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yep, got the chapbook in on time, so that's a big bunch of stress off my shoulders.  i know nothing will come of it, but you know what?  i frickin' did it!  so i have no regrets for not giving it a shot. let the chips fall where they may.

editing is going well also.  and now wimbledon for 2 weeks, so i'm doing ok.

probably, blueberry.  that was monstrous of them to do that to you, by the way.  i'm so very sorry you had to experience that from them.  you didn't deserve it, still don't.  i'm hoping for more lovely conversations to come your way.  love and hugs

maybe those lovely conversations kind of blew your circuits, blueberry.  things might have simply been too much 'good' for you and you're needing some time to process, allow the good feelings from them to sink in, and finally be ok with them.  just a thought.

at any rate, i hope you can accept that what your system needs right now is gentleness and kindness - sending love and a hug filled with both your way.

hey, NK, i truly relate to not having feelings about things that happened in childhood, and having to cope with them now as they begin coming up.  i'm right there with you - c-ptsd sucks!  i've often found it overwhelming, too, to have these feelings pop up and don't always know what to do with them.  from my experience, as i kept going w/ them, they became easier in time to cope with.

i'm glad you realized that therapy can still be helpful.  c-ptsd has such a stunning array of ways to get to us, and i've found having help and support extremely important as i kept finding more.  best to you!  love and hugs

glad you're able to see that, blueberry.  i concur wholeheartedly!  sounds like a lovely little encounter.  love and hugs

sending you a hug of comfort and care, bach 

i remember being told many times from 12-steppers to 'let go and let God', and i would say that it wasn't me hanging onto anything, cuz the 'stuff' was hanging onto me.  i do believe that's how this works.  it's not necessarily anything we are ABLE to let go of, try as we might.  this stuff has a hold on us thru neural networks or whatever so the 'letting go' thing just isn't our reality.

i do believe, however, this, too, shall pass, as i've heard many times here on the forum, and have experienced that many times as well.  i just hope you can take care of yourself as best you can while you go thru this part of the c-ptsd beast, and hang on till you come out the other side.  love and hugs

blueberry, hope you enjoy the conference.  heart intelligence, indeed.  i've long held onto the brain/body connection.  it just makes a lot of sense to me.  love and hugs

bach, she sounds a lot like my D1, with whom i've been estranged for over a decade.  no, your brother doesn't deserve such vitriol, abuse, negativity from her.  i wish he could extricate himself from her.  so very sorry this is going on, honestly.  it's just awful.  and i feel bad for you that you have to watch all this awfulness happening to your brother.  thanks for sharing.  it helped revive my own importance in staying away from such people, even if they're related to me.  i hope there's a way for this to be helped for his sake.  love and hugs

i'm proud of you, too, blueberry, if that's appropriate.  you took care of the situation just the way you needed it to be taken care of, and you had what sounds like some lovely people to take care of you, who listened to you and helped in a meaningful way.  so glad your eft tapping can help you in certain circumstances and certain ways.  wonderful that you were able to discover that for yourself.  well done all around!  and, yeah, you deserve a rest.  love and hugs

SO, i think the biggest strength of the c-ptsd beast is its ability to cause us to believe it's us who are the failures, the uglies, the shameful, the horribles, when, in fact, all those neg. labels belong to those who caused such thinking and beliefs within ourselves.  as you said, and something i've always believed, babies have none of those neg. thoughts about themselves, but have had them heaped upon them by others.  and it's with others that those neg. thoughts/feelings/beliefs belong.

so glad you found us.  this place has been life-saving for me.  love and hugs

hey, bach, could she be showing signs of dementia/alzheimer's or something to that effect?  it sounds very paranoid to me.  not that i'm trying to find an excuse, but it sounds like a trip to a doctor might be in order.  such behavior is intolerable and it's awful that your brother is going thru this and that you have to watch it happen.  so very sorry it's happening.  still, no excuse for her treating him like this.  love and hugs

blueberry, core wounds are the most difficult, absolutely.  i believe the reason they're so hard to not only get to but also to put to rest is partly because we may have had neural networks involved, which are always tricky to re-write, so to speak.  to me, core wounds come directly to us from parents, and kids tend to want to prove their parents are correct in their assessment - after all, they are our guardians, we rely on them for our very survival, and we don't believe they would lie to us.  in fact, they do, and reinforcing neg. beliefs about ourselves is one way in which they lie big time. 

