to be, emotions included.  it can be rough at times, that's for sure, but i give you all kinds of credit for beginning this.  yay you!!!   big hug.

I miss my dad so much. I didnot have a Chance to get to know him but he Was my imaginary hero who would Come and save me all the time when ı felt so alone, misunderstood and helpless. I am so sorry that ı think you left me.

I feel so tired. I dont read my previous entries because when ı sees a part of me there, ı feel stupid and really ashamed of myself. Probably the Last thing ı wrote put me on that loop. I try not to read it. I dont even know What is wrong with me loving and missing sb even though he is Dead. I dont know What happened in my childhood that even littlest intimate human contact makes me so anxious and self conscious that ı want to run away. I feel like ı Will never attach to anything Dead or alive because ı am incapable. My Mother Speaks so nicely to me on the Phone that makes me cry a little bit. May be the real problem is me. I lived in a bubble made out of my own stupid fantasies and addiction to pain. I do not know why ı wrote these here. To get attention.? I am crying While writing these. I should buy a Pen for my journal. I hope ı am not the toxic person and ı think Chances are not low

 :hug:
You are not the toxic one. I doubt you'd be in tears if you were.

It's a lie that you are addicted to pain. I'm pretty sure that's your inner critic working overtime. I don't think they are fantasies - I believe you, you're not making things up.

Be gentle with yourself, we care about you here. :hug:

dear berceuse,

it's what the trauma has done to our brains and minds that make us think we're crazy, unlovable, or just plain at fault for everything that's gone wrong in our lives.  it's not you, sweetie.  not you at all. 

i don't believe we get addicted to pain, only that we have become so adjusted to having pain in our lives that we feel really uncomfortable, possibly even distressed when it isn't there, and we only know one way to ease the distress, which is to get back into a painful situation.  as we continue in recovery, we find out the truth of that pain, and eventually, gently, slowly, are able to back away from it, be rid of it, and not allow it in our lives anymore.

it takes time, it takes determination, and it takes support.  we'll give you as much of the latter as possible here.  you're so worth finding out your truths, finding out that you have nothing to be ashamed of, and that you have been mightily wounded.   

thank you for sharing.  i don't look back on things i've written about myself and my life, either.  i think it's because i write to get them out of me, and once they're out, i don't want to go near them again.  i may write about the same things at a different time, but it's usually because i've discovered another layer to get into and resolve.

we all come at this in different ways.  your way is just fine for you.  i'm very glad for you that you are getting the crapola out of you, and putting it somewhere so that it can't hurt you, sharing it with people who only want the best for you.  i've cried those tears myself.  i always think of those kinds of tears as getting the poison out.  i hope that's what they did for you.

keep taking care of yourself as best you can.  we're here to hold your pain as much as we can for you, gently and lovingly, so that when you're ready, we can help you get rid of it.  big hug, sweetie.

Dear ThreeRoses and SanMagic,

I have been trying to say thank you for your support and nice words but my sense of identity is so scattered for a while and I cannot relate myself to any of the emotions I mentioned before. Also, that part of me who wants to take care of me seems like a stranger. However, I am not a new me either. I am just numb or I am in an emotional flashback probably. Yesterday I felt like I am stuck. I hated being home sitting with that feeling but going out seemed too scary, also. It is like being left alone and have nowhere to turn to. I guess this is a flashback.

I have been having more memory problems recently. It is as if there was a giant fog over my head. I mean whenever I try to remember why I am having these feelings, a part of me stops me from seeing those memories and covers it with a fog.
I turned back to where I am (to my sister's house-It is not a family home. We don't actually have a family home but mother stays here from time to time and she is the main trigger of flashbacks. I usually need a lot of time to fix myself after her visits) and daytime at home feels very triggering. I feel more peaceful and I can concentrate better at nights but daytime feels like a nightmare. I am mostly sitting in paralysis, unable to do anything efficient. The feeling is familiar.

In one of my nightmares, I was on a bus with my father. He was not speaking to me. Then I realized he was dead and started to cry and sob and even in my dream I felt the pain. Then I saw my mother on the bus and she tucked a plastic ball in my mouth and then I woke up. I actually have quite a few nightmares in which mother tries to kill or hurt me. It has been a long time since I saw that dream but after waking up I had realized that I felt exactly like that in the past. I don't know why I think about that dream or wrote here today.

I really want to get all this stuff off me. I am too tired living with a giant stone in my head. It feels like that. A cold, big, grey stone in the middle of my brain.

I used to go to therapy in college. As I have a weak memory, I don't remember how long and from when to when. It might be 1 or 1.5 or 2 years. During the therapy, I never get to realize I was not efficiently taken care of as a child. (This is the hardest thing I can say right now :blink: Even my anger is gone. This is scary but I also don't feel scared. Is this what they call apathy?) It ended because of my trust issues. I just remember bits and pieces what I was talking about. I think later is a better time to write. I feel so frozen right now.
Although I lost contact with my feelings right now, I just know (in a cognitive level) that you show respect, care and support here. I appreciate it very much. I hope I can feel that appreciation and support soon in addition to knowing it.

The part of your dream where your m stuck a ball in your mouth kind of resonated with me. If it were my dream I'd interpret that as my m trying to stifle the expression of my emotions.

I'm glad that you can at least recognize you are cared for here.  :hug: I hope someday you get to feel it, too.

Thank you ThreeRoses,
About the stifling of emotions, you are right. I don't remember she ever asked me how I felt about anything and whenever I try to tell her sth, the subject always comes to her emotions, her memories, her sth. etc. She never tried to reach me indeed and blamed me for being closed and unreachable. She used to tell how hard as a child I was and they needed to take me to a psychologist when I was 2 or 3 because I was hitting my head against walls or pinching myself. Of course, I don't remember harming myself because I was a toddler but I also don't understand why I would be not open to communication and love as a child. How come a child can deny the only source of love? Then I should have been a self-sabotaging toddler. Yes, that makes a lot of sense.  :applause: 
I used to tell in therapy how everything is wrong with me from the beginning and I am just a useless piece of something (I used to have a hard time calling myself human because I was not feeling like one) and should terminate my life for the sake of humanity. I really believed those ideas and every day I was waking up hating myself. Anyway, I am so thankful those times are over. Now I know I am a human being  :cheer: who was born equal and who deserves to be treated as equal and with respect. This might me the only thing I know for sure. I am really thinking about getting a tattoo of the first article of UDHR to somewhere in my body I can always see. Then I will know how to treat people and how they should treat me. I really need that standard, something that I can count on as a standard.
My first intention was not to tell any of these. I am getting really depressed since I got back. I really don't know what to do with my life. I have a bunch of passions but any time I try to do something that I really wanna do, I quit because of some ridiculous reason and I can't get in touch with those feelings that drive me in the first place.  I lose my interest so fast. It is actually more than interest. Whenever I try to put an effort to realize what I have dreamt of all the time or whenever it gets real, my whole desire dies so quickly that I start to feel like I have never wanted to do that thing in the first place. Then I try something else that I like and I think I can do it for a living. The same thing happens. I detach from those views and interests. I feel like I am following a crazy person. The same pattern repeats itself over and over. It is so sickening.
I need space in my life and in my head. I need space for loving and caring for my self and for other people. I need space for giving my time and attention to what I want to do. Life is precious and I don't want to live a life full of regrets. I don't know when I am going to die but I know I will die and I really don't want to waste it.  However, all I ever do is sabotaging my self whenever I try to live my life, to be my self, to be with people whom I like, to do sth I really care. I am fighting against myself and I am always losing it. This is so frustrating.

Berceuse,

Reading your journal is very moving for me. I have experienced so much of the same pain and longing for love. Thank you for sharing.

Quote from: berceuse on September 20, 2017, 09:58:25 PM
She never tried to reach me indeed and blamed me for being closed and unreachable.

My mother was cold and unreachable too, and it's not your fault.

Quote from: berceuse on September 20, 2017, 09:58:25 PM
I really don't know what to do with my life. I have a bunch of passions but any time I try to do something that I really wanna do, I quit because of some ridiculous reason and I can't get in touch with those feelings that drive me in the first place.  I lose my interest so fast. It is actually more than interest. Whenever I try to put an effort to realize what I have dreamt of all the time or whenever it gets real, my whole desire dies so quickly that I start to feel like I have never wanted to do that thing in the first place. Then I try something else that I like and I think I can do it for a living. The same thing happens. I detach from those views and interests.

I used to do this all the time too. I would have (what I thought to be) another fantastic idea, and then it would turn to dust in my hands. In my case, I found out that it was because I was chasing the fantasy that if I just do this one unknown thing, my parents will miraculously love me, and it's been really hard for me to let that go. I'm so sorry this is happening to you.

Quote from: berceuse on September 20, 2017, 09:58:25 PM
I need space in my life and in my head. I need space for loving and caring for my self and for other people. I need space for giving my time and attention to what I want to do. Life is precious and I don't want to live a life full of regrets.

This is such a great attitude. Life is precious. Whenever I self-sabotage, I feel awful, but it helps me to remember that I can just pick up where I left off on my healing journey again. You can too. 

I also really connected with your first post about being a perfectionist. It's such a shame that people made us feel unloveable as we are. We are completely loveable, as is, today, right now. And whatever painful emotion is happening right now, it will pass. Keep your chin up!

Dear Hopeful10,

Quote from: hopeful10 on September 21, 2017, 04:47:01 AM
I used to do this all the time too. I would have (what I thought to be) another fantastic idea, and then it would turn to dust in my hands. In my case, I found out that it was because I was chasing the fantasy that if I just do this one unknown thing, my parents will miraculously love me, and it's been really hard for me to let that go. I'm so sorry this is happening to you.

It is so nice to hear that you broke that painful cycle. It gives me hope.  Similarly, whenever I dreamt of what I want to do, people always love me and appreciate me in the end. That longing for love is so big that I fantasize the whole world will love me for what I did. It is really funny. I have got fantasies about becoming a heroine. I usually don't start the process. I push some button and then it is just like watching a very addictive movie in my mind.  I do not know whether "me" in the fantasies is an impossible ideal me or just some parts of me stuck there. I sometimes feel the second option is also possible because I can feel love, joy, and safety in my fantasies. However, it is too hard for me to feel the love in reality. It brings so much doubt and fear alongside. I am not ready to handle that. I also know I am not a stone-hearted witch because I can show love towards anything on earth (animals, trees, the earth itself, stones, etc.) except for human beings. I do love them of course but it is so hard for me to feel it. Whenever I start to feel something for someone, I torture myself by imagining their death or me being used and manipulated by them in the name of love (which reflects the relation I had with my parents) and the possibility of being manipulated again arouses an irrational fear. Then I start to think I am already worthless and then the emotional hunger comes. Then I start to fantasize again and so on.

Yesterday it occurred to me that my father's death or the lack of mother love are not the only things that I need to grieve. I think that if I let those feelings out and grieve over my losses, I won't be in an anxiety spiral caused by repressed emotions like sadness. However, I never realized what I have lost from my self and I sit and write what I have lost from me and how much I missed them and it made me cry. I will not write them here right now but even feeling sad over a loss is such a nice thing. It is the natural reaction that I would give in the first place. I even missed feeling sadness. It sounds funny when I wrote that down but for quite a long time anxiety and fear were the only accompanies.

-Possible triggers suicidal thoughts-
I am just too sick of being the person I am. I am too tired of dealing with all of these. I can't undo the damage that was done. I am stuck. I promised myself that I will give myself a chance.  I can do so much but all I do is to sit and look at the floor and sink in those feelings that feel like I lie in the bottom of a well. I would not be here at home again if I had not worked with my ex-boss who abused me the same way my mother did. What did I do? I worked for a month for him again although I hated being with him and he still did not pay me. Why did I do that? Because maybe he keeps telling me how much he loves me and how much he needs help and makes fun of me and never takes "no" as an answer. Now I am broke and can't go anywhere and I can't focus on translation for extra money. I sit all day and wait for my sister to come from work. I feel so useless. I also get the weird feeling that my sister likes my pathetic way of lifestyle which reminds me of past feelings and I don't know what are those feelings about. They are just too familiar and I can't define them.
I would like to do so many things. I have so many views about how to live my life and they keep changing and changing and changing all the time. I end up doing nothing because I get too anxious about what to do. When I try to resort to reasoning, it is never there for me. Everything in me is changing in a minute and I have no idea about who I am and what I like.
I just start to be too self-involved and I am afraid that I am just lost. I can't even listen to other people. I can't give them my attention because I am always dealing with my problems. I am afraid that I will end up being an emotional vampire who feeds on other's vitality like my mother. May be she already sucked all the vitality in me. I don't want to end up being my mother but all I am doing is getting closer to it.
I am sorry for being so pessimistic. I just needed to get this out of me. I know I love and care for people here. I don't want anybody to be in pain or to suffer esp because of sb else's mistakes. I used to feel this. I used to emphatize and listen from the heart. I really need to create space for myself. I am a loving person. I am not a cold-hearted, self-involved person. I am tired of feeling like sb else.

Quote from: berceuse on September 23, 2017, 07:24:11 PM

I am sorry for being so pessimistic. I just needed to get this out of me. I know I love and care for people here. I don't want anybody to be in pain or to suffer esp because of sb else's mistakes. I used to feel this. I used to emphatize and listen from the heart. I really need to create space for myself. I am a loving person. I am not a cold-hearted, self-involved person. I am tired of feeling like sb else.

No need to apologize whatsoever berceuse. I am so sorry you are feeling this way, I really am.  I know and understand the darkness and pessimism and thoughts that I would just like the pain to go away.  Personally for me  it has been really helpful to get these thoughts and feelings out into the light of day, and look to others for some care and support rather than isolate and ruminate away on them.  I get a lot of that at OOTS, but part of the reaching out has involved therapy and I wonder if you have that in your life? 

We can't undo the damage I agree, but with the help of a guide (T) we can heal to a degree, and we can learn to live with it in a more integrated way so that it is there but doesn't dominate our sense of self.   

