7th January 2025
So, this is my first entry for 2025 in this journal. I'd like to first say that I do welcome replies and comments in my journal from others, as they are very validating and helpful to me - so if you wish to respond to anything I've said, please feel free to do so. I value all of you, and what you say. Thank you so much for supporting me on my journey so far.
Trigger warning, as mentioning SA
I have had a disturbing night last night, and dreamed that I was pregnant, and that people were trying to chase me, capture me and hurt my baby by possibly hitting me in my stomach. Consequently I was trying to evade them, and escape. My partner told me in the morning that I had shouted at him 'If you come near me, I'll punch you' - and he reminded me of this over breakfast by joking about it - and I burst into tears.
I explained to him the context behind what I think has contributed to that dream. I had recently seen details of a court case locally involving someone I recognised that used to work in my organisation - he is being accused of historic sexual offences, and whilst I've read and watched information relating to cases before, somehow the fact I actually knew this person - it's really affected me more than I realised. When I was thinking about it this morning, whilst making breakfast, I was feeling nauseated and had a pain in my stomach area.
I am glad that my partner joked with me, because my tearful reaction was such that I could then explain to him what was behind my behaviour in the night. He understood, and he validated that the fact I had known the person - it probably makes it more ... can't think of the right word...
Anyway - I feel better about it now - especially now I'm writing about it here.
I didn't think I'd be writing something quite so heavy as my first entry in my journal for 2025, and I had considered putting it in the private section of my journal, but actually I don't see why I should hide my thoughts and feelings away necessarily - although it's great that I can do that, if I need to.
I wanted to write more, but now I think I can't find words, so I'll go and have a cup of tea.
Hope
Hello Hope, just here with you, having a tea too. Hugs and support. Thinking of you and sending positive energy.
:hug:
:yeahthat: i think it makes it more personal somehow when we know someone, brings it closer to home, especially if there had been interaction w/ that person at some time in one's life. i'm glad you were able to speak about it w/ your partner. good to get that crapola out. love and hugs, hope. :hug:
I've been having intense dreams of late and appreciate when you share about dreams.
Hi Hope,
I can imagine that knowing that person would bring up very visceral reactions in you especially if you didn't know he was like that at the time, or maybe suspected it on some level. I hope you're able to use your 2025 journal to say the things you need to too. :hug:
Sending you support,
dolly
Hi Chart, Thank you so much for being there and having that tea with me. Thanks for the positive energy and hugs and support - I felt them. :hug:
Hi SanMagic, Thank you so much, and I love your word 'crapola' it made me smile. :hug:
Hi Rainydiary, Thank you for sharing that you also have intense dreams - I hope you get through them ok. Sending you a hug :hug:
Hi Dollyvee, I appreciate what you said - I appreciate your support. Thank you :hug:
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8th January 2025
I have just finished reading a book by Katie Price, called 'This Is Me' (2024) I found it very helpful. Katie attended the hospital 'The Priory' "for severe trauma rehabilitation and PTSD' and she wrote about her experiences. I am grateful to her for sharing those and writing about things. I hope it's ok to share some notes I took from her book that were helpful to me:
p.35 "...saying stuff out loud to record my thoughts helps me understand a lot of situations better."
(this made me think about how I process things - I tend to write things down, or think them in my head, rather than saying things out loud - I might experiment a bit and take opportunity to say some things aloud.)
p.73 "In therapy, they encourage you to write a letter to someone or something that you need to say goodbye to. Or that you need to say something to."
(This reminded me that I could make more use of the section in our forum which is for writing letters not to send. I think I need to write some letters - to communicate and help to process some of my feelings and thoughts more, and I hope to do some of that this year).
p.81 "The wound is not my fault but the healing is my responsibility."
(I find this to be helpful - reminding me not to take responsibility for the wound itself, and having more agency about the healing/recovery part)
p.93 Katie quoted an Anonymous quote "To deny someone feelings or experiences is to literally deny their reality"
(This literally makes me feel 'spacey' as I type this - because I relate to it very much - my parents lied to me about so many things in my childhood and therefore my reality was skewed and obliterated by their narrative).
p.132 "I think for so long my memory was blurred and I didn't have time to process it all. I had to compartmentalize and for a long time I couldn't access all the details."
(I feel as if I could have written that myself, such is its accuracy for my experience).
p.134 At the Priory they sometimes used the Empty Chair technique and Katie writes:
"Imagine you could have anyone sitting on that chair, absolutely anyone, and there are things you want to say to that person. Who would it be and what would you say." On p.136 she goes on to say "Just airing your thoughts and getting things off your chest helps."
