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I've been having a lot of dreams that are filled with emotions. Deep emotions that I perhaps stop myself from feeling.
Before it was the guilt and missing of my FOO. Feeling sorry for them. Needing to help, getting anxious and worried about them. All things i stopped doing a few years ago and its like my system was still programmed to do that so didn't stop feeling those things..so it came out in my dreams.
And now its some of the fantasy thinking i used to do a lot with regards to relationships. I stopped indulging in this too, once i realised how much it leads to missing red flags and generally bad outcomes.
Again, its like my system hasn't fully caught on that 'we won't be using this coping mechanisms anymore' and is dying to do them whenever i feel bad or empty.....like how i always used to as a kid, and it almost feels betrayed that i reject this coping mechanism?! So then it happens in my dreams. Fantasy romantic partnerships. It feels so real and nice and then when i wake up, i feel so triggered, and lost, and not in control anymore. And worried that my nervous system will never get into the habit of recognising anything else other than the dysfunctional habits, as coping strategies.

I'm trying to apply the things i learnt in therapy. To go lovingly towards these dreams and to thank them for guiding me towards whats going on inside, with processing. I think its because ive recently started approaching dating very differently - and it certainly isn't easy to go to what feels most natural (attraction to many red flagged men) and to be honest, it feels annoying, weird, odd, and like the sparkly fun of attraction has been taken out of it. I hate even saying this. I think i havent yet fully figured out when im not attracted to someone because they genuinely are not a good match, versus not having the initial attraction because they are healthy and not what im used to - something i know can be common when meeting people who arent toxic after its all we're used to. I was on an extremely boring and awkward date, the guy did not have good social awareness skills, and i reasoned i should give him a chance and sat through a very tedious second date before getting annoyed with myself and thinking, i can also trust myself to recognise when im not having a good time.
Healthy may mean not what we're used to, but it shouldn't also mean tediously boring, difficult and lacking any commanlities.

These things all sound so obvious but ive found as im treading the murky waters of recovery, its the little things like this that we need to unlearn and -relearn and it will take some trial and error. Such as abandoning old ideas of love and fantasies, and giving guys a chance who aren't the usual type to trigger a spark. But then questions will be raised - what then is the difference for us between a spark not being triggered because they're healthy versus because they're just incompatible? I.e. learning to trust myself, and my own decision-making and intuition.
Its difficult. Some of the wiring still needs redoing.
And in the meantime, it feels like my brain has so many new things with being challenged, ordered to do things differently to what worked as a child, that its getting overwhelmed and confused and sleep is the only time i leave it alone to bring up whatever.

Sigh. this might not even make much sense, im rambling a lot.

This is such a biggie for me.
Asking for help. Making my needs known.
Even things that I should be getting as par the course for say, my job.
My superviser didn't do my end of rotation report for example. I emailed him, and then felt too scared to badger him further. He is supposed to have done it by early August. It is now...October and still not done.
I'm scared he is going to do any or all of the following:
Sigh, show irritance at being bothered, get annoyed, get angry, have a go at me and tell me I am bothering him and then whip out a whole list of all the things in which I am truly dreadful/awful/a massive burden and other ways in which i am just useless and lacking and incompetent in, that he has kept secret this whole time, to throw at me in the moment where something is needed of him, to get her anger out. .

I've had to push through fears like this SO MUCH in the past. Its so scary asking for stuff having grown up in...our kinds of home environments.
I'm scared to bother my friends too, though I mostly push through that one and it works out ok. Though I mostly do it with things that are really not asking much at all. Other times when I've needed a bit more....such as helping me when I've had a broken wrist, its so difficult.

I always feel like I first have to prep in my head for coming up with a load of justifications and explanations why I absolutely cannot 100% do it by myself at this very moment. Like the situation has to be completely dire to justify asking them. Otherwise maybe its too much, maybe they'll get irritated, annoyed, see me as needing too much blah blah blah.

Its awful. I hate this. The fear, the pounding heart, the expectation of being ridiculed/rejected is so horrendous it puts me off pushing through and just asking.

Though most of the times I've asked for help, its been fine.

But then there's the feeling of needing to 'give back' and overcompensate for what others did for me - like its such a big massive deal, that i need to show them it was worth it or justifiable by being extremely available and giving in return even when they're not asking for anything(?!). Its maddening. I constantly feel like I can never just....be. I'm always anticipating and preparing against/for a particular outcome.

Of course, this is all in keeping with how my mum and older siblings reacted to my needs and the relationship their behaviour led me to have with my needs and how they affect others.

This is my next focus of healing. Little baby steps.
Gosh. Its so unfair we have to learn basic things in such brutal ways. We have to learn healthy things by always unlearning the unhealthy ways we were programmed into...through extremely difficult facing of fears and unrealistic views of the world and others instilled into us by rubbish caregivers.

This is a part of the CPTSD puzzle I definitely have grappled with, but never really addressed/understood and now its only recently dawning on me the full impact of.
From accepting dysfunctional people as friends, being the constant helper, to never expressing or expecting my own needs to be met at all....to feeling like i am unworthy with more stable, healthy people therefore sabotaging or not investing in those friendships.....i am beginning to see the role i played and how its been affected by CPTSD.
I can't quite believe it all.

