dollyvee's recovery journal

[Larry]

Hi Dolly,  hope you are having a great day !

[owl25]

dollyvee, that sounds quite painful. My body tenses up all the time and it does get sore. I hope maybe you'll be able to do something to relax your muscles. Maybe some gentleness towards yourself and your body can help. 

[dollyvee]

Thanks Larry 

Thanks Owl  I think it might be digestive related as well. It's been getting worse over the past week. I do have somatic reactions when I do these mediations much like the ones I have in EMDR when processing memories. So, am just keeping an open mind about what might be going on.

Maybe a TW ~

So I had an incident at work with someone damaging my property. It's happened before and these are the kind of people I wprk with. They are mostly guys and they will all come to each other's defense. So, usually I am the odd person out. So, I've been checking if this group will be on contracts before accepting the offer. I have raised concerns for this with the employer before and they threatened to sue me. So, I'm in a position where it's either I'm bullied when working with these people and not being able to say anything, or not taking the job and not saying anything while also losing out on the pay. I took a job this week and didn't realize there was someone from that group on it. I was stressed out as they were on the last job where my car was damaged. I'm happy that I'm standing up for myself but I also feel vulnerable and out there as I don't think many people are in my position and get what's going on.

End Poss TW~

I was listening to a talk about "When Things Change: Letting Go of Grasping" and he talked a lot about identity and holding onto an idea of ourselves. I thought about work and how difficult it is and also about how it is an identity for me. It's one that I've worked very hard to get to, to be in the position that I am and doing this job. What also came up was the idea of what pushed me to maybe hold onto this identity, or the push from my family and how I felt the need to "survive." If I didn't have this job, what would I be doing? Would I be ok? It was like the fear from my grandfather the other night on the phone about work. That it didn't matter to him how my boss was treating me, just that it was about work and money. I need to separate from this feeling more, and put more space between me and it.

I'm also noticing that it's like a heaviness this feeling, and that maybe some part of me believes that I have to take it on, just like I tried to take on a lot of my family burdens as a little girl. Also, just sort of feeling out of it, like I have to fight through this stuff to connect and be positive. But maybe trying to be positive is an old habit - that I thought there must be love, my family must love me; if only I was "X" it would be different. I think I will try to let the bad stuff come up and not hold onto it.

Had a lovely little zoom class last night on giving offerings. It felt like very good energy around the teacher and the other students and I was happy to be a part of it.

[Larry]

I'm so sorry dolly,  work should not be like that.  i'm not really good at offering any helpful advice.  i don't really know what to say. 

[dollyvee]

Thanks for checking in Larry, I don't think many people know what to say about it. There are people that aren't like that, it's just a matter of trying to connect to those ones that aren't I guess.

[Larry]

sending you some sunshine to brighten your day !   

[Armee]

Hey Dollyvee. I just want to say that work can be an identity and that's ok. Mine was for me I'm not sure how I'll handle not having it. But also I want to say that there are good work environments out there and I wish that you are able to find a fulfilling job that treats you well instead of bullying.

I don't know where you are but right now it is an employee's market where  I am....lots of openings.

Until then I'm wishing you luck with the GI stuff. It sucks.

[dollyvee]

Thanks Larry - the sunshine is great & sending you some too 

Thanks Armee - I work on contracts, so there are different situations with different people quite often, but also sometimes similar mentalities among departments. It's an idea I struggle with - to "give up" and try something new which is probably related to a young part of me that had to stand up to people like that and would rather "fight" them and let them "win." Maybe it's not the most healthy thing and something I' working on. It's also interesting that it's not other peoples' experience at work. Fingers crossed for the gut stuff. I'm going back on the anti-microbials when I get these test results back; when I remember to fast to take the test.
***
I'm realizing it's somewhat hard to be back on this board and responding to ppl. I was thinking about enmeshment last week and how enmeshed I was with my mother, which I don't think I was aware of before. She was aloof and unavailable but she needed me around. We would go on trips together and spend time at the seaside or shopping, and I guess it gave the illusion of closeness but that she was never really there. I think about how quickly she had my brother after I left and he became the "golden child." That she needs someone there.