but just like kids tend to think that anything that goes wrong w/ the adults in our lives - such as divorce, etc. - has to be our fault, or if one parent leaves, it must mean they didn't love us enough to want to stay, or we weren't good enough of a child, or we did something wrong so that's a big part of the reason they're leaving, our thinking and belief systems are extremely black and white, and we tend to take the burden of responsibility onto our own shoulders. 

if we're already carrying that sense of responsibility around, it doesn't take much to embed it into our brains/minds that whatever happens is our fault, and so we must be faulty as people.  it's not so much a matter of i made a mistake, but that i AM a mistake.  therefore, if i am a mistake, i'm worthless and i shouldn't be here, don't deserve to exist, and the world would be a better place for all if i wasn't around. something like that. and that's a tough one to disprove.

and maybe you've heard all this before, and i'm just repeating, and if it's not helpful, please ignore.

i have used emdr a lot, and it's helped a lot as well.  altho i didn't do parts work, per se, i can remember several instances where i imagined my little me being stuck, just before the goal line (american football analogy), not being able to move all the way across to reach the goal on my own - not being able to get to where i wanted to go consciously - and my T would suggest that adult me would show up, pick me up, and carry me across.  that has helped a lot.

having an adult version of me, with the power and strength the adult has that a child doesn't have, come to my rescue, get me to where i wanted and needed to go was a very powerful image for me.  there was also a lot of soothing of the child me, lots of love talk and encouragement, that kind of thing. i know i did it more than once, maybe for different causes, but it helped knowing i do have that strength in me that was taken from me by FOO when i was too young to know better, too young to cultivate it for myself.

it got me to know on a more conscious level that maybe i didn't have what i needed when i needed it as a kid, but i have it now, and i can rescue my little me in the present. i've also used Flash Technique (an emdr technique that helps override emotional overwhelm) when working with most anything that has an emotional attachment to it.  since i haven't had access to my emotions, this helped a lot to override the enormity (to me) of them.

lots of cleansing tears went along with that whole scenario, but i was able to chip away at some of those beliefs - especially, i'm not good enough the way i am and that i have to be perfect.  i feel much more confident about being me now, not very much invested in comparing myself to others negatively, and allowing myself to make mistakes w/o downing or drowning myself in self-pity and self-flagellation.

i hope this was helpful.  any more questions, feel free.  best to you with this piece, blueberry.  you deserve to have some peace of mind around this stuff.  it really gets old to have it pop up again and again.  love and hugs

thanks for that hug, chart.  back atcha!

hope, thank you for your support.  last nite i felt more relaxed than usual, probably becuz things seem 'normal' right now, which also feels weird at the same time.

the editing is going well, and i do believe i'll be able to enter my chapbook on time.  so, yay! it's finally feeling nice to have creative juices going again - can't believe how much i miss that - and, as i said, things feel kinda normal right now - no crises, which at the same time feels rather abnormal.  so, i slept pretty well, altho i'm still tired.  i think it'll take some time. 

am sleeping better, but meds are a regular helper for me now.  still, i like this way better than the up and down of nervous bladder all nite, restlessness, intrusive thoughts - there are still plenty of them - and feeling unrested.  it's not where i'd like it to be, but i've run out of trazadone, which was a slight sedative and anti-depressant mix, and really helped me fall asleep and stay asleep.  hopefully, i get to see the doc in nov - i know, it's a long time to wait! - and she'll help me out.  it would be nice, even tho i'm dreading it. 

i've already rehearsed that visit.  too many traumas w/ docs, and on several occasions i've depersonalized, becoming the 'gray lady' who can't speak up, can't articulate what needs to be said, has no personality whatsoever.  quite the opposite of the real me, in fact.  i know what i need to say, what i need to tell her, what i need her to hear from me.  here's hoping i can convey all that.  i also have dread that there are too many things wrong w/ me physically - i haven't had good doctor care for such a long time, altho i've worked at living healthier.  we'll see.

lots of brain work to do at the moment.  am editing my D's latest book, and putting together a chapbook of out-of-the-way poetry/literary fiction work to enter for a publishing house.  we'll see, also, if anything comes of that.  it's good to get my mind focused on other things, altho i do have to be careful about taking enough breaks.  so, keeping busy right now.  it does feel more alive.

'a tender kind of sadness' sounded so sweet, so beautiful, so real.  SO, it's lovely to hear you find your path and keep going on it.

love and hugs