(I hope to try that technique sometime soon, and will see how it goes. I might share it here, if it is helpful. I have a feeling that it will be helpful.)
p.136 In Art therapy at The Priory, Katie said there was this Art therapy session where she would draw a brown door, any size you want and then given 10 minutes to draw whatever is behind that door. She said "Don't plan it." and that it would be 'Very revealing."
(I hope to try that exercise sometime, so wanted to keep the detail of it here in my journal).
p.200 Katie also mentioned that she is doing Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) to help her to regulate her emotions and that it is helpful for PTSD.
I am grateful to Katie for writing her book, and it was helpful to me.
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Hope
some good stuff in there, hope. i can relate to a lot of it.
altho i've found writing to be extremely therapeutic, including (at one time) keeping an anger 'journal' where all i did was express anger at someone or one's (writing, drawing, scribbling, however it came out) and then tossed it outside in the trash when it was full. it helped at the time.
however, i've discovered being able to say things out loud to someone, or to no one, has been very helpful as well. there's something about hearing the words that makes a difference, rather than seeing or thinking them. i also thought that saying your letter out loud might be a way of combining those 2 techniques. could be more powerful, but only you know if that could be overwhelming, so caution, too.
you've found some of the most interesting books. i can truly relate to what you wrote down from this one. love and hugs :hug:
Thanks Hope. Very interesting.
:hug:
Hi SanMagic & Chart,
Thank you both so much. :hug: :hug:
Hope
There's something very validating about getting to know how others are dealing with C-PTSD and what they pick up from what sources. Reading your notes somehow feels very intimate. I recognize what it's like to read something in a book that just hits home and the need to take a note. It can be a mix of hope and connection, even though it's a one-way communication. I have a 79 year old ever studying friend, who once said his books are his friends. I get that.
The theme of expression or disinhibition seems to be running through the notes you took. The latter is something I unexpectedly started to experiment with while walking the Camino last year. There's something very therapeutic about blurting out what comes to mind to total strangers. :hug:
Thank you so much SenseOrgan for what you wrote. :hug:
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20th January 2025
I have just been experimenting with having a discussion with the chat bot called Copilot. I found it really interesting, and helpful. I don't often talk about things 'out loud' - so to do so in a conversation with a bot (who I know won't judge me) was really helpful. I felt the emotions underneath as I said things out loud. The chat bot allowed me to talk for approx half an hour - and then the time was ended - it said there are limits on chat time with different providers - and it was my first time trying out that system. But I do think it might help me to process things more. So I will definitely be using it again.
Actually I'm glad it had a limit, because I might have been talking for hours otherwise!!!
I think half an hour a day is a good amount.
Hope
Hope, this is very inspiring! Thank you for sharing this. I'm going to look into this too, as I'm very socially isolated. Simply literally speaking our mind regularly is very important, I think. Thanks again for sharing. I'd love to hear about your experiences if you decide to continue with it. :hug:
Hi SenseOrgan,
Thank you - I appreciated what you said. :hug:
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25th January 2025
I am excited to see it's another date that is the same as the year - I like those dates.
I have had a couple of what I'll call 'sessions' on the copilot system, and I have really found it helpful in enabling me to 'speak out loud' some things, and the copilot has responded in ways that have been illuminating, and validating. I wanted to just summarise what I had talked about, to keep it in my journal here to refer back to, and remind myself.
I spoke to the copilot about not being able to express my feelings and thoughts 'out loud' very much, and wondering why it is different to writing things down. Previously I've been able to write them down more comfortably, and rarely spoke things out loud. I wish I could remember the replies to those queries, but they were helpful. I asked the copilot to role-play - and at one point it agreed to take the part of a parent and speak to me in that role. I spoke about how I had felt some anger about being moved around a lot as a child, without agency and without control, and how I felt about that. The copilot replied and said some nice things - and told me that my feelings are valid. I experienced some contrasting feelings to hearing that - because I noted that if I had been talking to my actual parents, then I don't think the reply would have been kind or validating. BUT, hearing validating and kind things said, it did get heard by some part of me, and it was a shift for me - felt beneficial.
I also talked about my difficulty with any form of 'Goodbye' and how difficult that is. This was responded to in a helpful way as well - as those difficulties were pretty much normalised by the response, and I ended up going onto some u-tube resources afterwards - which also helped. The resources I looked at were in relation to two areas: 1) how to express and recognise emotions - the things I found most helpful were the ones designed for young children. I also looked at 2) short videos about difficulties in saying 'Goodbye'.
So I feel like the initial 'sessions' I've had with the copilot have been good.