I'm thinking about the part of her that was in my IFS, it caused me fear and was like I couldn't separate; that it had to be walled off. She didn't have emotional regulation and I would take in that anger being enmeshed. I feel like when people tell me things, there is no filter and I immediately take them on. It's as if there's no space for me. It's something that happens at a very basic level too, so that I'm not really conscious of it. I noticed before that I was shutting down with my T when discussing IFS. It was like she was offering suggestions and I couldn't take it in; almost like a defensiveness. I realized that I need to keep everything out in order to have space for myself because I didn't have any growing up; that I do it to know what I think/feel about something. It doesn't make it easy to be open around other ppl.

I listened to a podcast on protection that talked about discernment and how you filter the messages that come to you. That my filtering system is wrapped up in enmeshment and my family. I was told that something was bad/scary; that I couldn't be angry instead of being allowed to feel what it was to me. I guess all families do this to some extent but it's different with trauma. I guess I'd like to focus on not having that filtering system be so active or hyperaroused as it was around my mom and gm. I think that filtering system is a very malleable thing.

***
I dreamt last night that I was being held back by some people from going forward. I think these were just kids or people that didn't really know what they were doing. I got to this bridge and was walking a bicycle across, only it was a suspension bridge like you see in the movies. Very Indiana Jones where slots were missing and the bike tire got stuck a few times in big holes. Close to the end, it was like all the slots were gone and felt like it was seperating on each foot like in caartoons. I held on and saw the water below. My hands were really clammy and I was scared I would slip. I think there were other people that seemed ok in crossing and didn't seem phased. I think they were German which makes me laugh.

Crossing bridges mean a critical junction in life or an important decision one that will prove to be filled with prosperity; also a transitional stage where you will be moving to a new way of life; a run down bridge indicates you should not contemplate any major changes in life at this time. If the bridge is over water, it suggests the transition will be an emotional one. Interesting.

[rainydiary]

Dolly, I appreciated reading your post.  Thank you for sharing about the protection system - I needed to learn about that today.  I hope that you find ways to feel comfort and ease. 

[dollyvee]

Thanks Rainy  that's good to hear. If you want to listen to the whole thing, this is it below. I pick and choose certain aspects which resonate with me, but it might not be for everyone.
https://whyshamanismnow.com/2017/04/survival-skills-for-sensitives-with-mary-shutan/

It struck me this morning, my meeting with the group to go through the offerings, and what my "normal"/old reaction would have been - maybe taking something personally or feeling I didn't measure up in some way and how I didn't feel like that after this meeting. It all felt positive and sincere. Like I had some space for myself and it was met and accepted. That feels different. We're going to keep in touch about our experience with the practice and that sounds nice.

Speaking with T today about feeling out of it. We also talked about boundaries and how I feel that I take things in. Eventually she's reminded me that I survived through it and I have resources. I could feel the panic rising up in my body and really had to concentrate to stay in present time.I feel ok now but it's still incredible how powerful these feelings are in my body.

[rainydiary]

Dolly, thank you for the resource.  I enjoy learning from many perspectives and am often amazed at how similar messaging shows up again and again from different angles. 

I appreciate what you wrote about your experience of being in a group.  I am in this place too, seeing how I would like to function differently in groups.  Thank you for sharing your experience as it will help me in the future. 

I wish you well as you navigate the feelings coming up in your body. 

[dollyvee]

Thanks Rainy  I'm glad you can get something from it. Someone suggested a book on HSPs to me and I haven't read it yet, but HSP sounds interesting. It's such a new thing. Growing up in a NPD household, so much of my behaviour was formed in a traumatic way, but also in such an engrained and automatic way that I don't even realize sometimes that I'm doing it around other people. I guess that's all of us though. I'm glad this forum gives us a chance to relate about that stuff.