Its like someone has put together a 10,000 piece jigsaw on the theme of friendship in my life, and the final piece has just been put in the middle, and i can see the whole picture.
Its a lot to digest, all at once.
A lot to process.
I can't believe how clearly i can see it all now.
And how much harder i made it for myself, unwittingly, unknowingly, all these years.
I can see clearly now there were so many kind, healthy people who wanted to be my friend, for example, but i didn't accept them because of either feeling unworthy, or 'they're not relatable' and not even giving them the chance. Or worse, when i was younger and haughty, that they are 'boring'.

I'm glad I'm learning but...wow.
Does anyone else have realisations that feels like being hit by  a tonne of bricks??

I lurked on this board for a while before and I'd like to start off by saying that I can relate to so many of the difficulties, frustration, confusion and myriad of other emotions and battle grounds so many of wrote about here and my heart goes out to all of you faced with the difficulties I know only too well. This is extremely painful and like a mind-tangling issue that just seems to twist more out of control the more you try to work it out.

I've been feeling guilty recently. I haven't spoken to PD my mum for over a year, not seen her for 3 years and had very little contact in the years before this. Same with the rest of my FOO. My youngest sister who was the last person I broke contact with, it has been NC for age, then LC, then NC for several years until 1 year ago when I had enough. She was the only one who had my new phone number, which she got from me 1 year ago after our LC was limited to via facebook messenger and she pulled a tantrum and she said she thought it was ridiculous she doesn't have my phone number and that if we didn't talk on the phone, she wouldn't continue communicating with me. Looking back, this angers me so much as it had taken a big step for me to get rid of my old number and start afresh with a number one, given only to people with whom I felt safe. But...I was in one of those awful sad/guilty/shameful spiral when she demanded it, and stupidly i gave it to her, making her promise she'd never give it to anyone.

After we spoke on the phone a year ago, the usual BS happened and we blocked each other. Haven't heard from her since. 6 weeks ago, i received a call from a number i didn't recognise, followed by texts saying it was my mum in english (she doesn't speak/write english fluently nor does she know how to use messaging apps) so i suspected it was one of my sisters texting on her behalf. Stupidly i answered the phone call and it was ...the usual narc manipulative apology and gaslighting and deflecting and all the rest of it. I was in a vulnerable place, facing moving cities and just wanted to believe i could believe her. She claimed she had decided to learn how to use translating apps and how to use phone and this was indeed her new number to contact me on (which she must have got through my sister who had promised not to give it to anybody!). I just wanted all this narc stuff to go away so after listening to her apology and 'explanations', i said i'd think about what i wanted to do.

Fast forward to last week, i messaged the number and asked if it really was mum or one of my other siblings. My other sister (E) admitted it was her number. This infuriates me. So it HADN'T been my mother texting me, everything she said was a lie (she has always found it very easy to lie easily and casually) and then my mum got on the phone and started talking as though everything is completely hunky-dory, like we are a loving mother-daughter unit, and she would love to come visit if i tell her where i live, and she would cook for me and help me with whatever i need. which sounds so nice, right? But when you know a narc, you know the lovebombing is just to preen you into a false sense of security. I felt numb - i would LOVE for a loving mother but have long since accepted this will never be the case. It was sad listening to her rail off a loving speech that i knew deep down is just a smokescreen. And nobody even addressed the fact that I HAD NOT GIVEN MY PERMISSION FOR MY NUMBER TO BE GIVEN TO HER. She even glossed over the police investigation that happened last year due to abuse from my siblings and said how 'beside himself and sorry' my brother was and how he tells her he really respects me, and that he was just a stupid kid when it all happened and he didn't know any better.

This is what angers me. The lack of boundaries, the lack of respect for me and my wishes and what i've been through - no 'sorry if you didn't want me to have your number', and no 'i'm so sorry about the investigation and i failed to protect you...' just this blitzing through to automatically wanting to come visit me, learn where my new life is, get involved as though nothing ever happened! At the same time, i received a message from my sister who i had originally given my number to stating simply, after 1 year, and after she lied to the police saying i made the abuse up,  her text said 'dont trust mum, she's psycho, i'm leaving soon'.

I was numb from all this and have been through so many emotions./ Anger at my sister for giving out my number then suddenly thinking she is OK to message me to 'warn me' (I'm guessing they had yet another cycle of narc rage etc etc and she was looking for people to be on her side) - no acknowledgement of the lies in the police investigation, or the fact we haven't even been in contact for a year or even that SHE herself had given my number to my mum just days before trying to 'warn me' about her.
After thinking about it, yesterday I sent a message to E saying 'i've thought things through and i don't wish to resume contact with mum or the the rest of the family, please respect my wishes' and blocked the lot of them.

I think its for the best but today...suddenly i felt guilty. For some reason, I feel sad that i just abruptly blocked them and remembered how happy my mum sounded talking about wanting to come visit, wanting to help me, even though i know its just fake lovebombing. She even peppered it with her typical narc prying 'so have you done your career exams?' (which she knows nothing about) and hinting at it being time for me to get pregnant and because i was just grey rocking, she said 'oh so you don't have any stories to converse and relay to me?' (i'm used to her saying this when people don't offer up titbits or personal information about themselves or other people).

Why oh why do i feel guilty?
There's so much i want to get off my chest and just type and type and type and get it all out. But i'm exhausted.