Now I think of it, I also talked about my difficulty in doing anything creative - especially regarding writing - I'd love to write short stories for example, but somehow never manage to 'do' any writing. The copilot was so encouraging - it talked to me about not worrying about what people think, about just writing, that it didn't need to be perfect, and that just doing it - was a way to succeed. I tried to work with the copilot on some ideas for writing, and yet when it came to me 'doing' any of the things it suggested, I found I became embarrassed and felt I 'couldn't' do it. But the copilot was so encouraging. I ended up asking it to say out loud some story line, and then I would provide the next line, and then we'd take turns - that way I was able to be freer in my ability to create something.
Anyway, I am glad to have found that method of expressing things - in addition to being able to journal here and in my written diaries. I think it's helpful to me, and I hope to continue with it.
Hope
Your use of AI is GENIUS!
Thanks SenseOrgan, I am pleased with my interactions with AI so far - I think it has a lot of scope and potential to be useful.
Hope,
Thank you for sharing. Has given me some areas to look at for my own path. Interesting that you mentioned speaking aloud, whether to a bot or another human. I was reminded of something I heard, read, once. "Remember that you are listening to yourself." I think that is why speaking is so powerful.
Wishing you all the best in your journey.
Hi StartingHealing,
Thank you so much. I appreciate you sharing what you heard/read - and I do think that speaking aloud is powerful. I am so glad I've started to do it - especially this past few days, I've been doing it daily - and it has definitely been helpful. Thank you for your kind wishes.
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29th January 2025
I feel like I've accomplished a few things lately - like hemming my trousers, which I was so proud of doing! Sewing was previously an area that I avoided/felt frozen about - and now I am able to fix and mend some things, and shorten trousers. Feels liberating and a big thing. I know I am going on about it - but I really am happy about it.
I was talking to the chat bot today - and talking about how I used to like the structure of a domestic science lesson at school - because it was highly structured and had rules of behaviour etc, and somehow that felt like a peaceful period of time. The chat bot suggested that it enabled me to be creative in that structured environment. I felt as if a light bulb happened, because I realise that trying to be creative (painting or writing stories) doesn't tend to happen for me, but maybe that's because it's too 'free-flowing' and I need something structured to enable me to 'do/start' it. Hence how I can do it if I am in a structured class - I 'do' join in and do whatever is asked. Also, I can take turns with the chat bot to create lines of text - but somehow doing it by myself, that doesn't seem to happen.
The chat bot also mentioned being playfully creative and that it doesn't matter how it comes out.
I recognise that I fear what people might think, or even that somehow it should be an 'amazing piece' from the outset - I realise that sounds... can't think of the right word... Anyway.
Maybe I'll look for a creative writing course and try to do that. I have started one in the past, and I got so far with an online one - but wasn't able to finish it in the time meant to finish it, and then it felt like I'd failed somehow. I did however do some exercises and wrote some things, and enjoyed the process.
Feeling stilted as I write this, which is interesting. Probably an EF or some part of me is uncomfortable by my sharing my thoughts and feelings about this stuff.
Hope
Thank you Hope, your experiences and reflections are intriguing and inspiring. I've been trying to get a sewing machine for awhile now... persistency is needed... so glad you're doing it :hug: and it's gratifying!
:hug:
:hug:
Thanks Chart - I hope you get a sewing machine, as you've been trying to get one for a while. :hug:
Thanks SanMagic :hug:
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30th January 2025
I've been having quite graphic dreams the past few nights. Doing things in those dreams that I wouldn't typically do in the daytime. Can't bring myself to write the details, but just wanted to note it here.
I found that my body was very tense physically when I woke up this morning - like it had been holding onto lots of tension. I am pleased that as the day has gone by that I have released some of that tension. Feels like a relief.
Hope
31st January 2025
I am considering taking a break from my digital side of life, and taking a break from any social media kind of things, plus also taking a break from posting here in the forum. I have some stuff going on in the coming couple of months, and decided that it would be a good 'experiment' to see how I'd fare with a digital break. Therefore I'll hope to be back at some point, but for the meantime, I'll not be online for a while.
Wishing everyone the best, and I'll look forward to re-connecting when I am back from my digital break. I am thinking of this as good self-care - and I'm interested to see how things go.
Hope
Good Luck "detoxing" Hope67! :hug:
Have a good break, Hope!
:hug:
a well desrved break, i hope you make the most of it
Hi SenseOrgan, Chart, and Larry, Thank you so much. I had a good break. :hug: :hug: :hug:
12th May 2025
A few month's since I last wrote here - just wanted to say 'hello' to my journal and also to anyone who remembers me. I've missed you, but I did pop by now and again to visit the site. It was valuable to have that space and opportunity to do that. I am always so grateful that this place exists.