QuoteI promised myself that I will give myself a chance.

Sending you much support and care to help you with your promise,

Kizzie

Hello Kizzie,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feeling sorry for me. It means a lot.
I feel a lot better today. At least not suicidal at all.
Finding this site was revolutionary for me. I really mean it. I was looking at the symptoms of some personality disorders because I thought I was going crazy and needed to be institutionalized. Then I accidentally saw narcissistic abuse and then I found OOTS. I still remember the tingling sensation in my head. OMG, it is not me!
As for your question, I don't have therapy in my life right now. A guidance would be a lot helpful but I am not ready at all to build that kind of trust and open myself that much. Besides, I don't have a stable income. I am having a hard time holding jobs, as well.
I used to have therapy though when I was in university. I still don't remember how long it lasted. Let's say 1,5 years and she never diagnosed me with anything. When I asked, she always said: "I don't work like that" or something like that. She also didn't want me to leave when I wanted to quit therapy many times. I hope I am not telling it wrongly. The sentence sounds a bit excessive when translated. English is not my mother tongue. She was indeed understanding and nice. She was the first person who listened to me. Ironically, my mother took me there in the first place because she thought I needed therapy. Then M, wanted me to quit because there was nothing wrong with me and the T was still seeing me because she wanted to gain more money and would use me for her academic studies. I really don't know what the second sentence means. If nothing is wrong, then why would she write a paper on me? Ridiculous.  She had said sth like that. I really was like a puppet. Then I quit. I still don't know why I stopped seeing her exactly. It might be M undermining my trust to others (she does that a lot), or I was not ready to move further and get too anxious or I felt like I was getting nowhere because of the no-diagnosis policy. It doesn't matter now.

Anyway, so therapy is not an option for me right now. I am not diagnosed with C-PTSD either but when I first read about it in OOTS, I felt like Yes this is exactly what I have been going through for years. It was a huge relief and a shock at the same time. As far as I have read the forum, many felt like this also.
I don't know if M and her M (they raised me if it can be called raising a child) had some kind of personality disorder and I don't want to know at all. They were not very reasonable people and M shows some NPD traits but I really don't want to dig in this subject.

So, I depend on writing here which is really helpful and also reading about the subject. I told about C-PTSD to a close friend of mine and my sister. They listened to me but I guess none of them took it seriously. I mean they don't seem to understand how it is interfering with my life. At least whenever I felt like I am having a life. They just think it is me all the time. Anxious, sensitive and impulsive. So, I don't talk about that much and in times of C-Ptsd related crisis, I don't have anybody to ask for help in physical world but right now I think it is ok.

dear, sweet berceuse, this c-ptsd beast just about does us in at times, i surely can relate to that.  it is so wearing, so exhausting to continue to battle for ourselves, battle against what we were taught about ourselves that doesn't allow us to see the beauty, grit, and glory of who we really are.

it tears me up at times, brings me to my knees at times, and enrages me as well.  this just is not right.

i'll be seeing a t this week with trepidation.  i've had so many bad experiences with them, but i know i need some help.  she's supposed to be versed in trauma - we'll see how far that goes.  i'm guarded.

happily, this forum has been a life-saver for me in all this time i've either had no t or incompetence to deal with.  all my years of therapy/counseling, and i've never been diagnosed correctly, either.  generalized anxiety at the most, but never have i ever been seen as being traumatized and what needs to be done to overcome that.

so, much of my progress has been thru reading and writing, and absorbing as much as i can the care and concern and understanding i've found here.  hang tough, berceuse - i'm hangin' right beside you.  sending you a hug filled with love, care, and compassion for what you've gone thru. 

Dear sanmagic7,
Just after I wrote in your journal I saw this so I can say here again I am so happy that you feel better and I am sorry that I did not write before. Inner critic was beating me up about my attempt to reach to others  :stars:
I can't imagine how wearing it was with all different docs and wrong diagnosis. I know that you have so much strength because you get up and try again and again. I really look up to you. I am not saying this for just to say nice things. I really mean it.

Quote from: sanmagic7 on September 24, 2017, 08:56:00 PM
i'll be seeing a t this week with trepidation.  i've had so many bad experiences with them, but i know i need some help.  she's supposed to be versed in trauma - we'll see how far that goes.  i'm guarded.

I hope this goes well for you.

Yes, this forum was a life-saver for me, too.  Now, I know what I am going through and I have you and many people here beside me. I can't tell what a big relief it is. Feeling so alone in that mess was killing me.
Hugs to you too.
:hug:

pooh to your inner critic.  you have just as much right, and so much to give by reaching out to the rest of us.  i so appreciate your kind words and thoughts, berceuse, and very very glad to know that you don't feel alone in this mess (ain't that the truth!) anymore.

you're as valuable here as anyone else, and your thoughts and opinions are just as valid.  take that! inner critic!!  a pox on thee.  (i'm not a fan of inner critics - too stifling.)  i'm so glad you're here and that you do continue to reach out.  it makes a wonderful difference.  thank you.   a big hug filled with love and caring to you.

QuoteI was looking at the symptoms of some personality disorders because I thought I was going crazy and needed to be institutionalized. Then I accidentally saw narcissistic abuse and then I found OOTS. I still remember the tingling sensation in my head. OMG, it is not me!

That is exactly what happened to me and how I felt too Berceuse!  I stumbled into Out of the FOG and found out about NPD and then there was a post by someone about Pete Walker's work and I went there and voila, all the pieces fell right into place.  Such a relief (but so scary too).  I'm not seeing a T right now either by the way, I only mentioned it because I thought it might help if you hadn't considered it, but you have and know where you're at with it.  We learn pretty quickly how important it is to go at our own pace and it sounds like being here is what you need right now so  :thumbup:.

I agree with San (who is too funny isn't she?), pooh to your ICr!!  You can also tell him/her from me  to "Pipe the heck down!" :blahblahblah:

Yes, I certainly agree with "going at our own pace" that and finding here that people get through the similar things -like the way you felt when you stumbled upon OOTS- is a bliss. It was so hard when I thought I was the only one. Of course, it was a delusion.

I usually fail to see how I force myself to heal which results in "not healing". 

I try to change the core things about me and then I talk about self-love. How can I love myself when I try so hard to change everything? The fact is I don't like myself the way I am. Not at all. I don't see the trauma as a part of me. I just see it as sth to get rid of.
I actually hate that I was traumatized. I can't accept it. I am at a war with myself. I think that I can remove it from me like it is a weed. Then I will be me, I will love myself, and people will love me. No. It won't work like that. This is the exact opposite of love. Love is unconditional and it does not make you wanna kill yourself.
I managed to survive in an environment which is the opposite of nurturing. If I had a child, I surely would not leave her where I grew up and child me did her best to survive. I should be grateful to her. I can't blame a child or hate her. It is inhuman.  The trauma was the result of sth inevitable. It was a reaction.  It is a part of me now.  I can't force myself to change. Change is eventually inevitable but forcing change is not a way to do it.
I don't wanna be at war with myself anymore. I am too tired. I don't want to chase a fantasy-an ideal me- perfect me-whatever its name is.
I am imperfect and not the person who I want to be. I think I can be OK with that. I can let the things flow at their own pace.
 

i truly believe, berceuse, that if we do allow ourselves to go at our own pace, that is a change in itself, one that is not forced.  patience with ourselves, with the way our recovery goes, with the ups and downs and sideways of it, is a huge change, but again, one that is not forced.  it just eventually shows up as we practice something new and different for ourselves.

if what you really want is to be the healthiest you possible, then your efforts will go into learning about, realizing, adding and subtracting everything that is or isn't healthy for you.  it's a process rather than a battle, something that flows from within us (maybe a bit roughly at times, but that's just part of the process) and produces results. 

you are basically a good person - it shows.  you want the best for yourself, which is not a bad thing.  i think sometimes we get mixed messages about what's important for us to 'be' and what isn't.  i was programmed to be perfect - it turns out that's not in my best interests, it's not healthy for me.  little by little, with practice and perseverance, i've learned to accept more easily the imperfectness of me.

yeah, i know that feeling of exhaustion that comes from battling everyone and most everything i was taught in order to be who i really am.  i like her, and i'm glad i found her.  your real you is just buried, but that you is there and is good enough.  you're making progress - it shows.  you'll get there, you'll find the you who already is, and you'll discover that 'you' is not so bad.   best to you, always.  it'll happen.  big hug.

Hey sanmagic,
Thank you for kind words and comments. Yes, it is "a change in itself". This is a very nice way of putting it.

I am in a phase where I can't tell anything about myself because it changes every day. I can't write a cover letter for a job application because I can't say anything for sure. Bonus, saying nice things is really hard. the things I have done before- I feel as if I was not the one who did those things. I am not sure whether what I am talking about makes sense.
I also have a weird feeling (since childhood maybe) that I am doing sth in a wrong and ridiculous way and everyone knows how to do it except me. I really can't tell this with words. It is a weird feeling but soo familiar.

Right now I have no "self". I am even having a hard time writing and talking. I don't know what part is in charge of me but I feel totally disconnected. I don't know where I buried real me either.

Maybe this is my inner child. She refuses to talk with me and when I think about her, the image is a small child in a white dress living in a very dark and muddy basement, with no windows. The only thing in the room is an old, dirty bed. I don't know what mud symbolizes but I used to see that kind of places (muddy and dark) in my dreams. I can get nervous around children because I have a belief that they won't like me. I even feel panicky. I also have an affectionate, motherly voice but I just can't reach her when I need. She just comes, says some wise things and goes. 

What resonates most with me to explain this chaos in my self or in my brain is actually "chaos theory" and "self-organization". Especially the self-organization;

"Self-organization, also called spontaneous order (in the social sciences), is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process is spontaneous, not needing control by any external agent. It is often triggered by random fluctuations, amplified by positive feedback."

I am not a mathematician or physicist and I even did not read the subject properly. This is just a quote from Wikipedia but whenever I read this, I feel like "Yes, that initially disordered system is me." My learning process is so similar to this. I mean when I start to learn something new I fail to understand or hold anything in my mind for quite a long time (even for years) and then something clicks suddenly and I learn the subject.  However, for example, it is hard for me to teach somebody because I never understand how I learned in the first place.

I don't remember why I am talking about this or what was my point. I guess it just makes sense to me and I wanted to keep it here.

Anyway, the post is also a total disorder but this is a journal. So, it is OK.

Tomorrow I have a job interview. I hope I can feel like an adult again until then. It happens from time to time. I act like a child in the interview or just sabotage myself (I talk about my dreams - that I actually want to do sth else. I only want the job for money so that I can do sth else. Of course, I get rejected and the good thing is that "sth else" always changes.  :pissed: Once, I remember telling the employer I am too small to do that. I don't remember what was the case but it was totally inappropriate. :fallingbricks: )

Maybe I am overinterpreting but I have a weird feeling that my sister belittles me because of my efforts to be independent financially. When I said I'm going to have a job interview tomorrow, her tone of voice and smile reminded me of mother or it is just me who expects eagerly to see me fail. So I project it onto others.

When I moved out-I was away from home for four months- and I was having sleep problems and anxiety attacks, my sister told me it is because I like being with family and a tidy, nice house and my sleep deprivation was because of those reasons and I don't understand why I am anxious. I thought she was right and I did not understand where those feelings came from. Ironically, our family home was usually untidy and dirty and I am feeling a lot worse since I got back. At least I had a piece of life there. 

M does this "infantilization" thing a lot. Like, when she told me "What privacy are you talking about? A child can't have a private life." I was 24 when she told me that and the only thing I did was not saying what I bought from the market or when she laughed in a humiliating way when I told her I need to see a gynecologist and I was 20 sth. That laugh really carries a lot more meaning.

I feel so incompetent and it is like that feeling "I have a defect but I don't know what it is and I am different from my peers and can't-do the same things they do-or just feeling inferior or smaller(age) than friends" This is an EF I guess. I hate feeling like this. It feels so true but it is wrong.

I hate those beliefs my own family inflicted on me and now they don't even need to do anything further. I continue from where they left. Thanks for raising a self-destructive machine but I will do anything to not let that happen. I deserve to be my authentic self and I deserve to be an independent, strong woman. Just being human gives enough reason to do those things. I am saying this in case I get into another self-loathing, "I don't deserve this" kind of phase.

I just feel so hopeless, small, humiliated and alone. I have that choking sensation in my throat. I know this is a flashback. It was in the past but it is like a giant snowball rolling and rolling and the past becomes now.
When I was a child I used to hold onto my dreams. I imagined that they lied me about my father's death and he would come and take me. It took me 10 years to accept that he died and I was in a delusion. It really shattered me at the time that I was waiting for a dead person.

I don't want to hold onto future again but now is not stable and safe enough, either. I need to get myself on my feet. I really need to build a safe place for me. Both inside and out. I just don't know what to do. I don't know where my dreams come from. Each time I follow them they turn into nothing.

When I took a job that I am not interested, I get so overwhelmed and quit. I do translation but it is far far away from being enough to live on my own economically. I can try to move into a village again and may end up more isolated than I ever am or not. No. Isolation is actually here. Here is too triggering for me. I don't want to do it here.

Things change so quickly in me and I need something stable to hold onto. A daily routine at least.

It is such a misfortune that I keep the most beautiful emotions locked inside me. I managed to hide them in a really nice place.  I missed my emotions so much. I missed feeling alive. I am so tired of reliving the past again and again and again.
I realized that writing an inner dialog is easier than simply pouring out my thoughts or emotions. So far, I discovered 6-7 different voices inside me. I still can't talk with IC. I think this healing process will be a long grievance. I can cry for the loss of safety, attachment, love, self-esteem, joy, and trust. I can visit the underworld to bring them back. I think that is what I am already doing because where I am, feels more like the underworld. This is how most stories begin. The hero/heroine loses sth that is precious to her. Then she leaves her ordinary life and goes on an adventure to look for it. She faces many challenges, wins the big battle, passes the threshold and turns back home as a whole different person.  This is much more fun. Maybe I can make up a story for myself.

