Messages

Maybe it seems far-fetched that there's any place, on-line or down the street, that can make up for what happened. My faint hopes upon joining OOTS was precisely like that -- I had no hope, period.

Gradually it dawned on me  this place is different, despite my ongoing skeptic's doubts. How could anybody, anywhere, ever accept any notion that I was really okay, mattered, and had anything worth while to share. I still have difficulty with the idea I could possibly overcome what came before, but I've seen enough to feel  that yes, this is something different, and so am I. The hurt still resurfaces with harmful effects, but all that matters here is so much better than that old story.

May you find the same peace and understanding. As has been pointed out, you are welcome here.

    

I can closely relate to how you've reacted to what was totally senseless. I can save over my feelings a tad with the reminder I'm not there now, but I don't always feel relief from the wounds which hhave stayed ever-present, and can only bring me feel insecure, even where I live -- miles away from people (but still my preferred choice).

I wish I could share some magic vision or potion or hobby or something that might be nice, but far from providing the healing you need.

Maybe, though, you have turned in the other direction? I mean, you did venture to join with people here -- perhaps, as it was with me, only after wondering if there was anyone with whom it felt safe to admit to 1) what happened and 2) how you're still not well with the memories, yet alone the recurring aftershocks you're still enduring.

So that's a start. I didn't think there was anyone here I could fully trust. I didn't -- which is at least one 'was' I've managed to lessen.

Let's just consider this your new journey into finding the life you deserve, the friend(s) you''ve been waiting for so long to find.

                 

May you get the help you need, and feel the vibes emanating from all of us.   

It''s been a while -- too long, really; since I've set out to spend some time here.

First stop -- get the supplies readied for my visit. I love to split wood a for campfire in case others want to share its warmth as the evening cools.

And for sure today I've brought the bag of compost for the garden. Compost, the waste material whose decaying nutrients will mix into this year's blend of seeds and other plantings for the season's growth.

Soon the transformation will start as new growth, sprouting forth beautiful new plants while anticipaing the transformation of the soil yet again.

I can't help but think of how this process, including the rotting compost, resembles my own efforts to discard my old story. Reminds me, too, of Mary Lennox and the excitement she found planting her own secret garden.

May this one follow her example of pluck and determination to find new meaning for life's new growth cycle. 

The best is yet to come -- is that Robin's song I'm hearing? Familiar -- yet new, singing a welcome to new life. And I'm included.

Thanks, Kizzie.

So yes, I always have the option of stepping outside the habit of 'sad, sad, sad' , usually only a thought away and so fortunate to have.

My option? An enormous, creative way of entwining the sadness with the flip side -- humour. Not a 'sense' of humour, but a full-blown access to an inner humour vault, as it were.

It came to me while young, even or because I was buffeted in so much abuse from the people around me -- FOO, teachers, clergy ... so many serious sorts that they actually triggered a funny side, and I inwardly was able to draw on that total opposite notion until it too became a habit. To do this outwardly was dangerous, but I developed a great deadpan to hide behind, while secretly I was somehow snuggled in a lighter vein even while enduring sad/sad/sad moments. I was able to draw on this for several years as a well-liked improv actor, and in other roles (e.g. hospice and pre-school experiences).

The catch is, like so much that comes about in Cptsd-land, is that sad/sad/sad can easily and surprisingly overwhelm the better stuff. And when I forget that I carry that reservoir of mirth inside, the chutes open and if I don't catch it, can find myself trapped in feelings that seem to have locked doors  . Or something. Whatever it is, it feels rather unique and I'm so grateful the locks can be broken.

Thanks again, for helping an important facet of my self-healing to rise to the surface of my self-realization.

 

Thanks to all who've added support that I've desperately needed. I can't truly find the words, but the feeling that anyone cares is such a boost.

Alas, I've attempted several replies already, and they're proving elusive. Let's just say I'm still, well, kinda void of  personal vibes as to my current state of being. But perhaps it's like that when from life''s start I've felt unwanted, unloved, gaslighted, told I wasn't a good person -- sadly, we all seem to know that one.

Maybe I've just fallen into, and inclined to stay, in what''s known as the freeze response to the life movie called 'me'. I thought I put in the discard bin, but the faithful inner critic may have fetched it out of its proper place. And I've lost the script to my new movie, or maybe it never existed.