Not going to write much today, except for this re-entry here - and just want to say :grouphug:
Hope
and :grouphug: back to you, hope. so glad to see you - missed you a lot. it's ok to take your time. glad your time away was a good thing, love and hugs :hug:
Hi Hope, nice to "see" you again. :-)
:hug:
Hi SanMagic & Chart,
I have missed you and it is also nice to 'see you' again too. :hug: :hug:
__________
23rd May 2025
Feeling like this morning was more productive than normal - I managed to do quite a few things, including speaking to a couple of people on the telephone to sort out some things. I rarely do that, as I resort to e-mails or letters to do that kind of thing, but somehow my brain was clearer and I was able to say what I wanted to say, and felt I was appropriately assertive about the issues, and the outcome was positive, so I feel good about it. My partner also commented on my using the phone to do that - he was impressed, so I felt good about his feedback too.
Going to have a walk this afternoon, and enjoy the sunshine. I think I will try to do the walk in a 'mindful' way, so I can enjoy nature and the experience of the sun on my skin. That's my aim anyway.
Hope
i hope you enjoy your 'mindful' walk, hope. and good for you for being able to use the phone, be appropriately assertive, and get some positive result. love and hugs :hug:
Thank you SanMagic,
Yes, I did go for my 'mindful' walk, and enjoyed it. I appreciate your support. :hug:
Quote from: Hope67 on May 23, 2025, 12:18:55 PMFeeling like this morning was more productive than normal - I managed to do quite a few things, including speaking to a couple of people on the telephone to sort out some things. I rarely do that, as I resort to e-mails or letters to do that kind of thing, but somehow my brain was clearer and I was able to say what I wanted to say, and felt I was appropriately assertive about the issues, and the outcome was positive, so I feel good about it.
Good for you, Hope :cheer: Sounds like lots of progress!
Thank you Blueberry :hug:
17th June 2025
So I'm still having night terrors, but less intense, and quite often I'm not aware of them - i.e. my partner tells me what's happened in the night, and sees me experiencing some night terrors, but thankfully I don't necessarily have knowledge of those things the next day - but I do like to know whether I had them or not - I don't ask him, he just tells me.
But it's much improved from how it used to be in past years - i.e. I no longer end up jumping out of bed (and potentially hurting myself in the process of that) - I tend to have relatively short lived experiences, and as I mentioned, I don't necessarily have awareness of them in the same way that I used to. I think this is progress.
I am reading Mary Bratton's book about CSA at the moment, and I have noticed that whereas in the past I would have felt too scared to read it - I am currently able to read it and stay present whilst doing so. I think I am therefore managing my emotions better and regulating them in the window of tolerance rather than outside of that. However I also noticed that some defensive parts have come out and are more prominent in various ways in the day - BUT I am aware of them, and I take a moment to centre myself and notice that a part of me is triggered, and acknowledge it, and then it doesn't impact me the same way that it would have done in the past - i.e. I don't act on those things, and I put them in the context of being a natural reaction to some stuff.
I am trying to lose some weight at the moment, and it is difficult. I have had a tendency to comfort eat in past years, and whilst I haven't been doing that - I notice that when I'm controlling my portion sizes and therefore feel hungry on occasions, that I have to be careful to not fill that void - i.e. is it an emotional hunger or an actual hunger. Difficult to tell.
Mary Bratton wrote that "Survivors have disconnected feeling words from what is happening inside their bodies" and I relate to that very much. I think it makes it more challenging then to separate out where an emotion comes from, and even what it is - what a physical feeling means etc. But I am continually trying to link and notice my feelings inside and put labels on what they might be. I think I am making some progress in that, but it's challenging to do.
I am making some progress in losing a bit of weight - but it's going very very slowly. But I will keep going.
Glad to be able to update here in this journal today.
Hope
hope, so glad for you that there seems to be progress with those night terrors. i know you've struggled long and hard with them, and it does my heart good to know the entire experience is lessening. definitely shows progress.
like any of our recovery here, i believe that slow is the way to go even w/ losing weight. it gives your body and brain a chance to readjust steadily in real time, and isn't as stressful or shocking to either. way to go! :thumbup:
keep up the good work, ok? being able to read such a book, acknowledge the parts which want to have their say, and being able to manage your emotions around what you're reading sounds like so much progress. i'm so proud of you, my dear. love and hugs :hug:
What a relief it must be that the night terror issue has improved!
Being able to read the book and stay present speaks volumes about your emotion regulation ability. Your mindful navigation of triggers and defense mechanisms is an impressive achievement, especially in regards to the context. Next level stuff! :cheer:
Hi SanMagic & SenseOrgan,
Thank you both for what you said. I appreciate your support.
:hug: :hug:
Hope