Quote from: berceuse on March 12, 2017, 09:08:57 PM
***POSSIBLE TRIGGERS ***
Hello,
Well, this is my first attempt to keep an online journal.  I hope it turns out better than some parts of me expected. Even right now I have that non-stop critic and perfectionist that constantly try to guess other people's opinion of me  (which are either too nice or too humiliating) and make me read the sentences over and over again and telling me I have too much flaws to be a perfectionist and my writing will probably be full of mistakes and unworthy of reading.
However, I'll keep on because I know that I am entitled to share my experience, feelings, opinions, etc. because I am a human being. It is sad that it took me so long to realize that I am only human and talking about myself is pretty, pretty and pretty normal and nothing to be ashamed of and I like making mistakes because it is a great way to learn if you realize them.
Okay, I feel better now. To be your own mother is great  :) .
I wanted to write about this feeling I had these days. I feel as if I abandoned myself. I think I still spend too much time to keep imaginary perfect me (or just real me?) alive inside. It is like my whole dreams and the shiny, talkative, happy, funny me living in a very, very distant land inside me and on the outside I have that frozen, reckless, "I don't care about anything" me.  However, I actually do care too much and I am not in a very nice phase of my life (in terms of financial independence and a lot of stuff).
I feel like I am waiting for some magical power to come and do everything for me. I keep reminding myself it is time to realize you are an adult but I still depend on my childhood coping mechanisms, too much. I  feel shattered and away from myself and frozen and it is scary. It just seems too hard at times and I just want to give up, but I can't because I promised myself that I am going to try. 
I think I just need to accept the fact that recovery is really a slow process. I need to be patient and do my best to be real me because I don't want to feel like a frozen clone of me, anymore.

Hi!  I totally empathize with what you are feeling and describing here.  I too am an adult who is having trouble functioning on my own and with finances.  Being frozen is the cptsd coping mechanism I have gained as well, and I definitely know what it feels like to just want to give up.  I have some really helpful tools for healing that I have found over the years (before I knew I had cptsd) and am using them now to heal.  I'd be happy to share them with you if you are interested.  Good luck, and remember you are not alone!

berceuse, i love the idea of making up a story for yourself.  life is a set of adventures, really, and we continue to go from one to another, learning as we go,  making changes from what we've learned.  we are the heroes of our own stories, of that there is no doubt.

i continue to see progress in you.  i hope you can see it as well.  you're not where you were, not as flustered, not as scattered, like you're slowly pulling your pieces together.  you'll find yourself in there, too.  big hug, lots of love to you.

ajvander86,
Thank you, I would love to hear your tools, methods for healing. At this stage, I guess I am trying to accept that the trauma is there and will be there. I can't do much to live 25 years old's life,  I mean my life now. So, I would appreciate hearing how you proceed with your own life.

sanmagic7,
I guess I'm progressing. I mostly thought I needed to get rid of these feelings (the EFs), hated them and pushed them back and then hated myself even more. Just now, I understand that those feelings needed to be lived and felt. Repressing and sedating myself with excessive imagination was what I used to do when I was living them but it does not help for healing. So, I just try to accept, understand and be patient which is hard but quite helpful. I am learning about C-PTSD for a year but I just start to realize now what an EF is and why I am having it.

This morning, I woke up and felt stuck, helpless and angry. I don't know what was the trigger. Maybe this house itself or some furniture from the old house. I don't know. I started to imagine having a fight, running away and going no contact and some suicidal intentions in between. It was so real. Then I understood this was what I used to feel when I was a teenager. I don't need to run away. I can leave the front door whenever I want. I am 25, not 15. I tried to talk and calm my 15-year-old self. It actually worked apart from reminding the fact that I still did not get my paycheck from the last job and am completely broke. So, I can't leave now even if I wanted to.  At least 20 publishing house ignored my job applications. Although my classmate from the same undergrad studies managed to get an answer by applying less than 20. So, that feeling of -sth is completely wrong and defective about me, I wrote stupid things in e-mails and  I am not aware of them because I am too ignorant to understand that I made some vital mistakes- is here again. This sounds funny when written down but it is such a strong belief. I feel incompetent, defective and stupid. Last night, I could not complete an application because of that. It is so hard when some part of me is so eager to see me fail. Anyway, I will try again.

I have been going through little storms, I mean there are too many ups and downs in one day that they felt like a storm to me. The mornings are especially the worst. Night time is quite better if I manage to stay awake. I feel at peace. Less or no destructive thoughts.

***Trigger warning***
The downs go to the limits of suicidal ideation. The thoughts like I am incompetent, defective, not made to live in this World, it is impossible that sth good will come out of me, ı will always live in isolation bcs no one can like me. Esp the isolation. It hurts too much but I somehow believe I deserve it. The core belief is that no one is going to like me the way I am. That's why I prefer to stay isolated and of course, it makes everything worse. 
Additionally, the things like you think you are too important, you are exaggerating, you are self-absorbed. You enjoy it. Your external life is so dull-which is true-, you have so much free time- true again- so you worry about yourself. You are lazy and empty, etc.  The classical weapons that part use to hit me.
The thing is I don't like this process. I do it because I had to do. I had to look inside me to see what is going on because I could not go on with my life. I would rather be living fully rather than being stuck and doing all this work. Any human being would prefer living their life fully.
***end***

The ups- talking about CPTSD, reading about CPTSD, opening myself more, talking about how I feel - actually how I can't feel most of the time, receiving help (any kind of), being vulnerable, trying to sit with the emotions that come with an EF, recognizing an EF, deep breathing (it is hard for me to breath deeply bcs ı feel sth is stuck and I can't breathe in further than shallow ones but sometimes I catch myself breathing in a relaxed body, full breaths that make the belly pump out), actually enjoying my time with people whom I conceptually know that I love, less hyperhidrosis (which is a result of overworking sympathetic nervous system)

I am getting better. One step at a time. The things like social life, doing the things I want /job or anything/, a little bit of consistency with wants and passions or simply having one, love and joy, they will come. 

Sorry for the terrible grammar and punctuation.

I guess what hurt me most was isolation and I keep repeating it myself over and over. Detached from others, detached from myself; just floating in the void. Going out scares me because I need approval and validation all the time even from people I do not know. My fantasy world is based on shortly, doing x and getting the approval of y. Y can be anyone and x can be anything. and this brings a lot of fear of rejection. I have no sense of self. The things I thought I wanted to do, are there because I believe them to be a source of approval, love, and validation. My sense of self is shaped by others' views. So, the things I followed and gave up on in a minute.. Probably none of them is my want or need. This is terrible. I have got nothing inside. I always thought I want to do so many things and they keep changing and give me panic feelings, as a result. No. This is * terrible. I am completely empty. No feelings. No wants. Nothing.

***possible triggers***
I do not know what to write. Whenever I think that I am getting better, I end up getting lost. I don't think this is an EF. It feels like I am on a helicopter, flying over a terribly ruined area after a natural disaster and trying to make a report about the damage. It resembles the setting in my nightmares: a completely destroyed, muddy, colorless, desolated ruins of a city. I don't know why my inner world has such a post-apocalyptic image. This sounds cheesy but it suits. I don't have much to tell about trauma. I am not sexually or physically abused. I don't remember a specific incident(s) to talk about but I have been ignored to the point that I felt non-existent and non-human. I also do not remember it but I know the feeling quite well. Now, my whole system is pushing me to live that non-existence because I am that. I am not resisting or angrily defending myself against that system which tells me I am dead and I deserve dead people's life which means no life. I actually agree with being nothing. Nothing defines me.

Why am I writing this? Most of the time I write with the expectation of somebody loving and admiring me, in return. I don't like it but the expectation is always there. Maybe, it is the reason. No, it is not the reason. I write because I need to share what is in my mind. The reason is not approval but the expectation always is.

I used to think I will be a great X then everyone will like me to the point of admiration. X depends on the trigger of movie-like daydreams. Being a sculptor was one of the repetitive ones and I thought it was my real desire. I am drawing and painting on and off since my childhood. The off's can be quite long and I ended up developing nothing professional. Sculpting was relatively new. I attended some courses in school and I discovered I spent my time in a trance-like state while doing it. I could spend hours doing or thinking about what I was going to do and especially the daydreams gave me thrill. However, "the interaction with human beings" part was too much for me and has always been.  I am really sensitive about not being a part of something and I usually cannot be a part because of that. The core belief is that no one is going to like you because you have got nothing to offer. I am scared that everyone is going to see how empty I am. As far as I have observed, the average human interaction consists of memories of past incidents, gossip about the third person, love life and current agenda. Unfortunately, the longest conversation I can do is probably about my obsessive examination of the self which turned out to be nothing indeed. I have no proper past memories. I don't remember how I used to spend time with family, friends. No funny games, no adventures. I only kept a record of other family members' fun memories as they told me over and over. No gossip. The first reason is I don't like it. The second one is, I am so unaware of my surroundings that the probability of me not knowing the third person is 98%. Yes, no love life of course. I am ashamed of the possibility of sb liking me or me liking sb in a romantic way. The last one, you can't build a friendship on world/county agenda which is ironically terror and inhumanity most of the time. So, what should I talk with people? I discovered two years ago that I was not crazy indeed and it changed my life and now I am struggling because I probably did not develop a self.  :applause:  What a fun way to start conversations! Most of the time, isolation seems like the only choice.

When outside validation is all we have, that's what we seek. I do this too. I'm working on inwardly validating myself, giving myself the freedom to be imperfect, and cleaning up that desolate inner landscape that I have, too.  :hug:

Thank you Three Roses,
I need to try self-validation, too. I am just trying so hard to fit in. I mean to fit into other people's definition of acceptable, nice, successful person; particularly, people whom I care about. It is related to codependency, I guess. I am doing it a lot: trying to change myself so hard because the way I am is unacceptable. This also means that I don't accept myself the way I am. So, I get lost a lot.  I am trying so hard to stop constant daydreaming which is the way how I think about everything. I do this because I need to be realistic, I need to go out with my friends on a regular basis, I need to have a hobby, I need to have a boyfriend, I need to get into a 9-5 job with a good salary, I need to talk more, I need to be funny,  outgoing, beautiful, hardworking... No! I don't need to be anything more than who I am right now. I like daydreaming and thinking about endless possibilities. It is how I think. I don't care about not being a social, popular person. I have never been and it is OK. I never had a boyfriend or anything similar to a relationship. This is Ok, too. Most of the time, I love being alone. I don't need to be constantly occupied with something "efficient". I quit many jobs. I don't make even the half of the money my friends do. I don't need to. I don't even have a credible plan for future. I mostly act upon impulse and feelings. Maybe, this is better for me, now. I don't think I am wasting my time. I don't need to be sorry or anxious for doing what I like. I can give myself permission to feel what I feel, to do what I like. If I still feel so sad by not being loved by my mother, then I need to feel sad. I am not weak or stupid bcs of that. If I still feel very angry, then this means I need to be angry. Time does not invalidate my right to be angry. Writing this is hard for me. I start to feel frozen. 

Giving myself permission to feel what I feel. Today, I am going out with my friends from university and I am wearing something colorful. I usually wear black, grey, dark colors etc. The thing or feeling? that come to me is that I will look ridiculous and I will feel humiliated because of the color of my pants. No one is going to like it. Then I will be sad. So, I won't be funny or entertaining anymore. Then they will not talk to me because I will be nothing if I am not funny.  I have never known I feel that insecure. I will not try to prove how meaningless this is with reason. It obviously is but I feel that way. At least, a part of me feels that way. I wonder how many times I got rejected for trying to be myself.

berceuse, i wouldn't doubt that you have rejected yourself far more than anyone else rejected you.  we were trained well to take up the banner of someone else's beliefs and make them our own.  and how terribly difficult it is at times to lay that banner down, burn it, and be done with it.

i give you so much credit for wearing what you want instead of what you think might be 'acceptable' to someone else.  i see so much progress there.  same goes for knowing that your feelings are valid and you have a right to feel them.  i hope you enjoy your day.  big hug filled with love and warm acceptance.

Hi Sanmagic7,

Thank you for seeing progress in me. I did have a nice day. Just writing what I felt worked really good.

"i wouldn't doubt that you have rejected yourself far more than anyone else rejected you"

I guess you are right about this. It is not easy to see this at all; I mean how I carry on the pattern once it was programmed as a default system. This is just disgusting. I feel angry but I feel angrier, guilty or uneasy perhaps for starting to take care of my self/soul. I just realized this. I feel so uneasy (I am not sure about the word that defines the feeling-that uncomfortable heavy feeling in stomach and heart that tells you sth is wrong). Exactly! That was the voice in my head, I am doing it all wrong. I am doing sth wrong. I feel this since I start to pay attention to what I feel or ask myself questions like what do you need. Hahaha. I am really laughing. I feel so guilty for trying to understand my needs and feelings.  :aaauuugh:  My body is warning me with those feelings because I am trying to leave the predefined territory.  This is a big realization for me.

Yesterday, I came to another city in my hometown to do some voluntary work in nature.  I don't know if I am doing this bcs I am interested or just for running away from EF's, terrible ups and downs each day. The emotional storms subside outside that city where I stay with my sister but I also feel frozen and detached here. I know I am interested in nature and wildlife but I just feel so detached.

Anyway, the good part is, I spent half an hour taking photographs of trees and plants. I really felt that I am focusing on sth. It was nice. I talked with the owner of the land and the subject somehow came to trauma and body and homeopathy. I talked a little bit about the "the body keeps the score".
I am not knowledgeable about homeopathy but the idea of body's healing itself makes sense to me. They also specialize in medicinal plants. I hope I can start to feel less frozen and more open to learning sth.

