Out of the Storm

I've started Papa Coco's Journal to try and train myself to stop being too wordy on the open forums.

My therapist reminds me that I am being heard for the first time after a childhood of being ignored, and after working 42 years in a John-Wayne style male dominated industry where sharing my fears could get my tires slashed in the parking lot. I learned, as most men my age learned, being a man is about NOT talking about your feelings or your childhood abuse.

And now that I've found a safe place to talk, I feel like I might be overdoing it.

I apologize to all of you for being too wordy out on the main forum, so I'm going to start putting most of my thoughts here in my recovery journal, which is, (I believe) a safe place to talk about anything I want to talk about, because no one feels they have to read what I've written if they've gotten tired of my long responses.

I've always been an open book, but the years when I was forced to act macho and disconnected with the emotion-phobic men and women I worked with were pretty exhausting years. Forced to talk only about cars, women, and fishing for 40+ years made me feel like I'm one of those Facebook pictures people post of themselves with a broad strip of black tape over their mouths.

Anyway, I commit to spending more time in the future on this recovery journal and less time writing long responses to your stuff. There's a fine line between being engaged and being a troll. I worry I might be seen as a troll if I keep responding too often and too long to everyone's posts.

I really like this forum and many of the people on it. I don't want to mess that up.

Papa,
I am so grateful for your replies to me in the general discussion area.
I don't think anyone would begrudge the extra words... they felt to me like extra care, extra attention, extra effort to help :)... and that's a gift.
I hope your journal is beneficial to you...it resonates a lot, what you say about not talking about your feelings.
It makes sense to be hungry to talk now... I am too.
Hope your weekend is fantastic!

Thanks Phil,

I appreciate the comments. I mean it Phil, I REALLY appreciate you saying this to me. My emotional Flashbacks are triggered more by silence than by noise.

Since this is my recovery journal, I'll express some background information about myself which explains why I believe I feel the need to post, and then feel the fear that I shouldn't have posted: Like I didn't have the right to say what I said. Or I didn't have the authority to say what I said. My family hated it when I succeeded at anything, so they got real, real good at taking me down a notch: Even when I did something right, I was in trouble for it.

Even with zero self-esteem, I managed to push myself out into the world during my 30s through my 50s. I think I was born to be one guy, but raised to be a completely different guy, and both those guys are alive and well and taking turns in my body.

I feel like I was BORN to be "out there" boldly interacting with the world. That's why I feel so compelled to post my comments. But I was RAISED to be quiet, humiliated, subservient, and discrete, which explains why I regret posting my comments later. On one hand I have a naturally strong sense of humor, and an extremely overly empathetic, caring nature. I love people. I like to help people. Making others happy makes me happy. On the other hand, I can be killed by a well-timed eyeroll and...I'm terrified of people. It's confusing to me and it leads to different people knowing different versions of me. Some people know me as a comedian who's always quick to help, while others know me as an easily depressed, neurotic man who flinches at the hint of confrontation, and hides in my house, sometimes for weeks on end. I'm not faking it. I'm both of these people.

I am a former public speaker, a retired corporate educator, and even a former stand-up comedian. I communicate best when I can read my audience. It's sort of like I have real-time views on how my words are or are not being received by my listeners. I feel safest when I can see people's reactions to my comments. I'm extroverted so much that I gather strength from the environment around me--which works well in a public setting. Writing posts doesn't allow me to read my audience real-time, which feels dangerous to me. So all too often, my posts push me into my emotional flashbacks, due to a sudden realization that I don't know if I've offended someone with my words. When my words dangle out in the world, unresponded to, it reminds me of what Jerry Seinfeld, in his 1990s TV series used to say, "That's a pretty big matza ball you've got hangin' out there."

In my family, from age 0 to 50 the rule was that when I've made someone unhappy, or if I've said something stupid or embarrassing, the family was to ignore me until I apologized. They would refuse to talk with me, but they'd talk with each other about me, and the longer I stalled my apology, the more people in my FOO would hate me for...whatever I was said to have done or said. And they were narcissists, so it was my job to apologize even for things THEY did. If it happened once, it happened a thousand times, that I had to apologize for my NPD sister's behaviors. To this day, speaking without instant feedback just perches me on that cliff's edge again hoping not to fall into my dissociative state of humiliation and begging for forgiveness.

It's a true, true statement I need to make to the whole world, Trust me, "It's not you, it's me."  This is just another way that my trauma plays itself out on a daily basis in my life. I prefer standing up at a microphone over writing to people I can't see, but my days of public speaking are over. It's time for me to learn how to trust that what I say in writing is not always evidence that I need to be banned from writing more. It was MY family that did this to me and now it's MY job to overcome it.

Brave of you to write with all the feelings associated with writing.

Quote from: Papa Coco on August 13, 2022, 08:50:54 PM
It's confusing to me and it leads to different people knowing different versions of me. Some people know me as a comedian who's always quick to help, while others know me as an easily depressed, neurotic man who flinches at the hint of confrontation, and hides in my house, sometimes for weeks on end. I'm not faking it. I'm both of these people.

That does sound confusing and like a lot to juggle. I hope that all the versions of you feel heard and cared for here.

You qre definitely not a troll Papa Coco. And I am glad you've claimed a space for yourself here. I look forward to reading and offering a word of support here and there.

Thanks NotAlone and Armee,

Thanks so much for the encouragement. I'm glad I can "check in with you all" whenever I'm stressing over my posts. I used to say to people, "You have no idea the clever ways I've learned how to torture myself."

I don't ever want people to think I'm fragile and need to be handled with kid gloves. I'm a former amateur standup comedian. I can handle a rough crowd. This isn't about being fragile, so much as it's just me having to check in once in a while to make sure I'm not missing the cues that I'm talking too much.

i've appreciated your responses, PC (is that ok?) and, as armee said, thought they were full of care and thought.  so very glad you started this for yourself - you have every right to be heard and all your sides/parts have a right to be seen.  thanks for this - we're in this together.  love and hugs, if that's ok.   :hug:

Thankyou Sanmagic,

I'll always take virtual hugs from the good people on this forum. It's a safe place for me and I can feel the camaraderie that many of us share. I like reading your posts and I'm glad to hear my long posts aren't bothering anyone. My irrational fears around how my posts are received are not driven by anyone on this forum, it's all from past experiences...trauma: the gift that keeps on giving.

Meanwhile I really DO try hard to write shorter posts. It's just a good skill to be more direct with fewer words. I think that's called "economy of words".  I'm always sort of chuckling at Mark Twain's famous line, "I don't have time to write you a short letter, so I'm just going to send a long one."  So, one rule of thumb for me is that the shorter my post is, the longer I worked at writing it.

LOL.

Hi Papa Coco,
I also wanted to say that I appreciate all your posts that you've done.   :hug:
Hope  :)

Hope,

Thank you!

August 14, 2022

I'm nursing some complicated triggered emotions today.  In fact, as I'm writing this journal entry, I'm struggling to be sure it makes sense. In my current state of mind, I'm not a good writer. I hope this entry ends up being legible and not too confusing. What-and-how I write is a manifestation of how I'm thinking at any given moment. My brain is tangled up right now. Emotion is fighting with common sense, and I'm trying to make sense of my thoughts. I expect the following external post might reflect that internal turmoil.

• But first, a footnote: The good thing about being an extrovert is that I gather my strength from my environment, which means I easily connect with people where they are. Someone once said I'm good at reading the temperature of a room and adapting to it quickly. Extroverts are good listeners, good teachers, funny comedians, because we meet people where they are and communicate from that point.
  
  The bad part (the challenge) of being an extrovert is that I'm quickly dragged into flashbacks when the environment around me becomes toxic. Sometimes I envy introverts who, no matter what is going on around them, they maintain their own steady moods. They get their strength from within themselves.

But I am what I am. And today I've been dragged back down into a frustrating and confusing EF.

I have two sons: S1 is 38 years old, is narcissistic enough to have no compassion for anyone, ever. He's on the autism spectrum AND now he's schizophrenic. He hates everyone for various reasons. He currently hates his mom because when he was in puberty (22 years ago) he had that dream a lot of boys have where his mother killed him. I had the same dream when I was a teen. It's nothing more than a normal dream where the developing brain is trying to make sense of feeling the separation from being Mommy's little boy to becoming an independent man.  But to him, it was a future prediction. And for 22 years the voices in his head have been telling him he's right about that. He's never been diagnosed with anything, because he refuses to see doctors for any reason. But when I hear there are voices in his head and he turns and runs from the people who love him the most, then with or without a diagnosis, that screams schizophrenia. 

He nearly died of cancer 6 years ago because he refused medical help. His friends found him on his apartment floor dying. He was unconscious, so it was okay for First Responders to take him to the ER. For anyone whose ever had cancer or had a loved one with cancer, the term Chemo-Brain is a very real problem. He was on chemo for nearly a year, so when I say he's schizo, He's ALSO a person who never addressed his "chemo brain." Chemo brain doesn't go away on it's own. You have to work at it. He does not work at it. His stubbornness has always been his downfall, but now he's just plain mean. He went No Contact (NC) with his mom because of a dream and a series of follow-on voices in his head telling him women are too dangerous to associate with. Over the past year or so he's gone NC with me now too because I got vaccinated for COVID and he believes that trump is a savior and COVID and 911 were democrat plots. He absolutely hates the fact that I'm not a democrat or a republican, but that I vote for the best person, regardless of party affiliation, for each position in government. He goes onto Facebook and tells the world that we hate him and he has to hide from us. TRIGGER!  My FOO had torn me down to being an emotional basket case by spending 50 years accusing me of things that weren't true. Telling the world I hate my son is exactly the kind of demonic trash my narcissister used to do to me. S1 is triggering 50 years of pain in me by his insane accusations. He is sure that his beliefs are all correct because he hears voices in his head telling him things like on 911, the towers were not brought down by airplanes, but were demolished by democrats who were trying to jab at republicans.

That's fine. Given enough time, my wife and I are learning to live with the loss of our son. But the guy doesn't know the value of Total NC. I wish he did. I've actually stopped using Facebook for a couple of reasons, one being that I didn't like being blindsided every now and then by his occasional PUBLIC angry rants at how stupid my wife and I are for believing COVID is real or for not voting Republican across the board. Every now and then, after we've come to peace with our loss, he lobs a rock into our world just to upset us again.  This morning S2, his little brother, and the father of our two grandsons, forwarded a text to us from S1. The text came to him on Thursday. S2 is like me, VERY open. VERY emotional. He goes on FB and tells the whole world about his life. This week S2 had delicate surgery on his back. After which his brother, who hasn't texted him in years, sent him a get well text, but he couldn't leave it at that. The text also included a cryptic, crazy paragraph of how stupid Dad is and because Dad is so stupid, he himself is "not allowed at family functions."  What? How does MY being "stupid and vaccinated" bar him from family functions? Again TRIGGER!  Once again, I'm being publically blamed for HIS decisions. That's just Narcissistic as can be, and it's what I grew up defending myself against for 50 years.

Before the schizophrenia, S1 was fiercely honest. His Autism made him that way. Since Schizophrenia, he's become crazy enough that every time he talks to someone, he gives a completely different reason as to why he has estranged from the people who love him, and EVERY new reason is someone else's fault. Just like my Narcissister and FOO.

Anyway I have to make a decision: Should I tell S2 to stop including us in his brother's communications? At first, it seems like YES is the quick answer, but S2 is very emotional (like me). He loves his family no matter what and he can't stand holding back information. Like me, he needs to express what's in his brain in order to get it to stop hurting. When S2 says he debated for days before sending the text, it made me wonder if by letting him send it to me, he was able to let go of some of the stress of having received it at all.  I can't take that outlet away from S2. So I'm not going to ask him to stop forwarding S1's crazy rants.

I know that when my FOO was trying to get me to kill myself so they could have my share of an inheritance, any time they lobbed a crazy lie at me, I felt myself bursting at the seems if I couldn't share what they'd done with someone. Being alone with abuse is the worst!!!!!!  Being abused and not being alone with it is a thousand times easier to deal with.  If I tell my Son2 to stop bringing Son1's abusive attacks to us, I worry I'll be hurting Son2 by not giving him an outlet for his own stress over his brother.

I shared it with my wife this morning, and now I feel like I'm sorry I did that. Now she and I are both going to spend all day feeling horrific sadness over how our son feels about us. She told me that she believes this is his control fettish. He was a serious controlling child. Now he's a controlling man. She believes that he knows that if he sends these little hate messages in to us a couple of times a year, that he can control our moods and keep us miserable. It's working.

I went 100% NC with my own FOO because I just wanted to be safe. No part of me wants to poke that bear by sending occasional hate messages into their little world. I want them to forget about me while I forget about them.  I WISH S2 would do the same with us. Either stop hating us, or stop telling us how much he hates us. One or the other.

My mood today: Sad. Frustrated. There's some anger, especially knowing that my wife is hurting again now too. If you hurt my wife, you hurt me. Period. I need to find a way to distract. Maybe I should go grocery shopping or something so I can stop obsessing over this. I just got a new smoker for the deck. Maybe I should buy some fancy meat and come home and learn how to smoke the meat. Anything to break my focus on feeling so heartbroken again.

Papa Coco, I appreciate you sharing all of these reflections.  I hope that you found ways to ease the triggered feelings.

Journal Entry: Monday, August 15, 2022

I'm tired of feeling overwhelmed all the time.

In reality, my life is not that overwhelming, but ever since I was 19 years of age, I've had this nagging, constant, relentless feeling of being unable to keep up with my responsibilities. I'm retired now. RETIRED! But I probably feel more overwhelmed with life's responsibilities than ever before.

Roots: As a boy, I was so badly damaged at school that I developed a bad learning disability in the 5th grade. I lost my ability to focus. I was so scared, all day long, that fear was keeping me completely disconnected from teachers and homework. Peanuts cartoons (Charlie Brown) were on TV a lot back then. In the cartoons, when adults spoke, there were no words, just a Waa-Waa-Waa sound. That's what my reality was like. I couldn't comprehend anything I was being taught, like the teachers were talking in a foreign language. I dissociated so badly from the rest of the school that I couldn't learn anymore. I spent my time 24/7 trying to find ways to feel safe, rather than learning math and science. My grades tanked to straight Ds and nobody cared. Catholic school is run by parents' tuition money, and in Catholicism, nothing is free. I'm pretty sure I was passed from grade to grade only because holding me back might make my parents stop paying tuition and put me in a better school.  D grades mattered to no one. My parents didn't care, the teachers didn't care. It was like they all knew I was a loser, so they just let me fall behind and brushed me aside. That's actually a good thing, I guess. Back then, in my family and in my Catholic school, no one would have asked, "Do you need help?" Instead, they would have asked, "Why won't you just learn like the other kids?" NOT having to answer the question might have been a godsend. It was probably a gift that no one asked me to tell them why I'm choosing to be stupid. In my school and family, being ignored was safer than being helped by their mean, accusatory ways.

I lived through Catholic school by using coping mechanisms and waiting to age out. Now I've discovered that the boy can leave the Catholic school but Catholic school never leaves the boy. I've since lived my life feeling like I'm still falling behind everyone else. Over the years I've overcompensated in a hundred different ways, accomplishing things many people just wish they could, but every single accomplishment just turns to ash in my mouth when the next morning, I wake up feeling like I'm the world's biggest loser again and nothing I do matters to anyone.

To make this worse, the more overwhelmed I feel the less I do. I keep asking my T why I'm so lazy now, and he keeps having to remind me that this isn't laziness, it's more of a lifelong traumatic paralysis. I'm not lazy, I'm paralyzed. Paralyzed by depression, overstimulation from an insane world, and a chronic sense that no matter what I can accomplish, I'm never going to be good enough to deserve any respect from anyone. When I was a middle-aged man filled with vim and vigor that feeling of not being good enough drove me to try harder. Today, at 62, it drives me to give up and ask, "what's the use in even trying at all?"

I think I may have even brought this up to the Forum back in 2021. But I can't remember what we all said about it.

All I know for sure right now is I feel like I've lost my footing, I've fallen off the turnip truck, and now I'm hanging onto the bumper and being dragged through the city streets unable to get back onto the truck.

I have the time and tools to finish all my house and car projects, but I can't do them because I feel like I'm too busy to get to them. Or too lazy. Or just...too depressed...too emotionally paralyzed to unpack my toolbox and start wrapping up all my half-finished projects.

I'm really getting tired of being tired all the time.  This feeling of being overwhelmed has nothing to do with the real world I'm living in, it's a disease that's living in my brain, making me perceive that I'm overwhelmed. I know this, but still, it just...won't...stop.

Papa Coco, I've read this journal and I wanted to tell you that I've appreciated your responses to me in my journal, and that I appreciate your sharing here.  I know it must be hard because of how much it goes against your conditioning.  It's so much easier to decide that you're too much and that you must carefully edit yourself or even stay silent to keep from being misunderstood or burdening others.  I struggle with that all the time but when I manage to express myself it is such a relief.  I hope you are able to enjoy some of that relief here.

I also relate very deeply with what you say about having things you want to do but feeling too emotionally paralysed.  I'm working on allowing myself to feel that all my efforts are valuable and constitute progress even if they're only small and I'm unhappy with myself because the whole job isn't done yet. 

Since you said you like them, here's a hug :) :hug:

Hi Bach,

Oh yeah. I like hugs. Thanks for the virtual hug. And here's one right back atcha:   :hug:

I'm sorry to hear you're also struggling with the paralysis. I've been thinking about this all night, and I think I may be finding a solution>>>

When I was in AA I learned, very well, the Serenity Prayer. It's not just for drinking, it's for all sorts of ways that we manage the clutter in our lives. Most people know the Serenity Prayer; "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Another source is Stephen Covey's Circle of Influence, which is three circles drawn like a target. Inside the bull's eye, is labeled "Control". The next bigger circle is "Influence", and the biggest circle is "Concern." Then the blank outer space beyond the circles is "interest". Things I like to learn, like history or sociology that have no responsibilities at all attached to them. My job is to write down everything that's overwhelming me, but to put them into the correct circle. It's like organizing my cluttered brain so I stop being overwhelmed by the totality of everything.

Right now, I feel like I need to meditate on both of these things: The Circle of Influence and the Serenity Prayer, because maybe my paralysis is coming from feeling overwhelmed by the things I cannot change; the things that I'm concerned about but can't DO anything about: Climate change, political tomfoolery, crime, my son's back surgery, or how my house needs to be painted but I can't afford to hire painters right now, etc. These need to be put in their proper place, which is out in the "concern" circle. Meanwhile I need to focus on the center circle: The things I have absolute control over: My time management, my exercise and diet, my projects that still need to be done.

(I'm thinking outloud right now): But maybe today's solution to the paralysis is to make sure I'm clear in my head about the difference between knowing what I can control and what I can't. Maybe I won't feel so overwhelmed if I just allow myself to not worry about that outer circle.

Last night I was watching a documentary on John Wayne Gacy. During the time when the police were digging up the bodies of 33 boys he'd buried in his crawl space, someone asked a detective how he was able to emotionally handle what he was seeing. That guy said something I'll never forget: He said that he carried a special kind of coin in his pocket while he worked. Then, when he got home from work, he'd leave the coin in the car. He'd never allow that coin to enter his family or his house. He used it as a prop, and consciously decided that everything he saw or did at work was attached to that coin, so by not taking it into the house, he was able to subconsciously leave his work out of his personal life.  I think that's kind of a cool idea, and I am going to start, maybe, trying to find some way I can use a physical prop to help me organize my emotions into the things I can control, versus the things I can't. Maybe I can declutter my brain enough to stop feeling overwhelmed by the weight of the whole world when all I need to do today is eat more salads, gas up the car, and finish putting in the new toilets in my bathrooms.

I really like being an empathetic person, but this morning I can clearly see that empathy has gone too far if I'm letting the problems of the world weigh on me like I feel responsible to be the one who has to fix everything. I was raised as the scapegoat in my family, so, as a child, I got hardwired to believe everyone's misery is my fault. Time for me to use a little cognitive behavioral trick, like find a coin or write out all my worries into the proper circles on a piece of paper to separate myself from the world's problems and just do what I can do with what really IS in my circle of control.

Journal Entry: Tuesday, August 16, 2022

I JUST got off the phone with my T. We zoom now because of COVID. This was a very rare session where I found myself bawling on camera. We were working on my comment that I value him as much as anyone in my life, and that he's one of the people I love and trust the most, but STILL I wouldn't allow him to help me if he wasn't getting paid. I told him, "I accept your help because I pay you. If I wasn't paying you, I wouldn't let you help me." Luckily he's a professional who didn't take it personally, but we were exploring the reasons I can't ask for help. It's not male pride. It's not a control issue. For many years I've believed it was because I was raised by sociopaths who would never help me, and if they ever DID help me, it was because they were grooming me to take something from me. It's like they would offer me a piece of candy, and later I'd find out I owed them a steak dinner every night for a month. 

But today was different. He had me, once again, explain how I was abused at school when I was 10. My best friend, (who I now know was a sociopath in the making), tried to move our friendship into a sexual one. I was 10, he was 11, and I was not gay. So I just didn't respond the way he wanted me to. I didn't want to change our friendship from what it was to whatever he wanted it to be, BUT I didn't care. I still thought we were friends. Unfortunately, to him, it mattered. Just for not accepting his ring, He slapped me hard across the face and began a rumor that I was the one who was gay. This was 1970 in a religious school. Being called gay was almost a death sentence. I spent the next 4 years, from ages 10-14 totally isolated and humiliated every single day by all the students AND many of the teachers for being gay...even though I wasn't gay. But in 1970 I didn't know what gay meant, so I didn't know how to defend myself against the label. I just internalized the reality that, somehow, everyone on earth could plainly see that I was a disease on the planet.

(Today I'm a fierce supporter of LGBTQ rights and have a lot of friends that fit all the descriptions of LGBTQ, because as an empathetic person I feel pretty sure I know what it feels like to have been treated so unfairly by this sick, homophobic world.)

Asking for help at home made it worse. I tried twice, once at 11 and again at age 12, to get my mom to believe me that I was being beaten up and humiliated every day. I NEVER told her I was being called gay and that my nickname was "homo" because I honestly believed that if she had found out about that, she would do what my friend had done and would turn my family into the same abusive culture as my school had been turned into. The fear of total annihilation and abandonment was playing itself out in my battered little head.  I just told her I had no friends and was being beaten up and stolen from and laughed at, and she would say, "No you aren't."  She would even say "whatever's happening to you there will be worse in any other school."

She went on to warn me that I had better never stand up for myself because the last thing she needed was to be dragged into the school and embarrassed for me fighting. She coached me to "just ignore them" and to not bring these little school yard problems home for her to deal with. She left me there in that hellhole. No matter who I asked for help, I was told it was all my fault and I deserved what was being done to me.

Today, my T was able to help me realize that the reason I cannot ask anyone, even the people who love me the most, for help with anything; from a ride to helping lift a box into my pickup, is because I fear that by asking for help, I will start the world to hating me and beating on me, and lying about me, and humiliating me all over again. Trauma in my brain has linked the notion of asking for help with the memories of being beaten, lied about and annihilated, even by the people who love me the most.  As I realized that, I felt a cloud of pain rise up from my torso into my face. I started sobbing uncontrollably. The idea that the loneliness was still in there was a new revelation. I couldn't even believe I was crying. It was a total shock to me. That cloud of loneliness just hurt...so...bad.

My point is that loneliness and annihilation are what make up my greatest fear. It's left-over trauma from a bad, bad time that's gone now, but its scars are still there. Adding the fear of being attacked again makes it worse. I JUST NOW found out that all the loneliness from all that abuse has been dormant in my gut for 52 years and it's finally, FINALLY beginning to find a way to show itself to me. I knew I felt alone in a crowded world, but I really didn't respect how deep the scars of that loneliness were hiding in me.

Bringing these stories to the forum, AND reading the stories from other members of the forum does one very important thing for me: It diffuses that sense of utter loneliness. I'm not alone with my loneliness. I wish we could do more for each other, but I swear, just knowing we're not alone with our traumas is really a wonderful thing we can do for each other.

Any time I sign a book for someone, I write "We're stronger together", then I sign my name. I believe it. I live it. I can handle a lot more abuse if I know I'm not alone with it.

our trauma brains give us the most terrible messages at times, PC.  they maximize our weaknesses into faults, and minimize our strengths into weaknesses.  i'm glad you're finding some bit of comfort, and hopefully truths, here on the forum.  i know it's been a lifesaver for me.  you are appreciated, too.  love and a hug filled w/ finding your truth. :hug:

Journal Entry: Wednesday, August 17, 2022

I joined OOTS one year ago today on August 17, 2021. Today is my one-year anniversary on the forum.

I often say that I don't measure my emotional progress by the day, but by the year, and this year I feel so much more connected to life than I did a year ago.

I still have trauma. I still have depression. I still have sleepless nights. But I don't feel like I'm treading water all alone in the ocean anymore. Now I feel like I'm in a lifeboat with a half-dozen other people who are floating in the same ocean. I'm not alone anymore.

Thank you to you all, the good people on this forum who have given me a place to ask for help, to share my feelings, and to share in your feelings with you.

Giving with one hand while receiving with the other connects us fully to the circle of our community.

We are stronger together, and by seeing how much better I feel today, than I did 1 year ago today proves my theory: That I can handle a world full of bullies better if I'm not standing totally alone.

Happy 1-year anniversary Papa   :hug:
Hope you have a fantastic day!!

There's the familiar saying: "one step at a time". I'm intrigued by your calculation of "one year at a time".

Then again, none of this is so much about accumulations of time or possessions or any of the other material measurements we use. It's about survival, quality of life, and inspiration to somehow continue the journey.

Thanks for your contributions to all of this. With your insightful inputs, this lifeboat is made stronger for the rest of the trip.

:grouphug:

Glad you are here and have had opportunity to reflect.

 :grouphug:

Happy one year anniversary here on OOTS. I'm so glad you're here and I learn a lot from what you write and share.

It's worse to ask for help and be abused and humiliated than to never ask for help.  It makes sense that that thought stuck in your brain given all you went through. It sure is hard to update the old operating system with new information isn't it? I'm starting to find it easier to ask for help, though not when things are really bad because then the old thoughts and feelings are too strong.

I also choke up now too when I try to tell my T about what that relationship feels like. I really respect that you were able to cry today. It would be really frustrating to have people try to blame the difficulty crying  on toxic masculinity when it is so much deeper than that and embedded in trauma.

Thanks Armee,

Ever since my T appointment on Tuesday, I've felt really close to my loneliness.  It sounds like you have a deep understanding of the same feeling. No matter how many people surround me, love me, want to help me, at the end of the day I feel utterly alone on the earth again. It's trauma. Thank goodness we're learning from each other that most of us with abusive pasts feel many of the same kinds of loneliness. Knowing others feel it to, helps me put the loneliness into perspective. It's not real. It's TRAUMA!  Knowing that helps me get through it.  Like you say, it sure is hard to update the old operating system. For me it's impossible. I can't erase the past and I can't completely wipe it from the core programming, BUT I can bombard my brain with counter-balanced information. We can keep learning, keep sharing, keep loading our brains with the truth that we are not alone. The old programming is still there, but so is the new programming. The more we focus on the fact that the old programming is TRAUMA, the more we can find ways to focus on the fact that the loneliness is not real...it's just an emotional response to someone else's long-past abuse.

Your feedback is always so comforting to me. You seem to have a way of finding the right words that make it all the way into my brain. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being active on this forum.  :hug:

I appreciate you sharing about your journey and experience with loneliness. 

Journal Update: August 19, 2022

I called this morning and made an appointment for another Ketamine Infusion for mid-September. They had an open spot tomorrow, but I'm supposed to be relocated to the beach with my family right now. I'm not planning to return to the city until mid-September, so I had to put my Ketamine out three weeks. I hope I didn't make a mistake. I'm getting so depressed I can hardly think straight anymore. My son's illnesses, my grandson's emotional problems at school, my wife's stress...all these things are making me feel so weighted down with worry I can't find happiness anywhere.

Life feels really insane right now. Like the earth is in a cloud of nasty energy.

I've been having car problems, garage door problems, Electrical problems, scammers and thieves pounding down my doors via email, text and phone. I feel like I'm under attack from a hundred different directions.

So because of my car problems, I'm very late getting down to the beach to meet my wife, kids and grandkids for a street festival we're all going to tomorrow. I just got the vehicle back a few minutes ago, after 8 weeks of waiting for parts, but I can't leave the city now until rush hour traffic dies down: it'll probably be about 7 pm tonight before I can even leave.

I'm in a terrible mood, so all my little first-world problems feel much bigger than they are.

I feel pretty sure that the worsening depression I'm feeling now is biology. After nearly 6 decades of trying to rise above abuse, I somehow rewired my brain to see that depression has become my baseline core emotion. So now when I drop my guard, depression is where I go automatically. I feel like I've spent 60 years as a workaholic, balancing crushing depression with skyrocketing anxiety. Like I'm on a teeter-totter, taking turns being either depressed or manic. The two emotions were both miserable, but they balanced each other out. Now that I'm forcibly retired, the anxiety is gone and all that's left is the crushing depression. No relief. I don't even have to have a legitimate current reason for being depressed. But as the last Ketamine infusion of June fades into the past my depression is, once again, swelling, unchecked and overpowering my brain's ability to just be happy.

It's true that I still feel better today than I did a year ago, but I think that what's happening now is that as I put more and more time between me and workaholism, that I'm starting to really grasp something I've never had to face straight on before. So it's like I've made two steps forward, and now I just have to take only one step back and address something I have needed to address for a long time. Depression without the anxiety.