So in summation, I feel lost, disgruntled, sad/sad/sad, i.e. 'normal.' I suppose I was just trying to get out of the disappointment of a life feeling quite out of sorts at the moment.

Thanks again, and my only option is to watch for a clearing sky. And the best indicator of a fresh breeze to blow this mood away has been your loving comments. They were so needed, to even get me this far.

For a while, I've had experiences which are dredging up all of the worst sorts of the worst sort of negative memories. They've been draining me. I feel like a failure; keep hearing all the old taunts from abusers: ''see, you can't do this; you're no good, never were, can't even help yourself.''

The worst is I've felt pretty okay for, well, a few years but when things slip like this they seem to hit me worse than it seems that it should. I only thought I had lots of coping skills with which to build ack, but I'm feeling very faint and hopeless right now. I have no support network to speak of, except here where I know there's probably someone who can relate. This is so scary -- I take care of my needs as best I can and just like those old taunts would remind me, ''see -- you really are no good.''

I better drag myself back to view the sun's continued sharing of the light -- may it be able to soothe this aching heart.

And if you've been here reading, thank you for having stopped by, and may you fare well. 


There was a beautiful sunrise today -- I know as I couldn't have gotten more than a few winks of fretful sleep.

Hope wrote: ''I feel like it''s an oasis of peace here'' 

     

       

I was in the same quandary. For years, I read and heard umpteen self-help lectures about the so-called dire need for the grand glorified act called forgiveness.

I finally found lots of useful counter views (including from my current T) and knew my heart's rawness was drawn to something else -- forgiveness for myself seemed more useful for my healing journey! For all the years I absorbed so much guilt thinking I must somehow have been at fault.

I guess it 'sounds' great to always forgive others, but as Kizzie mentioned, even if there's some precedent for the abysmal behaviour of others, passing it on kind of defeats the whole notion of living humanely. That some still choose to live dishonourably doesn't seem fitting to lead to forgiveness by the victims. And no, that's not 'woundology' as one noted self-help author has called it (makes for a great blame-the-victim sermon on her part).

I've found ways to accept (it's called history) but never condone what happened. This doesn't require any grand action to forget or tolerate any of it. Un-burdening myself of the whole guilt business is actually harder than falling in line at the you-must-forgive booth.

Better stop before I get carried away -- I'm just grateful I've landed -- safely -- with others here who dare to question the cultural norm proclaimin 'you must forgive'. Huh? 

Any thread that elicits a smile or two or more is worth revisiting, so glad to see this one rebound and speak its magic. Humour, even when it's kept hidden, is not just in one's coping toolkit, but its function in everyday life helps soothe the absurdity of much of it.

Of course it can be misused. My antidote for veering off of that cliff is to steer clear of 'put-down' sorts of 'false' humour that feeds one's worst instincts. Same for sexual innuendo and the like.

I noticed this trait early, and was even lucky enough to have woven humour into my vocational life for a while; 'til the somber always serious sorts choked it off. Yet even then I was fortunate to just be content with putting the humour back into hiding its public side for a time.

Humour never fully undid the hurt and horror of lots of the pain, but having had it -- I have to say it was/is the saving grace of my life.   

Blueberry ... whatever you choose to call the action, the outcome stems from your self-initiative and realization that being 'on the edge' no longer must result wit a dangerous plunge into self-loating.

May you enjoy the view -- from on top of the edge, and not bruised and disappointed yet again. You're in new territory, and you got here yourself! Congratulations     
 

Here's to finding more of the calm you need and deserve in your life, Hope. Sometimes it can feel so hopeless; I hope you continue unrolling the map towards a future filled with healing.

Hey PC -- good to see you finding good vibes with the IFS approach. I have to confess that my first reaction some years ago to the word "Family" in its title through me for a loop. It's just kind of an automatic recoil I experience at the word family, even when it's not referring to the FOO per se.

While I admire the system and its practitioners, I've never felt the need, at this time in my therapeutic meanders, to dive deep into it.

I wish you all the best as you explore and discover new ways to lessen the internal pressures your Cptsd experiences left you struggling with. And huge congrats  for sticking with its promise to positively affect your outlook.

It still seems so odd, this cultural 'norm' about naturally loving one's parents, no matter what.  Along with the forgiveness at all costs trap, where to forgive in a certain accepted way is all important. It feels almost as if, okay, as it's a cultural norm, go ahead and dive in, even if it's just a meaningless, almost stupid, endeavour. That all seems less about love than just performing an act that seems nice, yet meaningless in real life.