I wanted to write down here sth that happened and I think I see it as success/progress.
I am very inclined to get closer? to people who show narcissistic traits. In short, I end up putting their emotions, wants, needs, interests over mine and become a servant to them. I slowly lose my sense of self. This kind of pattern started with mother and then continued with a friend and a boss. Maybe there are more that I did not recognize yet. The relationship usually begins with their acting me as if I am the most special person on earth. I don't want to go into details right now. So the thing is the landowner of the farm in which I am a volunteer had a similar approach with me. He acted as if he is a master and I am the chosen follower of his teachings. It was really like that and I opened myself again telling how weak and alone I am. He was like I am going to heal you just give me your time and he separated me from the rest of the volunteers and even told me he doesnt like some of them because of blabla. (ıt is very similar in all four relations I had before). He was also a little bit touchy and that made me really uncomfortable. I just realized it now. Ugh. So the thing is I felt frozen and uneasy, not knowing why. Then when I was lying in bed at night something clicked for me. I attract narcissists a lot. I was not sure. I am still not sure. A part of me is always second-guessing. Then for the first time in my life I decided to choose to stay within a group rather than being an outsider or an easy bait?  and it went well and I learnt that actually many volunteers do not like him much. They say he acts like a dictator sometimes. I still mostly feel frozen but not uncomfortable or uneasy. I think I broke a cycle. A part of me says Oh you are trusting yourself too much but I think I am right about this.

This sounds like a definite change in pattern for you!! Yay!  :cheer:

i think you are right, too.

i've learned that narcissists, like any predator, will always go for the young, the weak and the vulnerable.  i can definitely see that in many of my relationships.  staying with the 'herd', as it were, will give you more strength and protection.   well done, sweetie.  that is a major realization for you, and i'm so happy you were able to come to it.

sending you a big hug full of love and awareness.

Thank you ThreeRoses and Sanmagic. I think I made a right decision.
Sometimes I feel so dead inside and I need to push myself to act like I am alive. I think I need to make some decisions about the course of my life. What do I want to do? Where do I want to live? These are big questions for me but I feel the need to be back on track again. I don't know how to do this. I don't know what to focus on right now. If I want to focus on healing, the city and a regular job is not a good option and it is obvious that I cant manage them both before my previous experiences. Besides, I need to be doing sth in my real life. It has been 1 and a half years since my graduation and I need something stable, something to hold onto because it makes everything worse. At least, I don't want to have so much worries about my real life. So, getting back on track is also necessary for healing. I am going to think about the options.

hey, berceuse,

if i may suggest, how about starting with something small?  city and job are awfully big subjects.  could you think of something that would be positive for you, that would still be heading you back on track, only in a smaller way?  maybe to incorporate some routine or daily ritual that has a healing effect on you and helps you see options in a clearer way.

just a thought.  i know this stuff can be a struggle to the nth degree.  i wish you all the best.  i think, actually, that taking time to think about it is a step in the right direction itself.  sending you a hug filled with clarity and decisiveness.

Hello Sanmagic,
Thank you for your suggestions, I always appreciate them and any other comment.
I am thinking about what you said and you are really right about starting with something small otherwise I usually end up in an anxiety spiral.
Maybe, I can start the day with 10 min meditation. The mornings are especially the hardest part of the day for me. My mind immediately throws itself into negative thought loops and it usually sets the mood of the day. Meditation in the morning can give me some control over that.
For the more future-oriented plans, I am thinking about making some research on grad schools. Previously, I got too overwhelmed and gave up on it but this time I will just do it to see what area of study is interesting to me. Lists and application are the next steps if I am really interested in it. If I am not, then I will think about other possibilities.

I wish you all the best.

I think the knowledge of what I am recovering from will make everything more clear for me. I am recovering from narcissistic abuse. It was not easy to accept this. The first thing that got me here, OOTS, was also narc abuse. The pieces fit.

The best part of volunteering is, whenever I do it, I meet a lot of nice people. Whenever I take a step out of my ordinary life and the city, it returns with some rewards (a new friend, a realization, trust...). I think there are a lot of nice people here and out there with whom I can be vulnerable. Starting my life with people who undermines my trust to people, the world, myself is not my fault. I can rewrite this. I still got that gut feeling that shows me when someone does not carry good intentions. It is weak but it will grow stronger slowly as I choose to listen to them. This process does not need to be a fight against myself. It is a journey in which I will make some choices towards finding my authentic voice despite the pattern which was initially formed for my survival. I don't need to fight with anything. I know I'll find my way.

berceuse, to me, your last 2 posts show a lot of progress, like your adult you is coming to the fore and looking at your situation more realistically.  kudos to you, sweetie.  i'm really, really glad for you. 

i really like your idea about starting your day in a grounding way for yourself.  i like having a routine for myself as well.  it feels like it has a stabilizing effect.  and i think this new/different approach to grad schools has a very positive light to it.  it's like you're finding a pace that suits you, one that you can manage, and isn't that what we all need?  something individual, personal, our very own.

sending you a hug filled with love and encouragement.  you'll get to where you want to go, of that i have no doubt.

I don't want to lose track of time and sometimes writing here is a lot easier for me than writing in my written journal and/or in my mother tongue. So, the adult me is sometimes there. She does the planning, calms me down and goes. Which part am I now? I feel frozen. When I ask the age, the answer is 12. My vision is blurry. I feel distant. Ok. This is a protection. From what am I protecting myself? From which memories or feelings attached to that memories? I feel like crying but I dont know the reason. Maybe, I dont need to know. A part of me feels deeply sad. She does. My upper back has been hurting a lot since 2-3 weeks. I think they are related somehow.
It is so loud here. I am now in another city, volunteering. I stayed in the last place for a week and now plan to stay here for two. I want to talk about this because I think it is related to my healing. The job but it is so loud.I cant even hear my own thoughts.

 :hug: Standing with you, berceuse.

that is a lot of hard work you're doing, digging down into the depths of everything.  well done, my dear.  i've done that kind of thing myself, and, while it can be tough, it's also been extremely helpful to me to fit all those pieces together.

i don't doubt there's a connection.  you'll find it, of that i'm sure.   supporting you all the way.  big hug full of determination and love.

Thank you Threeroses and Sanmagic,
I feel so tired but I also want to write. I want to know how I spend my days, how I feel, what I think... I want to know my parts. I think I don't need to be perfect or sb else to gain the trust of my parts.
When I first encountered OOTS, I also started Peter Garlech's parts work. Then I quit but inner family systems still make sense to me.
I can't quite tell the difference between managers and protectors. I don't know the managers. Protectors protect the most vulnerable parts of me. I read sth like this in "Body keeps the score". The exiles are the most vulnerable parts/feelings. Love, joy, trust, sadness.

Whenever I want to get closer to sb (incl. myself?), I start imaginary conversations. They are mostly like pop quizzes. If s/he asks this, how should I answer, what should I tell about myself, is s/he going to like it, then I start to imagine their reactions. I do this most of the day. It is so tiring. I always try to get ready for possible exams/ try to guess reactions and what am I going to say, in return. I am so tired of this. I don't have that much energy now to always be ready for unexpected attacks. Maybe, this is also a protection. My capacity to love and connect lies underneath.  I am not sure. The core idea is that they won't like me the way I am. If I don't give the right answer, they won't like me, I will get hurt again.

Second thing is that when I try to let myself be vulnerable enough to get help, I become so aggressive and angry. I have seen this in a number of cases with my sister. When I want to trust people enough to get help, the idea connotates with giving upon my control over myself. I start to feel like a captive but the reality is she only helps me preparing my luggage because I asked her to do so. Aggressiveness protects me from putting trust in others.

o, berceuse, i've done those imaginary conversations to death!  funny thing i discovered is that no matter how many scenarios i went over in my head, the reality never even came close.  as i've eliminated unhealthy people from my life, i've found that i haven't needed to put all that time and energy into pseud-conversations.  having relationships with healthier people seems to have dissolved all that head-banging.

i don't know much about the parts in us - haven't delved much in that direction - but i'm all for anything that helps someone make sense and find some peace.  sending you a big hug, sweetie.

Thank you Sanmagic,
They never come up true indeed.
**might be triggering**
I was watching Lisa A. Romano's videos about narcissistic mothers. At some point, she said something like they take a happy child and make them miserable. It resonated with me. M did that a lot esp when my friends came over. She was loving,  cheerful, funny mother, a great cook. So perfect that all of my friends always told me how lucky I am. I thought so too but never felt it. In the meantime she would hit the most vulnerable parts with so-called jokes or emotional shows. I cant count how many times she talked about my dad's death and grandmother's Alzheimer when my friends came over to us. She knew how much distressed I felt about those subjects. She knew it made me so uncomfortable, filled with tears in the table but she was such a good-hearted woman who passed through so many unfortunate things. She did but I was there with her too. She never realized it. I even remember a sarcastic smile on her face when she saw me getting sad.
And gaslighting too. Ugh. I thought I was going crazy. I remember telling the therapist that I might be lying before I tell sth. I was warning her. I couldnt believe my own sincerety about my own thoughts, feelings. How much I doubted myself!

I am afraid that I am not healthy enough to be in a healthy relationship. I believe that a healthy relationship with healthy people requires me listening to them and them listening to me. I dont have that much of space. Maybe, it is not a matter of space. I don't know. I feel so tired and am afraid of harming people.

I feel really depressed today. My voluntary work here will be over in 16th. I dont want to go back home. I am also so very tired of human interaction. I need some time alone. I feel dead inside and very tired. I know this is not depression. I am not suicidal. I dont want to go from one place to another, not holding onto anything, not feeling anything. I need one simple room that belongs to me and some time alone to heal. I feel too incapable and weak to provide those things. I feel like a retard. I * hate this. My mental capacity is hijacked by my past of which I * don't remember anything. That's why it looks like a beast. I need to know what I passed through so that I can say this, that happened and now I am okay. It passed. I can move on. I * cant move on. I dont have my feelings. I dont have my memories. I am one big grey cold rock. Heavy and dead. I feel like that. It won't last long like this. I dont want to live like this. If I go on like this, ı am gonna collapse at some point. Even collapsing is better than this.
It is good that some part of me is still trying to do something but I dont feel anything or do I? I dont feel some emotions not all of them. I feel anger but not expressing it and occasionally I feel fear and very rarely sadness. A part of me keeps on living ie doing sth, trying new things (as a solution?) but I dont live what I am doing. It is just on the surface.

dear, sweet berceuse,  it sounds like the slump you're in is just that - a slump.  we've all been there, and they suck.  i'm just glad you can recognize that you'll make it thru.  i think that's a really good sign.

are you holding back your feelings?  or is it just something like you don't have enough energy right now to deal with them.  either way, it can be irritating, just banging on the back of your brain, or maybe just scratching back there.  it keeps letting you know they're there, even if you can't bring them forward at the moment.   

they'll come out when you're ready.  it sounds like you just need some time and space right now for yourself.  it's a rough journey at times, this recovery stuff.  keep the faith.  sending a hug filled with support and love.

What does healing mean for me? Where am I now? Thinking about healing makes me future-oriented but not in a realistic way. Healing is not a future goal to attain. It is a long process happening now. So, there won't be an ideal me without C-PTSD in the future. This point of view makes me see myself (me in now) as a useless step to go through while proceeding towards the ideal.
Healing means to be able to feel what I feel, to know what I know, to be integrated. It won't happen in an uncertain time in the future. It is a process, not a salvation. So, every day matters because it gives me a chance to witness my feelings and thoughts. Even if some of them are very dark, they are just a part of me. They deserve to be seen and heard by me.
***triggering***
dear Sanmagic, I think the last time was an EF. Something a volunteer said (a joke) triggered me. It led to one of the core beliefs that I am not suitable to live, there is something inherently wrong with me. That hopelessness made me think of suicide as a reasonable option. It had happened before, it will happen again probably.

those are core beliefs,indeed.   fundamentally challenging your right to exist. 

i agree with you about healing being a process.  i don't know that it will ever fully 'end' for me.  i'm just hoping that i will eventually be able to whittle this beast down to the size of a puppy, some size where, altho it might be a bit of a bother at times, it will be more manageable.

as far as our right to exist, i guess i just believe i wouldn't be here if i didn't have that fundamental right.  i would have never existed.  as it is, i do, so it must be what it is, and i can only do the best with it as i can.  i know that might be a bit existential, but does it make any sense to you?   i believe you deserve to exist because you already do.

sending a big hug filled with clarity and love.

Thank you Sanmagic for your answer.
I think I may need help. I can't write down everything here. I can't talk about certain depressive things to people. Loneliness is a real setback. I feel like I need to hide how depressed I feel inside. I think this point of view is related to the trauma. Maybe not. I wonder if sadness and hopelessness are really communicable feelings to somebody except therapy and forms of art. They feel like a forbidden zone to me. When you get closer to the hopelessness side of that line, you need to pretend fine because no one wants to hear it. Even sadness. No one wants to talk about that.
What does truly connecting with someone mean? Letting know what is really going on inside, who you really are. Is it possible?

maybe you do need help, sweetie.  maybe that's the only way you can let out those deepest, darkest feelings and find a positive connection.  since i haven't had a competent t for so long, i've taken the chance and let out that crapola here on this forum.  it was my only place.

i'm glad i did - it worked well for me, and i do feel connections with people here.  maybe it wouldn't work for you.  i don't know.  it's something so very personal that you're the only one who can make that decision.  i do know that i wouldn't be put off by any of your dark feelings.  i do believe they are caused by the trauma. 

depression may need the help of a professional, maybe even meds to get you thru it.  are you seeing someone?  is that an option for you? 

i hope you know that whatever you choose, i totally support you.  this recovery gig is so very individual, and we all have to figure out the best way for our healing to continue.  sending you a hug filled with tenderness and acceptance and love.

I hope the forum can be a therapeutic outlet for you, where you feel you can say exactly how you're feeling. Hugs to you, dear berceuse. :hug:

Quote from: berceuse on November 24, 2017, 11:22:29 AM

***triggering***
Something a volunteer said (a joke) triggered me. It led to one of the core beliefs that I am not suitable to live, there is something inherently wrong with me. That hopelessness made me think of suicide as a reasonable option. It had happened before, it will happen again probably.