For many years, my T has been telling me I'm lonelier than I give myself credit for. He's also tried to tell me that the sexual abuse I endured at 7 years of age, did more damage to my depression than I ever realized. I'm beginning to think that my decades of being a workaholic were hiding me from the full depths of my depression. I knew it was there, but I minimized its intensity in my own mind. Now that I have no workaholic distractions from feeling lonely, untrusting, confused, helpless and depressed, I'm finally starting to feel the full lifelong effects of what sexual abuse really does to males like me. My tricks to minimize the pain and fear by bombarding myself with too much work to keep up with are no longer. As I face what I've been through, I see the monster that haunts me is much larger than I used to believe it was.

I used to go out and help other survivors, and that made me feel better about my own suffering, but now, I don't think I could help another survivor without it dragging me under in my own suffering. I think it's time to pay the piper and completely and totally address the sadness and loneliness that has been hiding within me. I knew I felt these things, but I never realized how profoundly they've become a part of me.

Ah Papa Coco. The kind of abuse you endured and the added abuse and bullying on top of it. That leaves a nasty scar. The depression...that's a symptom not your core though. It's not a weakness and I don't think you're running from the depression but it has to take so much time to be able to truly approach what happened. It feels like the anxiety was there to mask the depression and the depression is there to shield you from the full brunt of the trauma. You're slowly scratching away the layers of shielding. Scratch a little, step back and adjust, and scratch a little more off when you reach steady there.

Much in the world sucks right now.  Your own family...the ones you love and worry about...you boost them up even if you don't feel like you do. I guarantee you are their rock.

Papa Coco, I appreciate you sharing about your experiences.  Much of what you say about work and anxiety and depression and feeling bombarded from many angles resonates.  I hope that you have safe travels when you are able to go and that you find relief even for a moment.

Armee and Rainy,

Thanks so much.  I really like the thought that this depression isn't my core...but a very strong residual effect that I just haven't really addressed fully yet. Taking full responsibility for everything is one of my Fawning traits. I always believe everything bad is my fault.

I remember many, many years ago when I read up on PTSD. My dad, a WWII veteran who lost his arm in a long, traumatic battle in the South Pacific, retired from his factory job in 1984. The term PTSD hadn't been coined yet. I think it was still called shell shock in the 1980s. Or battle fatigue, or something like that. The phenomenon of the 1980s was that a lot of strong, WWII Veterans were retiring, and for the first time in their lives, were falling apart in crying fits and severe depression because the war was suddenly coming back to them. The theory was that in the late 1940s they had come back from the war as 22-year-old boys, on a hero's welcome, and then immediately started working in abundant, lucrative jobs, marrying, having their first babies, etc, during the seemingly unstoppable post-war economy that just kept getting stronger and stronger every year from 1947 into the early 1980s. Then, in the early 1980s all these boys, now men, started retiring with big pensions and a "cushy" life, and all the time in the world to...to...well, unfortunately to start remembering the traumas they didn't know they had. That's when the full shock of their teen years on the battle fields finally had no more distractions and began to take front-and-center in their brains.

Now, decades later, I'm seeing that my own retirement has kind of done to me a version of what their retirements did to them. I can't hide my past in a busy, fast-moving, important present anymore. I now have more time than I have responsibilities, and that little boy who, from 1967 to 1974, no one ever believed is staring at me in the mirror every morning still wanting to be heard and rescued.

I'll be heading out on the highway in about a half hour. WAZE says traffic is still gnarly, but it's considerably better than it was during the midday. My wife drove down yesterday and got stuck behind a bad accident that left her sitting in the 90-degree heat with no AC for 2 hours. My son drove his family down during midday today and it took 2 extra hours, and he says he had two close calls with aggressive semi-trucks.  I'll be extra cautious tonight. It could be the long, long heat spell that's turning people into raging maniacs. Very few homes in Seattle have AC. We've never needed it before, but times, they are changing, and people are hot and frustrated and not taking to the climate changes very well.

I hear you Papa C.

Drive safe and give the maniacs on the road as wide as berth as possible.

Hi PC,

Reading about your experiences snd reactions to your family's silent treatment brought up many feelings and memories in me that I forgot. Being in that place of what did I do wrong, and it's like your body/mind just runs everywhere at once, looking for the "right" answer but there is no right answer.

Also really relate to what you said about asking for help. How can we ask for help when people can't be trusted and there's alway's a catch?

Sending you support with all the stresses right now.

Thanks for sharing,
dolly

thanks for sharing everything as you do, PC.  you are such a big part of this community - and happy 1-yr. anniversary!  so glad you can see positivity after a year.  it speaks to your determination and perseverance to keep moving ahead.  all these realizations of yours - wow!  as painful as it may be, i'm glad for you to be able to address your innermost thoughts and feelings.  keep up the good work! :thumbup:  love and hugs :hug:

Hi Papa Coco,
Also wanted to send you a Happy Anniversary wish, and hope that you have a weekend with some nice things in it.   :hug:
Hope  :)

Journal Entry for August 31, 2022,

Thanks everyone for the well-wishes on my 1-year anniversary on this site. I can now start using this forum as a way to track my moods throughout the year. I struggle with anniversary stress at least three times per year, but I've never tracked the exact timing of the stressors.

Beginning at around Thanksgiving, I'll have my most volatile stressor. That's when I was molested when I was seven. The attacks were connected to the holidays, so even today, 55 years later, I still feel "crazy" from Thanksgiving to New Years Day. Sometimes, during the Holidays, I can't even remember what year it is: 2022, or 1967. They feel the same.

Then in February-March, I go into serious depression. That marks the time when I was ten years old, and my very best friend tried to turn our friendship into a sexual relationship. But I wasn't gay, so I didn't react how he'd hoped I would. I wasn't mean to him, I just didn't want to do what he wanted to do, so he smacked me across the face and began a fierce campaign to prove I was gay and he wasn't. That was a church-based school, so being accused of being gay was almost a death sentence, and they all made sure I knew that even God hated me for being what they all said I was, but I didn't understand what that was. At 10, I really didn't know what gay meant. (Today I'm an avid supporter of the LGBTQ community, because I believe I've walked a hundred miles in their shoes, and I really feel the pain that they're subject to in our sick, sick, sick society). All I knew back then was that  I apparently was this thing, and I didn't deserve to be alive because of it. The years of mob-bullying turned me into a recluse, who lived 24 hours a day in my imagination where I could hide from the reality of what these nasty people were doing to me for the next several years. So I believe that when Feb/Mar rolls around and my depression pops up and takes me down, that it's related to the infamous day I didn't accept my friend's promise ring.

Then I get depressed again in August. I'm assuming it's because summer vacation from school is ending and the stress of being sent back to school to be beaten on, lied about, stolen from, harassed and rejected by everyone, even many of the adult teachers, puts me into a sad, helpless mood. I assume it's why I joined this forum last year during mid-August, and why I'm so active on the site again this year at the same time. It will be fun to track my own posts year over year to see if I'm any better each year.

So today, Wednesday, August 31, 2022 I'm feeling better than I have in a while. Heat intolerance has locked me indoors in the AC for many week. But I'm at the beach for a few weeks now and the weather has blessed me with several 62 degree Fahrenheit days in a row, so now I'm outside doing projects, thinning the overgrown shrubbery, and repairing the porch, and clearing old rodent-destroyed insulation from the crawlspace, and a few other critical things that I can't afford to have contractors do for me.

I had a Therapy appointment yesterday. I told my therapist all about these projects. I told him I can still feel the depression at the core of my soul, but it's temporarily distracted with the successes of the past few days. He disagreed. He said that depression is not "at the core" of my being. He said that when I'm feeling good about myself (every now and then for a few days here and there) it's because I'm more connected to the present and the projects I'm doing as a 62-year-old man.

But when I'm not able to do any projects, I begin to feel attached to my young, lost, broken-hearted self again. I think of it as sinking into depression, but my therapist sees it as the mirror between my abused child self and my competent adult self starts to thin, and I start to reconnect with the lost, broken hearted, confused, abused little boy who's still waiting for someone to tell me they love me and that I'm not a disease that needs to be ignored.

This sent us down the bunny trail of me telling him how I spent my entire adult life unable to say the words "I'm a man." No part of me ever believed I was anything but an unworthy, worthless servant—a house pet. Calling myself a man would have sent my NPD family into a laughing fit, humiliating me into remaining as their obedient scapegoat again. Not a man... just an ugly little body with a partial soul that even God hated.

My therapist suggests that I need to be more aware of how my young self interacts with my elder self rather than doing this switching back and forth that I do between the two people. I fully occupy my competent adult self while doing projects. But then I fully occupy my lost little inner child self when I'm not doing projects. Like I'm two people who don't talk to each other.

I need to integrate those two pieces of myself so I am both people all the time. As I'm doing my projects, I need to really focus on my tween self, who's still living in my heart and brain, still waiting to be told I'm loved and trusted and allowed to be who I want to be. My therapist says that I need to love that boy and stop feeling like his presence in my life is a problem that needs to be cured. He also says that when the projects go well, like when the new steps are done and look fantastic, that I need to connect with the inner boy and celebrate with him, to prove to myself that young me and elder me are completely connected all the time. I need to do my projects together with the lost boy and the competent man sharing the space simultaneously.

I tend to ignore my adult successes and dwell on my childhood failures. It's like when I do something great, I only feel good about it until the next morning, when I return to feeling like I'm that ignored child who still wants to be loved and trusted, but can't do anything right and who needs to be ashamed of being who I am all over again.

For today I'm feeling pretty good, but that's because I've gotten some projects going. As soon as they're done, I'll likely become my ignored child again. The goal, for me, is to consciously connect with the child more often in both the good times and the bad. My therapist says to say the words to him, "I'm with you, I'm for you, I'm in you and you're in me." He said we need to celebrate our successes together and we need to love each other when we feel like a failure too. It's all about integrating, not curing.  I'll never be able to go back and fix the things that were done to me, so I'll never get the closure I always wish I could have gotten. My childhood never ended. It's still alive in my trauma-brain. But if I can learn to connect the child with the old man, maybe I can stop vacillating between being happy when busy to being depressed when not busy.

It's slow progress, but it's progress. I'll take it.

Hi Papa Coco
I appreciate you sharing this.

I'm so sorry for your abuse and for how your friend treated you, and for all the years of bullying and pain that followed.
I can so relate to a lot of what you've said...though I was never sexually assaulted. (I say that with some hesitation.)
But, I was 48 when I was finally able to say "I am a good person", and I'm sure my FOO would laugh at that as well.

When you say you are a man, I would only add that you are also a very good man.
I have no friends, for a variety of reasons I am sure. But I sure wish for a male friend who was open, honest, kind, calm like you... those are incredible gifts you have.
Congratulations on working on your projects. Something I've tried (forgive me if unhelpful) to help with my IC is when doing a project, is set myself up for how my young self would do it.
ie play my favourite music from that time, maybe even a childish drink or snack. Young me has more energy as well so that could be a unexpected benefit too :)

I hope you have a great day and, like you say, feel good about your progress :)

it does sound like progress, PC, and progress, even in small steps, moves us closer to health and well-being.  keep up the good work.  i think integrating parts can be slow, even tedious, but i believe there's a lot of value in doing so.  best to you with this.  love and hugs :hug:

Hey Phil,

Thanks for the kind words. I know what you mean about wishing you had a male friend you could be totally honest with. I've spent my life believing such a man didn't exist. I was raised with John Wayne movies. I HATE John Wayne. He gave my parents' generation permission to be cold, heartless, tough-guys who make sarcastic insults at any man who dared tell the truth from his heart.  Anytime you want to connect mano-a-mano, feel free to send me a private message. I'm always open for making new friends.

I'm 62 and retired now (forcibly...my job of 42 years was outsourced to the lowest bidder). I'm aware now that I don't have many friends anymore either.

I have to say though that in my 50s I learned something pretty amazing. For 42 years I worked in the world's largest building with 40,000 friends, and I'd been there since a month past my 18th birthday. After a while I knew hundreds of people by name. But I'd never met a man who could be open and honest with me. Women found me non-threatening, so they made friends with me quickly and often opened up with me. But men, not so much. With men friends I had to be stupid and tough. Indestructible and without emotion. I had to talk cars and sports and lawn mowing tips. It was fine. That's how the world worked, and I had friends to drink beer with and tell jokes to. All was well in the "real world." All my deep suffering was a secret from everyone but my wife and my therapist.

Then, when I was 48, my little sister took her own life. That was the fuse that blew my big, huge catholic family apart. The next two years were absolute he11 as I dealt with having to face my dragons. I believe that if we don't face our dragons, then one day our dragons will finally face us. My family's complete destruction was my dragon forcing me to realize what monsters they'd always been. At 50, to save my own life, I estranged at100% No Contact with anyone I'm related to and with anyone who ever knew my family. Being cut loose from them did an amazing thing for me. It compelled me to begin to write a tell-all novel about a boy who'd lived through what I lived through.

At work, by my mid 50s, I finally started opening up with the people I'd worked with for years, telling them that I was writing a novel. Now, mind you, I was a workaholic corporate educator by day, but by night I was a community volunteer advocate for victims of sexual assault, then I was a wedding singer. Then a standup comedian, and an occasional guest speaker at professional development seminars. All my peers knew all this stuff. So when I finally told them I was writing a novel, they excitedly asked what it was about. I began telling my peers of 30+ years that I have been rescued at the last second from suicide three times during the years they've known me. I've been in therapy for suicidal depression since I was 21. I put myself through Alcohol Rehab, that my family of origin was a nest of monsters so horrible that I was forced to estrange from, and that I was abused a dozen different ways by religious people. Hearing these hidden truths about a man they thought had the world by the tail did positive things for them.

My peers, who also appeared to have the world by the tail, would almost always say the same thing: "I never would have expected to hear these things about you. you're so happy all the time."  Then...and this is to my point for this whole posting, THEN they would say "Can I tell you what happened to me?" and "I've never told anyone this before".  Then they would open up, with a pinkishly blushing face, to tell me the horror stories of their own childhoods.

My point is that for me, when I finally found a way to open up to other men, without sounding needy, but just explaining why I'm writing the novel I'm writing, THEY FELT safe enough to open up to me, and I could tell they always felt a great sense of relief that they had another man to talk to about some secret past they thought they were stuck with for life.

Over the past 10 years I've become more and more open about my life, and as I do it, in a positive, matter-of-fact way just as a common conversation, the more people open up around me too. 

I've coined another saying that I use all the time now: There are more novels walking on the sidewalks than there are in the bookstores.

My experience has made me to believe that there are not very many people, anywhere, who are having a trouble-free life. Once you really, really get to open the people up around you, you find out how much pain there really is in the world. That makes me feel less like I'm an isolated case of someone who had to spend his life hiding the truth about who I really am, and it also gives more people around me, especially men who've never felt safe opening up, to feel the same way I do.

I also feel like I'm doing people a disservice by pretending my life is better than it is. People compare themselves to their peers. That's how we know if we're good or bad, or tall or short, or funny, or likeable. We all do it. So when people compare themselves to my happy persona they feel like they are alone with their secrets. But when those same people discover that there is a terrified, lonely, suicidal, betrayed little boy hiding deep within me, they feel like they aren't the only sufferers.

In summary, I was not always this open. But I found a way to tell my story without sounding like I'm asking for pity, and I discovered that other men needed me to do that, so they could open up too.

I agree with your T, about your core and being connected to the present.

Journal Entry, Sunday, September 4, 2022

Today I read an article referred by Hope67. The article was just another of the late-breaking research that's teaching me things about myself I hadn't yet grasped. I've been in Therapy for 41 years. I've been with a very good, loving, trustworthy, DBT therapist for around 20 years. I've learned so much about C-PTSD that I sometimes think there couldn't be more to learn. But today's research, and today's psychologists and neurologists are learning more about C-PSTD each year than in all of history put together.

I'm humbled again. And I'm crazy again. Today's article on Incest and how victims of it tend to minimize it because they want to love and respect the person who'd hurt them, sent me into a strange dissociation. I had to stop reading the article halfway through because I was dissociating so badly, I couldn't read English anymore. It was just gibberish: black marks on a white background.  I took an hour break and went back to try and finish the article, only to find that I was now blind in the center of both eyes. I've NEVER experienced this before. But for about an hour I appeared to have a gray shaded line in the very center of both eyes that didn't allow me to focus on words or anything else. I could still see peripherally, so I was able to go work on a jigsaw puzzle by sort of focusing my attention on the edges around the shaded line in my sight. Once, years ago, a man I worked with said he had "photo migraines" which were painless episodes of blindness, only in the center of his field of vision. I haven't yet gone to WebMD to see if that's a real thing or not, but what happened to me today reminded me of his situation 30 years ago.  I took a couple of aspirin, just in case this was some kind of odd migraine. For some reason it only lasted an hour and now I'm kind of okay again.

Physically I feel kind of weak, like the life force is draining out of me, which is allowing my numb, human body to move around without my soul attached. I'm cooking stuffed jalapenos right now as a distraction. The aroma of the oven is starting to fill the air, which is grounding me a little bit, but not completely.

I've known for decades that the people I trust the least are the people who love me the most. I'm so aware of how much pain betrayal causes that I protect myself incessantly from people who say they like or love me. I handle it pretty good. I have a good, strong, loving relationship with my wife of 40 years, but at times, I start to wish she'd just betray me somehow so I could get it over with. Same with my son. My daughter-in-law, grandsons and all my friends. Sometimes I just want them to be found saying horrible things about me. I asked my T why I do that, and he said that it's simply because a big part of me knows no one really loves me, and I just want my loved ones to get it over with so I can stop waiting for the inevitable betrayal.

Now, after reading today's, well-written article, I can see into a deeper level, at how damaged I really am.  I'm struggling to stay in my body today, but I'm not in pain. I'm just feeling like my soul has vacated my flesh and I'm just walking around doing laundry and cooking because my body knows how to do that without my brain engaged.  I'm glad I read the article. Even when I learn things I don't want to know, I'm always glad to learn them. The mystery of why I am who I am becomes less and less of a mystery with each painful thing I learn about myself through the research of professionals.

Wow Papa C it's amazing what our bodies and minds can do to protect us. I'm sorry I floated that post back up. I found it when I was going to post there but backed out.

It makes sense we expect people to be bad, but we know too there qre truly good people out there who will not hurt us. Not being able to trust that really sucks.

i agree w/ armee about how our brains take care of us in the midst of traumatic anythings.  waiting for the betrayal, yep, been there.  my T told me it's cuz that's what i've known, and it takes time and caring people around me for a while to be able to begin letting loose of that feeling.  i've lived w/ my D for nearly 5 years, and the feeling has diminished, but i can feel it wanting to creep up again every so often.  it just sucks.  love and a hug filled w/ gentle kindness for you, cuz you deserve that. :hug:

Thank you, San and Armee,

Your feedback means a lot to me. It proves someone is hearing me. I'm feeling heard.

Today I'm feeling a bit more connected to my body, but my vision remains slightly blurred like I'm not wearing my glasses, which I AM wearing.

Journal Entry: Monday, September 05, 2022 (Labor Day Holiday in the US).

EFs don't scare me anymore. They surprise me. They intrigue me. Yesterday's sudden onset of blindness confused me. In fact, it terrified me at first, because I thought it was a physical illness coming on. But as soon as I decided it was trauma response, I lost all fear of it. Blindness that stops me from reading an article is a new thing for me.

EFs force me to take special care of myself during them. But they don't frighten me anymore. I now know why I have them. I know they are temporary. And I now know how to take care of myself until they pass.

First: Once I recognize that I'm having a trauma-induced Emotional Flashback, I give myself permission to just have it. I allow it. I no longer fight it. It's trying to help me, so I talk to it. I thank it for protecting me. Then I begin to do little things to ground my spirit back into my body by use of physical stimulation: I cook aromatic meals; I walk into the icy Pacific Ocean with my pant legs rolled up to my knees; I sit on the patio in a rainstorm so I can feel the rain and wind on my face; I run my hands under cold water; I crank up the music; I light a campfire so I can feel the heat and see the sparks; I used to have a hot tub, (and would love to have one again), because soaking in the jets of hot water helped bring me back into my body. I also used to always have a pet in the house. A dog or a cat. They could be comforting to pet and play with. But I no longer have pets.

These physical anchors in reality work now. They didn't used to, but that was because I used to be so emotionally afraid of the EFs. I feared they were permanent, and that they meant I was irreparably damaged. I used to be ashamed of them. What kind of a man can't handle stress? Right? I used to believe they were proof I was mentally ill. Weak. Stupid. I feared my family was right all those years that I'm too weak and stupid to handle my life without their criticism, humiliation, and control. I was unable to see reality through the pain and I tried hard to hide that from my peers and family.

But my DBT therapist has worked tirelessly with me for nearly 20 years to help me lose my fear of my Trauma reactions. He teaches me to be thankful to my brain for trying so hard to protect me from my past. Integrating my trauma side with my realist side is working well to make me feel about half as disconnected as I used to. And now, the disconnection doesn't scare me. It's like a flu. I just need to take care of myself during the EF whether it lasts an hour or a week. I now know that one morning I'll wake up and it'll be gone. Part of the fear of the EFs was feeling like I couldn't control them. Well, I can't control the flu either, but I know how to get through it with self-care. Same now with the EFs. They come and go. And I take special care of myself when I'm in them. Then they pass. Until another comes at me at another time.

Yesterday's experience was just a strange one for me. Going blind in the center of my eye so I couldn't read the rest of the article was a new thing. Oh well. It passed in only a matter of a few hours. Today I just have a tiny bit of blurred vision, but it'll pass too. Now that I believe the blindness was a Trauma reaction, and not the onset of physical blindness, I'm not afraid of it.

This is exactly right on Papa Coco. Accepting instead of fighting or feeling shame about the EFs is the key to getting through them. It took me a long time to learn that. Used to tick me off when T would suggest I should accept dissociation or whatever weird symptom.

I have never gotten blindness before from one but my vision goes very very blurry, like yours. I think it makes it easier to dissociate...don't take it in, don't see it.

I appreciate your reflection on seeing an EF as opportunity to take care oneself as well as approaching with curiosity.

Journal Entry: Monday, September 12, 2022

It's 2:00 AM and sleep is too torturous for me tonight. For whatever reason the nightmares were too horrible to bear. I have the flu...or at least a bad cold. Sore muscles, nausea, loss of appetite, Headache. I am miserable.  two days now. My COVID test came back negative. It's normal. Every year I always get sick in September. Weather changes, etc.

I'm also struggling with a plethora of problems from cars to houses to electronics. And to top it off, my wife and I came upon a horrific car crash on our way home from the beach at 11 PM Friday night. 6-8 cars strewn across the highway. The lane we were in was blocked. As the abnormally overly aggressive traffic of the night was slowing, I had to merge us over two lanes to get around the core of the crash. It had just happened. People were just getting out of their damaged cars and running toward a burning SUV with cell phones at their ears. As we slowly crept past, and just a few feet away from the burning SUV, we could see that it had been knocked onto its side, and then slammed into by a full-sized pickup truck, probably at full speed, crushing the top and igniting the fire. We were helpless. My Jeep had broken down at the beach, and my wife had come to get me in our old truck. My Jeep has fire extinguishers in it, my old truck does not (BUT IT WILL NOW!!!)

We slowly crept past the burning SUV knowing that everyone inside was either dead or dying and we couldn't do ANYTHING to help. There were at least a dozen people already there and I had NO fire extinguisher.

THEN we spent Saturday, still dealing with the vision of the burning SUV in our heads and dealing with the fact that the wildfires are threatening our sons' towns. All of us live in Snohomish County, who has a very robust Emergency Management System. At midday, all our cell phones started screeching a horrible sound. Emergency Evacuation Notices had gone out to everyone in the county. The message was to "leave NOW! GO! Do not delay. Turn on headlights, leave note on front door indicating your location!"  We knew it wasn't meant for us, as we're deep within the city limits and there are no fires near us, just a lot of smoke and ash and eerie orange skies. But both of our sons live up in the mountains and are both in the evacuation zones. They live in towns that are on Hwy 2, which is a two-lane highway that is always badly backed up, even on a good day. We knew that if they waited to the last minute to evacuate, that they'd be in gridlock for hours. A half hour later, the phones started screeching again. The Emergency Management System was retracting the earlier message, saying it was only for the town my oldest son lives in, but a glitch sent it to every city in the county. I texted our oldest son, (S1) who hates us because we don't vote for Trump and got an angry message back from him. Our other son (S2) has a wife and two children. His wife's family lives all over in those same mountains. He and his family were holding off evacuating because they are only at level 1, which means they are to be on watch. So, they're on watch. We're on watch. Our oldest son, S1, (who is both schizophrenic AND on the autism spectrum...Oh, AND is a conspiracy theorist/angry trump supporter) hates us and thinks we're stupid for caring about him...

It was stress, stress, stress, stress all weekend long.  Now I can't sleep. I woke up at 2:00 AM with horrible images in my head about people dying and suffering in horrific ways and I was completely unable to help them. The images just keep coming. Every time I close my eyes, new images of intense suffering. It's like being in h3II.

I blame the combination of having a bad cold, being on all kinds of over the counter cold medications, and still in the natural state of trauma from that car accident, and the guilt I feel that I didn't prepare my truck with a fire extinguisher, and the stress of my two sons, one who loves us, and the other who hates us, and the fact that my wife and I can hardly breathe now because of the bad, bad, bad air quality... It's too much all at once.

My wife found an article about the car accident. All the occupants of the SUV perished and one of the many drivers we saw in the tangled mess went to jail for manslaughter because of road rage. I end up feeling great sorrow for the victims of the road rage, but also the assailant. The stress on the freeway that night was the worst I'd come across. Sometimes a person just gets frustrated and makes ONE stupid move out of a short fit of rage, and now that person has to live the rest of his/her life with the guilt of what they'd done...and probably in a prison cell. I know nothing about who did it, nor how they did it, so I don't know if they were a bad person who deserves prison, or a good person who wishes they were dead now. But me being me, I'm choosing to feel bad for all of them: the victims and the perpetrator.

I make that drive up and down I-5 all the time. We go back and forth to the beach many, many times a year, and this night was by far the most aggressive night I've ever driven it. In order to keep from being rear-ended, I had to go 10-15 MPH over the speed limit, and still people were passing us at speeds, easily in the 90 MPH to 100 MPH range if not even faster. It had been going on like that for an hour when we came upon the crash. Road rage, excessive speed, and an oddly heavy traffic for nearly midnight, made for a stressful end to a nice day at the beach.

I'm not sure what to do now. I can only watch so much TV before I can't stand it anymore. I can't go back to bed. I don't want to start seeing those images again. I don't respond well to sleep aids. They really don't work well for me. Sometimes I think sleeping pills actually make me unable to sleep at all.  So here I am, writing my daily journal hours before the day even begins.  To add to this car accident, it brings up memories of all the car accidents I've witnessed in my life.

Stress. GADS this is awful!  Just awful. I can't close my eyes or I see pain and suffering and I feel helpless to fix any of it for anyone. Thankfully I have My biweekly therapy appointment tomorrow and my next Ketamine Infusion scheduled for Wednesday. That's only two days away. But I sure hope I can find a way to get some sleep before that.

For anyone else who is in a fire zone, I know Kizzie, you're dealing with it, I'm here to tell you, I'm right in it with you and I know how stressful this is!!! It's h3II on earth!!!!

PC, I hope you are able to find some healing from the illness and relief from the images and stress.

Oh goodness. Papa C that is all too too much. Can you ask your T for an earlier and/or extra session? It would be warranted.

I'll be thinking about you today, often, and sending a solid comforting support to you.

If there's a way you can physically wear yourself out without breathing smoke....that can burn up some of the excess adrenaline. But ugh smoke. Just makes you feel trapped.

I'm sorry about your sons...both the danger and the difficult relationship with the one. That man has poisoned so much already I'm sorry he affected your family too.

And the car crash...I recall you describing another time a long time ago...that sounded like maybe PTSD....so be extra gentle with yourself as this may be a trigger.

PC, what an awful lot to be dealing with.  i agree w/ you about the fires - i had to evacuate 2 yrs. ago - and the eerie skies, the color of the sun and the moon not being able to breathe outdoors - it truly is * on earth.  we finally had some rain yesterday, so hopefully will the rest of our state, but everyone else still stuck in those zones - they're the ones i feel for.

sorry about the rift w/ your son re: politics.  this has really torn families apart.

hopefully, you and your family members are all safe and the air clears and you can get back to living w/o horrible images such as you described.  love and a hug full of lavender for stress relief :hug:

Rainy, San, Armee, Thank you for the comments.

I feel like being able to report what's happening is giving me a thread to hang onto for my sanity. If I didn't have someone to share this trauma with, I'd feal far, far crazier than I do now.

I got 5 hours of bad, interrupted sleep after I posted my late-night journal entry. Technically it was sleep, but in my nightmares, I was trapped in aggressive traffic the whole time, trying to get out of a disaster no one would let me walk or drive away from.  Ugh.

Armee, your suggestion to find a way to exercise today is a good one. I have an exercise bike in my bedroom, where I also have a Hepa filter going. I should mount up and burn off some energy with that. A lot of the stress is this feeling of being trapped indoors with just my traumas to think about.

I do believe this is PTSD, and it is related to the other car accidents I've come across during my lifetime. I've come across burning cars, and rollovers. AT 17 I came across a rollover just as it'd happened. There were no cell phones back then, and my memories of how I ran into the woods to the van, wheels still turning are such chaotic memories, that I don't fully remember what all I saw. I just remember a police officer finally saw my four-way flashers and came back into the woods to find us. I vaguely remember him telling me to go home. Somehow that's playing into this.

Thanks again for letting me report my situation. Again; having someone to report this to provides a sense of community that doesn't leave me sitting in a corner rocking back and forth, completely insane.  We humans are social creatures. We need each other during happy times and during difficult times.

we do need each other, PC, which is why i'm so grateful for being part of this community.  those traumas can come up and bite us in the butt when we're not expecting them.  i hope the exercise helps and you get relief from such terrible nightmares.  sending love and a hug filled w/ a sense of peace. :hug:

Right back atcha, San

I accept the love and hugs your sending me, and I'm sending my love and hugs right back. We humans really are all connected.  :bighug:

Journal Entry: Wednesday September 14, 2022

I got three hours of sleep last night. I've been up since 1am. It's 6 am now. I have a Ketamine infusion in a few hours. I'm lucky this time that Coco has the morning off and wants to drive me to and from, rather than have me Uber it.

