Dear All
1. Before I started to get professional help, I did not know that EFs were a thing. (Like the cliche about the fish who doesn't know what water is).
2. Attributed all my panics, mood swings, to being a bad person, who needed to do better.
3. Started to read about EFs.
4. 6 months later, started to consider that what I was feeling, during a moment of crisis, could be an EF.
5. Started to become a bit more confident at recognising them - including self harming as a consequence.
6. Fast forward to the present day, EFs are getting more frequent and severe...either I am relapsing or i am getting better at recognising them.?
7. Also now considering that I have been getting EFs since childhood, and they have always been there at least three times a day.
In other words, they appear to have gotten much worse, but it is, in fact, my improved ability to recognise them.
Slim
Pretty good stuff, the recognition part. Still it seems cruel to have to always hit bottom before being able to grasp at something. It's kind of like a trade-off but I guess it's still a positive step to have reached however hard or tortuous it is to attain healing.
I've gotten 'better' at recognizing these as well, over a long span of time. Still not sure if that means the glass if half full or empty; I lean towards empty but that may just be my habitual inner critic's pattern. Wouldn't it be cool to reach a point where the knowledge doesn't also bring up how truly awful things were?
Quote from: woodsgnome on April 17, 2018, 07:50:25 PM
Wouldn't it be cool to reach a point where the knowledge doesn't also bring up how truly awful things were?
Dear Woodsgnome
You have nailed it! Thats how I have been living.......knowing what went on, but not feeling it...thats how we survived the abuse.
Slim