Dear Berceuse,
I feel for you here. i get triggered by remarks, words, jokes. I also have a very deep-seated belief that I'm not entitled to exist. I no longer feel this belief so deeply or so often, but when things get really bad, then yes, I feel it again. Standing with you because I know how bad the feeling is and the desperation of: what can I do with this feeling? Where can I express it?

Being able to express it as words has helped me, it defuses the situation a bit. I have (almost) always been able to say "I feel like throwing in the towel, but I'm not going to." So even a friend or two who I said that to or of course doctors knew the lie of the land. 

Of course you have a right to exist! I don't know much about your history, but I'm presuming that in the past somebody close to you either said or acted as if you didn't have a right to exist, or maybe somebody is still doing that. IME it has nothing to do with you, it has to do with the other person and something that was done/said to them or some inherent problem they have.

This forum has become a really good outlet for me, I hope it can be that way for you too. I do have friends off-the-board who understand a lot, (usually because they've been thru bad times and a lot of healing too) and through them I know that there are people who do want to hear how it really is and how you really are. Though I do know that there are people who definitely don't want to. On this forum however more people willing to listen and hear than on average. I hope you can get to a stage where you can express more here in a way that feels safe but also helpful to you.  :hug:

***It might be triggering***
Dear Sanmagic, ThreeRoses and Blueberry,

Thank you so much for your replies it really saved my day. I don't know if I really have the intention to do it but I just plan it and think about it too much. I think it is triggering for people to talk about it here that's why I can't say much. Maybe I can talk about the feelings that cause me to think like that but I am not particularly feeling anything; they are more like thoughts which are most probably trauma based as you said.

I try to be an observer of those repetitive thoughts and not to dwell in them or act upon them but it is not always easy.

This forum was life-saving for me. I can't imagine still not knowing what I am dealing with; thinking that I am crazy.

I don't know much about my history either :) I just show the symptoms of narc abuse and c-PTSD but I am not a professional so I can't diagnose them with NPD or anything.

I am not seeing a professional. A psychiatrist and meds are accessible but therapy is not financially possible right now.
I will give myself a week starting with today and if it still goes on like that I will try the first option. I don't want to wake up every day and plan it. It is a terrible way to start a new day. I deserve to live new days.

I did some drawing today. It had been a long time since I did not draw anything. It is nice that ı can do it without feeling anxiety. There are some good sides of feeling numb.

I think I am not totally depressed. Maybe, I am flashbacking to sth again. I just don't know.

 :hug:

Hey Berceuse, I don't think I've talked to you before. So nice to meet you.

It's tough to be numb. A lot of people in a similar place do all kinds of unhelpful things to do something about the numbness. But you're able to ask help here as well as spend time in something you love — drawing.

:hug:

 :hug: to you Sanmagic,
and nice to meet you DecimalRocket and thank you for your reply.

I feel selfish for trying to share my thoughts, feelings or asking for help or trying to get attention. IC says that everyone has already their own problems and you are being a baby to demand their time. So, there is no room for me. I'm simply asking too much. Maybe, I already did. I don't deserve attention. I deserve being invisible and that's how I try to honor that belief. I'm really trying to be non-existent. I feel ashamed to be seen. I don't want to meet my friends because I am ashamed of myself. I am not enough. I will never be enough. Enough for what? For sb else's love and validation which I desperately seek for.

Maybe, it is time to put an end to that quest for love and always changing imaginary demands that it brings alongside. I am tired of trying to guess people's reaction and always trying to be ready. This is what is left from my childhood and I don't want to carry this with me anymore. I am not in a battle. I am not in a competition and I am not a doormat. What I live, what I feel, what I think matter. They don't need to meet any invisible, stupid standard to make them worthwhile enough to share.

Okay, I had a decision about dealing with my healing (reading, watching videos, thinking, etc.) only in the evening, so that I can concentrate on my freelance work which is translation. I still think it is better to separate healing and working time. I'll see if it is manageable. However, one thing keeps bothering me. So, I want to get it out.

***Trigger warning***

I still have that suicidal thought, plan whatever and I daydream about it (usually not intentional). Anyway, today in the morning I had a daydream about my funeral and I saw friends, relatives... talking about like "She was really sad," "She was depressed since college," "I remember signs that she was depressed," etc. At that brief moment, I felt sad. It is a validation. Maybe, I see suicide as a validation of my feelings and of course, it is coming from others. It is not real that I feel sad (insert any emotion here) unless somebody sees, validates, recognizes it. I don't want to get angry at me for this although I have an urge to do.

I think these are signs of codependency. I am relatively new to the term and it does not have a solid definition in my head right now.

Behind that shell of "I don't care about people or anything", I have a thought pattern, a system that is desperate to get validation, acceptance. Actually, in everything I made, I imagine a person (usually someone close) telling me what I am doing wrong, how they feel (usually sth negative) about it which fuels anxiety.

I have a job interview tomorrow and the first thing that comes to my mind is how I will fail. I can't hide how empty I am. I don't know anything and daydreaming the faces of friends talking desperately about me, trying to help me because I have some kind of inferiority. Everyone in my life is an authority figure. What kind of a sick system rules me?

I'm well-acquainted with codependency. It's the fawn 4F reaction IMO.

When my brain starts sending me into negative territory, that's the time for me to start "thought correction". (I couldn't find an example or link, I'll look more later.) If I find myself imagining my utter failure, I just start imagining an alternative ending. When I can't get my Inner Critic to be quiet, I imagine her wearing a Groucho Marx nose, mustache and glasses and then I can't stop laughing at everything she says.

Fight fire with fire, I say. When my ICr wants to show me all the ways I could fail, I say, "But maybe we'll have a parade with a brass band - who knows?" ;)

here is someone accepting and validating you, berceuse, just for who you are.  no expectaions, no judgments. no disciplinary police looking over your shoulder to tell you 'right' from 'wrong' ways to be, think, speak, want.  nope. 

it sounded like you had a glimmer of defiance to that ICr for a minute.  i hope you can fan that spark of resistance until it burns bright and beautiful.   there's more to you than you know, i think, and it may just be beginning to peek it's head out from behind the curtain.  just what i'm seeing in you.

warm, loving hug filled with validation, acceptance, and gladness that you do exist and you're here.  yay!

Berceuse,

I have had daydreams about my funeral before too. It was also my way of looking for validation for various things. I haven't had these daydreams for a long time now though.

Standing with you in finding self-validation.  :hug: Good luck with your job application tomorrow.

Threeroses, Sanmagic and Blueberry,

Thank you so much for your nice words and validation, it made me smile. I want to reply in detail however my ICr worked really hard  :applause: and I feel so tired because of constant anxiety.

As for the interview, It was quick. I will start working there, a publishing house, tomorrow. I am optimistic about this one (deep inside).

:hug:

That's great Berceuse, about the job  :fireworks:

yippee and yahoo for you, berceuse!!!    :cheer:

 :applause:

:cheer:

:yourock:

Thank you all :) though it will be official after a month of trial.

I still am tired because of anxiety. I want to fight ICr but I think fighting is not working for me. I am attacking myself in every possible way.  Sometimes he (I dont know why ICr has a male identity) persuades me. Now, I feel really selfish for talking too much about me.

My mind is very busy with thinking about every possible critic people may come up with.  That disciplinary police as you said San, is working really hard. I don't have the strength now to rebel that tyranny.

Okay, now, I will go out, buy myself a nice dessert and something to cook and I will enjoy my evening. It is doable. I can do it.

i hope your meal was thoroughly enjoyable and fed your spirit as well as your body.

maybe it's time for a different tack, berceuse.  maybe it's time to stop fighting so  hard, to take a break or try something different.  i like how 3roses has said she will often picture her ICr with groucho marx mustache, big nose and glasses, and start laughing at it. 

i think the ICr is just another bully, and bullies are deflated when not taken seriously.  they use fear as a means to feel good about themselves, to build themselves up and feel stronger, cuz their reality is that they are so very afraid at their core, and feel very weak.

or, maybe, and this just popped into my head, you can thank your ICr for their opinion, tell them you'll take it under consideration, and then go about your day.  unorthodox, perhaps, but just another angle.  i've often said 'thank you' to people when they've said something hurtful to me.  it completely deflated them - they had no more of anything to say to me and walked away. 

just some ideas.  personally, i'm glad you talk about you.  it's been interesting getting to know you.  you are becoming more real to me, and i like that.  big hug filled with warmth and love.

Berceuse, i hope you enjoyed your meal! Yay for self-care  :cheer:

Quote from: berceuse on December 02, 2017, 02:38:30 PM
Now, I feel really selfish for talking too much about me.

Of course this is your ICr you just quoted  ;) This is your Journal, I expect to read lots about the owner of the journal in it. And it's good to get to know you better.  :)

Quote from: berceuse on December 02, 2017, 02:38:30 PM
I still am tired because of anxiety. I want to fight ICr but I think fighting is not working for me. I am attacking myself in every possible way.  Sometimes he (I dont know why ICr has a male identity) persuades me.

:hug: Sounds familiar. I take my aggression out on myself. Fighting self or others makes me very tired. Sometimes I calmly tell my ICr that life has moved on and that ICr is not up to date. I also use a lot of visualisation techniques. One is to shove a wooden stick between the spokes of a wheel to stop thoughts of any sort from repeating themselves.

Dear Sanmagic and Blueberry,

Thank you for your replies. I am not used to this. I mean I know people on this forum are validating and make me feel that I am worth listening but I guess I did not feel it. I just knew it. I think the idea of being seen is so foreign to me. The possibility of feeling close brings so much fear alongside.

I have been trying to avoid contact both online and IRL since the last time I wrote and I thought I don't really know the reason. I think I just explained it above. Still, I have this urge to stop writing and logout and just read the posts like a ghost.

I will stop for now. I am sorry if I am somehow being rude. 

Berceuse, you're not being rude at all. It's natural for people with trauma like us to believe that we don't deserve to be heard.

I can relate to those feelings a lot as well. It's a pretty lonely feeling. But suffering often grows without support, without love and without acceptance — so you need as much of it as possible — unless you want some space, which is fine.

It's okay to take trusting this place at your own pace. Too much and it can overwhelm much of us here.

Take care.

Berceuse, I don't think you're being rude at all. You're just telling it like it is. You're letting us in on your thoughts.

I agree with DecimalRocket, go at your own pace.  :wave:

Thank you Decimalrocket and Blueberry,

I guess I just needed to slow down. I will take it step by step. Relations is one step further. Even thinking about feeling close is too much right now although I know I need it. For now, I will go on observing my thought patterns and triggers and get to know how this system works.

I finally started reading Pete Walker's book. I am a fawn-freeze and mainly a freeze type.

I am dealing with too much catastrophizing and what if thinking. I try validating those thoughts and saying ok thank you for your opinion as Sanmagic said. I think it works better. I even say outloud (whispering :) ) that I am thinking .... right now. It works. I feel I am determined to become more conscious.

I think angering will be a good nice step for me. I fantasize a lot about getting angry since forever because fantasizing was the only way for me to feel anger and many other emotions.  I have too much of that energy stuck inside. So, I decided to try kickbox and see what happens.

**When I was previewing I realized that thinking about feeling close is too much because my idea of being close is all * up. Carrying the emotional baggage of somebody and forgetting myself is a lot of work and of course, too much. So, for once in my life I will focus on what I feel, need and want. My priority is me. Then, I will be open for new relationships with healthy people. What I know as being close was just exploitation of my soul and energy.

wow - that's one heckuva realization, berceuse!  congrats to you on that.  it sounds like the relationship you want to focus on is the one with your 'self'.  quite a wise choice, to my mind. 

can you feel too close to your 'self'?  is that scary at all, to think about you, your wants, likes, dislikes, needs, boundaries, etc?  again, i echo the others - even this relationship would be best served, i think, if you find a pace that suits you.  you don't have to do it all at once or right away. 

getting to know ourselves, who we are, who we want to be as people, can be an adventure.   it can also have ups and downs, but i believe that it's a way we find more personal power and control, something that we've often been robbed of.  i'm very glad for you that you came to this.  i'm kind of excited for you as well.

sending a hug full of encouragement and support.

Thank you Sanmagic,

You always allocate your time and energy for me and many others in this forum. I appreciate it a lot but I feel it must be tiring. I hope you have enough time for yourself and I hope this is not a violation of your boundaries. I am quite confused about that subject.

I don't know if I can feel close to my self. The only thing I know I dissociate (daydreaming) and isolate more and more. Probably, I am trying to ignore or run away from a feeling. I don't know what it is.

The last time I really felt alive/awake/close to myself? was two weeks ago. I was eager to share it here but I couldn't. I think I was scared to feel close to people on this forum.

Still, it feels tiring to write more.

Take your time, Ber. Any spark of aliveness is a sign of hope to me. If you feel tired to write, feel free to take a break. This is your journal after all. You get to do what you want with it.

:hug:

Thank you Decimalrocket,

I don't know if I need a break or not. I think I am in a flashback for a while (don't know for how long) It feels timeless. Maybe it is related to black-white thinking. When I feel better I think I always was okey, I dont remember what was I worrying about so much, etc. Now, I am hopeless, exhausted and numb. All I want is to hear that today is the last day, it will be over soon. (salvation fantasy ?)

I remembered a time when I was lying in my bed (most probably I was 13 14, not sure ) and praying?, saying please, please, please, please over and over again. I remember how helpless I felt that begging for it to be over was my only choice.

It was in the past. I want to grieve but I lose touch with that emotions so easily. My eyes fill with tears for a moment and then like a broken wifi I keep disconnecting again and again.

The good thing is that I found great online sources incl. 25 lectures on youtube on the biology of human behavior by Robert Sapolsky (bio professor in Standford), his books can also be found online, and he puts stress on the effects of long-term stress and in some occasions childhood trauma.  I think understanding the roots of this programming on a scientific level will help a lot. I want to share it in resources some time if it is not recommended yet.

Yes, it can be tough to feel that way. Sometimes when I numb, there's a sort of timelessness feeling too. A weird feeling of emptiness that seems to stretch on forever.