I'm starting to notice more deeply how grateful I am for the honesty and openness on this forum.

Sometimes I feel like I act like a know-it-all. Or Like I "mansplain" too much.  I tell my T this, and he corrects me. He helps me to see that I'm so distressed by my own past, and so traumatized by it, that when I feel alone with it, I feel like my entire life has been a total and complete waste of time. He helps me to see that when I use my empathetic connection to throw my stories into the hat with others who share the same traumas I've experienced, that I start to feel like I'm not a waste of flesh and bone. I sometimes join charities just so I can feel like by giving back to others, I'm okay with what I've been through.

In other words, by using my own life as a way to help others with similar pasts, my own life was not a waste.

For those on this forum who not only feel safe sharing their lives with us, but who also allow me to share mine with you, my gratitude is no small thing. Words can't express how much healing I get from being allowed to share my life alongside yours.

I only value a few things in life: Honesty, love, and connection. Money is nothing more than a way to live in a house and have food and medical care. Life without connection with others is not life, it's a prison sentence in solitary confinement.

So, thank you, from the bottom of my heart to all of the good people on this forum who let me rant on and on at times, and who openly share your lives with me while I share mine with you. I jokingly call this my "Island of Misfit Toys". I may feel cast aside by the happy world, but now I feel like I've found others who feel the same way. I'm not alone on an island anymore. I'm with like-minded souls.  I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not alone.

I feel like all the suffering I've done was not for nothing if by sharing it, it helps others feel not so alone also.

no you're not, PC.  not anymore.  we're right here w/ you.  love and many hugs :grouphug:

 :bighug:

I am so grateful for you being here and sharing openly and with so much generosity. I would be drowning here without you sharing exactly down to the detail what you went through. And I've found myself wishing I knew you and the others in real life, but this level of connection doesn't happen because we don't speak this honestly with many friends. So I am very grateful and feel very close to you and others.

Good luck with your ketamine. I hope you get peace and connection amd relief and it lasts a long time.  :grouphug:

Armee,

Right back atcha.   :bighug:

You've given me many moments of peace and support also.

Thinking of you Papa Coco and hoping with all might that the ketamine brought peace.

Journal Entry: Saturday, September 17, 2022

The Ketamine Infusion on Wednesday was a good thing, but it was the first time I'd ever had an infusion during current day traumatic events: i.e.; The car accident and the wildfires threatening both my sons' homes.

Normally, I go into Infusion just dealing with my past traumas and their residual depression. The infusions remind me of what Near Death Experiencers report: That while they were out of body, they were aware of the eternal existence of all life and matter, and that life on this waking plane is temporary and unimportant in the realm of all eternity.  To me, while under the Ketamine, I have full awareness of my real life, but I feel like it's a dream, and I wonder why I let any of it bother me. Years ago, I wrote a short story, and posted it on my blog. I called it "I dreamt I was alive." I'll go find that story and post it with the poems people write in this forum.

During the infusion, I'm able to adjust my moods with much more control than when I'm not in the infusion. Happiness is achievable in a lot of ways during our lives, but those of us with trauma disorders, have extra hurdles to overcome if we want to bring ourselves to a higher level of happiness. Lord knows, it is no easy task. Our EFs and long-standing neural pathways fight against us when we try to intentionally uplift our happiness. It's always been my experience that I can drop my mood instantly, but I have to work pretty darn hard to raise my mood when needed.

But it seems different during the infusion. I've begun to discover that, while I'm in the infusion, if I think about the fires and the car accident, I start to feel fear and sadness. But all I had to do during Wednesday's infusion to raise my mood was say to myself "Nope. I want to be happy." It worked instantly. I had complete control over my moods. During my infusion, I had THAT much control. I just thought about happiness, and I became happy for the rest of the infusion. I WISH I had this much control while I'm "sober." Well, maybe if I keep at it, and if I gain just 1% more control over my moods between infusions, I'll eventually gain control all day long.

Hi Papa Coco,
I am belated in saying this, but I wanted to say that I'm glad you're ok after those fires etc that you mentioned previously, it sounded very scary to not be able to breathe clearly.

:hug:
Hope  :)

Thank you Hope and Armee. Being able to breathe again feels wonderful, and last week's Ketamine Infusion moved me forward one more mile in my healing path.

Journal Entry: Monday, September 19, 2022

With all the posts about sociopaths / NPDs in leadership, I just want to share what I learned about why I go into depression so quickly. I've taken myself off the News. In March, I banned myself from reading Facebook, watching or reading news. My anxiety levels have dropped to nothing ever since. I still deal with crushing depression, but no longer with anxiety. I know the anxiety is right there, waiting for some small spark to relight it, so I'm not claiming to have cured it...I've simply put it into remission for now.

Depression, for me, comes from powerlessness and hopelessness. My ability to use anger appropriately was taken from me by family and church. I can't seem to get it back. So I must avoid situations that make me a victim if at all possible.

During my 10 sessions with the Religious Trauma Therapist, Andrew Jasko, I came to realize that my pattern goes thusly:

    --I am fine.

    --I see a conflict or a problem or bullying, or any other threat to myself, to you, or to our way of life.

    --If I can solve the conflict or problem, I'm okay.

    --If I can NOT solve the conflict or problem I go into anger.
          (Anger is normally a healthy secondary emotion, meant to help us fight for our rights. I am incapable of doing so).

    --Anger is an instant trigger:
            I was punished and humiliated my whole life by family if I ever got angry at anyone, no matter how justified the anger was. My mother convinced me, from birth to 50, that I MUST let bullies bully me, or I will die of a stroke if I ever get angry enough to protect myself or anyone, or anything, no matter how justified. The roots of my raising run deep, and anger is a bad, bad, bad trigger for me.

    --Anger triggers lifelong shame.

    --Shame turns to fear: If I stand up and fight, I'll be humiliated and risk dying of a stroke. If I don't stand up and fight, I'll be hurt. It's a lose/lose scenario.

    --Fear turns to anxiety.

    --My well-trained neuropathways firmly connect me with my lifelong sense of helplessness.

    --Anxiety and helplessness turn to hopelessness when I unsuccessfully try to escape the conflict or problem.

    --Having no way out, I surrender. I give up on life altogether.

    --Hopelessness turns to dark depression and sleeplessness.

    --Anger and depression mix together with hopelessness, and I become so dissociated I can barely communicate with anyone.

    --I begin to isolate and retreat into myself.

    --Dissociation and Depression continue to worsen as long as I feel helpless/hopeless.

    --This has, on several occasions, turned me from passively suicidal to actively suicidal, and I can't do anything to stop it without intervention. Interventions have saved me at the last minute on more than one occasion.

In summary, my anxiety and depression are pretty much because I'm not allowed to get angry enough to protect myself or others.

Because my neural pathways lead me from conflict to suicide, (Conflict/bullying > Anger > Shame > Helplessness > Loss of all hope > Fear > Depression > Isolation and quiet demeanor > Suicide) and I can't stop it without intervention from someone, I have to be very careful to not allow myself to deal with hopeless situations...Such as sociopaths in leadership. I know it exists. I can talk all day long about the concept and the reasons sociopaths have all the power in the world, but I can't allow myself to deal with specific cases that are a current threat that I can do nothing about.

I often resort to praying that serenity prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

To calm my anxiety, I sometimes draw the three circles of Stephen Covey's Circle of Influence, and I write my concerns on the paper, putting each item in the correct circle. It helps me to remember that I have a lot of concerns I can do nothing about. It helps me focus only on the concerns that I have full control over. It helps with anxiety. I used Covey's circles a lot when I was working because I was in the center of so many people's problems. I had a huge job. My name and phone number were posted all over the world. If I hadn't had Covey's Circle of Influence on my desk, I would have gone crazy much sooner than I did. As my company's structure continued to erode, I found myself less and less able to help my customers (Who were Aeronautics Engineers from multiple countries). As a Fawn Type, being unable to help my customers do their jobs, was a death sentence for me.

During COVID, they laid me off after 42 years because the sociopaths in charge felt that hiring people in India who have no experience training engineers was cheaper, therefore better. Their "cheaper is better than quality" plan must not have worked, because headhunters have been trying to get ahold of me to hire me back, but I'm DONE! They got what they wanted. Cheap labor rather than 4 decades of deep experience. Now the ball is in my court. I've turned my layoff into retirement, and I'm just ghosting them>>>Which, to me, feels like I have SOME CONTROL now over my own destiny.

It's calming for me to not feel like they have all the power over my peace anymore. I'm DONE with those selfish, moneygrubbing jerks. My wife and kids have always been grateful for the layoff, because I was planning to work until I turn 65, but my anxiety was so bad by the time they laid me off that there is no way I'd have lived long enough to see 65 had I stayed in that mess.

For me, worrying about things I have NO control over will kill me. So I have no choice: 100% No Contact with family: 100% No Contact with my former employer:  100% No Contact with churches, even to attend weddings or funerals: 100% No Contact with News Media, unless I need the information for my own, personal life, such as watching for evacuation notices.

IF I ever decide to go back to work, for any reason, it will HAVE to be a very low stress job with very low probability of conflict. Headhunters have been after me to apply for my old job back, but I'm No Contact with big corporations now and will NEVER work for them again. Big corporations are all run by SOCIOPATHs. I love talking about sociopaths, but as an observer, not as a participant. I can't allow myself to get dragged into their sick, sick games any longer.

A person who's allergic to bees, stays away from bees. I'm allergic to sociopaths, so I learn about them, read about them, teach about them, but I stay the heck AWAY from them.

I'm so happy you are feeling some peace and relief and that you have taken control of things related to sociopaths and know how literally vital it is to stay away. That cycle was helpful for me to read too.  :grouphug:

i'm impressed w/ how you've been able to assess your emotional states as a result of not being able to be angry.  i do think the serenity prayer is good for all those people and things over which we have no control - there are so many of them!  going NC w/ various people/subjects in my life has also helped me, and i'm glad you've discovered some form of help there for yourself. 

here's hoping your infusions continue to bring you some sense of peace, and that eventually your own neural networks will be able to do so unaided.  that's the dream, right?  love and hugs :hug:

Journal Entry for Thursday, September 22, 2022

I'm examining why it is that I write too much.

Reason 1) Long-awaited validation: I recently asked my T why I can't stop writing once I start. He told me that he has found that people who were not listened to as children often grow up feeling the need to tell everything to everyone. Now that I'm finally being listened to I feel compelled to keep sharing. On this forum, I don't have as much need to give backstory as I do with non-traumatized peers. This is because my peers on the C-PTSD forum already know what it feels like to be like me, so I don't need to explain myself to you. But still, my posts are long, and I'm always kind of afraid that I'm breaking rules by posting longer posts.


Reason 2) I've swum with sharks: My need to explain myself in detail goes all the way back to my earliest memories. Here in the Seattle area, living with the Catholic families that I know, including my own, and all my Catholic friends' families, are like swimming with sharks. The one thing you never want to do when swimming with sharks is bleed. In a Catholic family, every member seems ready to pounce on whomever shows the most vulnerability on any given day. They are ruthless judges, trying to preemptively attack before being attacked themselves. They call it "love" but it's not. It's fear. Fear that looks like aggressive bullying. Being vulnerable in their presence insights a feeding frenzy that's just as frightening as swimming with sharks who smell blood in the water.

It was my experience that we defend ourselves against our own parents, siblings, and peers, by making sure we explain ourselves quickly and completely so we can stop the criticism that we know is about to swamp us like a tsunami wave. My other Catholic family adage is; I call having been raised in a Seattle Catholic family and school a full-contact sport, or even better, a demolition derby where each member is just trying to survive the others by sharing and spreading the damage. I got smashed into so now I have to smash into the next person, so we all share and spread the emotional damage to each other, all while trying to be the survivor of the game. In my Catholic upbringing, the goal was to survive my family, not trust them. To them, life was a competitive sport. You can't trust anyone who's competing with you instead of loving you as you are. My family and friends were so quick to talk over each other, that simple family gatherings were loud. Everyone was trying to talk louder than everyone else in an attempt to be the offender rather than the offended.  They all wanted to be the hammer rather than the nail.

Reason 3) Adages are great, but backstory is also great: I very much love short adage-type quotes, like "they all wanted to be the hammer rather than the nail" because in very few words, I sum up the whole story. An adage is a short summary of a long story. The problem for me is that as a listener I don't learn as much from the adage as if I can hear the whole story behind it. I'll forget an adage in an hour, but a story often sticks with me for life. As a retired adult educator, I know that storytelling is the best teaching tool. People seldom remember facts they were made to memorize, but they often remember stories they were told. My life is my story. One of my homemade adages that I use a lot is: There are more novels walking on sidewalks than there are on bookstore shelves.  Each of us is a novel (or a series of novels) just waiting to be written. When I tell the backstory of my life that shows how I came to believe an adage, well...that's when I connect with souls.

Reason 4) Backstories connect us: Adages are fun and powerful communication tools but telling the backstories of my real life is how I connect with people soul-to-soul. And connection is what I personally believe is the purpose of life itself. When I think about good vs. evil, it seems to me that ANYTHING I do that's meant to connect with other people is considered good, and ANYTHING I do that's meant to isolate, betray, trick, bully, offend, break connection with other souls, is the definition of evil. I disclose stories about my life because when I do, I discover that other people have lived much the same experiences that I have lived. Our stories draw us closer together, and that's the purpose of life itself.

So I write long posts because I want to share and learn but I don't want to hurt anyone with bad advice or a misunderstanding. Because I am so social, too many people thought I was having a great life, and they didn't believe I could understand what they go through. I want people to know I'm on their side and that I have good, solid reason why I DO understand their fears, anxieties, etc. I feel connected when I share that my life wasn't all it appeared to be.

Reason 5) It's safer to share than to advise: Having been blamed for my family's problems, I hate giving advice. It ALWAYS bites me back in the end. It's too dangerous. I'm not a professional, I'm not qualified to tell you what I think you should do. BUT I am qualified to tell you what I've experienced or witnessed. If you find any good information in what I've shared, it's in your power to decide whether to see any correlation between us. A good adage for this is "I'm one survivor telling other survivors where I found a lifeboat." What you do with is it your right to do with as you wish.

So, in summary, I'd rather write a little too much, then too little. If sharing my life with others contributes to us feeling connected rather than alone, then I guess that's why I write posts that tend to go on a bit too long.

Journal Entry for Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Strange. On my main Forum page, there used to be a topic to discuss sexual abuse, but for some reason, today that topic is gone, along with my long-running post about it. I'm sure it's my navigation skills that are preventing me from finding my own thread, and that in a day or two it'll show up again. These forums are, at times, a bit difficult to navigate around in.

I told my T yesterday that I want to explore the idea that my CSA has done more damage to me than I've ever given it credit for. He was happy to hear me say that. I believe now that he's been aware for many years, that I avoid the topic, broach it from time to time for a few seconds, then blame all my current day trauma responses on everything else I went through.

It's bizarre for me to realize how I've been minimizing it for so many years.  But I wasn't really just "minimizing it." It's more like I was compartmentalizing it. For brief periods of time I would live within the traumas of the CSA, but then I'd leave it and slam the door on the part of my brain that holds the memories.

I had to confess to my T yesterday that when I think about the events of my CSA, I can only focus for about 10 seconds or so before I start to feel terror building in my chest and stomach. Even now, as I write this, I'm feeling my heart rate climbing. If I don't get it under control within a minute or two I'll start getting dizzy and need to lie down and put on some music or something to distract me back into slamming the door again.  I'd say that's pretty clear evidence that the poison from that abuse is still coursing my veins and I really do need to address it.

My T is such an amazing man. He took great care yesterday in slowly telling me that he was glad I'm ready to start exploring the violence around my CSA memories AND that he promises to never push me. He told me that any time I want to stop, he'll honor my need to stop. He spent about 5 minutes in the session convincing me that I will be in full control and that he will not, not, not push me. I can't find the words to really express how much comfort that gave me.  My last T was a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist who just wanted to get it all out in the open and get it over with. When I'd go into hyperventilating and shivering in his office, he'd just keep going. Now, 20 years later, with a good therapist, I get the chance to calm down and trust that this man isn't going to force me to go into memories that will effectively shut me down again for another 20 years. He'll respect my pace and let me choose when to start and stop the memories.

Anyway. I've been living alone again at the beach for a few weeks. My wife is coming down next week to spend a week with me. Thank goodness she's so okay with me isolating like this. I suspect having me out of the house is a relief for her too. She tells me, all the time, that the way we give each other space is as good for her as it is for me. One benefit is that we've been married nearly 40 years now and we never, ever, EVER fight or bicker. We are glad to be together when we're together, and glad to be apart when we need time to ourselves.

But being alone like this presents another issue of me having to manage my depression to keep from dipping too deep into it. Isolation is my guilty pleasure. It's the ONLY time I feel like I'm completely safe. Even with a wife of 40 years who loves me and never fights with me, I still feel judged and "on duty as a fawn" when I'm with her. It's TRAUMA!  I know that, But trauma responses don't get better just because we recognize them. So I still feel judged and "on duty" whenever anyone, ANYone is in the room with me. Even dogs and cats. In order to feel safe and at peace, I can't have a pet in the house either. It has to be my own fortress of solitude for me to feel like I'm free to be myself. The trick is to remain in isolation without falling into the pits of despair and depression. It's a precarious game I play with myself. Being alone to feel good, but not letting it become life-threatening depression.

So...that's what's happening in Papa Coco's recovery process now.

Hi Papa Coco,

I am so pleased to hear that your T has taken the time and care to reassure you that this is all at your pace. That you hold the reigns and have the control in this situation. I hope that knowing you have the control now, that you decide, will help you open up with your T about your trauma there. It sounds like you have a really good relationship with your T.

I'm glad you have been able to get away and just be. Sometimes that is the best medicine.

Sending you support in your next steps and gentle hugs if you want them

hey PC, i can definitely relate to the 'talking too much' thing, especially your first point about not being listened to, but also about swimming w/ sharks.  interesting stuff.  thanks for sharing.

i get the whole feeling safe only when you're alone bit.  for me, tho, it's the pressure from former expectations to be 'on' when someone is around.  weird how it can be the same feeling coming from different sources.  oh this wild and wacky beast we call c-ptsd/trauma.  love and hugs :hug:

Papa Coco I will write much more here when I have the ability to. For now, warm hugs and safety as you cocoon from the expectations of other living creatures. Stay safe. We all need you too. I credit your story with helping me understand what was happening with me too. I had never heard such a clear explanation of what happens with memories but the simple descriptions in books made me doubt myself while yours helped me see what was happening is...well...how it happens. I've been torturing myself for 4 years.

So no expectations but I want you to know how valued you are and I am so sorry what happened to you. I wish you didn't have such knowledge to share. Hugs to you, hugs to the little boy, and hugs to the brave 19 yr old.

Slowly will be so important. Important to go slow and gentle, important to go through it and give it the grieving that it needs.

Much love from me,

Armee

Recovery Journal Entry for Monday, October 3, 2022

IFS was recommended. On DollyVee's recommendation, I bought the book Self Therapy, 3rd edition by Jay Earley, PhD.  I'm almost through chapter one, and like with any good book, I'm already learning. Today I read a bit about the many personalities that live within me, and that each and every one of them is on my side, even if what he/she is doing that's making me crazy. My therapist already uses this method on me, but he's never called it IFS. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is all about identifying, respecting and healing the various different parts of myself, and I've been doing it with him for so long that I never really grasped that I can do it myself without his help. Earley teaches that it's easy to just go to my fractured part and ask it to reveal itself, and it always will.

After breakfast, I sat on the front porch and enjoyed the cool Autumn morning as I put on my socks and shoes. I was thinking about chapter one and I decided to start asking my different parts why they do what they do. I have a part that makes me isolate. I have a FANTASTIC marriage, grandsons, friends...but I choose to isolate for weeks on end. I have a part that coerces me to eat sugar and fat and salts all night long in front of the TV, making me fat, lazy and I'm aging way too fast because of my nightly TV/Binge-eating private parties. I have so many parts that cause me to live in ways I don't really want to live, but I'm comfortable doing so and I can't seem to stop doing things that don't serve me as an adult.

This morning, on the porch, texting with my wife, I decided to start my exploration of my parts by asking Mr. Isolation why he makes me isolate all the time.  I got an answer immediately.

He said "You don't have any boundaries to keep you safe from other people, so I give you boundaries." He showed me my front yard from where I was sitting. "I gave you a yard that no one else can see from the street. You can't protect yourself from being betrayed by your neighbors, friends, and loved ones, so I'm giving you a private fortress of solitude to keep you safe. As a child you couldn't stop people from calling you horrible names. Your own family betrayed you constantly so you would work for them and not ask for anything for yourself. For almost your whole life you couldn't stop your family from telling you how worthless and needy you were and how lucky you were that they loved you anyway. So, I've given you physical boundaries to protect you from your loved ones, peers and superiors. From the street to the front door is your private yard. I encourage you to keep the shrubbery as tall and thick as you can so no one can see you sitting peacefully on your front porch. I encourage you to lock your front door when you're in the house, and to keep it locked for a week at a time because that locked door is the only boundary I know how to give you that you'll accept."

Okay, so that just happened, and I immediately felt the need to run into the house and tell my journal about it. I'm feeling comfortable about how Mr. Isolation is trying to help me. I feel like I'm grateful for how much isolation he's given me over the past few years, but I'm also hoping that he and I can find a new way to help me comfortably, happily and successfully hold my emotional boundaries before my wife retires and we start living together at the beach 24x7. If she retired today and came to spend the Holidays with me in this tiny house, I'd be mortified. BUT it's only because I've learned that locking everyone out of my life is the only way I can uphold my boundaries. If I can learn how to love myself and not accept the nasty things people say about/to me, I can stop hiding out and isolating from my own, wonderful, life-partner. My wife is my sunshine. It bothers me that I need to be alone when I have this amazing person who is committed to always loving me, always honestly, and always without any malicious manipulations of any kind.

Mr. Isolation is helping me the only way he knows how. The problem is that with physical isolation, I'm putting strain on my own marriage and friendships. I can't just ask him to stop, because physical isolation is still the only way I know how to find emotional peace and safety.

So, I am going to try to read chapter two today also. Now that I've connected with Mr. Isolation, I need to know how to work with him to move him past my childhood fears, to see if he'll help me find emotionally mature ways to guard myself against feeling belittled and betrayed by the people who love me.

Hi PC,

Oh wow, that's great! It feels pretty incredible to connect with those parts doesn't it? It's a direct communication to what's actually going on. I'm sure that as you talk to and reassure Mr. Isolation about that you're an adult and can manage your boundaries now he/they/it will step back and allow you to speak to the part that was hurt and show you what happened with your boundaries.

Sending you support,
dolly

That's awesome Papa Coco.
I've got to get that book! (thanks dolly too)
Just want to send positive wishes your way. Mr Isolation sounds like a fierce protector. I'd like him :)
I'm very grateful for this sharing and am just trusting this process alongside you.

That's amazing Papa Coco  :)
You always have something incredible to share and I find your story inspiring.

I hope you manage to find that balance and can come up with new ways with Mr Isolation to support you as you need now  :)
Sending you good luck and positive vibes on this next step in your journey.

Dolly, Phil, Master of my Sea, Thanks for the support. Even though we're all virtual, and may never meet each other in person, I find a lot of strength in us sharing our life struggles and successes with each other. Gaining control over a lifetime of being controlled by Emotional Trauma Reactions is not easily done alone. But being a part of a community that is on the same trajectory is comforting and strength building.

Dolly, you're right about how it feels good to connect with these parts. It feels loving, not combative. On so many levels I feel like I made a new friend yesterday when "Mr. Isolation" so quickly explained why he gives me the only boundaries he knows I'll accept.

I only got started on Chapter 2 yesterday. I'll read the rest of it today. The author says that if the trauma responses are old and have been with me for a long, long time, that it could take up to 2 years of going through the steps of making peace with all my parts. That's okay with me. I measure my success by the year anyway. I can say I'm a better person today than I was 12 months ago. So now I can look forward to who I might be this time next year.

My wife has some vacation coming to her, and is planning to drive down to the beach tomorrow. I'll spend the whole day with her and she'll be staying for a week. It's going to be so nice to see her, especially since I've made my new friend, Mr. Isolation, and now I know a bit more about why I tend to pull away. My wife is not someone to pull away from. My need to isolate is not her fault. I'm just lucky that she's okay with it. In fact, she tells me that she likes the time alone also.  I know that we with C-PTSD can be skittish in relationships. My own skittishness has cost me a lot of relationships over the years. I know that just because we're doing okay with my quirks right now, it doesn't mean I shouldn't try to fix this isolation problem so that we can go another 40 years happy together. 

One of my favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou who said "Do the best you can until you know better. When you know better, do better." Well. My marriage has done okay with what I knew. But I know better now, so I owe it to myself and my wife to do better. Now that I've met Mr. Isolation I can't un-meet him. I know better now. I have to do better. He and I are going to work this out. I'm going to find a new way to uphold my boundaries, so I don't 'have to live alone in solitude so often.

Chapter two, Here I come! Show me how to deal with Mr. Isolation!

I hope so much that you, Mr. Isolation, and Mama Coco have a peaceful and connected visit. Your parts work is inspiring.

Journal Entry for Thursday, September 6, 2022

Panic: Did I lose a friend?

I have an internet friend that I stay in touch with, but we don't really know each other's home addresses or phone numbers. We've been very close via email for quite some time. A week and a half ago, after I hadn't received an email in 5 weeks, I accidentally got out of the habit of checking daily for his emails. Today, I realized I hadn't checked the email account in a while. I checked my inbox and found he'd pinged me 12 days ago. That's less than two weeks.  I had probably just checked for an email from him 13 days ago, and after 5 weeks of nothing, I just got out of the habit of checking email. Life's been busy for me, and...well...I felt awful and immediately responded today with a letter apologizing for not responding sooner. I asked how he was doing, and again, apologized for not catching his email for over a week.

My email was returned to me saying his email account was closed.

Logically I know, as a mature, grown man, that there are two possible scenarios at play here. 1) He could be in trouble. With all the hurricanes and fires and public shootings, my mind can't help but ask if he's okay, in which case, as an adult with a caring nature, I'm worried about him. 2) The other scenario is far more frightening to me. My traumatized self is filling in all the blanks, and is feeling sure that since I didn't respond within 12 days of his last email, that I've been cut out of his life.

TRAUMA: This is more about me than about him. I have a hard time believing he'd cut me out of his life for not responding quickly enough after his 5 weeks of silence. I keep telling myself: "This is TRAUMA" as I try to not freak out and go into serious self-deprecation for being a bad friend. I'm in a serious Catch-22 here. To make myself feel better, should I hope that he is hurt so I don't have to feel like he's cut me out of his life? I don't want THAT! I don't want him to be hurt. But I also don't want to find out that I'm being blocked by someone I care about.  I don't know which scenario I hope this is. Both are bad.

I am sitting at my computer feeling like my insides are on fire. I'm burning up from the inside out. I'm feeling obsessed. How can I find him? I don't know his phone number? Did I hurt him? Am I still that bad child who got ignored, betrayed, left behind because I didn't please my parents, siblings, peers enough? Is this whole thing my fault? Did I cause him pain?

Now it's time to rely on what little I know about IFS:

I've only read 1 1/2 chapters of one book about IFS, and I've listened to 1 podcast that had IFS mentioned in it. That's what I know about IFS. But I think I know enough, so far, to lead me to the following realizations about what's happening in my body right now:

My Inner Victim: I have a lot of inner victims and I don't know yet how to name them all. But today I'm talking about an inner victim who has been abandoned, ghosted, ignored, and beaten up by my own friends and family. That inner victim is terrified right now, assuming the worst, that my friend has given up on me because I'm a bad, shameful person. My Inner Victim believes I've been abandoned AGAIN. How that inner victim speaks to me is he lights my insides on fire. Right now all my organs are almost ready to combust. My ears are turning red from the extra blood flow to my head. My inner victim is terrified like he was when my best friend smacked me at age 10 and turned my entire school into a mob-bully situation that lasted for the rest of my childhood. My inner victim is terrified like when my mom, dad, brother and sisters would ignore me and refuse to talk to me because they were unhappy and I was being blamed, (usually I was innocent) for their mistakes. Back when I was a Christian, I once had a group of Christian friends tell me that our weekly bible studies were cancelled, only to later find out that these so-called-friends had moved the bible study and didn't want me to know. I never found out why. Today, my own son won't talk to me because I don't support trump. My inner victim remembers all these stories plus a few others, where abandonment was my punishment for not being good enough. My Inner Victim is making me MISERABLE this morning. I've been betrayed, ghosted, ignored, tricked and left for dead so many times that this is just too similar for me to get past without this distress.

My Inner Protector: IFS teaches that when our inner victims go into pain, our inner protectors jump into action and do things we aren't always sure we want them to do. I have a lot of inner protectors, but today's protector is the Fawn. My Fawn wants to find my friend somehow and apologize until my knees weaken. Then I want to fawn over him, give him gifts and love and money and whatever else he needs...until my inner victim stops being terrified and cools my organs back down to 98.6 degrees F.

There's a chance that something else has happened, and that my friend will create a new account and contact me again. For that scenario, I worry like any friend would worry. Is he okay? Is he hurt? Is he in some kind of trouble?

But I'm a traumatized adult whose been down the road of being ignored and "shut out" of people's lives just for being me or for something I didn't even know I'd done but I got blamed for anyway.

