Kizzie's Journal

[Armee]

 

Sending lots of hugs Kizzie. I believe he can feel that you are coming from a place of love and concern for him rather than being defensive and unwilling to take any ownership for whatever happens or happened. That is not something that breeds estrangement. You are doing the right things. 

[sanmagic7]

i agree w/ armee - you're doing everything possible to keep that door open between you two.  hope the phone call goes well, too. 

[Kizzie]

It did not really go well although he confirmed he loves us.  It sounds like he has issues although we're confused as to whether it's with us or something or someone else but he wants to wait until after his exams to talk.  Fair enough as he is in Year 2 of medicine and the exams really are tough.  He will finish them in Nov so it's not all that long to wait.

I honestly have no idea what's going on with him and why he says he loves us but doesn't contact us and won't say what is going on.  It's crazy making just like the covert N behaviour of my M.   To our minds his childhood was really good - no emotional, physical or sexual abuse or neglect and lots of support and love but maybe he doesn't see it that way. 
Anyway, it will drive me crazy trying to figure out what is going so hopefully I can leave it be until after his exams.

I mentioned this to the therapist yesterday at the clinic where I am having the ketamine treatment and he suggested maybe thinking about doing a couple of sessions around the time he tells us what is going on to firm up my window of tolerance for what may be tough news (i.e., he loves us but doesn't want to be in touch with us).  It's good advice as if that's what's coming and I suspect that's it, I will need to shore up my ability to cope with another big loss and move on with my life somehow. I will be finished the 6 week program by then but can go back for additional sessions when needed.

I can't even write about how big a loss it would be if my son chooses No/Low Contact and how much it will affect the "I don't matter" theme that we are trying to deal with in treatment. I so need to internalize messages "I do matter" along with "I am important" and "I matter" and let them replace all the negative messages I've been living by and that culminated in this overwhelming anxiety and depression since Jan. 

I feel like I may be doing Ketamine treatments for a bit longer than I had anticipated.  It seems like psilocybin is close to becoming legal here so if/when it does I will switch to that as I hear it has more profound and lasting positive effects.

I hate having CPTSD, I truly do.  I see no silver lining(s).

[sanmagic7]

if it helps, kizzie, may i reiterate those pos. reinforcements - you really do matter (we wouldn't be here and everything that means w/o you), you are valuable, (you have been a source of strength for your family, ((even our OOTS family)) even when they haven't recognized it), and you are worth being on this earth, taking up space, and living the best life you can simply because you exist.  no other reason needed.

i wish the whole thing with your son would have gone more smoothly, and i'm very sorry he's being so secretive.  from experience, i know how crazy-making that can be.  personally, i don't think he's being fair to you, and that's not your fault.  when my D1 pulled that kind of stuff on me, i thought she was just being mean.  not trying to put an indictment on your son, it's just how it sounds to me.  and i get how heartbreaking it can be from your perspective.  let's see what nov. brings.  fingers crossed.  sending love and a hug full of better days.

[dollyvee]

OMG Dolly, I love that you do deep dives into the neurobiological (hope that's the correct term) side of things, but honestly it's beyond me.  The head psych got a bit carried away the other day with a deep dive into Ketamine and emotion/brain and I did not understand what he was talking about and was too embarrassed to ask.  Sitting here I realize, hey it's not my field so of course I might not understand and can ask for a simpler version, something at my level of comprehension.  I will do that if there is another conversation that leads off into high level discussion like that one did.

What I do know/believe is that we (relational trauma survivors) are likely (very, quite) different in terms of our pathways and tolerances so it's imperative clinicians/researchers understand what is Complex PTSD and don't just rely on research from PTSD survivors or the general population.  I'm glad I did speak up about this to the psych and his colleague and equally glad they seemed interested in what I had to say.

For me it was born out of necessity I think after feeling like I was getting ill and doctors telling me it was all in my head. So, I started researching, tried a lot of things (some way out there and some that actually helped) and started getting answers/results. Seeing my functional doc and learning about mold/gut bacteria were the final pieces although I'm still putting it together how they impact me (mold/mycotoxins are an excitory neurotransmitter - think anxiety and GABA is an inhibitor that slows/reverses that process).

I just thought it was interesting that the psychedelics influence that part of us responsible for our "ego" and can cause an "ego death." When we have fought so hard for who we are, and see it as imperative for our survival, it makes sense that those with CPTSD have apprehensions about the psychedelic process.

I'm so sorry for what's happening with your son. I hope you both are able to come together and communicate about what's going on.  maybe like some others of us here (me too!), you're feeling scared that you'll be punished for setting boundaries with your mother in the one place that you most don't want it to happen.