I agree that scientific info can help. For me it allows me to understand the situation more and feel a little more forgiving to myself seeing that trauma is rooted in the brain.

Take care.  :hug:

berceuse, this isn't a violation of my boundaries, responding to anyone.  no one can do that to me.  if i respond, it's by choice, and because i've decided i have enough energy to do so.  if i don't feel that energy, i don't respond.  so, no need to be concerned.  i'm very careful about it.

2 weeks ago you felt kind of close to yourself?  sounds like progress to me, and i congratulate you on it.  if it was there once, it'll show up again if you'll be open to it.  as far as not sharing it on the forum, that's your choice.  if you ever feel like it, if it ever feels like a good thing to do for whatever reason, you will.  when it doesn't, you won't.  no shame, no blame.  it's your recovery, and you get to do it any way you want.

thank you for your kind words and caring concern.  very special.  sending you a hug filled with whatever you need right now.

Thank you Sanmagic and DecimalR,
It is because I have a fear that I am going to hurt somebody so bad when I speak. I will say the wrong thing and they will break into pieces. Of course, it is irrational. It is related to codependency, I think. Similarly, I think that I am responsible for taking care of sb in a relationship. When I fail my responsibilities, they will die or whatever. That's why I usually do the cooking and cleaning at home although I don't want to most of the time. I am living my sister who is an adult and I am pretty sure she can manage to meet her own needs and won't die of hunger if I don't cook.

This is not easy. I can't think clearly. It feels like I am running from one flashback to another. I don't feel safe here. Mother is not here but most of the furniture belongs to her. I am staying in her bed. Although she is not here, I totally feel like she is controlling me. I am isolating myself a lot. I feel the need to hide because of toxic shame. I am isolating myself at work because of the inner-outer critic loop and then of course the shame of my existence.

The good part I see that ruining inner system. It runs non-stop. I am trying to read and inform myself as best as I can. Though I feel like I lost my capacity to learn new things.

I probably need to think about moving out again. It is just to hard to have a free space to think, to thrive here. I just can't properly think because I am triggered all the time.

It is okay. This doesn't mean that I am stupid or lost my capacity to learn or experience new things. It is because I am probably stuck in that freeze response which has an emotional turmoil underneath it. So, it is natural that I am not open to process new information in this condition.

So, what can I do to stop this and function like a normal human being?

i believe you already answered that question, berceuse.  it's so difficult when we're in a toxic situation to be able to think straight, look at and have the time and space to work on our issues, because we're always being hijacked to what was, and can't stay in what is.

if/when you can leave, i think you'll then realize fully the difference it makes.  when you're ready, sweetie.  i think these are some fine realizations for you.  it's a step, and a step means progress.  i hope you can give yourself some credit for that.  i sure do.

keep taking care of you as best you can, however that shakes out.  you'll get there.  and, yeah, it's ok to allow adults to find their way.  it's nothing less than what you've done for yourself.    big warm caring hug too you.

I think it is what I need to do: to move out but the anxiety is getting worse and worse and I am afraid that I going to break down before I can do anything.

Yesterday, I couldn't find the energy to move my fingers or talk. I just lied in a paralysed state. I am just so overwhelmed. I need to keep on working because if I quit again, I will just add another problem and ruin my chances to move out. I am afraid to seek help and so exhausted to even try it.

I tell myself that this will past, it happened before and it will past but it is getting worse.

:fallingbricks:

honey, like wife2 says, breathe.  take one, then another, then a third deep, cleansing breath and let yourself calm down through them.  focus on something of yours that has a pleasant sensation or memory attached to it.  you will get thru this, of that i have no doubt.  you already know that. 

contemplating such a move can definitely be anxiety-provoking.  perhaps, concentrating on the small steps you'll need to take to make this move may help.  planning steps, preparation steps, gathering steps, and on and on until you're finally ready to take the final step of the move itself.  sometimes when we're focused on the big picture, it can become overwhelming, but when we break it down into its parts, it seems less intimidating.

standing right beside you as you go thru this.  it sounds like your first priority is to keep working, so that may be where you want to put your focus for now, and let the rest slide till you feel a bit more concrete in this area.   just a thought.  sending a big warm, loving hug to you.  you're not alone.

Thank you Sanmagic :hug:

It was a flashback, this time I really understood that it was a flashback. The feelings of desparation that comes from finding no one to turn to, to talk; helplessness. It hurts a lot. It even hurts my body. It is the reason of waking up in the morning wanting to die.  All this suicidal ideation comes from what I felt as a child. I guess that's why I kept dreaming that my father will come and take me with him for years. He passed away when I was 6 but till highschool I kept on dreaming that he was alive and would come to take me.

Quote from: berceuse on December 27, 2017, 12:54:16 PM
It was a flashback, this time I really understood that it was a flashback.

Good for you! This realisation is progress  :cheer:

From further up the thread:
"It is because I have a fear that I am going to hurt somebody so bad when I speak. I will say the wrong thing and they will break into pieces."

I used to have a similar fear about touching people, like taking someone's hand or helping somebody up or drying a toddler's feet, that I was going to hurt this person physically, immensely, just through my touch. Took a long time to get to the bottom of it, but it turned out to be a kind of projection maybe you could say. But also victim-perpetrator confusion. Because I was hurt physically by others growing up, I seemed to have absorbed the "fault" as usual. I was hurt, so I will hurt others. I'm a risk for others. Just wondering if it could be something like that going on for you too? Because you say you know it's irrational. I didn't even know that when I was still stuck in that mode.

:hug:

so very glad you were able to recognize it for what it was.  well done.

and, forward.   big hug.

Hey, I hope you take care of yourself, Ber.

It sounds like you could really use the rest.

:hug:

Quote from: Blueberry on December 27, 2017, 01:09:19 PM

I used to have a similar fear about touching people, like taking someone's hand or helping somebody up or drying a toddler's feet, that I was going to hurt this person physically, immensely, just through my touch.

It is terrible how sb can make us feel this way. I am glad that you saw the reason behind it.

I have also trouble touching people but it is not because of physical abuse. I have never been physically abused but I have hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating) in my hands so occasionally I see people get disgusted by my touch (when I have to shake hands, etc.). It is one of the reasons I avoid physical contact or anything that require using my hands in public as far as I can.

Quote from: Blueberry on December 27, 2017, 01:09:19 PM
"It is because I have a fear that I am going to hurt somebody so bad when I speak. I will say the wrong thing and they will break into pieces."

That usually happens when I am talking with my mother. Her reactions are usually out of proportion. So, I might be conditioned to be extra careful to avoid any danger (rage or immense sadness and crying for which she usually blames me or extra drama "I wish I was dead so you would be free of me" kind of reactions). That's why I am always having inner monologues (trying to guess anybody's reaction before saying sth and then adjust my behavior accordingly). Of course, those scenarios never come true.

It might also be victim-perpetrator confusion because my mother has the ability to hurt sb terribly with words. I don't remember actually making anybody cry or kill themselves by simply talking to them except my mother. However, she can do that. She told me she never wanted me in front of my friends many times. Of course, like a joke. I am just too sensitive. Or she told me that I am a pig since my childhood when I was unable to move because of an intense flashback. She usually thinks that I am doing everything deliberately to hurt her. Or she plays the loving, compassionate mother (when she needs the supply) and uses what I have said against me to hurt me. Of course, she never admits doing anything wrong. I just remember wrong or she ends up crying and wanting to kill herself because I told her she is a bad mother (I never did) and I end up apologizing to her. The next day, we move on like nothing happened. Of course, it happened again and again. Gaslighting must have worked really well because I don't remember anything except a few incidents. So, it is easy to tell myself that I tell lies. But, I don't. I am actually internally * up because of her way of raising me. My whole internal system is based on fear and doubt. I have no self-esteem and respect and when I try, I blame myself for investing in sb that is worthless. This system is doomed to fail and I have to learn how to treat an innocent, vulnerable human being from the beginning. I need to replace fear and doubt with love and trust. Not because it sounds romantic or like sth in self-help books (because helping or loving myself is bad God forbid), simply because that internal system won't get me anywhere, it will collapse.

Why everybody else's emotions are more important than mine? Why I need approval for every thing I do, I feel, I think? Don't say this, don't feel this, people won't like you. They will abandon you for who you are.  You need to be "everything is OK person," "I don't have any problems of my own and I am always ready to listen to you and take care of your problems," "I have no right to make you sad with my own problems," "I feel dead inside but it's OK. Who wants to hear that I feel depressed, right? Noone." This is unfair. I don't want to be dead anymore.

Quote from: berceuse on January 07, 2018, 11:07:56 AM
Why everybody else's emotions are more important than mine?

They aren't!!! Not on here. And not even IRL.
I know your question well though. Because in my FOO, it's the same thing.

Quote from: berceuse on January 07, 2018, 11:07:56 AM
"I feel dead inside but it's OK. Who wants to hear that I feel depressed, right? Noone."

We do want to hear! It's good that you have taken the step to reach out when you are feeling so depressed.  :hug: :hug:

I agree with Blueberry. You're important, and you're not a burden. We do care, and we'll continue showing that to you.

:hug:

Thank you Blueberry and DecimalRocket,
I really appreciate it. :hug:

I think I need a break from OOTS. Right now, any kind of relationship is too triggering for me. I know isolation and avoidance is not the cure for that. However, it sends me into freeze mode quite often and it is exhausting, both mentally and physically.

See you later

See you later. Take care!  :hug:

See you.  :wave:

berceuse, i totally get having to take a break from here.  i've just come off my longest yet, but i do believe it was exactly what i needed.  i feel clearer, freer.  it was a time for developing a new perspective for myself.

as far as why and no one wants to listen to your problems - that may pertain to others, but not to us.  a load shared is a lighter load, isn't it?   take your time - we're waiting for you, your own time and space is what's important.  loving hug to you that accepts all the different parts of you for as long as they last. 

Thank you all. :hug:

I need and want this forum to be a part of my healing. It is indeed a part of my healing. I still don't have a proper explanation about what is making it is so hard to continue writing here. ICr and OCr attacks play a big part. Maybe, they got stronger because I see and fight them or the more I observe myself, the more I started to see the toxicity. I don't know. So, for now, I will ignore the "you are not enough" voice otherwise I can't write. Unfortunately, I still identify myself with those voices and it is a part of my reality. I believe and react to what they say or project onto me.  I think I am starting to memorize the pattern there. It certainly ends with I don't deserve to exist and forms of suicidal fantasies and of course the neurological response accompanying it which makes it paralyzing and very real. Luckily, it is the worst it can get.

Recently, I am reading more about trauma and its effects on the nervous system. It makes things more clear and I decided to try more body-focused approaches to healing trauma rather than forms of psychotherapy. I am trying trauma realizing exercises and qigong from youtube and I think it is helping with anxiety and I think it can give me some sense of control over my body and mind and I will start a qigong class Saturday. This is one big step for me  ;D

It is unbelievable that it took more than an hour to write this. :fallingbricks: The worst part of this * is it takes ages to transform my thoughts into meaningful sentences and when I do I am unable to spell words and rewrite them two or three times.  * * * !!!!!

I want to say that I read your replies on the old server and I can't tell you how much I appreciate them.

I think this is the first time in the forum (maybe after a long time) that I don't have any humiliating voice in my head. :cheer: The voice usually disguises as sb else. So, in this case, I imagine you (the forum members) judging me as (insert any negative adjective) in almost every word I write.  Is this outer critic?  I think so because although I am criticizing myself I also refer to you as judgmental. That part of me who is stuck in trauma thinks that the world is mean and expects danger (invalidation in my case) around every corner and overthinks to compensate it. This is also catastrophization and micromanagement because I try to control your reactions by changing my behavior.

Anyway, just writing is great.  :cheer: :cheer:

Regarding the bilingualism and trouble finding the words to describe sth I agree with Blueberry that it is a form of EF. I really don't know what triggered me so hard.

The qigong class was nice. It is two times a month and I think I am also looking for an excuse to go out because two times a month does not feel enough.

My mother is back. Before she comes, I had a relatively long talk with my sister. I probably never mentioned in my journal that I have two sisters. M was living with my elder sister to take care of my nephew. They all know that M is not easy to get on with (to say the least). It just took me quite a lot of time to understand that it was not me because I grew up in quite a different environment than they did. When my F died, I was six and my sisters were already in university. So, I grew up with M and grandmother (whom I think was an overt narc). Plus isolation. It was easy for me to get brainwashed and think that I am the reason. Of course, the gaslighting ("It did not happen that way. You don't remember it correctly. You need to see a therapist. You are not well...) added to it.

Anyway, I feel too tired to go on writing. I just wanted to write that I started to reflect upon NC. I am actually fantasizing about it since probably middle school. I have had failed attempts (though not exactly NC). So, I will not act on impulse this time. The first step is saving up money. I can do that. I will start with it.

 :hug: So nice to hear from you again!

glad you're back, berceuse.

sounds like you're moving right along.  those classes sound like a good fit for you, moving that energy around in a pos. way.  very nice.

i don't know what kind of critic it might be giving you those neg. messages.  i think, as far as this forum goes, (and i've worried about being judged, too, by people here) the proof is in the pudding.  i've only gotten kind, generous, supportive responses here, and those are basically what i see for others around the forum as well.  that's my evidence that i needn't worry cuz it hasn't happened since i've shown up here.

good to hear your voice again.  sending a hug of welcome back and lots of care.

Thank you Threeroses :hug:

Thank you Sanmagic. I never get a judgemental reply either. As far as I observe my thoughts, I see that I have also judgemental, critical thoughts towards others from complete strangers to my friends. I had not realized it before and it wasn't very comfortable to realize it.

This is how I behave towards myself and probably towards others (though I don't remember seeing the thought in action, I probably did) and also what I expect from others which fuels my anxiety and of course hinders any authentic relationship both with myself and others.