Because I'm a trauma victim, my IFS family of inner parts are all engaged this morning making me obsess over losing ANOTHER friend and worrying that he hates me now.

Thank God my wife is here with me for the next 10 days. She'll keep me distracted, hopefully until this inner victim calms down and stops heating me up from the inside out.


I need to use IFS somehow now to talk with this inner protector AND this inner victim and ask how we can get past this without fawning over someone. In non-trauma reality, I did nothing wrong. But in my personal Trauma-reality, I'm guilty of being a bad person all over again, without even knowing I'd been bad. My victim is in his place of horror, and my protector is champing at the bit to help my Inner Victim by finding my friend and fawning until we're okay again.

Unfortunately, what I know about IFS is from the first 30 pages in a book and one 45-minute podcast. I don't have an IFS therapist, so I'm going to have to figure this one out on my own.  And if my friend is not trying to lock me out, but is in some kind of trouble, well...as his friend I want to be there to support him, but I can't, because his emails are all shut down.  This is a conundrum that normally would drag me into serious SERIOUS anxiety and depression at the same time. But this time, I'm going to try to calm down the anxiety and guilt and shame by using it as a case scenario to work on learning how to communicate with all my various different people living inside me. My protectors, and my victims, and my own self.

When I get past my inner victim and inner protector, to find my true core self, I do now believe that by my pure nature I am a caring person. So I know that even if I were emotionally healthy right now, I'd still be worried that my friend is okay.  So, either way, if he's not okay, I'm worried as a friend. If he's hiding from me, then I'm worried for myself. I don't want to go through this painful, agonizing sense of abandonment again.

All I can do for the time being is trust that this friend is a good friend, and he's not intentionally blocking me. I'll obsessively check my inbox several times a day to see if he's created a new account and is trying to connect with me.  This friend is a good guy, and I trust him. But this is TRAUMA and TRAUMA does talk to us. So, I'm sure this is just my trauma talking. But still I worry that if he's not ghosting me, then is he hurt or in some kind of trouble?

Meanwhile, it's good timing that I'm reading about IFS and how it can help me bring comfort to my Inner Victim without my Inner Protector sending me into a tizzy trying to find this guy, blame myself, apologize until I'm blue in the face, and then give him my lunch money to make up for how bad I am.

Gentle hugs, Papa Coco.  :hug:

I do this all the time too. And as an outside observer I can see that even though a traumatized part of you thinks those things in the past happened because you were bad....that was never ever true. You were never bad. Not ever.  :hug:

Now you hope your friend is ok, you remind yourself that you did nothing wrong. And hope that IFS and your wife work some magic because  I know that no matter what we know logically the trauma voice is louder and scarier and more distressed.  :grouphug:

 Hi PC,

I was just speaking to t about something similar and taking things personally, thinking it's me that's done this. It's hard when we're traumatized not to think that.

I noticed that in your descriptions with IFS you didn't mention the most important part, Self, which is always there which makes me wonder if you are in Self when looking at your inner "victim."  It's also interesting that in the book, and IFS in general, they are not called victims, but exiles and it makes me wonder if you are not looking at this part from Self, but from another, maybe judgemental, part. I'm not an IFS expert either however. If you go by the book, you also need to spend time (quite a bit as I understand) getting to know and reassure the protectors before meeting and unburdening your exile. That being said, I've had exiles (and not one carrying pain but had to hide) pop up right away. As I'm doing IFS myself too, perhaps I needed to tell them, thank you for showing up, I understand you need to be heard, but I need to speak with the protector more.

Hope you're able to find some peace,
dolly 

Armee, Thanks for once again giving such caring and nurturing feedback. And I agree that, not only for myself, but for you and most of us on this forum, that we've never really been bad, but we've been accused of being bad any time we didn't give some sociopath somewhere enough of ourselves. Bullies hate us no matter how good or bad we are. And as children, we didn't know how to separate our true selves from what our caregivers and peers told us we were. I know, in reality, that if I'm being shut out, it's not because I'm bad, it's because my friend had issues and I got caught up in one of his own EFs. But, like you said, the trauma voice is louder and scarier than the voice of true reason.

Dolly, Thanks for chiming in also, as you and I are both in the IFS learning mode right now. I chose to call this my Inner Victim because I don't know enough about IFS to know why a person would be called an "Exile." I expect that as I read deeper into the books and learn more about how IFS works, that I'll begin to grasp the reason for why "exile" was chosen to describe the victims inside my head. For now, I understand this person who is inside me as a victim, so for now I'm temporarily calling him that.  I'll call up my inner Maya Angelou and repeat another version of my favorite saying, I'll call him a victim because that's all I know. When I know better, I'll do better. Ha ha. My own customization on Miss Angelou's great wisdom.  Luckily, for now, even though I really don't grasp the whole concept of IFS, what little I do know is proving to make this a much lighter hit to my Inner "Exile" than it normally would be.

I spent a lot of time trying to communicate with my Inner Protector and my inner Exile last night. I don't know how I'm supposed to talk with them, but I'm trying anyway. They had me change my verbiage from saying that I've been abandoned many times for being bad, to saying that I've been abandoned many times for not giving bullies what they wanted. 

My missing friend is in no way a bully. If I'm being pushed away, it's because of his own pain, not his anger.

Mild Trigger Alert: I see pain everywhere, all the time:

One thing I try not to talk about too much is that I have a profound sorrow for the amount of pain that's in this world. I was driving through Seattle one night on the freeway and was noticing the changes that have taken place over the years, and how the concrete fences and retaining walls that surround the freeways are now covered in graffiti. I was praying at the time. (I'm no longer a christian, but I have more proof than I need that we are connected through some great creative force which I believe is God. I talk with this creative force a lot...many times per day...and find it really helps me navigate life). So as I was in this state of meditative connection to the great creative force of God, I saw the graffiti and heard the words said, quite clearly in my head, "So many people crying out in pain."  Normally I'd call people who deface other people's property "bad people", but in this state of meditation I found myself seeing people who damage other people's property with angry, aggressive writing, to be in pain. They're crying out in pain the only way they know how. They want the public to see their anger. I believe anger and aggression are always responses to pain.

Another of my absolute favorite movies is The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is about a teen boy who has C-PTSD so bad that he's been hospitalized twice for it. It's the most beautifully written story of a teen boy with trauma that I've personally found. Toward the end of the movie, as young Charlie is back in the psyche ward, he's talking with his therapist and says "There is so much pain. And I don't know how to not notice it." The therapist asks "What's hurting you?" Charlie answers, "No! Not me. It's them. It's everyone. It never stops. Do you understand?"

Well, I for one understand. I have watched that movie so many times I've memorized it. The author really understands trauma. Those lines could have been torn right out of my own head, because for most of my life, I've felt not only my own pain but everyone's. It's part of why I can't watch the news. Every news story is about how pain is being doled out to people. For some reason I'm just always, always aware of the fact that we are all connected, and through that connection, I just can't stop feeling other people's pain and fear.

I don't know if that's a good thing or bad, but it is what it is. I believe that feeling my connection to everyone is a good thing, but the fact that I connect more through pain than joy is a sign that I'm tuned more toward resonating with pain. I can connect with other people's joy too, but I find that I tend to be biased towards the negative. I see the pain much more quickly than I see the joy.

People have tried to talk me into going for a Masters of Social Work so I can become a therapist, but I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I can't separate myself from other people's pain. Look at what a returned email from a friend whom I've never met face to face is affecting me...I can't imagine how much damage I'd endure if I had a caseload of people in pain looking to me to help them get better. I was a volunteer one time, advocating for victims of sexual assault. After a few years of helping people get through their traumas, I had to resign because I couldn't stop crying myself to sleep every night. I was just a 31-year-old kid at the time. I'm double that age now, and as I age, I feel other people's pain even more than I did back then. No way could I ever be a therapist. I'm too connected to the pain.

I'm rambling. This feeling of my friend cutting me out of his life is eating me up, but the IFS work is really, really helping to give me a new hope that maybe this time, I can better process how I respond to it. My core SELF is a compassionate person who values soul-to-soul connection above anything else in life, so no matter what, even my healthy core SELF will feel some natural pain over losing this friend. I hope, in the end, to feel the loss of my friend without punishing myself for whatever it was that shut down his email addresses.

Meanwhile, I still have a bit of hope that he'll reconnect with me and tell me how this was all just an innocent email quirk of some kind.

Papa Coco, you always write so well and so candidly. I hope one day to be able to write as well as you.

Your insights into yourself and the work you are doing is amazing. I know I find it powerful and have learned a lot from you in a very short space of time.
You are a kind and compassionate soul, that comes through so clear in your writing, so it is understandable that this disappearance of a friend is upsetting.

I feel I understand when you talk of your sorrow for the amount of pain in this world. Once you see it, it is impossible to not see and it can invade everything. It's almost as if we are drawn to it, it stands out to us because we recognise it more clearly than anything else. It is the one thing that we truly understand and because of that we see it and we want to change it. But separating ourselves from the pain of others is a tricky task. We take it onto ourselves and make it our own.

I hope that this doesn't continue to distress you for long and you continue to remind yourself that you have done nothing wrong  :) It sounds like the IFS work you are doing is going to be really helpful.

Sending peace and calm your way

Quote from: Papa Coco on October 07, 2022, 01:45:58 PM

Dolly, Thanks for chiming in also, as you and I are both in the IFS learning mode right now. I chose to call this my Inner Victim because I don't know enough about IFS to know why a person would be called an "Exile." I expect that as I read deeper into the books and learn more about how IFS works, that I'll begin to grasp the reason for why "exile" was chosen to describe the victims inside my head. For now, I understand this person who is inside me as a victim, so for now I'm temporarily calling him that.  I'll call up my inner Maya Angelou and repeat another version of my favorite saying, I'll call him a victim because that's all I know. When I know better, I'll do better. Ha ha. My own customization on Miss Angelou's great wisdom.  Luckily, for now, even though I really don't grasp the whole concept of IFS, what little I do know is proving to make this a much lighter hit to my Inner "Exile" than it normally would be.

Hi PC,

I think it's amazing that you're continuing to explore and make sense of your inner world and what's going on inside you. I think in IFS, the part is termed exile because it suggests that it is part of a whole that has been cut off, and what we do to the emotions inside us that cause us pain, fear, guilt etc, but underneath it is the sense that it can return and we can be whole again. I guess by definition a victim is someone that has something done to them and suggests an underlying power imbalance. It could be that way too with an exile, but our psyche's are the ones doing the exile. In the case of the victim, it would suggest that there is another, external force (part) that is doing the victimization, unless maybe there is a part of someone else (like an inner critic in the form of a parent) that we have internalized that is then acting in a way where we would be the victim. I know it may seem like a very tiny difference, but to me, it sets up, or reenforces,  the idea/belief that you are flawed from the beginning, or that there is something inherently wrong with you, and is why I thought that maybe there was another part active or perhaps was blended with you. I can imagine you might be feeling this way after what happened with your friend, but I don't think it's the case that there's something wrong with you, and your Self wouldn't either. Maybe Self is already trying to change that belief by having you change your verbiage as well. These are just my thoughts, and don't want to impose any interpretations.

Glad you are finding relief in this and it's really amazing to watch the progress you're making. Thank you for sharing,
dolly

Master of my Sea, Thanks for the encouragement on my writing style. You are a good writer too. I know that it is hard for each of us on the C-PTSD forum to clearly see our own strengths. That, for me, is one of the great benefits of this forum; as each of us struggles to see our own strengths, our peers and friends on the forum are quick to help point them out to each of us. That negative bias that we've been discussing, about how we are prone to see the negative and pain much quicker than we can see the joy in the world, plays a big role in our need to complement each other and point out our strengths to each other. I'll help right now by sharing that I think your writing is good. You are clear, easy to follow, and, above all, you're authentic. While reading your posts, I feel like I'm in contact directly with you, your heart and your soul. That's a sign of a strong writing skill.  I think that one of the reasons we, on this forum, tend to be mostly good writers is because most of us are fawn types, who are tuned to put ourselves into the minds of our readers, and then write in ways that are easy to receive.

We on this forum don't just want to be heard, we want to be understood. So we practice writing skills that are understandable.

This one paragraph is like a resume: I have a lot of writing practice. From December 2011 through December 2017, I was a novel writer. I have published three novels. When I started writing I was not too good at it, so I joined a whole bunch of different writer's groups, some led by experts, others were just peer support groups where we read each others' work, critiqued each other, and helped each other learn how to write better. During my time on the job, all during the 1990s and beyond, I was an adult educator for aeronautics engineers, and in that world, I learned that storytelling is the most effective way to help listeners/readers retain the knowledge in the presentation. I also have a lot of experience in communicating across cultures. From 2003 to 2020, I was the global contact for about a hundred thousand aeronautics engineers from a dozen or more countries, including the UK, Russia, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, India and South Korea, to help them gain access to critical job training for their unique job roles. I learned a lot about how to be thorough and difficult to misunderstand. I can't count how many times engineers told me "I am so glad I finally found you. Everyone else I've tried to get help from kept giving me bad information". (Hence my belief that 70% of the working world is incompetent. 30% has to fix everything the 70% keeps messing up because they really don't care about their own jobs).

See how giving me a compliment about my writing made me remember that I have skills? Tomorrow I won't remember any of what I just told you. Tomorrow, I won't even be able to write a paragraph about my skills because I'll probably be back into my negative bias wondering why anyone, anywhere even talks to me. That's how our negative bias works. Complements are temporary; criticism is permanent.

Actually, I believe that a negative bias is a survival skill that keeps people from walking into alligator infested ponds, or from crossing the street without looking both ways. A negative bias is how humans and animals remember to add caution to what they do. By remembering the dangers of something, we avoid repeating damaging mistakes. C-PTSD just adds a lot of power to the negative bias, making us remember the danger in things that we think are real today, but they are actually from our pasts. That's why we isolate and protect ourselves a little too much. The negative bias, in its pure form, is a good thing. But with C-PTSD it just gets a little too much airtime in our heads.

Dolly, Great Explanation!  Now I can grasp why Exile was chosen to describe the parts in us that start the EFs we go through. It makes perfect sense, and I agree that thinking of those little painful parts of myself, that they have been exiled...not victimized. It is a subtle difference, but it changes the whole perspective on where I stand when I talk with these parts.

To me, exile is a very powerful concept. Much more powerful than victim. You may have read some of my posts that talk about how I truly believe there are only two forces in this world: Good is when we living beings try to bond our souls together, (Connection = Love = Good), and Evil is anything that is meant to exile or offend or ostracize or disconnect any soul. (Disconnection = Exile = Evil). My theory is supported by the IFS concept of being an "exile" which is the worst thing a soul can feel.

Thanks for helping me understand the term Exile. It helps while I struggle to find time to read more of Dr. Easley's book.

;D

Thank you Papa Coco. I appreciate that very much. I have always loved to write. I once aspired to be an author. I spent years writing short stories and even attempting to start a novel (multiple times) but more often than not, I destroy what I write. I delete it or throw it away. I always think it's awful. I also suffer from wicked writers block  ;D So to have you say what you have means a lot. I have a personal daily journal I write in and I find that sometimes once I start, I can't stop. Whatever was trapped in my head in that moment just floods, down my arm and out of the pen. I have always been able to communicate better through writing, I think it's because I have more time to process and think. Words often fail me in conversation (especially an emotional one) but I always seem to find the words when I can stop, think and write them down. And lately I have found it to be very therapeutic.

Those are impressive skills and something to be proud of. Maybe the next time you need a reminder, you can come back here and read your post again and I can do the same  :) You have a lot to offer and your words are valued here.

I like how you have described negative bias and how c-PTSD gives it so much power. It's just another example of our survival instincts going into overdrive. Another thing that many around just don't quite grasp. There is far more to changing it than 'just being positive'.

I'm glad we have this space full of others who do understand.

Quote from: Papa Coco on October 08, 2022, 09:40:56 PM
Dolly, Great Explanation!  Now I can grasp why Exile was chosen to describe the parts in us that start the EFs we go through. It makes perfect sense, and I agree that thinking of those little painful parts of myself, that they have been exiled...not victimized. It is a subtle difference, but it changes the whole perspective on where I stand when I talk with these parts.

To me, exile is a very powerful concept. Much more powerful than victim. You may have read some of my posts that talk about how I truly believe there are only two forces in this world: Good is when we living beings try to bond our souls together, (Connection = Love = Good), and Evil is anything that is meant to exile or offend or ostracize or disconnect any soul. (Disconnection = Exile = Evil). My theory is supported by the IFS concept of being an "exile" which is the worst thing a soul can feel.

Thanks for helping me understand the term Exile. It helps while I struggle to find time to read more of Dr. Easley's book.

;D

Hi PC,

I'm glad it resonated with you. It's very interesting to see the differences in approach to IFS. It's interesting too, in your explanation of parts that there seems to be a winner and loser - good and evil, victim and prosecutor. I think you might find Richard Schwartz's book, No Bad Parts interesting. I haven't read it yet, but understand it's very good at how to integrate all these parts of us. I see IFS in terms of Dzogchen which is also known as the "Great Perfection or Great Completion" where all elements are brought to abide in non-dual awareness, known as Rigpa, which is the innermost nature of mind. So, we bring everything, all duality, back into the Self, or our inner most nature of mind, which is calm, abiding and non-dual. I think it's a very powerful place.

I found/find it difficult to know sometimes when I'm blended. It does help to stand back and ask how do I feel towards this part? Am I curious, compassionated etc and if there is something else going on, I ask that part to come forward and then we can have a chat. Sometimes there are numerous parts.

Hope you'll be able to retain some good thoughts about your writing tomorrow.

Sending you support,
dolly

HI Dolly,
Yesterday I told my therapist I was reading up on IFS. As I'd suspected, he told me that he knows IFS very well.

When I told him that I believed good was connection, and evil was disconnection, he corrected me by teaching me that the word sin is a Hebrew word the means "missed the mark."  Over the centuries, our religious and political puppet masters have assigned a sense of shame and fear to the word sin, to make it feel like an offense. Their goal was simply to control us by making us feel ashamed for not serving them. But sin is not an offense, it's simply a term that tells us when we miss the mark and slow our own progress toward unconditional love. So, sin isn't something to shame or punish us with, it's just a word that describes certain acts as not being productive toward global peace and love.  That explanation sort of softens my version of good v evil and makes it into a concept we can work with.

Hi Master of my Sea
Writing has been the best thing I've ever done for myself to force me to step back and describe my life as a narrator/observer. I learned so much about myself and my situation. Like you, I write better than I speak. I've been a public speaker, and a comedian, and a singer...but back when I spoke publicly, I did a lot of himms and haas and uhhs. Sometimes I forgot what I was saying midsentence, even in front of a hundred or more people. Videos made of me speaking showed a nervous man, wringing my hands and moving around the stage like an antsy toddler. But apparently my content was always interesting enough, and what I'm told was my "endearing" ability to connect with the audience, somehow made up for my lack of smooth delivery. I recently tried starting a podcast, but found that when the microphone is turned on, my brain goes blank. Because of anxiety, speaking or podcasting are a part of my past and are now off the table. But writing is still there for me. Writing gives me a chance to think through my next words, or even go back and correct what I say before I show it to anyone to read. It gives me time to research my claims or learn something new for my next sentence. Writing takes the glaring eyes off me. When speaking to someone face to face, or on stage with a microphone, those glaring eyes are anxiety inducing. Once the anxiety starts to rise, I'm screwed. My mouth can take on a life of its own and start saying things I didn't want it to say. LOL. So writing gives me a chance to slow things down and disconnect from peering ears of the listener, so I can keep my anxiety levels down while I communicate.

I have to say though, that when I wrote the post 2 days ago, where I talked about realizing I have skills, as soon as I posted it and turned off my computer, I started nervously stressing over wishing I hadn't said those things about myself. Right away, I felt like I'd just boasted like a sociopath and that I'd just irreversibly embarrassed myself. My Inner Protector, the one who raises my anxiety so I'll immediately go back online and try to delete what I wrote, sprang into action. I resisted. I decided to let my Inner Protector go on making me want to delete my post, but, instead of giving in and deleting the post, I used the anxiety as a practice session to talk with my Inner Protector, thank him for his years of service, and let him know that I'm okay with what I wrote and I'm willing to stand tall against any fallout that might ever come from it. My Inner Protector calmed down when I told him I felt strong enough to stand up for what I'd written.

I'd encourage you to keep writing. Writing is a powerful way to narrate our lives as observers and learn about ourselves as we write. My novels are a fictitious story about a boy who went through a life VERY similar to mine. By writing fiction, I took a lot of pressure off myself. I was now a narrator, not a victim. The writing flowed comfortably because it was fiction. I wasn't so connected to the pain when I was writing it about someone else. Whenever I try to write actual memoirs of my actual life, I feel a TON of anxiety and messy thoughts that won't organize themselves onto the page. But as a fiction writer, it was very easy to write about a pain I knew a lot about, but it wasn't me feeling it...it was a fictitious character. Much easier to write when it's not me I'm writing about.

I very often fall back on this quote from Flannery O'Connor, "I write to discover what I know." For me, those words are as true as any I've ever heard.

In fact, many of the long posts I've written and deleted, even though I deleted them, I still learned something about myself by writing them.

 :hug:

Papa Coco, what you say about writing, I really connect with. The processing time, the chance to think and the opportunity to tweak, all make it a much easier form of communication for me. Even down to text or a phone call, I will usually opt to text someone rather than call them. I have always hated things like ice-breaker exercises and having to speak in group situations, especially if it's personal in anyway. The only time I've never had an issue with public speaking is when I used to perform in school. But I think that was because I wasn't me per say. I was playing a part.
I have really tapped into writing in recent weeks, with posting here and using my personal journal. It's become part of my daily routine to write at least a couple of sentences each day. I don't edit myself in my daily journal and through writing I have discovered some things that I had forgotten? buried? It's been tough at points but it's almost like writing in my journal, it's become this space where my mind can almost let go. I've yet to read back through it, I'm not ready to do that yet. I just let the flow happen now until it stops naturally or I end up disassociating and forgetting what I was writing. It's just gone.

I'm glad you resisted and didn't delete your post. It seems that you are really starting to build a connection with your Inner Protector and some understanding is starting to happen between the two of you. Well done for all the progress you're making  :)

I am finding writing really helpful and plan to continue doing so. The words of encouragement help too  :) I have a feeling it is going to help me discover a lot. Maybe one day I will end up writing that story like I have always wanted to. I'm also hoping that by writing the way that I am, my journals will be useful tools for when I finally get back into therapy. Help bring some coherence to my thoughts.

I've not heard that quote before but it's good. I can see the truth in it.

I haven't yet deleted a post and I hope I don't. But I have deleted big sections from my journal and I often remove sentences and the odd paragraph from a response. The fear of sounding foolish or saying the wrong thing is strong. I am also much more restrained here than in my personal journal. I suppose because no one else will ever read that unless I allow it. I hope to lose some of that restraint and fear and post more freely. But for now I am just grateful where I can post and communicate what I am capable of at the time.

Quote from: Papa Coco on October 13, 2022, 10:48:49 AM
HI Dolly,
Yesterday I told my therapist I was reading up on IFS. As I'd suspected, he told me that he knows IFS very well.

When I told him that I believed good was connection, and evil was disconnection, he corrected me by teaching me that the word sin is a Hebrew word the means "missed the mark."  Over the centuries, our religious and political puppet masters have assigned a sense of shame and fear to the word sin, to make it feel like an offense. Their goal was simply to control us by making us feel ashamed for not serving them. But sin is not an offense, it's simply a term that tells us when we miss the mark and slow our own progress toward unconditional love. So, sin isn't something to shame or punish us with, it's just a word that describes certain acts as not being productive toward global peace and love.  That explanation sort of softens my version of good v evil and makes it into a concept we can work with.

Hi PC,

That's great your t is familiar with IFS and you can talk with him about it :cheer: I wonder if there is something in the concept of power with children of NPD parents. I know t and I have worked on it in the past in EMDR, the feeling of being powerless. It's something that narc's do, they have no sense of self, so they have to be powerful over everyone. I also get into power struggles with authority figures because I tend to question the information I'm given. What I like about Dzogchen, is that although they teach you trust and devotion, they also say that you can question your masters/teachers; you are not just supposed to take their words for it, but it is something you must practice yourself to see the truth and validity in it.

I think that's a very beautiful way of looking at sin - that at the end of the day we are human and trying our best, and we deserve to be loved as we are.

Quote from: Papa Coco on October 13, 2022, 10:48:49 AM
I used the anxiety as a practice session to talk with my Inner Protector, thank him for his years of service, and let him know that I'm okay with what I wrote and I'm willing to stand tall against any fallout that might ever come from it. My Inner Protector calmed down when I told him I felt strong enough to stand up for what I'd written.

:yeahthat: 

Sending you support,
dolly

Journal Entry for Friday, October 14, 2022

This morning I woke up early. As usual I started thinking. Thinking brought memories. Memories brought regrets. Regrets brought a sense that I don't deserve to be connected to the world. I'm too broken. I'm invisible. I'm flawed. I don't deserve to take up the space I occupy. My unforgiving memories and relentless regrets are the witnesses who prove that I deserve to live in emotional exile from the world. Sort of like saying, "I've been bad so I need to be exiled."

I immediately tried using IFS to talk to this part of me who feels exiled because I'm flawed. I quickly connected with a new Inner Protector who, for now, I will call "Hopeless & Unfixable". He steps in whenever I feel hopeless and unfixable. I asked him to tell me about himself. He said "I'm the one who's given you a lifetime of stomach problems." I knew he was right, because as I regretted a million little, irreversible actions from my past, I could feel my stomach filling with the familiar poison that gives me so many medical issues, from gastritis to GERD to ulcers. No one can touch the top of my stomach because the pain is so intense that a simple touch feels like stabbing knife wound.

Hopeless & Unfixable showed me that when I close my eyes, he shows me that I'm adrift in space, invisible to the world, rejected by God and humanity alike. The stomach pain is a way that he talks to me through my body. The problem is that he's helping me die slowly so I can just cut to the end and be terminated from existence without bothering anyone. Accept my fate. Disappear and give my spot on the planet to someone more deserving.

This was a grand event for me. Being able to talk to this Protector got me excited enough to get up and write down my experience so I wouldn't forget it, like I do with so many nighttime thoughts. As soon as I jotted it into my personal journal, I felt the urge to write it in this journal also.

But as I watched the coffee maker slowly brew my first cup, I had an epiphany. I have trauma problems, but I also have real life problems. The two are not unrelated. As I waited for the coffee, I realized that my life is loaded with physical problems that I created for myself by trying to establish some space for myself. But I've been trying to establish a space for myself through physical means, when the true emptiness I feel is emotional. Like the old song, I've been looking for love in all the wrong places.

This morning, while talking with my Inner Protectors about how they handle my Inner Exiles, I clearly see that I spend a lot of money, time, energy, trying to establish a space for myself in a world that I believe doesn't want me in it. I buy things that make me feel like I own a part of the physical world, because inside I don't feel like I own any of the emotional world. I used to be driven to publish books, perform on stage, rescue the downtrodden, solve other people's problems, because those actions gave me temporary sense that I mattered. Look at the word Matter. When I say I believed I mattered, I'm saying that for a few minutes here and there I wanted to feel as if I was made of matter, rather than vapor or invisibility. Matter takes up space. I work hard to take up space in the world of matter because I don't believe I am able to take up space in the spiritual fabric of all things of God and Man. So I buy my position on the earth. I perform on stage so people will see me. I write so I can have a presence on Amazon. I do too many things on the earth that are driven by my unsatisfiable urge to matter to God and Man.

In a movie that my wife and I saw yesterday, one of the characters told the other that he admired him because he authentically takes up a space in the world. That line hit me profoundly while in the theater, and came to my rescue this morning as I pondered my own sense of worthlessness and invisibility.

I've spent my life fawning over others because I don't feel worthy of being my authentic self. It explains to me why I can fight like a warrior for the rights of others, but I cower and hide when I need to fight for myself. I believe others have the right to occupy space in life but I don't.

What will I do with this new epiphany? Not sure yet. BUT I do know that epiphanies don't reverse themselves. When I learn something this profound, it changes me. So for now, I don't know how I'll use this knowledge to heal one more step in my healing journey, but I know that it will move me forward. I can't unlearn what I learned this morning.

This is incredibly profound, dearest Papa Coco. Profound to the extent it will take time to sink fully in. The things that happened to you....it would make a kid want to disappear. To not matter or to not be made of matter. I wish I had been there to wrap you up and help you be safe, to feel that you as a human exist not for anyone but for yourself and to let you know you are not bad, not at all.

Keep existing just for you and all those lovely necessary important parts of you.

Quote from: Papa Coco on October 14, 2022, 01:12:55 PM

This was a grand event for me. Being able to talk to this Protector got me excited enough to get up and write down my experience so I wouldn't forget it, like I do with so many nighttime thoughts. As soon as I jotted it into my personal journal, I felt the urge to write it in this journal also.

I am glad you shared this, plus everything that you wrote in your journal entry - it is a big realisation and sending you a hug  :hug:  Papa Coco.

Hope  :)

Hi PC,

I'm so happy for you and the epiphany you had with your parts  :cheer:

dolly

Journal Entry for Tuesday morning, October 18,2022

Depression. Melancholy depression.  I've learned that Melancholia, or Melancholic Depression, was the first ever term for what we today call PTSD. Coined by Hippocrates in 400 BC, Melancholia is the type of depression that brings sadness. 

That's me. Melancholic and constantly living in the past. I sit alone in this house, missing my past. It wasn't always good. I've been suicidal since 12 years of age, but between the sad moments, there was a lot of fun. Friends. Family. Parties. Jobs I enjoyed. Performances I used to give on stage. Things that balanced out the hard times with moments of bright joy. When I was younger I had a future. No matter how bad things got, I always had that sense that the future might be better. Well, I'm aging and the future is vaporizing. I have to learn to enjoy the present because the future is small and the past is painful to look at. So I sit under the blue sky feeling every emotion I've ever felt while sitting beneath the same sky.  It's sadness. Sadness at the loss of all those friends and good people who've since died or left the city.