Sending you support,
dolly

[Kizzie]

It does feel almost cruel, vindictive even San, which is why I think there is a whole lot of anger he hasn't expressed to me before - about what I don't know, I seriously don't.  I know he hated moving (my H was military and we were posted a lot), but that's not something under our control and at his age now (30) surely he can see that.   

When I talked about the really difficult time I've been having with anxiety/depression and meds he was quite cold.  Normal human beings say something along the lines of "I'm so sorry you're having a tough time Mom", him nothing.  That says to me there is a big something he's holding on to but exactly what I don't know.     It really hurt that he was unable to say anything comforting or supportive.   To my mind I have always genuinely been there for him for whatever - special occasions, tough times, etc.. and not in a pseudo way like my NM. To make me wait until Nov to find out what is going on just seems on the N side.

May I ask what happened with your 2nd daughter that she and you are estranged but you are quite close with your other daughter?  And how do you handle/manage it?

[Kizzie]

I just thought it was interesting that the psychedelics influence that part of us responsible for our "ego" and can cause an "ego death." When we have fought so hard for who we are, and see it as imperative for our survival, it makes sense that those with CPTSD have apprehensions about the psychedelic process.

Can you elaborate a bit Dolly?   Not sure I totally get what you're suggesting.

[sanmagic7]

sure, kizzie.  no problem

my oldest daughter, D1, is who i'm estranged from, going on 8 (10? can't keep track anymore) yrs. come jan.  the D i live w/ isn't NPD, like D1.  one psychiatrist who treated D1 for a bit told me she was very angry w/ me.  like you, i was always there for her (and she had a lot of problems, especially once she hit her teens, lots of psychosomatic as well as personality problems), but thru the years i've come to believe that she is NPD, and got mad at me for having another child when she was 3 1/2. 

no rhyme nor reason, but i believe it's true.  i remember her looking at me w/ unwarranted judgment when she was 4, and it took off from there.  her treatment of me was abusive, ongoing, and she pulled classmates against me w/ her lies.  she also did a lot of emotional/mental damage to my D, who still struggles w/ those traumas today.  somehow we were all scared of her, and everything revolved around her.

finally, things came to a head, and i realized she was killing me mentally and emotionally and i told her i wasn't going to have this kind of relationship w/ her, that when she wants to have a respectful adult relationship to let me know.  that nearly broke me, tho - hardest thing i've ever done in my life.  luckily, i began getting posts about NPD, joined a support group (didn't stay long, but long enough that i got a lot of info) and that's what helped explain to me what might be going on w/ her. it was w/in a year of that (i think i opened the door for D to be able to back out of that entangled mess) when my D was able to say 'no more' and went NC w/ her sister as well.

my D and i don't talk much about D1 - it really is painful - but every so often we'll see something on tv that reminds us and one or the other will mention it.  a couple months ago it was D1's birthday, and neither my D nor i mentioned it.  i know i just didn't want to bring D1 up to my D. as far as managing it, i think it's like any other loss.  i've worked on it a lot in therapy, and live w/ a hole in my heart where she belongs.  i even had a mock funeral for my precious D1, because the look in her eyes when she was 4 marked the end of that darling baby i'd brought into the world. 

i've wondered how people can live w/ fear on a daily basis (since i haven't really experienced it, it seemed unfathomable to me once i began getting some of my emotions back) becuz fear, to me, was the worst.  living w/ the absence of my D1 is something like that (altho it was even worse than feeling afraid).  i've grabbed on to every rope i could find, including here.  i've talked a lot about it on the forum, have gotten truly supportive feedback here. 

in the end, kizzie, it's just one foot in front of the other, one day or hour or minute at a time.  i think that's all we can do.  so, like now, when i talk about it too much, the pain comes back and i have to stop. love and hugs

[Armee]

Sending along a big embrace Kizzie. From what I know of you I doubt you have done anything wrong other than normal parenting misteps we all make here and there. You appear to attempt to repair any miscommunication, don't expect others to fix your stuff, and prioritize helping others.

And you may be right, he may be angry about something and he may believe it isn't going to go well and he may be needing to conserve his emotional energy right now to get through what he's going through with school. Or it could be something big going on with him that he doesn't want to talk about. I know I often avoid people who have a way of extracting information from me when I am not ready to talk about something.

I can't imagine the pain and fear and I think it's a good idea to work through the worst case scenario in ketamine therapy so you know you can handle it if it comes to that. For awhile I was getting information from "the reconnection club" for estranged parents.  It's support and advice for parents with kids who are estranged or low contact. If you haven't checked it out you might like to. Some stuff is free some is a paid membership. I think if you read it you'll find you are doing the right things. I have faith things are going to be ok there because of who you are inside. But if things do deteriorate with your son I reiterate what San said before. You are fully worthwhile and valuable for who you are regardless of any relationship difficulty with your son. That does not define you. It is a painful circumstance. That's it. It doesn't say anything about who you are or what your worth is. 