What is the solution then? I can see that self-compassion and self-acceptance will break this cycle but I find it really hard to love myself. It is not a nice confession but this is the truth. Why do I find it hard to love myself? I think I am seeking some kind of perfection. I have too much "ideal me does that" fantasies and I usually associate them with feelings like love, joy and satisfaction. I am not even sure I feel those feelings in real life. Okay. Perfection is also a symptom not the cause. Why do I need to be perfect to love myself or to be lovable?  I have no idea. I think Pete Walker had an explanation for perfectionism. I don't remember now. Besides, I don't think that I am a perfectionist. Am I? I have perfectionist fantasies but I am not a one in real life. Oh, this gets really confusing.

I just need to get this out of my chest. I am feeling very very very angry right now. I am not in an appropriate place to express that anger. I am trying to do some work in a cafe and can't even properly read what I am supposed to read. It is not easy when you keep fantasizing smashing tables and destructing everything around you like a tornado. So, I am trying to write it down because I don't want to dissociate. Why am I feeling so angry? I guess I woke up in a flashback and found a seemingly enough reason to project that anger. The * infuriating feeling of being used.  :aaauuugh: :aaauuugh: :aaauuugh: :aaauuugh: :aaauuugh: :aaauuugh: :aaauuugh:   

that feeling of being used can definitely be infuriating to the point of wanting to smash things.  i'm very glad you wrote it down instead.  that's been a saving grace of mine, too - writing to get the yuck stuff out of me.

lots of questions running around your head.  questions you may or may not know the answers to.  perfectionism?  is that from when we were never told we were loved and accepted just for being us?  there was always a condition, always another hurdle to jump, always another accomplishment to do better, faster, more efficiently.  and still no acceptance.

when i finally got straight a's in 5th grade, i thought there would be fireworks at the least from my dad.  he was always pushing me to get better grades (they were always way up there, just not perfect).  instead, i proudly showed him my report card, and he barely acknowledged it.  that crushed me.

i don't doubt you'll eventually either discover the answers to your questions, or someday they just won't matter anymore.  big hug to you, berceuse.

Quote from: sanmagic7 on February 11, 2018, 02:28:19 PM

instead, i proudly showed him my report card, and he barely acknowledged it.  that crushed me.

I know this feeling. It is indeed soul-crushing.

I feel foggy and disoriented right now though I thought I am relaxed and in a good mood. I guess my mind is foggy and confused but I feel relaxed. I guess what I am doing is I am trying to think how I am feeling. I don't know what I am saying right now.  :stars: It's okay. I won't delete this.

I am currently reading "Healing Developmental Trauma" by Laurence Heller and everything resonates with me so far.  Yep, aand I am having trouble remembering it right now. Maybe, I did not comprehend it yet though I felt like "Yes, that's exactly what it is" in every page and underlined almost the whole chapter esp the one titled Connection Survival Style which focuses on the early trauma coping mechanism.

I have an appointment with a somatic experiencing therapist tomorrow. I am researching about this on and off for a month probably.  I had decided that my priority is saving up and moving out because I am currently living with my sister and mother who I think, one of the causes of my cptsd. However, I had a really bad morning on Monday and I just found myself sending that e-mail. I think I'll decide it after the appointment. My mind keeps telling me reasons why I don't need to start therapy. That's why I also hate going to doctors. I suddenly forgot what was the problem. It's is probably because my mind (ICr?) talks me out of it. It is a self-care problem. I also have that weird fear people whom I ask for help (doctors in that case) will yell at me for nothing (yeah this is my trauma speaking).

I understand myself at this point. I learned that it is for the best that I should not ask for help and I made myself believe that "I don't need anybody." I did it so I wouldn't see how much I hurt for feeling alone and helpless indeed.

you sweet thing, you.  sending you lots of fog-clearing energy. 

if you see the somatic therapy person, i hope it goes well for you, and some of the energy gets shifted or toxins released - whatever you need to happen.  warm, caring hug to you filled with love and light.

Of course you deserve help. Everyone needs help — everyone has a problem, a flaw, an insecurity, a weakness or anything that they need help with. We're all human — and we can only be superheroes when we're together after all.

:hug: if that's okay.

It is often said here. Unless I move away from the main triggers, I won't really start healing. I am heavily dissociating. Apart from fantasizing, overthinking, isolating, avoiding or any way to distract myself, I think I am constantly trying to forget what hurt me on a subconscious level. It is invisible. It left me with a lot of scars but it is even invisible to me. So, here once again I don't know what went so wrong. This is so bizarre. I need a home. I can't unburden myself unless I feel safe. I am so disconnected from everything.
I want to feel like a human being again. Maybe, I am an ai. I am feeling so unreal. I am not properly talking to anybody for weeks which makes it worse.
Thank you for hearing me anyway.

i do hear you, berceuse, and am standing right beside you.  it sounds like you're stuck and having trouble finding a way out or around or through.

hang tough - i have faith you will be able to move to where you need to be, to a safe place, even in your mind.   i was really glad to see you posted here - have missed you.  warm, lovely hug to you. 

Thank you san,
I cant write here in my own journal or others as often as i want to though I am here reading almost daily.

I feel very uncomfortable when my mother tries to touch me. It is just hugs and kisses but ıt makes me really uncomfortable. She just kissed me in my back when i was sitting in the balcony and smoking and told me she does not need my permission for that and laughed. She laughes really loud btw. Then I started to shake though not realizing it till she told me "you dont need to shake" then she started talk to our dog "what is wrong with her?" . She  does that kind of talk all the time. Though her questions, comments whatever are adressed to me, she either talks to sb else or just acts like she is talking to an invisible camera as if she were in a cheap reality show and ignores my existence in the room. Then of course if I try to face her, I get blamed for it. You misunderstand it. I did not mean it. I dont remember doing it. Am I a bad mother? No, of course not. It is just me all the time. I have always been a difficult child and ı have that odd problem of misunderstanding people all the time because somehow they never mean it. :pissed:

Quote from: berceuse on March 17, 2018, 09:47:46 AM
I feel very uncomfortable when my mother tries to touch me. It is just hugs and kisses but ıt makes me really uncomfortable. She just kissed me in my back when i was sitting in the balcony and smoking and told me she does not need my permission for that and laughed.

It's your body! If you're uncomfortable with it, then she shouldn't be doing it. My FOO does a lot of laughing to 'excuse' themselves from their own bad behaviour or to try and belittle me and my opinions / feelings.

It took me a long time as an adult to stand up to similar from M. I hadn't lived with my parents for years when I finally managed. I'm standing with you. You'll be able to set a boundary there when you're ready.

i had uncomfy touch from my m as well, that i never said anything about.  i hated it.  i can relate to you and your feelings around this.  i didn't say anything cuz, so much the people pleaser, i believed that it was something that she enjoyed, and i didn't want to take her enjoyment away, even tho it was at my expense.  like it wasn't my right.

that 'i didn't mean it' excuse is so old and ugly - i've heard it more than a few times throughout my life.  like 'get over it, it wasn't that bad' or 'it was only a joke'.  that kind of stuff.  hate that, too, even tho i've found myself to say the same things at times when i'm ashamed of what i'd been actually thinking.

thanks for bringing this up, berceuse.  it helped me see myself in this, as embarrassing as that is.  but, i will also be mindful from now on, so you've done me a great favor.  love and a big hug.

Quote from: Blueberry on March 17, 2018, 03:45:31 PM

My FOO does a lot of laughing to 'excuse' themselves from their own bad behaviour or to try and belittle me and my opinions / feelings.

My M does that too.

Quote from: sanmagic7 on March 18, 2018, 12:28:52 AM

thanks for bringing this up, berceuse.  it helped me see myself in this, as embarrassing as that is.  but, i will also be mindful from now on, so you've done me a great favor.  love and a big hug.

You're welcome San. I am glad it helped you in a way.

I don't know where I am in my journey of healing but I think I am still in the very beginning. However, today I would like to write down some things that I think of as positive steps.

In the last chigong/qigong class I realized a part of me that is calm and grounded. I am putting it like this because I don't think I did force any change. On the contrary, I was lost in thoughts and very self-conscious then I realized a part of me who takes easy, calm and deep breaths then my mind adapted to that part. I felt calm, grounded and energetic. It was so nice. I think it does/will do great help in general.

I was thinking about my two former attempts to move out and this time I stopped seeing them as failed attempts and did not fall into despair. They are great lessons indeed. They failed because I expected to thrive immediately after I was in a safe enough place (at least far away from what can still be called abuse or just constant triggers). However, it turned out to be the opposite because I started to feel things once I got away and did not know how to regulate/handle those feelings. So, I thought I am just losing control/everything is going worse. Now once I move out I am expecting to feel fear, guilt or whatever I am hiding in my bag.

I started to work out a month ago which helps me feel stronger both physically and mentally and this is a good step.

I sorted out my priorities. At least one. I am going to give my self a safe enough space (a room, a home or this can be totally metaphorical but it is very hard to do while I am constantly triggered and pushing down those feelings in the presence of my foo) to process my feelings. So, I am saving money for this. My plans are not clear but it does not have to be at this stage. The first step is to save money and I am doing it.

I talked with a somatic experiencing therapist/trauma therapist. I liked her actually. We graduated from the same university and she is three years older than me, at most. She gave me a discount and it is manageable but I am planning to work with her once I move out. My priority is moving out and I can't both save money for it and work with her at the same time but she is my second plan.

The people in where I work are very nice and kind. It was hard to see that because I was occupied with thoughts like "I am too slow/silent/stupid bla bla and they are going fire me any time." Now I am a little bit calmer and I see no sign of hatred/belittling. Though I find it hard to believe I guess normal, healthy people don't hate each other for no apparent reasons. For four months I am mostly isolating myself (trying not to meet them at lunch so I go out a little bit later, avoding asking even work-related questions and that is one of the reasons I am slow at finishing tasks). Each time I realize people are indeed nice to me, interested in knowing me or trust me that I capable enough to do the work I am assigned to do, I feel surprised.  On the other hand, after years of denial -I don't care what people think of me or my best old friend: misanthropy- realizing that I am highly dependent on people's opinion is the ugly truth.

Tons of progress there Berceuse!  :cheer: :yourock: :yahoo:

Thank you so much Blueberry.

Today, I numbed out myself all day watching my favorite animation series. I am rewatching it, I don't know, maybe for the third time.

Yesterday, I was watching a video of a very young woman who gave a speech in march for our lives. I really admired her strength and how her trauma, her brother was a victim of gun violence, caused her to raise her voice against the injustice. It made me cry. I am unable to find words to describe my feelings and my thoughts though I want to talk more about it.

I wonder if I will ever feel connected to me/people/my environment. Apart from a few moments of feeling totally alive (I really remember three instances), I have always felt dead inside. One was when I finally said a big No to my abusive former-boss. When I was waiting in the subway station after the talk with him, suddenly colors were vivid, my vision was clear (no fuzziness) and I felt normal. Normally, I am especially overwhelmed in crowded places like that. The world usually feels like a two-dimensional cartoon movie to me and suddenly it was just normal and normal is such a beautiful thing. I don't think people who did not feel like this are aware that "normal" is such a great thing and I will probably strive my whole life to feel normal again or maybe I will just give up.

While I was listening to radio, I heard a song of David Bowie, called Underground and the lyrics resonated a lot with me. It is the description of how I feel every day and I don't even know I fell to the underground or was just born there.

I am not sure if I can explain this properly but I will try. I think this is one of my core beliefs. I feel hated. I am not sure who is the subject of this hate.   It happens esp when I write in other's journals here. I feel so much shame about ıt that i wish i were invisible. The pattern is like this: I said such a bad thing and I did not even realize it( it is my mistake) and ı hurt sb so bad and they now hate me.
I know my M used this "you hurt me, you made me sad" thing a lot but I dont think she hates me. I know she does not like me, never wanted me but ıt is not hatred. But I feel hated and even disgusted by. I may not be grammatically correct here. Sorry for that.  In sum, I felt like this towards my self esp when I am in college and before that. I know abuse programmed us to hate ourselves. I understand that ıt was also a coping mechanism but now I dont directly say things like I hate myself rather I strongly feel hated though I see no proof of that. Is this some kind of projection? May be. I am so afraid of becoming a cold hearted narc and not even realizing it. I used to have so much empathy and love in me.  Now I feel rage, hatred, fear and having lots of trouble to emphatize with other people's pain and feelings. I feel so cold inside and I think sometimes I just imitate what is expected of me in terms of emotions and emphaty.
Yesterday I tried screaming into my pillow. I am not sure if ıt was audible or not to neighbours but I felt a lot better after that. I really need to get this rage out of me. I dont want to be that kind of person who is full of hate and rage and reacting out of ıt. I will try my best not to be that.

Dear berceuse,

I just want you to know I read your post of today. I don't know the answer either of who  is the subject of the hate or whether you're projecting something. I don't feel anything in your posts like a cold-hearted narc though!! I think if you had empathy and love they'll come back when they're ready. Possibly you need to feel rage and hatred and even fear beforehand? Fear has its uses. It's not all 'bad' so long as it doesn't flip into panic.

:thumbup: on feeling better for getting some of the rage out.

If it feels safe, here's  :hug: if not, ignore.

Hey Blueberry,
Thanks for the hugs  :hug:. I don't know the answer either. I guess it is okay not to know.

Quote from: Blueberry on April 01, 2018, 10:59:52 AM

I don't feel anything in your posts like a cold-hearted narc though!!

And Thanks for telling me this. It is the subject which I have the most fear about probably.