IFS Exercise for today:
Last night, as I sat on a lawn chair in the warm evening, listening to the surf of the ocean, I was suddenly in touch with an Exiled part of my personality whom I have known all my life. Nobody liked me when I was in elementary school. For years and years they would only say mean things to me. No one said a nice thing. No one included me in any fun activities at school. I was exiled because my best friend was a narcissist who was angry that I didn't want to be his lover-boyfriend.

This Exile, who I will call Sad Boy, was my only friend for many years. He was ostracized at school. The laughing stalk of the entire school. Everyone hated me. Even the teachers were cruel and left me to deal with the bullying on my own. My mother expressly forbid me from ever standing up for myself. I was to "ignore them all" so she could escape having to deal with my being "bad" so that's what I did. I knew that if I'd have stood up for myself, and gotten into a scrap at school, Mom and Dad would have been seriously angry that they might have to talk to the principal about me, and that they would be totally ashamed of me for standing up for myself. I didn't have the guts to disobey them. Keeping them calm meant more to me than protecting myself from bullies. They were my parents. So I learned to sit and stare at the sky, wishing I was someone else...somewhere else.  Today, 50 years later, I still do that. And the loneliness still feels the same as it did then. My core self has not changed from age 10 to age 62. My core self is still paralyzed with sadness over the fact that I can't be included in anything fun or bonding with my peers.  So, Sad Boy has me sit around my house, alone, all day and all night, not wanting to put myself into social situations where someone might turn on me again and drive the rest of the participants into calling me names and humiliating me for being who I am.



My Exile doesn't want to do anything with anyone. He just wants to live alone, in total isolation, with the sunshine and the rain and the birds and the trees and the ocean. It's why I live here. Most of the houses around me are owned by vacationers who seldom use their homes. So my yard and house are normally very quiet.  My neighbor to the South did show up this weekend with his adult kids and their STUPID dogs. Barking dogs. Constantly barking dogs.  And I don't have the courage to confront, because in my lifetime, confronting neighbors about their barking dogs, music, or loud cars, has not gone well. My Exile, Sad Boy, was taught to NEVER confront or stand up for myself, so I feel compelled to just sit in torment at the barking dogs 3 meters from my computer desk.

Alone, and unable to bring myself to do anything fun, I get angry at the world. People in the US seem to believe they are entitled to offend anyone they want to. Spoiled, entitled jerks. Would this neighbor have retaliated if I'd have politely asked him to quiet his dogs?  Who knows? He just bought the house. I've only met him once. He could be the nicest guy in the world. But I can't risk it. I wore headphones all weekend long to drown out the offensive, selfish A-hole and his Dogs. I spend a LOT of unnecessary money and time and energy nursing my PTSD. I went on Amazon yesterday and purchased $150 worth of electronic bark control devices that I can set up on my property and leave turned on. That way maybe I can train his dam dogs for him since he's too arrogant to train them himself. It's sad. I could have saved $150 by just asking him to bring them in the house for a while.  I also spent some time online looking for a house for sale that was not near other homes. I fantasize that I live on many acres, right in the center, where no one else's noise can reach my home. It sucks. Being too afraid to stand up for myself takes away so much peace for me. Makes me not even want to live in my own home.

The neighbors and their stupid dogs are gone now, and I HOPE I don't see them again for the rest of the year. It was just a beach weekend for them. My kids bring their dog to the beach when they come visit me too, but their dog never barks. She's more intelligent than their dogs I guess. Smart enough to not yap all day long like mental cases.

My melancholy sadness is offset by my anger at the world for being such a sucky world. Bullies are everywhere and I can't stand up to them.

I learned recently that "holding my boundaries" is a poor metaphor, because it insinuates that to be happy I need to be behind a boundary. It's actually kind of a lonely vision.  What I've learned recently is that a better metaphor for wanting to be involved in the world is "owning my space."  People like me, who were taught to NEVER stand up for myself, and that for being who I am, I can be turned on and exiled by my own peer group, don't have a space on the earth with our name on it. I now can see that the most beautiful thing I could possibly feel today would be that I have a space on this planet that is rightfully mine and no matter what anyone says or thinks of me, I have that space and I occupy it with confidence.

My wife has been gone for a couple of days and she's on her way home right now. She should be here in about 2 hours, and I'm glad. Being alone isn't working out for me these last few days. I'm too melancholic and I need someone to drag me out of the house on bike rides or meals or to the movies or something. My wife has been my best friend for almost 40 years now and she loves me for being who I am. It's time I have a talk with this Exile, Sad Boy, and try to find a loving way to help him to stop feeling so lonely. All that exiling happened 52 years ago. It's time Sad Boy sees that today's friends are far better people than those nasty catholic kids and teachers and nuns and priests were. Most of those people are probably dead by now. If they've left the earth, WHY WON'T THEY LEAVE MY HEAD?

Hiding from a world of bad people worked for me when I was 10-14. But it's not the right cure anymore. I'm a social creature who has been punished for 5 decades for not being what my gay friend wanted me to be. I really hope that through IFS I can help Sad Boy lose his sadness.

The positive side to what I've been through is that I have become a fervent advocate for LGBTQ people because I have walked a thousand miles in their shoes, and I now know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that their extremely high suicide rates are not because of who they are, but are absolutely, 100% caused by the bad, evil, horrible, hateful people who bully them for being who they are.  No one bullied my x-friend for being gay, because he lied and told the whole world that I was the one who was gay. It was 1970 in a religious school. Being called gay in that scenario was almost a death sentence. I paid the price, not him. Now I stand up for the rights of other LGBTQ people in ways I won't stand up for myself.

In summary, I've been let out of my jail...Sad Boy needs to stop holding onto the steel bars like he thinks the door is still locked. Life is for the living and yet I continue to live like I'm already dead. What a waste.

Hi Papa Coco
Thanks for sharing this with us... so much resonates with me.
Nobody liked me in school either. I was just different... not cool for sure. I walked the school halls during breaks alone, even though I was the star tuba player  ;)
I was bullied, thrown in lockers, and never met a wedgie without my name written on it.
I have a sad boy part too... seeing him now has left me feeling that melonchaly depression as well.

What really hits me from your post though is the wanting to be alone... i suppose we all do this in different ways to different degrees, physically, emotionally, whatever it takes.
My daughter said yesterday  that it seems like her boyfriend might break up with her. She said (half in jest i think) that she'd break up with him before he broke up with her.
She's good, honestly (first boyfriend, young, confident)... my point is that maybe that's why we choose to be alone. We can reject others before they see us and reject us.
Something I'm going to reflect on thanks to your sharing. (forgive me if irrelevant for you)

I hope you have a wonderful afternoon with your wife. It isn't easy sharing with our partners. I sometimes highlight the beauty of my sharing with my wife just because it is so amazing, when it happens. But, sometimes there's a lot more that just is left unspoken.
I think you're right about hiding not being the cure.... and I wish along with you, for a better way to present itself.

As for Sad Boy, I hope you can show him his goodness and that he isn't too afraid to let go of those steel bars, when the time is right.
Much love,  friend.

Papa Coco,

I can feel your sadness almost jumping off of the screen and if it feels safe I'd like to send you a virtual hug  :bighug:
I feel that fierce protector in me, wishing I could have been there to protect and shield that young boy. What you had to endure was horrendous and during a time, as you said yourself, that even mention of being gay could be a death sentence. This friend knew this and when you rejected his advances he projected everything onto you. I was writing this week and as I scribbling away in my journal I wrote, 'I fell victim to other people's darkness' I have never looked at things this way before and I think it applies with your ex-friend. His darkness was pushed on to you and he dragged other into it as well and you were punished for something that was not yours to be punished for. I hope that makes sense.

I resonate with your wanting to be alone and isolate. This has always been the safe option. In self-isolation we control what happens. The outside influences are gone and for me, I no longer have to mask anything. The disguise can slip. I think what phil72 says is true as well, that we can reject others before they see us and reject us. Alone is the safe zone but it is not the answer. Ultimately we all need that interaction with others and as you say sometimes we need someone to help pull us out of our sadness.

I hope Sad Boy will let you show him the difference between then and now and that he sees it's ok to let go.

Sending you peace and calm and hope you have a lovely afternoon

I just want to wrap sad boy up in a big accepting hug and tell him what an amazing amazing person he was to have protected you during those years.

And I relate to every ounce of what you've written here, about wanting to isolate but also loving people, being trapped in a melancholy that belongs to the past, and feeling like living in the past is no longer a luxury you can afford at this point in your lifespan. I know you will figure this out and you will teach others because you are inherently a connected human being.  :grouphug:

Thank you Phil, Master of my Sea and Armee for the corroborating care and compassion. I am so often struck by how caring most of us with C-PTSD are to each other. This sounds like an oxymoron, but if I have to feel lonely, at least I now get to feel lonely with such good online friends. We're all feeling lonely together. And your kindness and compassion truly helps. I always feel better after I read your responses.

Armee, You are right. Our Sad parts have worked hard for decades to keep us safe the only way they know how. I need to use Maya Angelou's quote on them! We did our best with what we knew, and now when we know better, we do better. Our IFS Exiles and Protectors truly do their best for us. But they now need to know better so they can do better. They're still stuck in the past. I know it's time to put the past behind. Let's see if IFS can help me do that. So far, nothing's really helped. Ketamine helps a bit, but I need to do some talking to my internal parts to get them to feel safe enough to stop over-helping me too much.

Master of my Sea, no need to worry about sending me hugs. I like hugging in real life and in virtual life. I'll always accept a hug (from someone who's NOT a sociopath-lol). I know that you isolate even more than I do. Whenever I talk about my own issues, I know I'm communicating with yours too. And Armee's, and Phil's. Again: We're isolating together. That sentence only makes sense to those of us with C-PTSD. I guess we could call it "a trauma thing."

Phil, I wish school didn't have to be so violent for the star tuba player. You didn't deserve any of what they did to you. In your personal Internal Family of parts, I'll bet your Sad Boy and mine would be good friends.

Catholic school didn't have lockers for us to be shoved into, so they found other ways to "put me in my place" and "establish dominance" as if they were nothing but unevolved forest animals who see the world as their pack. IF there's a purpose to life, I personally believe that purpose is to evolve from the cave to space. Or from tribal warring to universal harmony. Or from survivalist animals to spiritual beings. I believe everyone on earth is evolving from animals in caves to space travelers, but we're not all evolving at the same pace. Our bullies are centuries behind us as we, the good people, are learning to move beyond our pack-mentality.

The students stayed put all day and the teachers moved from room to room to teach their assigned topics. So we kept our stuff in our little desks. To establish dominance, the Neanderthal bullies routinely rifled through mine to steal anything personal that I brought to school with me, so that way I would always know that my values were not respected and my space on the earth was not mine to hold onto. Twice that I can remember I was accosted in the boys' bathroom as other boys would either show me their dicks or pull me away from the urinals to look at mine. Having been a victim of CSA, that was fun for them but humiliating and belittling to me. My boundaries were a joke. My privacy didn't exist. My existence was a joke. I was everyone's little plaything to do with as they wished.  This was all about neanderthal positioning in the herd.

About self-sabotage:
As far as my desire to just leave everyone before they can leave me, I started to call this Self-Sabotage, but I suddenly don't like that term in this context. We are not trying to sabotage ourselves. Self-sabotage implies that we would do active things to make people leave us. I personally don't do anything to make people leave me. I DO however expect them to. Being left for dead is a passive expectation for me. So, with no intention to cause a falling out, I just fantasize about walking in on my wife and children saying horrible things about me so I can cut to the end of the story and be left alone again. It's not about trying to actively end my relationships; it's about passively waiting for the next shoe to drop.

A year or so ago I asked my therapist why I fantasize about my closest friends turning on me, and he simply said that there are times when I so firmly believe everyone secretly hates me that I sometimes just want to pull the Band-Aid off quickly and get to the inevitable betrayal and get it over with.

I'm thankful that I have evolved past that place where I used to intentionally sabatoge friendships so as to just get the betrayal over with. For now, it's more about fantasizing about being abandoned without actually doing anything to cause it.

Smoke, fire, rain, and my wife
My wife left the beach a few hours ago. She was only here two full days. But right now the smoke in Seattle is considered to be making it the worst air quality on the planet, and she has health issues that make it nearly impossible to breathe during forest fire season. My two grandsons, 11 aND 8, stayed home from school today. The older boy is nursing a powerful headache and the little guy is having asthma symptoms. They live only 20 miles from the longest-running forest fire, so their air quality is as bad as it can get, and has been that way for over a month!!!!! Luckily for me, this year, ALL that smoke is in Seattle and north, but THIS year, the air out on the coast is fresh and the skies are blue.

Rain is finally FINALLY forecast for tomorrow through next week, which we HOPE will bring the fires under control and wash the ash out of the air. So my wife, Coco, went home. (Now you know who gave me the name "Papa Coco". My grandsons named me Papa Coco because they knew her name before they knew mine. I know my place with them too...LOL!) She has to go to work on Saturday anyway. So I'm alone again for a few weeks. I can work on my IFS studies now and spend more time doing research.

Just wanting to send a supportive hug your way. For you and Sad Boy.  :hug: :hug:

I'll be hoping for relief from rhe smoke for all your loved ones. It's brutal to be in those conditions for a long time....physically and psychologically. Wildfire smoke was my area of expertise before I fled work. Sometimes in the field we think about it just as a physical health problem but it isn't just that.

Sadness and the past....it's so confusing right because the sadness is here in the present, the thing that caused the sadness is in the past, and somehow to leave the past in the past we need to....do what? This is the part I don't get. Because just admitting it belongs in the past and trying to move forward like it has past is exactly what has caused it to still be here with us. It's like we need to bring the past to the present with us and fold it into our present life in context? And that is in a way what IFS does? I'm just thinking outloud, silently lol. It's all very unintuitive.

Hey Armee,

I'm right with you on the question; Now that we know what the problem is, how do we fix it?  I am getting very good at finding the source of all my uncomfortable moods, but so what? What do I do now?  I haven't finished the first book I've started on IFS, so I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with these internal parts that I'm meeting.

I will say, however, that now that I'm looking at life as an IFS scenario, life feels a bit less out of control. when I get in touch with my core self, I discover that my core self is at peace. Very zen. It's my clown-car filled with frightened Exiles and Over-zealous protectors that's got me careening down the freeway to crazy-town.

I feel like I am starting to get a tiny bit of control over some of my moods just by talking with the Exiles and the Protectors as they come up. I think of that old saying that it's easier to eat an elephant one bite at a time, and when I just look at my entire self as one lump, I become overwhelmed by the mess. Like with a Jig Saw puzzle, if I put together a picture one piece at a time, it eventually comes together. So it might be with my mental health. As I address each Exile and Protector individually, eventually the whole puzzle will become whole. But as I'm learning that there are multiple Exiles living in me, and multiple Protectors also living in me, I am starting to untangle the mess and see the individual parts, which means I hope to be able to start healing each individual part. I guess the damage was done by a million small cuts, so the cure can be done the same way, by talking with each and every individual thought or reaction that I have and bringing them to peace one by one until critical mass takes over and my whole self starts to feel consistently better.

Bite sized cures. Less overwhelming.

Somehow, I'm just barely beginning to disconnect from the sadness of my past.  I think that by talking with my Sad Boy and really, really talking about the fact that the abuse was 50 years ago, somehow, I'm feeling less connected to the abuse. For now.

It's early to tell, but just learning about IFS, and connecting with my various parts, is actually helping me disconnect from the pain of those parts. Like I can explain to them that the danger is gone, so they feel a bit better and not so inclined to make me feel so trapped by the pain and fear.  As an example, I used IFS to calm myself down after my friend ghosted me online. I was not only able to see that it was my Internal Exile who felt abandoned by him, and my Internal Protector who tried to get me to go crazy until I could find him and reconnect, but it was also HIS Internal Exile who panicked when I didn't respond to his email quickly enough, so HIS Internal Protector coerced him into ghosting me before I could ghost him. I would love to reconnect with him, but this is the first time in my history that I have been able to withstand being ghosted without becoming self-destructive. IFS is starting to work.

I did not read the whole journal but I just want to say that fear you referred to on the first page about "being too wordy on the open forums"? I've been here for like a day and already you've soothed me with your insights on multiple threads. I'm gonna thank you every time you reply to one of my posts.

OwnSide,

Thank you for the words of encouragement. They mean a LOT to me. I still struggle with a lot of worries that I've said too much, or somehow got off topic and said all the wrong things, or was too "forward" with someone. Little comments like the one you gave here, go a long, long way to giving me confidence to keep sharing on the forum.

You're awesome and I hope you get a lot of good from all the awesome people here on this forum. It's really been a godsend for me and I hope it is for you as well.

Your detailed posts have been lifesavers for me, Papa Coco.

How you hanging in there right now?

 :hug:

Journal Entry for Halloween Day, Monday, October 31, 2022

I've been calling myself lazy now for many years. My therapist doesn't let me get away with it, and I think I might be starting to see why. I have a long history with him and he knows how much of a workaholic and DIYer that I have always been. So, if this isn't laziness, then what's really going on here?

The roots of my raising run deep.
I see how I'm one of the obedient type of children who never disobeyed or rebelled, but who became exactly who my parents and peers told me to become.

I can see now that when I was young, I was not the master of my own schedule. Running my own schedule to get what I want for myself was forbidden in my home, and today I still follow that rule. Someone always told me when to get up, go to bed, what to eat, what to wear, where to work, who to marry, etc, etc, etc. During my working years I was that worker who carried far more than my share of the load. I mastered every job and became faster and better than the rest of the team. This is because I believed I had to or they'd fire me. (Or kill me and throw my body in the weeds where no one would ever take the time to look for it) It's how I was raised. If I didn't do better than the average person, then I was invisible and worthless to everyone.

But in November 2020, I was forced to retire 5 years before I'd intended to.

Now I have a HUGE list of things that need to be done, but every morning I get up, drink coffee, sit down to puzzles and the computer, write some posts, and wait until nightfall so I can watch TV and eat snacks in my own, private, safe place at the end of each day. And as I sit here with the time and skill to do all my projects, nothing is getting done!!!!!  Why?

well, the roots of my raising run deep. I was raised to ignore my own needs and fervently work my tail off to help others with their needs. I had deadlines. I had goals preset for me. I learned that if I assertively set my own goal, or assertively motivated myself, I'd be punished later for being arrogant and selfish and not giving my time and talents to other people who deserved it more than me. After all, nobody wants a servant who does things for himself!

Today, I'm a 62-year-old toddler, who's Exiles and Protectors STOP me from starting any projects that are not for someone else's benefit. What is causing the laziness and lack of steam? It's fear. My Exile knows that when I want something, I will likely be humiliated and shamed for pursuing it. So, a Protector jumps in and says "Forget about it. Sit back. Relax. It's not worth it!  The inevitable punishment outweighs the crime! Wait for someone to give you a deadline and a goal so you don't get humiliated for doing something for yourself."

It's IFS at work. I need to talk to another Protector, Mr. Lazybones. He and I need to discuss how we can stop stalling and use my energy for my projects. I need shelves in the garage. I need patios poured. I need bathroom vanities designed and built. I need to build picture frames for the art I just acquired. I can do all of this. I've done all of it many times in the past, but that was when other people were benefiting from my work. I've poured patios so my kids could eat at the picnic table. I've built cabinetry so my wife can have a better kitchen (Even though I do 99% of all the cooking). I literally soundproofed a bedroom (NOT easy) so that when my youngest son was a teen, he could be a rock star at night while I slept in the next room. These projects are fun for me. I own the tools. I have the skills. But I no longer have people to do these things for. It's just me, and I'm not worth it.

Every, single day, when it's time to pull the Jeep out of the garage and set up my table saw, a dark, dark, dark cloud comes over me. I lose all my strength. I feel an overwhelming need to put everything back, and go back into the house and wait for something to happen. Up until now I've had NO idea what it was I was waiting for. I just knew "now isn't the time" to do something for myself. I am kind of wondering if what I'm waiting for is for someone to give me a deadline and a goal so they can enjoy what I build. If someone else needs these shelves, I'll build them. But they're for me. And I can almost watch little cartoons happening in my head where all these little excuses fly up out of the floor and block me from building the shelves. My shoulders drop. My back starts to hurt. I lock up and go back in the house, defeated by waiting for "something" to happen or for the cartoon excuses to be fixed.

This is good Fodder for the IFS mill. How it works out, I don't know yet. I just put the Jeep away and came back into the house. I was going to cut up some scrap metal that's been sitting in my garage for decades, but when it came time to set up the cutting tools, I lost all steam. I said "who cares if this ever gets done?" I locked everything back up and came back inside to wait out the daylight, and get started watching TV and eating snacks.

Reference to TV & Snacks:  As a child, evening TV and snacks was the only time I ever felt safe. My family was together but not talking to each other. They were watching TV. Any "issues" they may have had with me were already addressed and now everyone was focused on TV and snacks. Also, TV and Snack time was the only time I felt completely disconnected from my abusive Catholic school. This was the one time each day where I REALLY felt 100% present away from all abuse. So today, 60 freaking years later, I STILL cherish the fall and winter when it gets dark as early as 4:30PM here in Seattle. As the sun goes down, I feel myself being surrounded by the safety of nightfall. All the bad people in my life were daytime bad people. Teachers, priests, parents, schoolmates...everyone ceased to exist beginning at nightfall, so nightfall has embedded itself in my brain as the safest time of day. And TV and Snacks make me feel safe.

I am determined to take this on. I'm bored with being safe. I want to build some shelves. I want to organize and cull my clutter. I want to get picture frames made. I want to feel my body getting exercise again. I want to feel like I'm not just sitting around on the earth waiting to die because I've been retired out to pasture and am of no further value to this world.

I just found out that my community here, of mostly retirees, holds open enrollment water aerobics every weekday morning from 9:30 to 10:30 and that the pool is usually not too crowded. I was going to go this morning, but slept in. I imagine going tomorrow, but we'll see. Tomorrow I'll have to tell you if I bothered to go or if I found a dozen cartoon reasons why I couldn't go.

I have no idea how this will work out, but I am finally getting bored with being bored.

After a lifetime of doing for others it takes a long time to become bored of being bored. You earned that time. I do hear you. I am the same. I can do for others but not for me. I also need my TV snack time to be mine and private. I hide what I watch and read from my husband. I look forward to reading what you learn from Mr. Lazybones because I have a feeling my truth will be reflected in there too.

Stay safe, Papa C

Oh my gosh Armee,

We live with so many of the same symptoms.

I hide my private time from others, even from my wife, also. That soundproof recording studio I made "for my son" was also for me so I could sing or play piano or listen to music without anyone hearing me. That room is in my city house. When I'm there with my wife, I now have the luxury of closing the room off when I can't sleep at night, so I can watch whatever TV show I want without her hearing me or knowing what I'm watching. I have no legitimate reason for doing so. I watch documentaries, old comedies and old crime shows like NCIS. It's not porn or anything. But for some reason I just feel more relaxed if no one is challenging what I want to watch, or saying something condescending like "Why do you like THAT show?"

And don't get me started on my music. I like piano, accordion, and classical music. So I listen where no one can hear me. And when i come to a stoplight in the car, I turn the volume way down low so other cars can't hear my non-mainstream music choice.  It's sad to have to live my life under cover like this. I just want to be comfortable in my own skin, but I'm not. Not in any way. I'm just spending my life trying to do things my way while dodging criticism and bullying for being who I am.

I try very hard to make my projects private also. I have a garage that faces the street, so I like to do my projects with the door closed so neighbors can't see what I'm doing. Somehow, because I'm building something I designed, I feel stupid building it at all.  I have a fantasy of living in the middle of many acres where I can open all my doors and garage doors and still no one will be able to see or hear me building things in the garage.

This is a case of us not feeling like we have a space of our own in this world.

I haven't learned anything from Mr. Lazybones yet, but Water Aerobics starts in one hour and I'm really trying hard to make myself get ready and go do it. I fantasize that the morning exercise will give me energy for the rest of the day. I'm 50% sure I'll be there in an hour. I just have to force myself to do this. THIS is a rare case when cognitive therapy might help: Forcing myself to do something that's good for me might grease the skids and help to start the momentum of me getting off my tush and getting my life restarted.

Yup all that, music included, dream ro be secluded on many acres, etc

I wish you luck getting to water aerobics it will give you more energy, but going to things I hard. I'll be super proud of you for going.

Papa Coco, I really feel it in my soul when you talk about doing things (or not doing things) for yourself. It is so hard. When we do things for other people, our 'purpose' is being fulfilled. We have spent so much of our lives being slaves to others needs and wants. Their time frames and schedules, that when left to our own devices, we end up feeling lost and having no drive. Doing things for ourselves has always been 'bad'.

I also understand hiding that private time. I keep a lot of that stuff to myself as well. I am only starting to realise just HOW much I do actually keep private. I can enjoy my little pleasures without any judgment or any passing comment. It doesn't even have to be a negative comment, but these things immediately make me self-conscious about what I am doing.
I'm a fairly creative person, I enjoy writing, painting, drawing and knitting but rarely do any of these things because of comments that are/can be made. All of these things take me a long time to do. I can start something and then not touch it for months because I always have a torrent of thoughts about what other people will say or think. Or just what is the point? Who am I doing this for? Or I am just constantly criticising my own work.  Also, once someone highlights how long something is taking me, the panic sets in and I immediately feel like I have failed and lose all desire to complete that project or that piece.

The fact of it is, you deserve to do things for you. After a lifetime of serving everyone else and putting yourself at the bottom, you are allowed to want things for yourself, and you are allowed to make them happen. It's only natural that after years of conditioning and abuse doing these things isn't going to come naturally or easily. Even now, on this forum, you are a huge help and support to all of us. You are always encouraging and uplifting, I personally always take something away from your posts. Still always thinking of others.

Try and give yourself the permission you were denied for so long. Take up that space :)

Did you make it to water aerobics?

i hope water aerobics was a 'happening' for you, PC.  it sounds like it could be enjoyable.

not doing for ourselves seems to be a mainstay around here - when we've been indoctrinated to do things a certain way for a certain reason to please a certain someone else, well, that's a tough training/brainwashing to break thru.  i hope you can be patient w/ yourself as you continue to work w/ your inner selves - your day for you will come, of that i have no doubt.  love and hugs :hug:

Thank you Armee, Master of my Sea, and San,

So far the water aerobics are still in the future. On Tuesday I was successfully pushing myself toward going. I was reciting "Courage is to push on even when I don't want to." I was forcing myself up and out. I found my swimsuit and discovered I haven't worn it since I weighed 40 pounds less than I do now. I live in a community with no shopping. It would be an hour drive to get to a walmart (and I HATE walmarts) so I went onto Amazon and ordered one. It showed up yesterday. Water Aerobics starts in 20 minutes and now I'm using the excuse that I haven't put together a gym bag yet. No lock for my locker. No soap, shampoo and deodorant. Gee. I can't go today, now can I?  Oh. Too bad. Who could have seen this excuse coming? lol.

But maybe I can spend a few minutes today putting together a gym bag so that TOMORROW I can finally venture out to water aerobics. Remove the excuses!  Maybe tomorrow, courage will be enough to push me toward the pool.

I appreciate you sharing about this experience- I've been putting off joining a virtual meeting for months because of a million things.  I hope that you find a way past the hold ups to see if the experience of water aerobics is worth while. 

Journal Entry for Thursday, November 03, 2022

I jokingly tell people that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The longest distance between two points is to ask me for directions.

Complexity: Why do I make my own life so complicated? I live most every day feeling overwhelmed by a mountain of chores, projects and responsibilities, many of which I put onto myself.

I also overthink everything. I suffer with analysis-paralysis by discovering too many problems to overcome in order to allow myself to enjoy any given day or activity.

More often than not, I do this to myself!

Theory: It's sad and funny at the same time. I often feel like I grew up as a pawn in an evil chess game. Everything I ever said, did, wanted, or asked for, was met with so much opposition that I learned young (as many Catholic children do), that if I am going to say something, I'd better prepare myself for the rapid responses and insults by my own team. I have to be ready for any criticism I might receive as punishment for thinking for myself. So, like in chess, every move I make has to be strategically thought out. I need to anticipate my opponents' moves because as sure as rain in Seattle, I will be argued with for having said anything at all. I grew up knowing my opponents ARE going to attack, so I needed to be ready.

It's very sad that so many of us have to think of our own families as our opponents, but...well...that's why OOTS exists and that's why we all joined. We were all treated this way by someone and now we are stuck with the mess to clean up on our own. Thank goodness we have each other on this forum. We finally have friends who are on our side!

I need to sell a house. My retirement planning was destroyed by my employer forcing me to retire 5 years before I'd planned to. My wife and I want to live at the beach full time. But our kids bought a house and got jobs near our city house, and we can't bear to live too far away from them. They are the only family either of us still have in our lives. But when I try to decide which house to sell, I can't get through all the complexity over the fact that we want one of them and need the other. We've wanted to live on this beach our entire lives. I'm not ready to give that up just before we finally accomplish it. But Coco can't quit her job now, because she makes the mortgage payments on the beach.

I've turned this living situation into a completely unsolvable problem. It's a catch 22. Oh, and BTW, I live in Catch 22s. I'm always caught in my own trap of complexity. If I make a decision, and ANYTHING at all goes wrong with that later, I punish myself for not having made the right decision in the first place. So, the next decision is even more difficult because I anticipate, and feel like I need to prepare for, any mistakes I might have forgotten to consider beforehand.

Finally believe that I do this to myself as a part of C-PTSD and I'm sick of it and I want to find my way into a simpler life so I can relax (if relaxation ever becomes possible for me, that is).