[dollyvee]

I just thought it was interesting that the psychedelics influence that part of us responsible for our "ego" and can cause an "ego death." When we have fought so hard for who we are, and see it as imperative for our survival, it makes sense that those with CPTSD have apprehensions about the psychedelic process.

Can you elaborate a bit Dolly?   Not sure I totally get what you're suggesting.

With CPTSD, we come from traumatic upbringings where a lot of us had a damaged/unformed sense of self - "I'm bad, I'm wrong, no one loves me, I'm poweless etc - and these are core beliefs that most of us still deal with as adults. Because of this, I think we still have a very tenuous (possibly unstable) relationship with the ego (self) at times (*not the IFS self). On the other hand, we've had to fight very hard against these ideas of ourselves being bad, not worthy, unloveable etc that we have an attachment to seeing ourselves in a certain way perhaps as adults, as well as a need to be hypervigilant and control our environment and behaviour (because otherwise we are bad, unlovable etc.). This is why I think it might be different for people with CPTSD - that need for control/hypervigilance. Psychedelics erase all of this through dissolving our ego, sense of self, good or bad. Suddenly, the world that we know doesn't exist and can cause alarm. To our brains, it could mean that we will we back in that place that we had to survive from, perhaps facing the fear again of being in those places where we learned that we were unlovable etc without our familiar feelings of control.

Interestingly, a collegue at work this week told me of a friend of theirs who did psychedelics and went through an ego death which lasted a year (I don't think they had any integration or support in the process), but said that it did help in curing their depression.

These are some bits I found relating to the ego/ego death:

the ego relates to your feelings about your own importance and abilities.

Without getting too caught up in the psychological aspects, you can think of your ego as the image you hold of yourself, which affects everything from how you perceive the world to how you behave around others.

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/ego-death

Over the course of our lifetime, we build up a collection of memories or predictions that we identify with as our "self." For many people, this model of themselves makes them very unhappy, especially those suffering from mental illness. Experiencing the reduction of sense of self can lead to better introspection. It can also disrupt negative patterns of behavior.
https://nushama.com/post/what-is-ego-dissolution-and-is-it-helpful/

He sees many psychiatric problems as "casualt[ies] to the sense of self." People who live with depression, for instance, are often mired in self-persecutory thoughts. They might see themselves as screw-ups or become preoccupied with whether people like them. "That's a problem with the sense of self," Johnson says.

Ego death can help you realize you're more than how you normally define yourself, that you can see your problems from a different perspective, and that you have control over your sense of self, he says — and that's powerful.

https://www.mic.com/life/could-killing-your-ego-with-psychedelics-be-the-key-to-mental-wellness

[Kizzie]

So I had a breakdown yesterday which I think might be from too much Gabapentin, but it was a doozy and so this morning I will be talking with the staff at the clinic I am doing the Ketamine therapy. Hopefully a psych will be avail to talk about if it might be the Gabapentin or it's the Ketamine and therapy. 

Just wanted to say that I had sent an email to my son wishing him well on his exams, and that I understood how anxiety provoking they were for him (he failed one at the end of Year One and had to rewrite.  Passed with flying colours but it really took it out of him, unsettled him quite badly I think.)  Anyway, as I was calming down from the breakdown (with the help of Ativan) I got a lovely email back from him, the person he is and used to be towards me so perhaps it is not as bad as I think.  My H has been trying to convince me of that but of course my trauma gets in the way and I can't help but think the darkest things.  It was just the right email to receive at that moment and it helped bring me down thankfully.

I truly hope it's not that he has NPD like your D San, I have wondered from time to time but I'm not sure.  He doesn't seem to have all the characteristics except on occasion like now when he is stressed.  Oh I don't know but hopefully when we talk after his exams it will become clear.  For now I'm just hanging onto that nice, normal email he sent that sounds like him and not the cold person he has been for a while now and on occasion growing up.

That's all I can write right now until I get this falling apart thing sorted out if I can that is.

Tks for the reply Dolly, I'll have to try and read/digest it when I am on more stable ground I'm afraid.   

[sanmagic7]

seems like the timing of that email was just what you needed, kizzie.  so very glad he sent it.  wishing you all the best w/ him and the relationship as time goes by.  hope you can get some rest - breakdowns are terrible, for sure.  love and hugs

[Blueberry]

   to you Kizzie

[Kizzie]

Tks BB and San, really needed the hugs today. 

[Armee]

 

Breakdowns are frightening and overwhelming. 

Sometimes...helpful too?