I guess I will never figure it out by pondering on it. I seem to get even more lost when I try to figure this out. Fear attracts fear and I just get lost in my thoughts along with daydreaming. These are the ones that do not include an ideal version of me. My personality in my daydreams seems to go inbetween idealized me in a perfect world where it is safe to express feelings and me who feels deep toxic shame and expecting people to get mad at me for the tiniest mistakes. The latter was actually so strong when I started to work in a 9-5 job again. I was expecting my boss, who seems to be so nice and understanding, to come to my room and yell at me because of how slow I am, how I can make such a mistake or to simply fire me.  I think the latter is more related to codependent part of me. I am a freeze-fawn type. I don't think I have a codependent relationship anymore but it still runs deep in my thoughts. I used to have a very codependent relationship with a friend of mine for 8 years and I went nc with her when I found about narcissistic abuse. I think this was 2-3 years ago. It was also the same time I realized M could also be a narc. After finding out, I had told her that I am going to get her and my friend out of my life.  She just laughed about it and repeated what I said in a humiliating voice. I am almost sure my grandmother (my M's mother) was a narc. I lived with two of them growing up. I can even see the  GC, SG pattern in my mother's family. My M seems to be the SG and she had a very codependent relationship with my grandmother; she devoted all her time and energy to a woman (grandm.) who keeps insulting her, shows no sign of affection and keeps comparing M with her brother (GC). That's why I empathized with her so much and for so long but she was never able to see me. It felt like I never had a chance to be a child. Rather a medium that was made to hear her, help her with her troubles and expect nothing in return because she loved me. There was no room for me in that relationship.
I was not expecting to write these things.

I am exhausted. I have been obsessively thinking about moving out and NC. From the moment I wake up till I go to bed and all day at work, I kept thinking about it. I kept imagining their reactions. On the one hand, I know I want to and need to do this for myself. On the other hand, I am curious why I am so obsessed with their reaction? I want to do this because I want to hurt them? If this is the case, I don't think it is the right time for me. I just don't know how I feel about this and I am too tired to think. I was reminding myself to read about setting boundaries. Maybe, it is related to that. I am going to read about it when I am able to. 

I don't think my friendships are working either. I am just dead inside and trying to fake normal human reactions and even unable to do that most of the time. I feel so left out, disconnected, frozen especially when I am with them. I am so tired of this. I know them for almost 8 years and I am not sure we have ever really bonded. I am not sure I have ever bonded with anybody. I think they also do feel that way about me. I am just so tired of this. Nothing feels real and I missed feeling real in a real world so much. I guess this is my dissociation.

I lost my physical journal. I just need a good long cry so much. My eyes are filled with tears but they just disappear. I can't cry.

This is the only place I can talk about these things. I have a strong urge to apologize for being so selfish but I guess this is my journal and it is okay.

 :hug: :hug: Yes, this is your Journal, you can write however much you want. But I don't have the feeling you're being selfish at all.

I'm sorry you lost your physical Journal and I'm sorry that thinking so much is making you feel exhausted. I have a thought-stopping imagination exercise. I imagine a wheel like a huge water wheel or even a bike wheel and then I put a stick through the spokes. That actually helps! Because sometimes taking a break from thinking can help.

Moving out and going NC is usually to protect ourselves from hurt, not to hurt the other person.

 :hug: :hug: :hug:

It's okay to be selfish sometmes. This is your journal, and you need some attention. I can relate though to never feeling like I'm connected with someone, or bonded with someone deeply enough. I've had friends I never shared secrets with for years. And even now, I'm struggling to open up and connect.

Just take care, and we'll drop by when you need it, alright?

See you.

Thank you, DecimalRocket  :hug:

Quote from: Blueberry on April 14, 2018, 10:09:54 PM

I have a thought-stopping imagination exercise. I imagine a wheel like a huge water wheel or even a bike wheel and then I put a stick through the spokes. That actually helps! Because sometimes taking a break from thinking can help.

Thank you, Blueberry for your advice. I'll try that.

Quote from: berceuse on April 14, 2018, 11:37:10 AM
I feel so left out, disconnected, frozen especially when I am with them. I am so tired of this. I know them for almost 8 years and I am not sure we have ever really bonded. I am not sure I have ever bonded with anybody. I think they also do feel that way about me. I am just so tired of this. Nothing feels real and I missed feeling real in a real world so much. I guess this is my dissociation.

I lost my physical journal. I just need a good long cry so much. My eyes are filled with tears but they just disappear. I can't cry.

I am moved by your words... I felt similar for a very long time and I still do. Sending you support berceuse

Dear shankara,
I am sorry you felt and still feel similar. It is just such a terrible emotion. Thank you for your support though :)

I was planning to write a long post about what I recently found about boundaries -obviously I have none- and codependence, but right now I am having trouble with words again.

Just a quick reminder for later. It will be very benefical if I practice setting boundaries before moving out, because one the reasons of my moving back with my sister is her telling me that I don't feel safe in my house (the house I moved out to) because it is old and in bad condition and she also told me that she did not like my roommate. So, I let her tell me how I feel and why I feel that way and I put more trust in her opinion about "my feelings" than trying to find out what "I" feel. I have serious trouble finding out how I feel about things. People, esp foo, take advantage of this and I obviously let them. I dont talk anything personal with M anymore and it took me 23 years to realize how she uses what I told, the most vulnerable things, against me, to hurt me later. But my sister. I dont think she is an N yet she tries to control me. Anyways, I need to stop being vulnerable to her. This is a big NO.
My foo enjoys seeing me fail esp having no social, independent life. I have seen this many times.
Ps. I am not responsible for other people's feelings and thoughts. This is quite a shock to me after years of feeling responsible for pleasing everyone. Literally everyone.

edit.

those are some incredible realizations, berceuse.  good for you.  to me, that's a big first step in figuring this stuff out.  it sounds like you have a much clearer picture of what's gone on, what part you and others have played in all this, and what you might want to do differently.  big first step.

take as much time as you need.  and, yes, this is your journal, you can write what you want, as much as you want, when you want.  it's for your benefit first and foremost.  love and hugs, sweetie.  it'll come.

:yeahthat:
I agree with everything San said. It's big realizations that you've gained there! It's really big, and it's the first step forward!
:hug: if it's okay with you?

Man, some of our abusers can invade our lives too much, huh? It's another step to independence by trusting ourselves, and leaving actions that make it more likely for us to doubt ourselves. That's an amazing step, Ber.

:cheer:

Quote from: sanmagic7 on April 25, 2018, 06:45:22 PM
those are some incredible realizations, berceuse.  good for you.  to me, that's a big first step in figuring this stuff out.  it sounds like you have a much clearer picture of what's gone on, what part you and others have played in all this, and what you might want to do differently.  big first step.

Thank you Sanmagic,
Hearing that this is the first step for you, helped me see that I'm on the right track.

Quote from: Sceal on April 25, 2018, 07:46:59 PM
:yeahthat:
I agree with everything San said. It's big realizations that you've gained there! It's really big, and it's the first step forward!
:hug: if it's okay with you?

Thank you Sceal,
:hug: to you, too.

Quote from: DecimalRocket on April 26, 2018, 11:24:03 AM
It's another step to independence by trusting ourselves, and leaving actions that make it more likely for us to doubt ourselves. That's an amazing step, Ber.
:cheer:

Thank you DecimalRocket,
After putting my trust into others and depending on them, it is so hard to do this but also crucial.

Yesterday while I was on my way home, I was thinking about how I gaslight myself. After years of conditioning not to trust my own senses, I became really good at that.

The other day, my friend texted me that she got really bored sitting at home. She didn't directly ask me to go out together but implied it or I felt that way. Anyway, I immediately started to fantasize how can I relieve her boredom, amuse her, make her happy etc. Where should we go, what should I talk about, if I say this she might feel/think blah blah; If I do this she might react like this or that, etc. I started to get lost in people-pleasing daydreams again. Then while I was getting dressed, she did not answer to my texts on where to go, what to do, for a while. I started to think, nobody really wants to be around me because I am sad/nervous/unhappy/X all the time. I started to feel I am too exhausted to go meet her and be another person who now barely can hide all these feelings bottled up inside. I texted her that I don't want to go out. I could not understand why I wrote that. I started to blame myself for changing my mind, not feeling like going out, disappointing her and do "no one is going to love you, they'll dump you blah blah" talking.

I don't want to read into this too much. It is a codependent trait and I do that kind of energy-consuming thinking/feeling for everyone and I automatically suppress the tiniest bit of feeling (I guess I really did not want to go out) I have, then I get mad at me for not knowing how I feel. Also, it might be that I am too scared that people are going to abandon me, so I should be the one who does that first. This was what my therapist told me when I was seeing one. I don't know. I really don't want to and am indeed avoiding seeing my friends for a while because after realizing that I am trying to please them and getting mad at myself when I am not able to do it, I don't want to do this anymore and now I simply don't know how to behave. They're not very eager to see me either.

Anyway, I decided to write kind of a list of my M's narcissistic behavior, so when I gaslight myself again or justify her behavior I can read it and remind myself this is why I want to be far far away from her but I started to feel too tired and can do it later today.

i can so relate to having those conversations with myself regarding others.   love and hugs, my dear.

Man, Ber. I really relate to feeling like people would abandon me sometimes. I often think my strong emotions from all my trauma and other conditions must be too much of a bother. It's alright to feel, Ber. Much of us feel the same way, so you're in good company.

Thank you Sanmagic and Rocket,
:hug:

I removed my post about emotional abuse in my journal because it made me uncomfortable. I mean there was not any uncomfortable emotion/shame, just a persistent thought persuading me to delete it. Maybe I was not ready to be more open. Maybe I was afraid to be judged, belittled, ridiculed (I know it never happens here). Maybe a part of me (probably an inner child) stopped me. I don't know.

-Might be triggering-

Anyway, my M is super super nice to me lately. She keeps telling me how pretty I am. She incessantly says that she loves me. She even asks me about my day when I come home, which is kind of new.
I don't trust her. I mean I can't. I know I am not crazy. Sometimes I think all that anger I have inside, blinded me to who they really are. Maybe she is indeed nice and loving. However, this does not explain why I feel so much anger towards her in the first place or why I have this intrusive daydreams for more than 10 years about leaving home and never seeing them again. If I wish I can justify her behavior except for some cases where she was truly sadistic, truly enjoyed breaking me into pieces. I can't justify that.  One person can't be truly loving me so much and hurting me intentionally. One of those is all lies and I can't understand this. If she enjoys my misery, how can she act like she loves me most of the time?   

Before I found about here, CPTSD, etc,  I literally thought I was going crazy. Now, I know that I am not crazy. Still, I guess I will never understand this.

nope, you're not crazy. 

from all that i've learned, and from experience as well, i've got my own perspective of what's going on.  maybe it doesn't make sense for you, and that's ok.  just ignore it then. 

these types of people know just which buttons to push in us, know just how many and what kinds of crumbs to feed us to keep us confused and with them.  they're very good at this.  they don't want us to leave because we'll be taking their punching bag away.  as long as we stay, they have someone on whom to vent and spew their own vitriol.

they also know that if they only continue abusing us, we'll eventually leave, and they don't want that - they desperately don't want that.  so, they will feed us what they believe we want to hear, just enough kindness or caring to keep us thinking there's hope for the relationship.

we're so very good at tolerating the abuse, and so grateful for the kindnesses that it keeps us locked in, feeling hopeful that if we stick around, there really will be change and things will get better.  it took me many years of wallowing in that hope before i realized exactly what was going on.  it hurt very much, the most painful part was that realization.  it still hurts today.

as far as removing your bit on emotional abuse, maybe one day you'll feel stronger or different and it will become helpful for you to write it down.  maybe not.  either way, there's no shame or blame.  whatever's best for you is the most important part of all this.

sending you love and a hug full of kindness and caring - no strings attached.

Quote from: sanmagic7 on May 14, 2018, 01:22:39 AM

from all that i've learned, and from experience as well, i've got my own perspective of what's going on.  maybe it doesn't make sense for you, and that's ok.  just ignore it then. 

No, it makes a lot of sense. I have had a lot to write about this but I can't right now.

A lot of things happened in the last few days. Most of them are very positive. Today, I am just exhausted. I am too tired to  even think and write.

take your time, as always.   :hug:

Ok, some good news first. I started EMDR therapy. Even during the first session (just telling my story) I felt very validated, I did not freeze at all and I can even say that I felt grounded and alive after it.  We did not start the EMDR sessions yet but I strongly think the therapist is a good fit.

I blocked my ex-boss on my phone. He seems like an overt N and I had a very codependent relationship with him. Though I stopped working for him 2 years ago, we were still in touch. But, not anymore. :cheer:

I think I have found an antidote to one of the worst feelings I often have or flashback to; I am not a part of family/friends/humanity/earth and will never fit in anywhere. The universe does not question whether I am entitled to exist. I exist therefore I am a part of this. Even after I stop existing, my body will be buried here and be a part of a new life (I am not talking about reincarnation). Noone can change this fact. Noone has that kind of a power. Not my M, not me. I had thought about it before but I think this time it sinks in. I guess I finally stopped feeling like Frankenstein's monster.

I generally have some kind of realization, sometimes feels like a catharsis, during full moons. This again makes me feel one with all the things that exist and arouses so much love in me.

On the other hand, rage and hatred are coming up like a flood. I had a mild breakdown two weeks ago and started to look for a room. Then canceled the appointments I made, after seeing the EMDR therapist. Because I felt that I need to feel free to make a decision. My decision to move out is coming from a need to run away because I can't handle the feelings (anger and hatred or even numbness). Now, I kind of regret it because I don't understand why I am making this to myself. Sometimes, it feels like I have two realities.

Tons of good news and progress in there Berceuse  :cheer: :cheer: :cheer:

Rage and hatred: emotions come with healing. When I feel flooded by them, it's not so good. What can I do with them?? etc.

You took a step (looking for a room), then drew back. You're not alone - I do this kind of thing a lot. You had a reason to act this way.  It's OK, just keep on, keeping on.  :hug:

So glad you found a therapist that you feel comfortable with, and who'll help you through EMDR!
Seems you got alot of insight already, before starting properly.  :cheer: That's wonderful!

berceuse, nothing but happiness for you.  feeling validated and comfy with your t on your first meeting bodes well for the process, to my mind.  i hope it continues like that for you.

as for the rest, i, too, hope that sticks with you.  it's my firm belief that we already belong here because we are here.  i'm glad you've been able to see that as well.  i believe you belong.  you're one of us.  love and a big hug filled with all good things for you.