Baby steps to get to water aerobics is just fine.  :grouphug:

As always I relate to everything you've said, especially living in catch 22s and being prepared to accept all blame for any piece that goes ssideways. I'm sorry you feel like you have to choose between houses prematurely. I don't suppose renting the beach house out until Coco can leave her job is an option?

Hi Armee

A lot of people have tried to talk me into renting out one of the houses, or even dividing the City house into 2 or 3 living areas and renting parts of it out. It's a strong solution, but it's a very frightening one. I have very little ability to confront, so if I get renters that destroy the house, or refuse to pay rent, I'll go into my trauma place and maybe never come out. Coco and I both have no constitutional ability to handle less than stellar renters.

However, reality is I can't keep living like I can afford two houses. I'll end up losing both if I don't give up one. OR unless I decide to risk becoming a landlord. I live in Seattle where honest people have no rights. In Seattle ONLY criminals have rights. It's legal in Seattle to shoplift. Imagine the long road to insanity if I get a renter who moves in and then refuses to pay rent on the second month.

But as of today, I'm looking at my self-induced complication for the first time ever. Perhaps, if I'll dig deep enough, maybe I'll find the clear path out of my sense of being overwhelmed. I have this image that as soon as I am ready to simplify my inner world, my external world will automatically simplify itself in kind.

 :hug:

Yeah I feel the same way only difference is I have a hubby who is constitutionally able to deal with things like that. I will say only because hubby can handle this stuff we do rent out a house in a very liberal area using an agency and have had 0 problems for 5 years. It doesn't mean everyone is so lucky though. I myself could absolutely not rent a house out. These are risks I cannot take and I'm too much of a softy anyway. Perhaps selling and downgrading the city home would help. Who knows its all scary and sad and I wish you could keep both comfortably.  :grouphug:

Papa Coco, you have described growing up as being like a pawn in an evil game of chess. Over complicating things could possibly come from this? Chess is a game of intelligence and thinking several moves ahead at all times and sometimes it can get challenging. I don't think it's surprising that it feels like this to you after a lifetime navigating the board.

I don't think it's you that has turned your living situation into an unsolvable problem. You being forced to retire 5 years early has over complicated things. You have had to alter plans to accommodate a situation that you weren't originally prepared for and are now dealing with the consequences of that.
I know how easy it is to say, but try and be gentle with yourself. You are doing the best you can and that, at the end of the day, is all anyone can ask of you  :)

I do hope you find a solution and it doesn't cause you too much stress. Sending hugs and support to you  :bighug:

Well done on the small steps towards water aerobics. It's ok to ease yourself in bit by bit. No point in forcing it and making yourself uncomfortable. Some days are just not the day.
I am sure you will make it there  :) Be proud of yourself when you do.

Journal Entry for Monday, November 14, 2022

I'm changing. I'm not sure why. IFS might be strengthening my Core Self and giving me freedom from the antics of my protectors. Or Ketamine infusions are starting to re-wire my brain to feel more grounded and less traumatized. Or this forum is helping me air out the chambers of my brain that have been closed off for half a century. Or all of it together is making me feel different.

There was once an episode of The Simpsons where an ex-ray showed that Homer had a crayon from his childhood stuck up his nose, pushing in on his brain and making him stupid. When the doctor removed the ancient crayon, Homer became brilliant and grounded and kind and a good father and a good husband and a good employee, etc.  At the end of the episode, Homer wanted to be his old self again, so he jammed another crayon up his nose and became the ridiculous, selfish moron that he'd always been. 

Somehow, I feel like that crayon has been moved in my own brain and I'm starting to feel more grounded and less perpetually sad. I'm still struggling with my choices to isolate and live half of my life alone in a cabin, but I'm feeling a healthy loneliness for my wife and son and grandkids now. I'm packing up and planning to head back to the city on Saturday morning. I've been here for two solid months, but all of a sudden, I want to be reconnected with my wife and kids. It feels like healthy loneliness, rather than the type of horrific, deep, trauma-induced loneliness that comes from always feeling unwelcome on the earth, every second of my life, even while with friends and family.

A lot of people believe that the Pandemic gave us a wide-open view of how much mental illness is really present in the world. People were forced to isolate for months, even years, and found themselves face to face with their own lifelong battles. Last night, on Phil's suggestion, I watched a comedy routine on Netflix called Neal Brennan: Blocks. He was raised Catholic, like I was, and has lived his life feeling lonely and sad. He's done Ketamine Treatments, medications, therapy...all the things I've done. He is one who says COVID helped to expose the mental illnesses plaguing so many of us. My feeling, after watching him perform to millions of people, exposing his mental struggles, was that FINALLY the world is starting to hear the truth about what it feels like to be a traumatized adult. I think this is going to open up THOUSANDS of minds. I believe Mr. Brennan has probably turned on a lightbulb in the minds of scores of people who suffer as we do, or who love someone who suffers as we do. I can only imagine the fan letters he's getting.  I think this is a good, good thing.

I never did start water aerobics, and now my window is closing. The pool at the beach is low key. Never crowded. But the pool I live by in the city is so crowded you can't even get in it, so when I'm in the city, there are no water aerobics classes available to me. And I'm packing up and and getting ready to move back to the city.

What I DID succeed at is I DID build shelves in my garage this weekend. I was able to get so much stuff off the floor that I could get the Jeep into the garage and close the door. WooHOO!  I didn't do the aerobics, but I DID do a bunch of projects around the house and garage that have been needed to be done for a long time.  So I'm calling it a win.

Also; I'm finally becoming bored with my Jigsaw puzzles and Lego builds. For two years, I've been using jigsaw puzzles and Lego builds to distract myself and kill time. I isolate. I'm alone. No pets. No kids. Even my wife is 160 miles away. So if I can't make myself go outside, or to the pool, or start building the projects that need to be done to renovate this house, then I'm so bored I can't stand it. So I've become addicted to puzzles and Legos. But as of this past week...I'm getting bored with them. They serve no one. If I'm going to look for ways to distract myself from a lonely life, then I'm starting to want to use my time and skills and attention to do good outside of myself. I'm starting to think about maybe getting another job. I worked in aerospace for 42 years. I got laid off when COVID and the FAA made it so we couldn't build anymore planes for a while and my job got outsourced to the lowest bidder. I've been "retired" ever since. And now, for the first time in 2 years, I kind of want to get back out into the world and connect with people again. If I decide to go for it and find a job, it will have to be one that gives me social interaction. People to laugh with. People to talk to. People to work with and share goals and interests.  THIS IS ALL NEW. It's been coming on fast over the last few days. My big question for now is: Is this the start of a new and permanent trend, or just a temporary vacation from the loneliness?

I'm learning to push myself out the door and just do what needs to be done without sitting around wishing I was someone else, somewhere else.

I'm handeling my on-the-fly Emotional Flashbacks better than ever.

I don't know if this is a permanent change for the better in my life, or if I'm just having a rallying moment where my trauma brain is giving me temporary boost of feeling good. Time will need to tell us whether this is a moment of progressive, irreversible healing, or a temporary vacation from my trauma responses. But for now, I'm happy to be feeling a little more in control while I allow myself to exist within the boundaries of reality. I'm not used to this. I usually live in fantasy land. Reality feels weird.

At this very moment I'm being texted by my wife and my son. Apparently my two grandsons, now 11 and 8, are positive for COVID. They tested positive yesterday and are both very sick and spending the whole day laying on the floor. So, new worry for me. But, again, this worry feels legitimate. Real. This isn't a Trauma-induced irrational fear of something that isn't as big a threat as I believe it is. My plan is to relocate to the city on Saturday, but if my little men need their Papa for any reason, I'm gassed up, packed, and ready to head for the city on a moment's notice.

PapaCoco,
it's great to hear that you are starting to feel a little bit better and perhaps more yourself. I love the analogy of the crayon and hope that this will be a permanent change for the better so that you can continue to feel grounded.
I hear you when you say that you are struggling a little to find the correct balance between loneliness and connection. I don't want to suggest that my situation is similar to yours, but I know the

Quotehorrific, deep, trauma-induced loneliness that comes from always feeling unwelcome on the earth, every second of my life, even while with friends and family.

I've felt like this many, many times and I often blame myself for being so dysfunctional and pathetic that nobody wants to spend any time with me (I have very little connection with family members or friends) but ever since I have been dismissed from my job a couple of weeks ago, I feel that I almost "need" the loneliness to breathe. It's hard to describe, but even though a big part of me is desperately longing for true human connection, I also feel like I need the time to process things and become more like myself before I start interacting with others again.

So, I'm not yet quite at the point where you are (feeling more energy, being able to complete projects, and planning on re-entering the outside world), but I admire your strength and hope that all will go well. I understand that it's not an easy step to move back to the city after such a long time but it sounds to me like you're ready and I certainly wish you the best of luck.

Also, fingers crossed your grandsons will be feeling better soon... :thumbup:

Just sending an encouraging "That's awesome" message your way.
Your detailed journaling is very helpful. You're doing real inspiring work, and I'm cheering you on.

Hi PC,

I'm glad you're feeling better about things. I hope it is the path to a "new you" but don't be hard on yourself if there are setbacks. It sounds like very positive steps in a new direction but I've learned the path is more like a circle than a straight line. I imagine it takes a while to adjust to the changes in your life over the past few years. Retirement, and early, unexpected retirement at that, is a big milestone and life change. It makes sense that you were feeling a bit lost in it.

Sending you support,
dolly  :hug:

Hi Papa Coco.

Ups and downs, right? I hope your grandsons are ok and big hugs from me for the parts that are going well and the parts that are not. We got you, your wife has got you. You got your parts. Keep going. I can see how well you are doing given this isn't an easy time of year for your trauma. You are truly amazing and we are lucky to have you here with us.  :grouphug:

Hey Papa Coco,

Huge well done for getting those shelves up! Definitely a win ;D
It's so good to hear how well things seem to be going and I'm so pleased for you. I can almost feel the energy coming from your post :)

I agree that COVID has really opened up people's eyes to just how many people actually suffer with their mental health or even highlighted to some their own situations. All we had was time, time to think, remember and observe. Hopefully along with the awareness will come the lessening of the taboo and stigma that still surrounds mental health. There's a long way to go but hopefully we are on our way.

I hope your move back to the city goes well. Coming out of isolation is a journey in itself, I am sending you my support as you re-enter and re-adjust :)

You are all such awesome friends. It feels good to have people who care about me, and people who let me care about them.

Master of my Seats, Armee, Phil, Dolly, Milkandhoney, thank you for the responses and for being a part of my recovery from gaslighting. I've been reading your journals, but I'm in a bad space right now and can't really respond coherently. I tried to respond to all your journals, but all I could type out was gibberish. Better to wait until I'm of sound mind and body. Maybe in a day or two I'll be able to speak coherently.

I've been up since midnight. It's 4 am now on Sunday. Lots going on here. Mostly not good. I tried writing in detail about it, but there's too much to say, my story got too long, so I deleted it and now I'm just going to give an overview: My oldest son's mental illnesses are worsening. Friday was his birthday, and we aren't welcome to talk to him anymore, so we didn't send a text, a card or a phone call. He hates us because we don't vote trump. My wife, Coco, is distraught over him and that alone breaks my heart. My youngest son, his wife, and both grandsons all have COVID, meaning we don't know if Thursday's US Thanksgiving is going to happen or not. We already bought the food, so we have to cook it. But will anyone be here to eat with us? It took me two attempts to get home from the beach. I was an hour into my drive to the city on Friday night when Coco texted and told me to turn back because of police shootout which had shut down the freeway at the chokepoint for all of Friday until Saturday morning. Then, to add fuel to the flame, a phone call late last night informed us that my former best friend's drinking has finally ended him. He's in a hospital an hour from my city house, 100% jaundice, kidneys and liver are fully shut down, he's so puffy he's unrecognizable, and doctors weren't sure if he'd live through the night, but they are sure he'll never be conscious again. He's quite a bit younger than I am, and I had to distance myself from him 8 years ago due to his refusal to stop drinking and my inability to trust that if I kept hanging out with him, I'd end up drinking again too. 

Today will be a lot of uncertainty. Do I drive an hour to the hospital to put the image of my yellow, puffy, jaundiced, best friend's deathbed into my trauma-prone brain? HIs wife died the same way 10 years ago.His older daughter can't stand it anymore. She isn't going to be there. I need to find out if his younger daughter is going to be there, or if she's too exhausted to be there also. I also need to find out if he even lived through the night. I'm too prone to trauma to want to see him in his deathbed, but his daughter is important to Coco and me. We were there with her when her mom passed, and if she's going to be at the hospital with him, then it might be a good thing if I sit with her for a while. Coco and I were a part of the happiest years they ever had. Maybe I could be a connection to those happy years if I come sit with her for a while.

I wish I didn't have to always feel like I'm working beyond my means. I'm not trained in how to deal with alcoholics who refuse treatment, sons who hate me because of who I won't vote for, COVID, etc. THis is all above my paygrade. It's beyond my skillset.

I used to work next to a person who had a sign on her cubical that just said "Oh God--Not another learning opportunity". That's how I feel now. Overwhelmed. Overburdened.

I've been up since midnight. I need a little more sleep. It's 4 am now. I'm going to give it another try.

Papa Coco,
I am so incredibly sorry to hear about all you have been going through, my heart really goes out to you and I wished I could do anything to help.
It must hurt not to be able to contact your son and to see how much this affects your wife. I know what it feels like to lose contact to family members because of differing political views, but I can't imagine how painful this must be when it is your own son.
I am also incredibly sorry about the situation with your friend. I think that it is important that you protect yourself from more trauma and try to respect your feelings, but I also understand that you want to be there for his daughter. It shows what a wonderfully caring and kind person you are.
I wished I knew how to make this decision easier for you but it depends completely on how you feel and how much you can bear at the moment. I imagine that it would be very difficult to go to the hospital and see your friend like this (especially after all the trauma you have already experienced in your life) but I also wouldn't want you to regret not going for the rest of your life.
So, my humble advice would be: take your time to decide, check in with what your heart tells you, talk to your wife, and then see how you feel about the whole situation. It can help to write your thoughts down so that you can get clear about your emotions and maybe even remind yourself of your original reasons when things get tough in the future and doubts start to creep in.
I hope you will be able to find a way to deal with this somehow. It's a very sad situation to be in but you are strong and you can make it through.
I'm thinking of you and sending you lots of courage and strength.
Take care and be gentle to yourself in these difficult times.

Papa Coco I am sorry to hear how things are for you right now. It sounds as if you have had a real truckload of events just empty in your lap. Sending you so much support and care right now and I will be keeping you in my thoughts.

You can only do what you are capable of dealing with. If you think that going to the hospital is going to be too upsetting, then maybe not being there is the safer option for you right now. I can understand your wanting to be there to offer support, but you must also make sure you are taking care of Papa Coco. I don't mean to sound like I am telling you what to do (if I do), that certainly isn't my intention. It is so easy for people like us to put aside our own needs and feelings, especially in situations like the one you find yourself in, to make sure everyone else is ok. We can be there for others without neglecting ourselves. Maybe if you can't get to the hospital, you can arrange to meet up with your friends' daughter/s, away from the hospital? This way you can still offer your support and be that connection to happier times, without compromising your own mental health and well-being.

I think you said it perfectly, I'm not trained in how to deal with alcoholics who refuse treatment, sons who hate me because of who I won't vote for, COVID, etc. None of us are yet we are expected to deal with all these types of things and just know what to do and be ok with everything. Sometimes we have to take a step back and realise that there are some things we are just not equipped to deal with at that moment, or at all. And that's ok.

You are such a ray of light to so many on here and in your life. You have been such a huge support to so many of us and I just want to ask you to please take care of yourself as you navigate through all of this. I am glad you were able to make a post and I hope that getting some of it out, will help to be able to get some sleep. We will all be here when you are feeling more yourself  :)

Sending you a gentle hug :bighug: and my support and care to you and your family. I hope things start to settle down for you soon.

Oh gosh.  :bighug:

That's too much. Too too much. I recall one night that I had one of my hallucinations...flashbacks...and then I woke up the next morning and there had been a mass shooting in my town. Small by our sick standards but 5 people died. And those two things together were just too too much. One is too much. Add anything on top and it's over.

I watched my mom die of cancer related liver failure a little over a year ago. It is tough. You'll know what to do after you sleep. It wouldn't be safe to drive right now either way. The liver failure shuts down the brain. I doubt your friend will know your presence or absence in that state. Your friend's daughter will need you but not necessarily at the hospital. She'll need you after and she'll need you grounded. Take your time.

Crawl back in bed, Papa Coco. Sleep. We'll keep watch out here, ok? You are safe.

 :bighug:
That's all way above most of our paygrades Papa Coco
My heart goes out to you and your wife.
Sending support and best wishes as you navigate all of this.

hey, PC, as a fellow recovering alc. i feel for you in that dept.  unfortunately your friend made his choice.  will it do either of you any good to go see him?  that's my perspective.  maybe you could do your own little memorial ritual for him by yourself.  these are never easy times.  i'm very glad for you that you made the choice you did 8 yrs. ago.  my heart is with you.

and, i, too, know the pain of a child who will not have anything to do w/ me due to whatever reasons she's got in her mind.  it's a painful hole that's always there. yep, it is above our paygrade as parents to have to deal w/ something like this, but all we can do is manage it a day at a time.  my heart's w/ you on this one, too.

i'm glad you're writing this down, getting it out of you.  keep on truckin', ok?  right beside you.  love and a hug full of care and comfort :hug:

Once again, San, MOMS, Milkandhoney, Phil, Armee, and everyone else, Thank you for responding. You C-PTSD survivors are the best people I've ever known. We might struggle, but we are so quick to stand by others. That counts for a lot.

And life problems do tend to come in clumps, don't they? I guess that's the nature of randomness. In a perfect world, someone would be metering our problems so that we always have only one at a time.

I slept fantastic from 4 am to 8 am. I had some chores and shopping to do, but I'm done now, It's noon here. I'm able to sit down and read the posts. You all said some really good things, all helpful.

You've all supported me NOT going through traffic to visit a friend who won't know I'm there. Thank you for that. While reading your supportive comments about how I need to take care of myself, I suddenly remembered why the whole right side of my pickup is caved in. In April 2009, we had a dinner date with J and S. She was dying and we knew it would be our final anniversary dinner together. We were at a different hospital with my entire FOO. Mom's doctor collected us together and gave us the news that Mom was dying and likely only had a few weeks left. Coco and I got in the pickup to head to J and S so we could take them out for our last dinner and BAM!  That truck is still all caved in. A constant reminder to not drive or use saws or mowers when I'm under this much durress.

I'm so happy to have friends like you telling me that it's okay that I'm not equipped for this. I grew up just expected to be the guy who was always there to help everyone. I've been pushed so many times into helping beyond my abilities, but now I have friends giving me support by NOT putting myself into that dangerous situation.

San, you are so right. We all tried to get J to stop drinking but he avidly refused. I went to rehab because I couldn't do it on my own. He flat refused to go to rehab. He made his choice. There really was nothing I could do about it. This was his own personal death wish and nothing anyone could say would change his behaviors.

Armee, you and MOMS are both right; I have to be in that part of town for a medical appointment on Tuesday. I can go up to J's daughter's house and visit her then. And I resonate with the stress of shootings in your town. It may be people you don't know, but something about that violence on fellow innocent humans nearby is gut-wrenching for empathetic, bullied people like us. It also undermines our own sense of safety when people are being randomly gunned down nearby. Trauma, trauma, trauma. The purpose of trauma is to numb pain and learn how to be safe. A shooting in the neighborhood is something we want to be safe from.

Phil, thank you for the supportive words that this is above everyone's pay grade. Thank you! That helps ease my chronic sense of duty.

Master of my Sea, telling me that I'm a ray of sunshine for being who I am is such a warm feeling. My FOO and old friends typically insulted me for being kind. They said I was soft. My siblings would roll their eyes and insult me for caring about other people. I once shed some tears at my favorite uncle's funeral, only to have my evil, narcissistic older sister scoff at me for it like I was being stupid. To have real, life, respectable people tell me that it's okay to be who I am is just...amazing. Oh, what would life have been like if I'd have met people like you all when I was young?  I can only dare to imagine a life without being taught by gaslighters to be ashamed of who we are.

MIlkandhoney, you are right and I need to accept that I am strong enough to get through this. As a man who was raised by a cold, tough man, I always feel like my sadness means I'm weak. So I suppose I push myself to help more so I appear to be strong. But cold sarcasm is not strength. Emotion is not weakness. My family and elders lied to me about that for about 50 years. Turns out being emotional meant I was the one in the right. Again: What would life have been like if I'd have known that from early on?

I like to remind myself from time to time that those of us who have survived our traumas long enough to join this forum and actively pursue answers and treatment are the strongest people on earth. We've survived where others have not. J had a very rough childhood. He chose to drink, and I chose therapy and vulnerability. Which of us was the strongest, right? My pursuit of healing has brought me to where I am, while his drinking brought him to where he is now.

To all of you who share my pain around losing family members and children to anger and exile, my heart swells with yours. Losing anyone; a parent, sibling or child, due to them not liking us anymore is just...it's so painful. Being able to console each other from a place of walking a mile in each other's shoes is a gift that goes a long, long way.

Thanks to y'all. I am feeling better. I'm not feeling obligated to go see J or to "do a better job bringing my son back into the family." These people have made their own choices. They're all adults. The door here has never been closed on them. If they want to reconnect with me and Coco, they can. We're still here. Door still open. The ball is in their court.

I want to give a great big, meaningful, grateful group hug!

:grouphug:

Gosh DANG! You are all such good people. This forum has done its job for me. I now have friends who understand me and I them. You let me share in your lives and you are there to share in mine.  That chronic loneliness that I talk about is starting to loosen its grip on me.  Thank you everyone for joining and sharing.

Now I'm feeling "good" squishy inside. :)

lovelovelove 'squishy' inside, PC.  you are wonderful.  love and hugs :hug:

Love 'squishy inside' ;D I'm glad you are feeling better Papa Coco :)

If they want to reconnect with me and Coco, they can. We're still here. Door still open. The ball is in their court.
You saying this reminded me of something I read a few weeks back, it said, 'I may have burned bridges but I left behind the tools to rebuild. The people that want to be in my life will be.'
You have left behind all the tools for these people to come back into your life (even if it wasn't you who originally burned the bridge) there isn't any more that you can do. Your peace and happiness doesn't deserve to suffer at the hands of anyone else, any longer.

Sometimes we need others to remind us that we can't be expected to be able to do everything. It has been drilled into us all our lives to be the go-to person. The person that should fix it, but it isn't our job to fix everyone else's problems and every now and then we just need a gentle reminder...that isn't your job.

People that scoff and put others down for being kind are just showing their true colours. For some it is much easier to be mean to someone than to try and empathise or just be a decent human being. All of us here truly understand the power of being kind to others and how just a little of that can go a really long way to helping someone.

It takes a huge amount of will and drive to start a journey of healing and I don't think enough people realise that. To heal, first you must feel everything and that takes an inordinate amount of strength. Even in our weakest moments, we are all some of the strongest people I have ever encountered. To stand up and face all of the darkness and hurt that has brought us to this place, that is courage and that is strength in my eyes. Instead of being consumed by it, we have decided to face it.

Recovery Journal Entry for U.S. Thanksgiving day, November 24, 2022

My overbearing sense that the Grim Reaper has been thinking about me lifted a couple days ago. Gone. Like a snap of the fingers, he just left me at 7 PM on Monday. I have no explanation. My moods went from as bad as possible to "as if nothing was wrong" in the snap of a finger.

My friend J passed this morning at 8:05 AM. His daughters are worn to a nub. Drinking himself to death has been a long, horrible, HORRIBLE experience for both of them and everyone else who loved J.

I'm fine. A little melancholy, but I had already distanced myself from him about 7 or 8 years ago to protect my own sobriety. I knew that if I'd kept hanging out with him it would have eventually dragged me back into the bottle with him.

I've been feeling oddly wonderful for the first half of Tuesday, Wednesday and today. I feel like my old self, the one who had energy and could clean and cook and keep up the yard and make jokes. At midday I still crash, usually after lunch. I've made an appointment with my General Practitioner to do some blood work to check on my ability to manage blood sugars. My mother's side of the family was riddled with diabetes. So far, I've always tested negative, but the way I crash after eating lunch every day now is suspicious. Time to get checked.

I just received my 4th quarterly issue of Psychedelia Magazine. On page 28 they list a few web locations who are now selling fully legal candies with just enough psilocybin in them to perform as micro-dosing. After Thanksgiving, I'm going to research these sites and hopefully put in my first order. I'm pretty darned excited. I believe that the reason I'm starting to feel better for half days now is likely from the Ketamine Infusions. I've had 8 or 9 so far and I'm going to schedule another one for next week. If it's true that the Ketamine is rewiring my brain to accept joy and happiness again, then why stop now? And if I can start some gentle micro dosing with legal candies, then all the better.

My young son and his family are all testing negative this morning for COVID so we have our dinner in the ovens now and the family will be arriving within the next couple of hours. Our oldest son has vanished off Facebook and is, for all intents and purposes, in the wind. He's off the grid. Gone. We are preparing ourselves to realize that we may never see nor hear from him again. Ever. His mental illness just kept worsening and worsening. I tried very hard to stay in his life for as long as I could, but he just kept getting meaner and meaner, and now he has cut us all off completely. He'll be forever in my prayers. He may be burning the bridges from his end, but if he ever decides to rebuild them, his mom and I will be standing at the end of the bridge with our arms stretched out. We'll have hammers and saws in our hands to help build the bridges if he ever tries to rebuild. I have little hope. These types of mental illnesses seldom reverse and seldom end well. But the door will always be open.

On Tuesday night Coco and I were watching a Netflix Comedy series where some comedians were working off the cuff with the audience, telling jokes and making people laugh. I suddenly, out of nowhere, smelled the old wood floor of the stage I was on when I was 7 years old, rehearsing for the school Christmas play. I was the lead marching toy soldier. I could even hear the clomping of the hard soled shoes of all us kids marching on the stage at rehearsal. I made some mistakes and guided the soldiers in a couple of bad directions. It didn't cause an EF. I think that I'm just getting used to finally having these flashbacks enough that this particular one may have just been my brain saying, "I see you're ready for the next level of detail" and it released some body memories for me to process. I was okay with it. Later, in bed, I thought about it, and remembered being guided by my shoulders by an adult male who was keeping me back after practice to rehearse some more, but I sort of remembered him saying, "we're going to do something a little different tonight."  That's the moment my heart and chest suddenly feel a burst of anxiety, and that's where I've left it. I'm not in the mood right now to follow this memory into what it was we did instead of practice. Logically I already know. No need to put myself through the trauma of it during Holidays, dealing with my son's disappearance and J's passing. I believe that as we accept these small bites of memory flashbacks, we eventually get better and better at handling them like the adults we are. I feel oddly as if I am more able to control how far back in time I go when an EF hits. It's as if, with practice, I'm getting to where the flashbacks aren't as frightening. Like I really feel like I AM the adult now, and I'm not the boy in the flashback.

This doesn't mean I'm healed, by any means. I still have triggers and emotions. This morning as I helped Coco make this big, complicated meal, she was getting frustrated with me, blaming me for losing spoons and containers that she couldn't find. She wasn't being mean, but she is on the Autism Spectrum, and her words often come out without softening. I immediately cringe. I knew that I had no reason to be frightened, but I did give myself a break, made an excuse for why I needed to go upstairs, and I HID from her until she found whatever she'd lost and was no longer accusing me of losing them. It was innocent enough. She's not mean. She's one of the kindest people I know. This is about communication style differences. But it proved to me, that while I'm getting better, I've still got a LOT of work yet to do with how I handle on-the-fly stressors. The trauma responses are still connected to how my FOO really DID blame me for everything and really DID make me feel ashamed of myself when they lost something.

I'm calling today a good day despite all the tragedies that surround me. I'm feeling like none of them are my fault, and I'm able to focus on what good is happening around me, rather than all these tragedies.

Fingers crossed this isn't temporary. I truly hope I'm finally on the journey to finding my way out of the storm.

Papa Coco,
I am really sorry for the loss of your friend and for the sad separation from your older son. I can only imagine how hard this must be, especially around Thanksgiving Time.
However, I was so glad to hear that you have been feeling better. That's wonderful news!
I feel like our flashbacks and triggers will probably never fully leave us as the trauma has become ingrained deep in our consciousness, but I am so happy that they are becoming a little more manageable for you and that you have found a way of handling them better when they arise.
To me, the fact that you are able to stay so come even despite all the negative events that happened to you this week, shows that you really are healing and making very big steps on your way to recovery. I truly hope that it will continue to stay this week and that you can indeed find your way out of the storm.

Papa Coco.

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend... 8 years past and just this week.  :grouphug:

I'm sitting with you with a warm blanket for your shoulders and a cup of tea while you process the new details your brain has offered. Its rough when they reveal themselves, but each little piece of information brings with it horror and then a tiny bit more healing. Just sending lots of love and reminders you are not alone, you are not broken, you are not bad, you did not deserve this, and it is truly unfathomable that people hurt little sweet you in this way. I'm so angry about this. And sad. What a sad thing.

Hi PC,

I'm sorry to hear about your friend. It's hard to watch people do things that you know aren't good for themselves and not be able to help.

I think it's great the foray you're doing into psychedelics, especially for someone who said they are thoroughly opposed to doing anything bad. I don't think I would be doing any of the work I have been doing around my gf if I hadn't started microdosing. I even had a dream where I was on mushrooms in the dream and realized that I was going into these dark, unknown parts of my brain that I hadn't been in before. It's by no means an easy fix, take this and it will all go away, but I do think it helps. Perhaps, like you said, more memories are coming up now and you're able to handle them in small amounts. Though, I'm sure your physician warned you but people with a history of schizophrenia in the family do need to have caution unless of course that's from your wife's side.