Thinking about where I'm "coming from," what my issues are and what my urges are. That I think this feeling is from a hidden or automatic place that I learned, a place where I take everything in and give too much. It's like I take on all the garbage into me? I felt it last night in my solar plexus. I woke up at 3:30am and couldn't sleep. I tried to go into Self and see what part was active and it was a feeling in my solar plexus, like a knot of taking everything in (to this place of pain) and giving back at but at my expense? I think it's a very vulnerable place to be showing people and not everyone has earned the right to be there.

When relating to people, there's were definitely certain filters that didn't exist for me growing up. I had almost an automatic trust because I would think that some people know better than me, they seem more together or whatever, but I think that's something I was taught. I don't  know what's triggering me to go back in this space. That I can't trust my own feelings because there is fear or because the world is a scary place when I was very young and I didn't know? I know those filters and automatic trust are not correct because I have a pattern of giving too much and then being hurt - that what I was seeing wasn't correct. Or to care about what other people think without really processing who they are to me, or people who I haven't developed a trust with.

Sometimes instagram shows me some interesting posts related to CPTSD even though I think instagram is the devil. I guess it knows my algorithm. The post had to do with HSPs and narcissists and how HSPs can make themselves "narcissist proof" and be able to keep our empathy/openesss. One was looking at setting boundaries and the other was to deal with people pleasing behaviours by switching to authenticity . These are definitely two big ones for me. I would like to keep my empathy and also be able to set new filters. Sometimes I feel like my authentic is a little too real for a lot of people though, but I guess it's real for me and that's what matters. I think I need to think about this a bit. I think working on this would help separate the belief that not everyone is a narcissist or a danger.

[Armee]

I relate to so much of what you wrote Dollyvee. About taking so much of other people on, of the physical consequences,  of overtrusting others because they must know better than me and undertrusting myself.

I especially like what you shared about being authentic. I feel that's going to be important to me from this point on in my life and yet I have no idea how to trust myself to be authentic without being too much. I guess it would be normal to misjudge sometimes.

[dollyvee]

Thanks Armee - I can relate to that. How do we be authentic when we were never allowed to be ourselves growing up and when acting from an authentic place could have had (probably did have) dangerous consequences? This says that we learn to be "nice" by dismissing our own feelings and putting other first as a way to be worthy of their love and carry these beliefs into our adult relationships. I think it's such a deep part.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CVK_GTSpjs5/?utm_medium=share_sheet

Meditation:

I had a memory come to me yesterday about staying in bed, watching TV with my grandmother. I think it felt safe and we spent a lot of time there together. I asked those parts back in meditation this morning and there seemed to be a block in head. I then asked for anything else to come back and it was like a rush of energy into me - I felt great but it scared me. I think I was worried about controlling it. I finished and noticed it was like a part reverted to negative thinking, that something had shifted. I asked to separate and a part showed up behind me. It seemed very angry and was scowling at me. Later something came up around bullying at work. Previously this week I had a memory/feeling around bullying and my stepfather in a meditation. I think maybe this was the part that had to protect me from his/other ppl's negativity at that age.

Reading Second Sight by Judith Orloff yesterday and she mentions someone telling her that her neck tension was her body waking up; that she remembered something important about herself and got frightened. So when you shut down your body, it tightens and reacts to the symptoms; fighting what comes up only creates tensions.

I like this book, no matter what my realtionship to the content is. It reminds me of those parts of us that we had to give up or hide because of judgement from other people and how important those parts are to us. It also reminds me the weight of family and how it can cause us to doubt things about ourselves and the things that make us unique in the world.

[dollyvee]

Just thinking about what I wrote to Armee - that I guess part of authenticity is also trusting ourselves and what we're feeling. Over time by giving ourselves a chance, I think we build a better discernment and what feels "right" for us. But also I think a big part is keeping what our expectations are for a relationship real and aware of where they're coming from in us