I feel totally ambivalent about the parents now, and have come to regard my time with them as just a temporary journey where we somehow ended up on the wrong bus together. Fortunately the trip ended, with no forgiveness, and no love lost, as there hadn't been any that I ever felt. Now driving my own bus, I've found more loving ways to live, so don't miss the old trip. Sadly, I still can resent it, hate it, but none of it involves hatred, just a wounded ambivalence.

I find it disappointing how many therapists and self-help gurus seem to fall in line with their peers who play the 'it's-your-own-fault' game. One noted author has made a name for herself by labelling people like us as living in their own self-made 'woundology', as she calls it. From there it's just one small step to the 'just get over it' taunt we know so well. Blaming the victim, yet again. And yet I've read others who rave about her brilliance at having come up with this sort of insult disguised as brilliant self-help.

I once obtained a book with a most promising title -- 'The Spiritual Advantages of a Wounded Childhood' (or something along those lines). The author's first chapter's theme -- you must always forgive. Maybe the rest of the book turned out okay, but I immediately tossed it away and haven't seen it since.

So I guess I'd never score well in the forgiveness game. Maybe it's because I don't see it as meaning much, if anything in most instances. Doesn't mean I hew to the hatred 'opposite' of love. I'm fine with remaining ambivalent and living this life, not the one before. Uh-oh; maybe that means I'm just living in a state of 'wounology'? Even there, my preference is for a chuckle instead of a rant (see above for that LOL).   

Inner child work is but one of so many, many approaches to the basic quandary -- can something I find there jar me to be more 'me' now? Or something that will improve the funk felt about the childhood bit in all of this mysterious journey called life.

Maybe it's even the label that's troubling (it is to me). More work; what -- yet again? It's already been so hard, and working more will help turn the corner towards contentment?

Well, for some -- the answer is definitely yes. For others, no; and for some, it's kind of a mixed bag. For years that was the problem I had, trying to get into a place and time that really no longer exist in our reality. Ah, but we're more than just nuts and bolts reality we can measure. We all have imaginations built=in to the reality.

I remember once when I was thinking I might find ooking into this a bit useful. Somehow, either via dream or heightened imagination, I found myself in an old house (guess who's). The only 'person' I could relate to in this litte vision was a very sad, lonely mid-teen, who was in the basement, in the process of burning his high school yearbook. Not only did it just dredge up horrible recent (for him) memories of bullying and emotional terror in that book, there even one pic of the boy and it reflected a mournful downcast visage of a boy who wished he could get out of the world, somehow/someway/anyway.

I watched him burn the pic in the firepace, then decided to risk making friends with him. Startled at first, he slowly grasped that this adut -- me -- wanted to help him. The adult 'me' in that vision instinctively just asked the boy if he was up for some fun (which was definitely what my younger 'self' would have liked. He obliged and indicated he was willing to go with me. An ESCAPE; even if, of course, it was entirely imaginary and i was seeing it in my modern character.

Okay, so in these visions I always seem to be traveling on water, this time via a canoe. I beckoned the youth to come with if he wanted something different, and he was more than intrigued. "He came with, to my place in the woods, and has been at peace ever since. Okay, yes it was a vision and no, I don't regard his as being a 'real' and current presence in my life.

I'm only telling of my one try at the child part process or whatever it's called. Which brings up another approach I use in regard to it -- instead of inner child 'work' I prefer to know it as inner child 'play'. Childhood is supposed to include play, the character 'I' was back then had little play, lots of stress, and at least he got that one canoe trip in. Actually, his adult self -- 'me' -- was and is very oriented to canoes and that sort of thing.

Okay, whew -- long enough, eh? And please, know that I'm not disagreeing or diminishing the help that the processes included in FST and other approaches are not valid; they just didn't follow any set order in my case. Then again, I've always been a bit of an outlier when it comes to precisely following certain ideas about the mess of emerging from a lifetime of Cptsd and its aftershocks to the system.

I'm talked out  for the moment. May your childhood discoveries result in at least some playful ways for you if you choose to delve into that subject more thoroughly. Who knows -- maybe you'll end up re-engaging with several 'child' parts again -- if you do, I'm sure this might reflect their imaginative place in your heart ----