I'm sorry your son is behaving that way as well. It's hard to let people go when we only want the best for them  :hug:

Sending you support,
dolly

Hey Papa Coco,

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. I agree with dolly, it's hard to watch someone to self-destruct. And I'm sorry that things have taken this turn with your son, I can't imagine how that must feel. Sending support and hugs to you my friend :hug:

it's lovely to hear that despite all of this going on, you are feeling better and more yourself. I hope this continues for you :)

I'm sorry that this was triggered for you but I have to say, the way you deal these things is inspiring to me. You give me hope that one day, they won't control my life and I won't always get lost in them. You are so open about your experiences and how you deal with them. This is a horrible event that your brain wanted you to remember but you were able to take control of the situation and stop it from taking over. You have an understanding of what it is you are able to deal with at this current moment and have been able to make this more manageable. That's impressive.

I hope you had a lovely day

Journal Entry, December 1, 2022

I'm having more and more happy times during parts of the day, but they are balanced out by an increase in shame and stress during other parts of the day. Time to schedule another Ketamine Infusion. I find that this particular treatment significantly reduces that shame center in my brain for several weeks--even a few months. My last infusion was in Mid-September, so I've held on pretty well this time.  I guess I'm fortunate that my body responds quickly to things like medications, vitamins and treatments.

Rapid physical response is good and bad, because my body also responds quickly to bad things, like sodium, sugar, alcohol, or digesting food that is nearing the edge of fresh. Rapid response is something I can manage as long as I remember to keep watch on what I consume or feel.

Today I read Armee's Journal entry about having to endure a medical exam in a vulnerable part of her body. As a man, I have to bear those parts to my doctors also. Doctors sometimes have to touch parts of me that trigger flashbacks and cause irrational depression and anxiety that can last for days before and after.

TRIGGER WARNING: Words in white color: A story of how Mom was a bit too close to my body when I was a boy:

I was 8. A week before 3rd grade school started, she told me to go into the bathroom and stand still. I asked why. She said my school finally decided to start a PE program, and they required me to have a physical before school starts. Part of the physical was for her to bring a urine sample with us to the doctor's office. (It was 1968. That's how they did things back then). She slid my pants down to my knees, kneeled in front of me, grabbed my penis with one hand, held a plastic up to it with the other, stared at my genitalia and told me to pee. I said, "I can do this myself" to which she angrily accused, "You'll just spill it!" Naturally, there was some shyness there, and nothing came out. She got angrier and angrier, saying "Come on. Just do it!" as I tried to pee and couldn't. I pleaded, "I'm trying. I can't!" My face was getting hot. Finally, she got so frustrated with me that she just yelled "Fine! You do it then, BUT YOU'D BETTER NOT SPILL ANY OF IT!" She huffed away. A few minutes later I brought her a nice, clean, sample, without having spilled a single drop.

My youngest grandson is 8 right now. I can see, with my own eyes, that an 8-year-old boy is perfectly competent to pee in a cup without help. He cooks his own egg breakfasts when he's with me. When we're at the beach together, he takes charge of movie night popcorn. We have one of those novelty theater popcorn makers there. He carries it himself to the kitchen and plugs it in. He rummages the cupboards and collects all the bowls and measuring spoons, gathers the ingredients, measures the oil and kernels, and melts the butter> He then makes the popcorn, divides it into bowls, salts and butters it, and delivers a fresh hot bowl to each of us. He never spills a drop of ANYTHING while doing all this. He was 7 when I went to mop the kitchen floor, but he asked if he could do it. He used the new mop and cleaned every inch of that floor more thoroughly than I would have had I done it myself. When I'm in the yard picking up leaves, he voluntarily finds a shovel and helps me scoop the piles into the compost bin...shovel full after shovel full, he doesn't spill them either. Gramma and I went on the Christmas train ride with him on Saturday, and he took opportunity after opportunity to explain how steam locomotives work, and which train company owns what kinds of engines, and how often they fly past his house every day. The very thought that his mom would have to hold his penis for him because he's too incompetent to pee in a cup, just highlights how inappropriate my mom really was with me as a child, and how stupid she really believed I was.

So if you think I can make it through any lower torso medical exam today without having to explain to the doctor that I don't normally have high blood pressure, and that my racing heart today is not my normal BP, then...well...I don't know what to think. (I can feel my BP soaring right now as I tell this story).

A helpful trick I learned to help mend the broken mind-body connection of trauma

I keep little physical reminders in my pocket to connect me to happier times.

My therapist once held out a handful of polished stones and told me to pick one that felt good in my hand. As I took one and held it tightly in a closed palm, he said that a part of him was in that stone, and any time I needed to remember that he was a part of my life, I could just hold that stone tightly and feel his calming presence. There's no magic or new age mumbo jumbo in this. It's simple kinesthetic, mind-body connection. He is a DBT therapist, so his ultimate goal is not to train me on how I'm supposed to think, but to reconnect my fragmented parts. Trauma is a mind-body disconnection. Anything we can do to reconnect body with emotion during stress works to re-bridge a tiny piece of that trauma disconnection. The stone my T gave me is just a physical reminder for me to focus on during otherwise uncomfortable events, so that my mind and body both remember I am connected to someone who cares about me, rather than to the triggering effects of other physical sensations.

Over the years I've discovered that holding that stone during traumatic, triggering events slows, or sometimes even stops, my usual dissociations and blackouts. I stay in the room much, much better, and feel much calmer if I do this.

That stone was more than just a random physical object, it was an object that was given to me by someone who cares about me and who makes me feel heard and safe. Any time I see or touch that stone, I feel the calmness that my therapist gives me when I'm in the room with him.

All these years later, when I clutch that silly little rock, I remember how he cares about me, and I feel my connection to him. It balances things out a little. During some medical procedures, any small connection to safety helps ground me to the positive mind-body sensations it represents.

I later used that tactic when I quit drinking. My 30-day coin ended up living in my pocket for a few years, and whenever I felt the urge to give up the struggle, I could hold that coin in my hand as a physical reminder of the people in AA who gave it to me as a gift, free of charge, and who were on my side and who I knew cared about my sobriety.

Whenever I hold an object of love and connection, I seem to be able to feel the warm, loving, caring energy, climbing up my arm, filling my veins, and calming me like warm water.

There is science behind this practice. When I taught highly trained engineers, I often placed a small collection of dumb little toys on the tables around the room for the engineers to squeeze or bend or just fiddle with while we taught new ideas and concepts or company policies to their brains. These were called kinesthetic learning devices, because studies had proven that if a person is doing something with their hands while learning abstract concepts in the brain, the learning was greatly improved. More parts of the brain were lit up and involved during the learning. It's what I'm told Micro-dosing does also. It lights up more parts of the brain, so that all parts of the brain learn something together. Walking while meditating also works for me because...again, the body is engaged while my brain is thinking. To me, holding my little rock is both: a kinesthetic lighting up of more parts of my brain, and a loving reminder that while I'm on my doctor's cold slab, my warm-hearted support system is still present in the world. I'm not alone. It helps.

It's a small help, but it is a help nonetheless.  I don't feel as alone on the doctor's table if I have something in my hand, or pocket, or around my neck on a chain, when I need a connection to the people who love and want to protect me.

---

Afterthought: I re-read what I've written here, and now I suddenly have a thought: I think I'll bring that little rock with me to my Ketamine Infusion on Saturday morning and hold it tightly during the procedure. I wonder if my infusion will feel more of a connection, and maybe see if the relief lasts longer than 2 months this time. It'll be my own personal scientific experiment.

hey, PC, i, too, have a stone given to me by a dear friend.  on it she wrote 'trust the magic' and i keep it in a jacket pocket so it's with me when i have to leave the house.  holding it is soothing and comforting.  i get it, and so glad you've got yours.  i like the idea of taking yours to your next infusion.  and i love personal experiments.  hope yours works out well for you.  love and hugs :hug:

Hey Papa Coco,
I'm afraid I can't really manage a longer reply right now but I just wanted to say that I am really sorry about the story with your mum. It feels like such a sad, degrading, awful thing to do to an 8 year old and I am sorry it continues to affect you today, even though I am impressed by how you are handling all these negative memories. The stone sounds like a fantastic idea!

It's a beautiful post, Papa Coco, about the stone and the physical connections, even as the post also contains painful memories. I am sorry your mom handled you that way. I wouldn't even do that to a 3 year old in that way.

I remember your story of how the memories started coming back during an exam. It's hardest when you don't see them coming, the memories. I find it really helpful to anticipate, being caught off guard by triggers is difficult.

I'm glad you've got another treatment coming up and that they've helped so much. I know this is a difficult time of year but I'm really impressed how here and present you have been this year.  :grouphug:

hi Papa Coco
Thanks for sharing about the stone and its connections.... I like that!
I'm sorry for what you wrote in white.
It's something when you see your grandson at that age eh.. I'm sorry it doesn't make it easier.. but it sure shows how unnecessary the treatment of you was.
Sending a big hug filled with gratitude and encouragement for you.

Hey PC,

I read your entry a little while ago and saw something that reminded me of it yesterday. A video of a six year old boy parking his boat in a boat trailer with precision, something a lot of adults can't do. I was also amazed a few years ago when I was skiing how young the kids were when they started learning (I think I had my first lessons around 3? 4?) but there were toddlers, barely higher than my knee on these little death sticks snowplowing down a mountain. So, it is incredible what kids can do on their own at such young ages. Even Kevin Mcallister in Home Alone was 8 when he fought off the robbers. I'm sure that you have empathy for that little boy and your grandson though, something your mom did not.

I've been working on shame stuff too. Your posting on the IFS forum tweaked a thread that I was meaning to look into of how shame basically underlies a lot of trauma. I'm finding it hard to separate the shame from me since so much of that I absorbed (or had to absorb for survival I guess) into my idea of who I was. But it doesn't mean that that's who I was nor does it mean it's who you are either. My sf (and other family members it turns out) put his own body shame on me and I've grown up thinking that something's wrong, even though I do have healthy ideas etc. I guess it's maybe a sense of doing things for you finally and not for others? It's really tough to pick those two things apart though, what's your idea of you and what's someone else's. I think it's great that you're doing that process  :cheer:

Sending you support  :hug:
dolly

I am so thankful for all your responses since my last posting.

MilkandHoney, thanks for the notes on losing my friend on Thanksgiving.
Update: His funeral is today, but my wife and I have decided to not attend. After watching the disgusting behaviors of other friends and family at my mom's funeral and at several other friends' funerals over the years, we've come to see funerals as just another event where people come in angry, boast about having been closer to the deceased than they really were, and try to cut other family down to size. Same as family Thanksgiving dinners filled with grievances, boasting, covert insults, etc. I didn't even go to my dad's funeral—if he even had one. I was estranged by then and wouldn't have attended even if I'd been invited. Jim's new wife is making it clear via her postings on the web that she is the only person who was important to him. So, Coco and I aren't going to drive for an hour to be insulted or ignored by attention hounds.

Funerals, to me, are a waste of time and are just one more social event used to compete to be the recipient worthy of the most sympathy. The other thing funerals do is they coerce people into saying "If you need anything, call me" and then around 99.9% of the time, it's a lie. I have said that to people at funerals, and then I've been there for them weeks later when they realized they did need some help. Pretty much without exception, I hear, "Everyone offered help, but you're the only one who's not ghosting me now."  So...in Coco's and  my opinion, POST-funeral support is far, far, far more needed than attending the dog-and-pony show...Funerals, in my experience, are often something you might see on Maury Povich tabloid revenge show. Tomorrow I'll apologize to his daughter for not attending, and in a few weeks, Coco and I will go visit her and earnestly offer any actual support she might need.

San, I like that phrase "trust the magic." You've found, as I have, that keeping a physical charm in the pocket truly does reduce anxiety and build confidence when needed. Unfortunately, on the day of the infusion, I actually got behind and realized my uber was almost at the house. In a panic, I forgot to grab the stone, but while I was in the infusion, I gripped the chair more, so as to connect my body to my spirit as I was visiting with, what I call, the divine consciousness of pure relaxation. It helped. But I've got to do a better job of packing before my next infusion.

Armee: I couldn't agree more, that flashback memories are hardest when we don't see them coming. On the other hand, they're more authentic  for me. When I expect them, I worry that I created them out of my bias that I "knew they were there" and worry that I might have fabricated them to support my belief. But wow...when they come out of nowhere, to me, they are the most real and the most believable.

Phil, thanks for the hug and gratitude and encouragement. I like to read all of your posts and believe you are a genuinely caring soul, which makes these virtual hugs and encouragements as real as if you were in the room with me now.

Dolly, Man, you are so right about children. I often share youtube videos with my grandson, of young children playing instruments, dancing in groups or alone, doing standup in clubs, and I've even found a 14 year old who has been driving fully loaded semi trucks around his dad's truck yard since he was 9. My message to GS is "kids can do things too." As a result, he's now my mentor who teaches me about trains, locomotives, historic train crashes, etc, etc, etc. I personally believe that  kids grow up as fast as they are allowed to. My parents treated me like I was too stupid to pee in a cup, play a piano, ride a bike...so guess what. I grew up believing I'm too stupid to do things I would otherwise be perfectly capable to do.

Your comments about shame are intriguing. I think you are right about the way that underlying shame is a major contributor to our self-esteem. People who feel no shame feel capable of anything. People who feel residual shame, then anticipate more shame, hold back. We isolate so we don't have to face our shame in public. GADS! This makes me SO angry. How can anyone treat their child like an idiot, or shame them for being human beings? When I see it, I just want to scream!

For now, I'm going into my day thinking about the shame aspect of my PTSD. Is that what's keeping me tied to it? Maybe not by itself, but shame is certainly a contender as one of the top 5 reasons.

Journal Update: Friday, December 8, 2022

My 9th Ketamine Infusion was Saturday, 6 days ago. I forgot to bring my stone with me, but I focused heavily on maintaining connection with mind/body/spirit while in the infusion. When I came down from the Ketamine, my practitioner chatted me up to help ground me and to ask how I felt. She then told me about the new research that shows that the Infusions open the mind up for 24-48 hours, and they've done research that shows, those who focus on ONLY happy things for the next two days, sustain much longer between infusions. I came home and spent two days watching funny cat videos, and odd animal couples. I did searches on "happy people" and started building a PowerPoint presentation filled with images of happy, smiling people. I read up on the research and found articles saying that those who view images of smiles WHILE in the Ketamine Infusion, achieve even LONGER times between infusions. So...My new plan: Bring this PowerPoint presentation with me on my next infusion and view the smiles while I'm under.

I've found it to be consistent, that my post-ketamine weeks consistently leave me feeling like I have a right to be alive. Furthermore, for the weeks after Ketamine, I am consistently and increasingly less connected with, or happy with my hedonistic/ego identity. In other words, I repeatedly come home from KI s feeling like I don't connect with my house, my Jeep, my tools, my yards, my jobs...In fact, if anything, I feel like I'm the victim of my own hedonistic aspirations! I feel it all through my body, mind and spirit that I am the servant to my possessions and my current earthly identity. They aren't just words, they are the absolute truth while I'm in the Post Ketamine frame of mind. (Usually about a week or two).

My ego identity that connects me to daily life on earth is of no interest to me for a few weeks after my infusions. In fact, I often spend hours fantasizing about selling the house, the beach house, the Jeeps, furniture, tools, etc., and buying a truck and trailer, and traveling around doing good deeds for the rest of my life. That's the extreme...the fantasy. But what I HOPE continues to build in me, is the ability to let go of my clutter, downsize my home, go away from Jeeps and into econo cars, and just...spend my time going to lunch with friends, volunteering, and NOT WATCHING TV anymore. My son is building a family and has just purchased his first (older--fixer-upper) home. He and his wife have to work long hours just to keep up the payments. I suddenly want to bring my tools up to his house and start rebuilding his falling fences at my own cost, his failing heating system, etc. I can spend my time with him and his family rather than isolating in front of the TV, feeling afraid and unhappy. It seems doable to me if I ease into a life of helping others slowly and methodically, allowing my life to adjust in its proper pace and time.

I just realized that, after KIs, I tend to spend hours online looking for volunteer opportunities. On Monday, 2 days after this last infusion, I found a blog by someone calling himself, Tiny Buddha. In this article: https://tinybuddha.com/blog/6-powerful-questions-that-will-change-your-life-forever/ (tinybuddha.com) It asks 6 questions that I should answer as I search for my own true happiness. As I answered the questions, while still in the Ketamine influence, I answered questions about what I do love, what I'm proud of, what would I stand for if no one judged me, what if life had no limits, what would I do if I had a billion dollars, and who do I admire in life, I was struck by the authenticity of my own answers. All my answers were about connection to others. In fact, I shocked myself when I answered what I would do if I were a billionaire, and the first thing that came to mind was "I'd drive for Meals On Wheels." Naturally, the beauty of that answer is: Duh! I already have a Jeep. The website says I need an SUV with a rear seat I can lay down. That's what I have! That's pretty much all I need. I don't need a billion dollars.
     So...will I do it? Maybe...in a few months. I really need to rebuild my bathrooms, repaint my house, completely remove and replace my yard and fences. But once all those long-standing old ToDos are done...hmm. Volunteering to bring joy and food to shut-ins might be my next reinvention of myself. 

I did make one first step. I signed up to be on the mailing list for upcoming parks and waterways cleanup crews. As soon as some cleanup events are scheduled, I'm going to contact my grandsons and ask them to join me on some of these events. I know the little guy will jump at the chance. The older boy probably won't, but I'm giving him a fair chance anyway. It's a start. The idea of finding ways to give back has got me more excited than any new car or toy or tool could possibly excite me.

And if my GS really enjoys the experience, hmm... maybe he could ride along with me if I start delivering meals to shutins. What a GREAT thing to be exposed to at only 8 or 9 years of age: Physically doing selfless acts of kindness for others with Papa.

NOTE: This is how I feel post Ketamine. My goal is to continue working at making these post-KI realizations last longer and longer until somehow I become this person all the time.

I love you all!  ;D

Papa Coco,
I feel sorry about the situation with the funeral. It is a difficult decision to make but I completely understand why you might choose not to attend given these circumstances. I myself did not go to any of my grandparent's funerals because I wanted to avoid the family drama, angry comments, nasty accusations, and insults, so I totally agree that it is sometimes better to protect yourself from situations like these that would only be immensely triggering.
However, I do think that it is wonderful that you are offering genuine support for Jim's family. It shows how amazing a person you are to be always ready to help, even when the sentiments towards seem a little difficult and you have been treated with so much anger in the past.
At any rate, I was very happy to hear that you feel better after your KI and that you are seeing the world in a slightly more positive light. It is so wonderful to hear this added sense of hope in your post and I am glad to see that you are starting to feel more like you have a "right to be alive".
You most certainly do. You have already brought me so much understanding and comfort in the short time we have known each other and I am very grateful that I have been able to meet you through this forum.

Milkandhoney,

Your posts are always so understanding and kind, not only to me, but to everyone I see you respond to. Thanks for being one of my friends on this forum. Your corroboration on emotional things like this goes a long way to bring comfort and validation. It's sometimes not easy to know if I'm doing the right thing, so having support from people I respect, helps ease the discomfort of the decision.

I really respect that you chose to protect yourself by not attending your grandparents' funerals. It is not disrespectful to protect yourself from people who are waiting and watching and hoping to get their chance to humiliate you publicly as soon as they can get an audience. It's an act of self-love to protect yourself when needed. If you are at all following any of the IFS talk, or if you do already feel the presence of little parts of yourself all living together in your head and heart, then those parts are being protected by the captain of your ship by you (and I) choosing to protect them from nasty people rather than attend a dangerous gathering just to check the box of having attended some ancient social ritual that the guest of honor isn't even alive to be present for.

 :hug:

You're such a beautiful human being Papa Coco. Your gentle presence would be very soothing to homebound people. Amd helping your son fix his house would be so beautiful for all of you. I have a neighbor who's dad is here every day for 3 years fixing their house. He's literally a part of their home because of that.

What I love about your post is that post ketamine you can see your kindness for what it is... as your love for people and connection instead of as a trauma response. I like that because I struggle to know where my behaviors are a good part of my personality versus trauma responses. I tend to downplay my good traits as what I had to do to survive and not as some innate goodness. Thank you for sharing your experience so openly.  :hug:

Armee, I accept your hug.

In fact, while reading your response I feel that strange thing when my eyes turn pink and get all watery. You are another beautiful voice of comfort that I cherish reading on this forum.

Someone once explained to me that the negative bias is what we use to survive. An annoyingly positive person walks straight into trouble over and over because they don't take caution. The negative bias is our cautionary brake pedal that keeps us from driving full speed off of cliffs.  For some of us, whose brains are more prone to trauma, that negative bias gets a little too much braking power. Like those people who drive with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake, we are holding ourselves back. I do it all...the...time.

My Therapist often reads off a list of things I've done right because he can see in my eyes and hear in my voice that I can't remember having every done anything good for anyone anywhere. I have come to believe that as a side effect of having been raised by people who couldn't be pleased. If I saved a baby from a burning car, they'd say I should have saved the car too. Nothing I did was ever right, even when they told me to do it.

One reason I was laid off after 42 years with my employer was because corporate America no longer values quality work. They only value people who want to use their current job as a ladder rung toward newer, better jobs. Corporate America is a sociopathic environment where only those who step on their peers are valued as go-getters. Every year, I had to post my 1 year, and 5 year professional growth plans, but I was one of those idiots who liked my job and literally wanted to keep doing it until I retired. They gave me stellar reviews on my performance and my teamwork but gave me poor reviews on my inability to prove to them that I wanted something different than what I was doing stellar work at. My contributions meant nothing to them. They only wanted me to want more. But I didn't WANT more! I'd once been a manager for a while, and I hated every second of the job. I liked being the employee so I felt great relief when my team was disbanded and I was put back into my previous job.   

Here's why I'm telling this story:  Sadly, during both my yearly reviews and my post-layoff job searches, what I truly discovered was that I couldn't build a resume, because I had no memory of having ever done anything right. On a resume I had to post my skills, but I can't do that. In my brain I have NO skills whatsoever. Like in my earlier example, I may have saved a baby but I didn't save the car too. So what good am I? 

After being laid off at 60, I had the luxury of being old enough to just retire. I tried writing a resume and answering ads for employees on LinkedIn but I couldn't remember any skills, so I couldn't qualify for any job.

Trauma. The gift that keeps on giving.

 :hug:

Another hug. I so very much relate to what you wrote about not being able to remember the good things youve done and the skills you have. It's much safer to not remember that you are good because then it's less of a blow when you think you are good and your parent or family or abusers then tell you you are something opposite of that. It's a softer blow if you start preemptively believing you are terrible.

But under it all, we DO know who we are. And you are 100% just the most solid kind human. You don't feel solid to yourself because of the things that have happened to you but you are solid and still standing and we are so grateful for your presence here.

I also want to say I 100% relate to what you said about flashbacks coming back on their own and how much more trustworthy that feels.

Hi Papa Coco,
I am just popping by, and wanted to add a hug to your journal, if that's ok..  :hug:  I read what you wrote about your job, and you clearly cared a lot for your work.  Quality is a great thing, and it's a pity more organisations don't necessarily value quality and look after their staff.
Hope  :)

I hope you don't mind me popping in to send a quick hug your way.  :grouphug:

Armee and Hope,

Thank you for the hugs. They are always welcome.

I've been on edge the last few days. EF's happen when current events recreate emotions and sensations that mirror past events. The neighbors who share my back yard fence here in the city have decided to start collecting dogs. One is a nasty German Shepard, which is legally considered to be the 8th most dangerous dog on earth. They DO tend to suddenly attack out of nowhere, like Rottweilers and Pit bulls do. Some of my fences were damaged in a recent windstorm and the neighbor isn't fixing them. All his dogs, including this nasty one, run free through the neighborhood now. They can enter my back yard somehow and if we try to shoo that nasty German Shepard out, it bares its teeth, growls, and raises the hair on its back at us. IN our OWN backyard!  Neighbors are reporting the same aggression. One young man was cornered in his own garage by this damned dog. When the dogs are contained, 10 feet from my bedroom window, they bark ALL DAY LONG.  I've contacted animal control, the offending neighbor, and all the surrounding neighbors. The offending neighbor just lies and says, "We don't let them run free and they are nice, quiet dogs".  No victim or authority is interested in helping me address this. Animal Control won't do anything unless several of us can prove the aggression happened at the same time, on the same day, in the same garage. Of course, that's not going to happen. We're all being bullied at different times each day. Animal Control refuses to help until someone is killed or several of us can be attacked at the exact same time, and in the same garage, and all are willing to report it on the same form.

My anger is EF-ing me bad. My childhood was one where I was not bullied by a bully. I was bullied by my entire school, priests, teachers, nuns, AND my own parents and siblings. No one ever stood up for me. My parents and church forbid me from ever defending myself. I was told, a thousand times, to ignore the bullying and don't fight back. I became suicidal at only 12, because I couldn't find ANY other way out of the victimization that was my daily life. Today, my neighbors are all hiding in their houses waiting for me to AGAIN solve their problems for them, and guess what's happening to me. I'm shrinking. I'm 7 years old again. No one cares about my being bullied by these neighbors. I'm the house closest to the incessant barking by several dogs that are always on the verge of escaping their broken-down fence.

My wife has the tendency to let me deal with our problems also. She also works during the day and doesn't have to deal with the barking. She never goes outside, so she isn't threatened by their teeth. So even she isn't grasping the anxiety I'm feeling right now.

I wear construction grade over-the-ear ear protection now. I went onto Amazon and ordered 3 pairs with the highest decible reduction rating available. All three will bluetooth to my iPhone so I can turn on calming music. I wear these all day long INSIDE my own home, and outside when I use my bbq or smoker for our dinner. I wear them to bed. I'm a prisoner in my own home, just like I was a prisoner in my parents' home, and a prisoner in my abusive Catholic school for my entire prepubescent childhood. EF, EF, EF, EF. I'm shaking right now with adrenalin, or cortisol, or, just plain trauma. I don't know what's coursing my veins, but it's not peace or honey or love.

Yesterday I made a decision. I told my wife that on Monday, the day after Christmas, I'm moving to the cottage at the beach. Not temporarily this time. I told her I'm changing my address and moving there permanently. I can't find another solution. I'm a Fawn>Freeze>Flee>Fight. I fawned. I tried to fix the fence for these idiots. But my knees are so arthritic right now that after I spent $700 on fencing and concrete, and carried it all, board by board into my back yard, my knees gave out. Now I have the flu and can barely breathe from bronchitis, so I can't start digging post holes and framing up a fence. It's snowing here this week. The ground is saturated. Fence posts won't hold if I plant them in soup. I have to wait until the ground dries before I start planting posts. I tried to get them to shut the dogs up. It didn't work. So I froze. I bought hundreds of dollars worth of headsets, dog repellant electronic barking controllers, Automated Dog repelling sprinklers that will activate and blast them with water if they enter my yard. Freezing isnt working, so I'm fleeing. It's who I am. It's what I do. My wife says she's fine with my decision. She can come to the beach and visit me anytime she gets 3 or more days off work in a row. I will return to the city for a few days every month or two so I can visit her, my kids, my grandkids. I can come to the city for doctors appointments, dental work, Ketamine Infusions. I can mow the lawn, trim the trees, then get in the car and head straight back to my own private, quiet home.

I've come to realize that I'm not healed at all. I've learned to understand why I do what I do, but I don't seem able to control it. People don't like to hear me say this, but this is the honest to god truth. I believe, in my heart of hearts, that most human beings are bad to the core. I believe that only a small percentage of us are actually kind people. I believe this forum is a collection of good, frightened, loving, caring people who've found each other after spending our lives in a ravaged, warring world of bad neighbors, bad politicians, bad corporations, bad police officers, bad doctors, bad city officials, bad, bad, bad, selfish, selfish, aggressive, selfish monsters.

I had two parents, a brother and three sisters. My baby sister was a good soul. She and I made up the good half of our family. That half was not half, it was 2 against 5. The other 5 of them were selfish, lying, cheating, ignorant monsters. They used our kindness against us. My baby sister took her own life, and I've made many close call attempts of my own. My family is what I see the world as. 70% bad selfish, self-entitled bullies, and 30% kind, giving, loving victims of the bad bullies.

My wife is letting me move to the beach because she can see how my anxiety is killing me right now. The dogs aren't bothering her, but she can see what they're doing to me. She knows I have no intention of getting involved with any other woman. She knows I'll never hook up with anyone ever again. She knows I spend all my time alone at the beach. We have some friends there. She trusts them. Trust is the reason we can be apart for long periods without wondering what the other is doing. She's the only person I could stay with, and I can't even stay with her 100% of the time.

I was born anxious. Reports are I was lifting my head and staring the nurses eye to eye on the day I was born. Reports are it was some kind of an amazing event that made the nurses call their friends in to see. Research I've done on Highly Sensitive People (HSP)s report that this is common with HSP babies. Highly Sensitive People are highly sensitive to sound, fear, other people, emotions, trauma, light, temperature, Anxiety, depression, drugs and medications. We're "strung too tight" from birth.

I've stopped being ashamed of this. I've stopped trying to be "normal". I've stopped caring that people like to give me quips and quotes like "A smile is just a frown upside down" and "if life hands you a lemmon..." Chronic, medical anxiety is not cured by reciting poster sayings to us.  But continuing to believe that the cure is just one more new medication, or one more self-help book away, or just one more fast-talking seminar talk away, is just plain stupid.

I am an anxiety ridden, loving, caring, easily victimized, trauma victim. I embrace it. Rather than more self-help books, tea flavors, bedroom scents of lavender, I'm now spending my money on noise cancelling headsets, dark sunglasses, black out curtains for my bedroom, and a bicycle that can carry me to the beach where I can lay in the cold sand and just listen to the roar of the surf for as long as it takes to calm down. And if I have to do this every day, then so be it.

I'm sorry for the anxiety in this post. But it's only a fraction of what I'm feeling right now. The events of these neighbors, whom I've driven to the airport, I've watched their homes for them when they leave for vacation, I've fed their animals, On one instance I even got my major city's entire police force to apologize to us for one bad officer who abused two little boys on my street because one of the boys was black and the other was Mexican. The cop was a racist loser who tormented them and cited them for causing an accident because they were standing on the sidewalk when another racists neighbor tried to run them over with his boat trailer. There was a line of water that came out of the boat, the clearly ran up onto the sidewalk and over the crushed bicycle of the 7-year-old mixed race Mexican boy while his 12-year-old mixed race black brother (White mom, two different dads) heroically yanked the little guy off the bike WHILE the white * neighbor drove up and over the bike while screaming obscenities at them both. He drove the boat trailer home, parked it and walked back to the crime scene. The racist POS cop refused to talk with any adults. He lied all over the report, saying the truck and boat were parked there at the scene, and the boys were at fault for the "incident." I was so fuming angry I called the watch commander and pulled enough strings that I had at the time, that I got the Department to reopen the case, reinterview ALL the witnesses, including the adults, cite the driver of the tuck and boat with reckless endangerment and then apologize profusely in several neighborhood meetings for how their department handled the original case. 

And now, my neighbors won't even report these dogs to help me find a way to live in my own home and fenced in backyard without mace in my pocket and headsets on my head IN MY OWN HOUSE AND YARD.

Nope. Most people are inherently BAD and selfish.

I am 7 years old again and everyone is siding with the priests/bullies so they don't have to get involved.

Ugh, I hate this for you Papa Coco.  I totally relate with the flashbacks and shame and anxiety about having to deal with others' ignorance, aggression, apathy.  One of the things I've found is that in being a fawn type, others often take advantage that we're the 'doers', even if they don't know they're doing it.  "Oh, he's so helpful and able to get things done" while inside we're struggling because of the trauma-enforced need to do something, anything, about it. 

I'm glad you're able to find a temporary solution for now and have a plan going forward, but hate that it's come to this.  Hopefully you're able to have some level of relaxation over the next few days.

the one thought which came to mind while reading this post is 'i get it'.  i've met many bad people in my life.  it can certainly be overwhelming.  the reality of our world truly shows how power and/or greed can cause people to act solely in their own best interests, dam the rest of us!  i'm so glad you've got a place to go to especially to get away from those frickin' dogs!  horrible horrible horrible!!! 

HSP - yep.  too sensitive for this world.  nothing wrong or shameful about that - we're all wired differently.  i've often wished things didn't hit me so hard, but there it is.  they do.  so what.

please keep taking care of yourself as best you can, ok?  i do hope you find a way to release some of that anger w/o hurting yourself (or another).  it's got to be a terrible feeling to know you're holding so much.  love and hugs, PC.   :hug:

Please feel this. I am sending one big long hug each to your 7 year old,. Who I wish I could protect. I wish I could keep those bad things from ever happening and I wish since they did that I could wrap him up and make sure he knew he didn't deserve what did happen and to do everything to keep him safe after that. It is unconscionable that no one did anything and you are right that is what happens routinely and it IS WRONG.

And I am sending another big long hug to you now. I am sorry your neighbors and wife are not helping you with the dog issue. It would take very little for them to file the complaints. Even though you feel this as fleeing a little but also see it as protecting yourself and setting up a place of peace...I also see you standing up for yourself, refusing to solve this problem for others. I'm angry for you.

Your trusting relationship with your wife is beautiful. You are beautiful. I don't want to contradict you. But perhaps the report of you being anxious from the day you were born is not entirely true. Perhaps that isn't your nature. Perhaps you were looking into their eyes because you are uniquely wired to connect. Perhaps that story of you being anxious was used as a way to gaslight you from the very beginning. They wanted you to believe it wasn't what they were doing to you, but some inherent defect. I don't believe it. I don't believe you were born anxious. I think your environment shaped you into anxious. And really just * them all for doing that to you.

 :hug:
Sorry Papa for the very difficult time you are in.
Funny story since I don't have comforting words coming...
We have a 2 dogs - our youngest is a 3-year old german shepherd. Incredibly smart animals.. and we've been fortunate that my w has been home a lot and he's turned into such  well-trained, incredibly loving, yet protective dog. I was terrified to get one. From 10-weeks old when we got him, i put my face to his.. i knew i had to get over it.
Luckily, all has gone well and he's really just like a little boy around our house, one that has only known girls :)
Our neighbour, believe it or not, has a wolf. That wolf leapt a 7-foot fence into our back yard one time. It was scary as heck.. our shepherd was still tiny and our older sheltie wasn't much for defense (though to his credit he sure tried).
Anyway things could have gone really badly but they didn't. We now enjoy this wolf so much.. imagine hearing the howls every day... just ridiculously beautiful.
But... that was good fortune and it doesn't always go that way. That wolf used to terrorize the neighbourhood until they really secured the fencing all around.
But us, we'd help catch her... she loves us now.. she'll even lay on her back and let us rub her belly.

A good dog is a wonderful gift, but a bad one is a nightmare. I'm sorry for this and for the need to leave your spot...
I think "I'm so glad he has another spot to go to".. and then I think "I sure wish he didn't have to go"... it's nearly impossible to balance the need to be alone with that of being connected.

Anyway.. long way to say that I'm wishing you well, that these EFs pass.. that you have a beautiful last week in this spot.
As for releasing anger... my protector had a sword of all things. But it was too terrifying a weapon.... it had to be put down... I'm not sure how to release it myself when it comes.
Maybe it's from growing up thinking that anger is too dangerous.
When I yelled at my parts this weekend, I spent some time telling them how anger was ok.. that it didn't mean I didn't love them. It just meant I was human. I wanted them to know that yelling at them was wrong, but that the feeling I had was ok. It seems like anger is a tough one for a lot of us. I'm hoping to start communicating more about it with my parts. It can't hurt.

Sending lots of love your way.. forgive my dog story... all i really want is to let you know how important you are and how much I wish I could help you. You're a good one.. it's true, and I believe you're exactly right about how it's so hard to find. We've found it here and I'm thankful for you and with you :)

Dang, I wish we all lived in the same neighborhood. You would make such awesome neighbors. I'd have neighborhood BBQs every week if you all lived near me.

Crackedice,I hear you for sure. Being a fawn is a target, and we can't blame good people for seeing us as the helpers. I remember a time when I was a manager of a group of corporate instructors. One of my direct reports, an instructor, sat down with me and asked for advice. She said, "I don't know why I can't get ahead. I go into meetings with the executives, and I get them coffee. I arrange their travel for them. I do everything for them, and then when there's a promotion, they give it to someone else." To that, I replied, "It seems like you've shown them that you're a really good secretary, so perhaps that's what they think you are." Her face lost all its color. She sheepishly replied, "Oh my gosh. I never thought of it that way before."

I guess I'm now experiencing the same phenomenon. I help everyone. I'm the fawn. I do what fawns do. I fawn. I never ask for help. I've taught people how to treat me. I'm the self-designated servant.

And Phil, since your Shepard is well trained, I'd be okay with it living here. Our last dog was a female Sheltie. Her predecessor was a male Corgi.  Such good dogs, both of them. Protective, loving, proud, loyal, unbelievably smart. If either of them ever escaped an open gate, we'd find them sitting on our own front porch waiting to be let back in. Even when they escaped, they wouldn't leave their own home.  Both dogs lived with us for 15 years each. That was 30 years with dogs. Today, Coco and I choose to not have any pets. We are just kind of burnt out on having to take care of them, worry about them, watch them age, cripple up, lose their hearing, and pass...tearing our hearts out in the end. We don't recover from it as quickly as we used to.

San, I feel the same way often. Part of me cherishes my HSP, but at times I just wish I could turn it off and be a numbskull. Ignorance is bliss. Selfishness is relaxing. How luxurious it would be to just want what I want and not care about the people I hurt to get it. No guilt. Restful sleep.

I wish my sensitivity had a volume nob that I could twist up and down at will.

Armee, It took a while to read your post because I couldn't stop crying through it. I DO feel this. I DO feel your hug. My life has been defined by a single sentence. I feel lonely all the time. I define my life as being lonely in a crowded world. Loneliness is my greatest foe. It's with me night and day. It's with me when I'm surrounded by friends and family. Sometimes it hurts more when I'm with friends than it does when I'm alone. There's something deflating about being lonely in a crowd and knowing that there's no cure, not even being surrounded by people, which makes the chronic loneliness feel so much more malignant...incurable.

I suppose this is truly why I always try too hard to connect with people. I try and try and try to connect. It's the only thing that brings me true joy. But for me, it's always temporary. I connect. Then a few days later, the connection fades away. Or I say something stupid and break the connection with my big mouth. As per the rules of my raising, love is a conditional reward, given sparingly and only when I've been helpful on that one day.

Yesterday, Bermuda had asked us when we remembered our symptoms starting. I responded that for me it was at about 7 or 8 when the blackouts started being a problem in school.  Today, I told you all that my anxiety went all the way back to birth. But did it? Armee, you are most likely absolutely correct, that being born HSP is not the same as being born Anxious. And you're right. I DO yearn to connect with people. I suspect that women learn much younger what I was too dumb to learn until I got old, that when you look strangers in the eye, a certain percentage of them, especially men, interpret the eye contact as sexual interest. I don't talk about this too often, but as soon as I started working at 16, in restaurants, I started having to turn down a lot of offers from men to go home with them. At 19, I joined Gyms, and found the same thing. It really didn't stop until I hit about 30 or so. Now, of course, I'm a fat old man with bad knees, and no one thinks twice about my habitual need to make eye contact and connect. It's one of the joys of growing old. It's safer to just be me.

---

I think that maybe now I can see that what's happening here in my neighborhood is not the problem, it's the trigger. The problem is it's the week before Christmas and I'm 7 again. That's the year I remember the CSA happening around Christmas play rehearsal. Perhaps my wife is fine with me moving permanently away because she cheekily expects me to return home as soon as the Holidays are over. I'm suddenly envisioning 7 y/o me, with a tiny suitcase packed with stuffed animals and threatening to run away from home. I complain a bit about her, but that's what we spouses sometimes do. The truth is she is a very smart person with an uncanny ability to see the simple solutions to other people's self-induced dramas. She's on the autism spectrum, and tends to cut to the end of the story. She likely expects me to be home a few weeks later feeling better. We'll see. Time will tell.

For now,  I'm going to see if I can try to limit my time on the forum, only because I don't feel like I'm my rational self, and I shouldn't be saying too much while my head is in this EF. Maybe I'll try...try...to limit my thoughts until they're more coherent. I don't know. We'll see. I'll probably be on again later. I don't know what I'll do.

I'm a passenger in my EF right now.

To all of you: Thank you. Your support as I ride this sled to the bottom of the hill means a lot to me. You all ease a bit of the loneliness that defines me. I know I try a little too hard to connect. That's the only thing I know of to give relief to loneliness. Connection. Thanks to all of you for being tolerant of that habit of mine.

Whatever you need to weather the storm, Papa Coco. It's OK to come here and be less rational than usual if it helps you. If it hurts than of course take all the break you need. This is a very very tough week for you and whether you are here posting or not, I'll be thinking of you and sending whatever you need to make it through to the other side of these weeks. I don't know if it's true for you but for me there's the anniversaries but the weeks and months after also continue to be an issue, and that makes sense because it isn't just the event(s) there's also reliving the reactions (our reactions) to those events. It takes time, as you know, to recover. Be safe. Be kind to you. I'll be thinking of you.

I'm sorry your kindness and eye contact were taken for more than a friendly nature. Yes, women (girls) learn that early by necessity. It's why many of us walk down the street with with less than friendly glare.

QuoteMy life has been defined by a single sentence. I feel lonely all the time. I define my life as being lonely in a crowded world. Loneliness is my greatest foe. It's with me night and day.

PC,
what you said there about loneliness resonated so much with me and nearly moved me to tears. I've always felt as if I didn't really belong into this world because I was so lonely wherever I went and no matter how hard I tried to maintain connections and friendships, they always faded away way to quickly. It's as if I could literally watch them wither away in front of me even while I was trying to save what was left.
It's terribly hard to live like this but I feel like I have found a little bit of hope since I have joined this forum and met all of you wonderful people. The ides that we could all be neighbours and have a BBQ together is just wonderful...
I've never had someone I could trust in my life but now I feel like there are people who will always be there for me and it means so much. I hope that you will also feel the same.
Please, know that I am always here if you need anything at all. I completely understand that you might need some time for yourself and I agree that sometimes we need a little bit of separation from the outside world in order to be able to heal. But, that said, I just want to repeat what Armee said: we are always here and we welcome all your thoughts, no matter how irrational they may be
Take care, my friend

Hi PC,

I read your post and I don't think you have to apologize for the anxiety, I get it. I also have bad experiences with neighbours and had a similar level of anxiety with my neighbours in my previous apartment. So much so that I too moved. It was like they would start stomping on the floor when I was doing dishes in the morning. It was something really passive aggressive and I felt like I sounded like I was being crazy for mentioning it to people and/or explaining how it affected me. Same with my current neighbour (she's the kind of person who has to know what all the neighbours are up to etc) and I have a noise machine running in my bedroom 24hrs so I don't have to hear her slamming doors, or the mysterious tapping on my walls. I'm a very light sleeper and that just made me feel so unsafe. I feel like some people like to be intrusive and passive-aggressive and I just don't have the barriers to keep those things out, which also led me to look at HSP in the past. It also led to me a similar conclusion about people like you and I'm sorry because it's not a very good feeling to have. It sounds like you've made a good decision to deal with the situation though and something that is safe for you.

I also relate to what you said about these things starting from birth (still in the mothers womb for me). Mothers pass a lot of chemical signals to their infants during pregnancy which affect the child. For me, I've come to realize that my experience of my mother's narcissism and my relationship with my mom (and seeing her as a source of stress and chaos) probably started at a preverbal time. It's not like she had a drastic change when I was born and became a narcissist with a very anxious, fragile sense of self/hostility etc. She was those things while she was pregnant with me. Mark Wolynn talks about this in It Didn't Start With You and has a chapter on how influential early parent child separation is on the child's development among other early factors.

Also, it's interesting in reading some Stanislav Grof, who wrote about transpersonal psychology, that a lot of his patients' experiences on LSD were dealing with unresolved traumatic births and trauma in the womb. He talks about a book that I've had on my list for a while by Leni Schwartz called the The World of the Unborn and how to care for your unborn child. It tweaked my interest about the relationship between mother and child and how impactful that is even before you are born.

I find being in nature very relaxing, and before I moved from the old neighbours, was one of the highlights of my day to go on a long walk and help reset my stress levels. I'll be thinking of you at the seaside relaxing and resetting yours. Also, the other part of me is thinking if you have security cameras to catch those dogs on your property.

Sending you support  :hug:
dolly

Hi, Papa Coco,

I just wanted to tell you that I've read your recent posts and I appreciate the way you share here.  I seldom have the energy or the courage to write so candidly about what I'm going through.  You encourage me with your openness about your struggles.  I am here thinking of you and wishing you the peace, hope and healing you so need and deserve.

Once again I'm overwhelmed by the love and support in this forum.

I saw my therapist yesterday, and am able to see even more clearly that my anxiety is about past events, and this one bad neighbor is just the trigger that has thrust me into a serious Emotional Flashback, taking me back to when the sexual abuse started at Christmas time in 1967. There I felt attacked, threatened with life-or-death punishments,  unprotected, and unable to get the support of my own family to help stop the abuse.

I've been responding to another thread about religious abuse, which has forced me to really, truly see the depths of despair that live deep, deep, deep in the darkest parts of my brain.

I want to thank each of you for coming to my side as I endure this EF. I know that most of you are in Holiday Season EFs' also. And, to tell you the truth, being supported by people who need support also means more to me than if you were all doing just fine. I feel like we're all on a small ship in a big storm, and we're hanging onto each other, tending to each other's wounds, comforting each other, while being comforted by each other at the same time. It's very heartwarming.

Amree, thanks for the encouragement, and for your opening statement:

Quote from: Armee on December 19, 2022, 09:53:42 PM
Whatever you need to weather the storm, Papa Coco. It's OK to come here and be less rational than usual if it helps you.

Also, about how women learn younger how to avoid eye contact, Over the years, I have learned that to be true, and that has made me much more careful about how boldly I interact with women in public. When I was a rape victim advocate, I would show up at hospitals to tend to a woman who was there for a rape exam, and nurses would reassure me that I was welcome because, even though I was a man, I was very non-threatening. Even so, I never stood between a victim and the door. I never got too close. I kept sweaters in the car, gave them one if they were cold, vending machine snacks if they were hungry. I didn't ask any questions about what had happened. I just let them lead and I followed. I answered their questions about what was going to happen tonight. I gave them names of people who they could call for help when they felt better.  It seemed to be helpful, especially since everyone there was male, the cop, the doctor...and they were asking the humiliating questions. My job was to be on her team. And I always asked her if she wanted me to switch out with my wife. She was an advocate also, but we had shifts. If the call for an advocate came in on my shift, I went. No woman ever took my offer to switch out myself for my wife. I guess I'd learned how to be safe.  I get why men can be scary and I respect it whole heartedly.

MilkandHoney; Your sense of loneliness breaks my heart as much as mine breaks yours. Back to how we are all on the same small ship in the big storm, our co-compassion on each other means the world to me. Back when I was writing novels I made that point a lot. Being tended to by my own peers means more to me that being tended to by people who don't know what I'm feeling. I think you're an amazing, compassionate, earth angel, just like the others on this forum. We're earth angels, standing up for each other. That means more than I can even verbalize.

Dolly; Like you, I still really can't pinpoint where all this anxiety originated. My two older sisters used to tell me opposing stories about my birth. They were teens when I was born. One, the sinister sociopathic demon, told me Dad used to grab Mom by the throat and hold her against the wall during my time in the womb. The other sister, a good person, but with a pie-in-the-sky tendency to forgive Mom and Dad too much for her own sanity, would say the Narcissister was lying to try and keep gaslighting me. God only knows what really happened. They're all out of my life now, and most of them are dead or gone. The Narcissister changed her name and fled the state shortly after she stole dad's inheritance money after he died from "falling down the stairs." Again: another mystery I'll never solve.

So thank you for your opening statement that I don't have to apologize for my anxiety. I really don't know for sure where it started. I just know about many of the contributing events that worsened it as I aged. I just know that there are times (like now) when I absolutely cannot control it.

Bach, Thanks for appreciating my sharing. I'm an old man with nothing to lose. I've learned that when I just open up and tell the deepest truths, it seems to help others. So I don't bother trying to save the world by marching in the streets or pulling puppies out of burning buildings...I guess I just contribute with what I have in my pocket, which is a lot of tangled up memories, stories, hugs... Please don't think that you have to do what I do. If you are more comfortable and feel safer being more reserved, then you are wise to not try to be the opposite of that. We each have our role, and we are each best served by being true to who we are. If you want to become more open, do it slowly and carefully. Respect your own anxiety. I'm me. You're you. I have a strong fondness for you because of what you do share. 

Thanks for thinking of me. I'm thinking of you too. Again; we're all hanging on to the same railing on this little ship in this big storm.

 :hug:

You understood dearly what those women needed, Papa Coco and I can see why no one turned you away. I'm sorry you were hurt by men, too. I can only imagine how much more difficult it is for men to heal after sexual abuse given so many layers of society standing in the way of men getting support.  :hug:

Very wise about the door. I used to get very very freaked out when my therapist had an office because he was between me and the door. I had nightmares where he would block me from leaving. I was so grateful that during covid he moved his practice outdoors onto the trails and parks.

----

We're all here with you forming a protective bubble for you to move through this week and the next.

Journal Entry for Christmas Eve, December 24, 2022
        Posted later because for some reason I lost access to the forum and couldn't access it on Christmas Eve

TRIGGER WARNING: I'm in a traumatic stupor so I'm pulling no punches. There's some anger in today's post.

Friday night, December 23, 2022,  at a little before 7 PM, Coco's phone started ringing off the hook. Her shift had been changed that day, so she'd worked an 8-hour morning shift rather than her usual evening shift. Her peers, who she was supposed to be working with, were in panic. They were all standing out in the snow with police and firefighters, because at 6 PM, which is Coco's normal lunch break, a car slammed into the grocery entrance of her store. Coco works in the service deli, just a few meters from that door. The employees were in confusion, fear, chaos. They all said they'd heard 3 explosions, but still didn't know what was going on. She stayed up most of the night, on the phone with various peers, giving them the chance to calm down. News medias weren't picking up the story, so all we knew was that a car was exploding inside the store and chaos was everywhere.

By morning, the news was giving very small, very short, very sterile reports about it as a non-event. A car bumped into the largest grocery store in the city. The driver doused himself in gasoline. Police and firefighters got him out of the car as it was exploding. He is in jail. The car caught fire after he was out. End of story. Happy Ending. No one was hurt. The driver was cited for reckless endangerment and attempted arson. He'll probably be in jail for a couple of days for it.

What I've noticed is that the story is very different for those who were there.

For people reading it on the internet, it sounds like a funny little story that makes you go 'Huh" and then move on to the next story. But for those who were there, they remember a night of holy terror. He'd slammed into the glass doorway in a small sedan. Didn't break through the steel frames of the door, so he backed up and made another run at it. He rammed the door two or three times, but his small, rubber bodied Saturn Sedan didn't have the weight or power to push all the way into the building. His car had religious propaganda painted all over it. The  media didn't mention the words. And the carefully selected public photos made sure rescuers were blocking the word SATAN in huge white paint on his black car.

What the media glosses over is that the employees were traumatized. They ignored two full hours of crowd mayhem and panic.  What was going on? They heard explosions. HUNDREDS of customers and employees were in chaos trying to get out of a store that now had a blocked entrance. In their panic, they had NO IDEA what was going on. How many attackers were there? Was the store going to blow up before they could all go single file out the tiny little employee exit on the other side of the store? Were there going to be more cars on fire out that door too? 

You know how long it takes to get 150 calm people out of a single airplane door at the airport, imagine how long it takes to get hundreds and hundreds of panicked shoppers and employees out a door the same size.

When I tell my non-C-PTSD friends of the harrowing night we had, while Coco calmed her friends on the phone, and the even more harrowing night her friends had while they were actually there, they treat me, AGAIN, like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. I'm "too emotional for my own good."

I am aware that trauma only happens to the victims who are there when it happens. To the onlookers and everyone else, it's just a stupid little car bomb by a funny little christian with a temper. "No one got hurt, so what the heck are you making such a big deal about it for?" "Just get over it." "We weren't there, but we read a 20-word blurb on the internet about it, and we all got over it in just a few seconds. Why can't you?"

Our assumption is that this religious zealot wanted to show the great sociopath in the sky how obedient he can be by killing off as many non-believers as he can on his way to a martyr's death. How dare we heathen not accept God's unconditional Love by shopping for food on the night before his church's made up, fake holiday called Christmas? If he kills as many of us as he can, his sociopathic leader will surely give him some heavenly candy as a reward. Right?

Mom used to tell me to just ignore the bullies and the sexual abuse and don't bother her with it. I'm not being bruised or cut open, so stop whining.

The world we live in is such that those who weren't there to experience the trauma, have the power to belittle and shame those who were.

I stopped laughing at comedian and political satirist Bill Maher's jokes the day he said, on TV, in front of MILLIONS of people, that we need to stop coddling boys who are molested by teachers, because "boys like sex." He called being a 12-year-old boy who is being molested by his teacher a fringe benefit.

That's the world we live in folks. Only trauma survivors can be trusted to help us through traumas. The rest of the world tells us to "just get over it." Just get over a car bomb on Christmas eve. Just get over a dog attack in your own yard. Just get over being raped. Just get over being abused by your own family for a lifetime.

Those of us on this forum do respect the traumatic aspects of being attacked and being humiliated and being afraid for our lives. So I assume most of you get what I'm saying.

When I examine situations like this, I guess I can see why I isolate. I choose to deal with my problems alone where others can't laugh at me for shaking and going into sleeplessness. I feel safer alone. Same trauma. Same response, but at least alone, no one is adding shame by criticizing me for being affected by it.

For now, I'm just tired of being treated like I'm making this stuff up. The christmas season is always a huge emotional flashback for myself and many of you, and this year, I'm now, after the dog attacks and the car bomb, and being told by my neighbors and non-C-PTSD friends that I need to just not be upset, I'm...just...sick of it.

I was in a bit of a panic last night when I couldn't access this site. I actually felt more alone than I can even describe. You folks are often my only respite from the world's calloused judgements. I THANK MY LUCKY STARS That I was able to gain access again this morning.

Even Coco tells me to stop worrying about her at that store. There are routine gunfights in her parking lot. She's told me about drug-crazed homeless coming in through that same door waving machetes. A few weeks ago, I asked where that nice 70-year-old greeter lady went who used to welcome me in and say "Have a nice night" as I left that same entrance. Coco's answer was, she was murdered on her way home a few months ago. THEN she tells me that because I worry too much, she doesn't tell me about the "serious stuff" that the news doesn't cover. MORE serious than gunfights, machetes, murdered greeters and exploding cars? Holy CRAP! I Watched her go into a mini panic for a whole night when a car exploded in that same entrance, and even SHE tells me I worry about her too much.

So, I'm done. If this was a non-event, then I'm not capable of controlling my emotions. I'm crazy for making an intentionally executed car explosion blocking the exit into a big deal and I need to extract myself from the situation. Same with the barking dog. The neighbor won't talk to me, and the dog won't stop escaping and barking, and apparently, I'm the only one who can't sleep. So, I'm done trying. Apparently, I'm the problem.

I'm sticking with my plan. I'm moving tomorrow to the beach. If I can't stop "overreacting" to religious nut jobs who tried to kill her and as many of her peers and shoppers as he could last night, then I obviously don't know when a problem is a real problem or when it's just another Friday night in the city. Everyone will be better off if I stop trying to help them through their traumas. My desire to help is just making me look like an idiot. So I'm done.

At this moment I can't imagine ever coming back to the city. But I honestly can't always tell the difference between a normal crisis and my own trauma, so I don't know if I'll suddenly feel better in January with Christmas behind me or not. If I suddenly feel better, then this was trauma. If I continue to be unwilling to return to the city, then this was real. At least real for me anyway.  For me, during this season, the lines between fact and fiction, or reality and trauma, are indistinguishable. All I can be sure of is that, right now, on Christmas day, I'm feeling tired of dealing with it alone.

Hi PC,

I'm sorry that sounds really upsetting. I watched Season 2 of the Q Anon documentary on Vice about everything that's been going on post 2020 and it's alarming to me to say the least. They are actually firing people up to go and commit acts like your explosion, like the shootings in the Colorado gay clubs. I know it doesn't help those with trauma. I could see it in some colleagues reaction to the government's handling of covid, it was like not being taken care of again by the people who mattered most.

I'm borrowing this from Bob Falconer who said that we're in an open air lunatic asylum and the craziest people are running things. All he (we) can really do is see the people directly in front of us who need help.

I hope you're able to enjoy the rest of your day and find some peace at the beach.

dolly

Oh, PC, that sounds like a terrible, terrible event. I hope Coco is okay. This must have been a great shock to everyone present. I guess that in these crazy times a lot of people have become really desensitised to things like that because they happen so shockingly often, but to me it still sounds like a terrorist attack and I completely understand that this has left you feeling very upset and concerned. I would most definitely feel the same thing.
I often wonder how it is possible that other people move on so quickly after things like that but I guess it's only natural that people who have already suffered a lot of trauma in their lives find it more challenging to bounce back after this because there is too much pain being triggered. I've seen quite a lot of studies recently that tried to predict whether someone would develop PTSD after witnessing a terrible event like this and it seems to me that some people have the most astounding resilience that allows them to move on with remarkable speed, whereas people with adverse childhood experiences are much more vulnerable.
So, I think that your reaction is not only understandable but also quite natural for someone who has already suffered so much in their life. People like us are more sensitive to events like this - which, of course, can be very hurtful to us, but at the same time can also be very valuable because we truly care about others and will go out of our way to support them even in the most difficult situations.
From my perspective, this only shows how much of a wonderful warm, soft, caring heart you have. Unfortunately, this world doesn't always appreciate people with such caring hearts but it would be a very sad, barren place if we didn't have people like you.
Of course, it takes a lot of strength to keep your heart soft and open like this and to not shut down all your feelings, so I understand that you might need some time by the beach to recover and fill up your batteries. I hope you can find some peace after this terrible shock.
Have a nice Christmas

Thank you Dolly and MilkandHoney,

Coco and I just returned from our son's house for christmas lunch. He still works in grocery, and she used to. They tell me that what happened in Coco's store Friday is pretty much how it is in all the grocery stores in the city now.  Dolly, you mentioned the weaponizing of people of faith. I am beginning to see that this is true. It IS happening everywhere.

I, oddly, feel a bit better now, knowing that others really are seeing it, but that people are turning on their resilience to avoid becoming afraid. It's up to me to try to do the same. I'm personalizing the attacks on good citizens because I'm in my annual Holiday emotional tornado. It will soon end. And when it does, maybe I WILL calm down and stop taking people's calloused reactions to violence personally.

The truth is that the news media is respecting the financial wellbeing of retailers. If they told the truth about the murders and attacks that seem to be happening everywhere (mostly in the name of god), that people would stop shopping. Everyone would go to Amazon Prime and home delivery.

It's the way of the world. The US is built on money. It runs on money. It values money. Only.  Nothing else.  It's the way of the world.

I'll move to the beach but, now, mostly to escape the constant barking under my bedroom window.

Thanks for chiming in and validating my fears. And for reminding me that we are in dangerous times, and it's not just my wife's store.
'
MilkandHoney, to your comment that you struggle with how some people are so resiliant, I have a personal belief that we are who we are because of how we are wired from birth, plus how we are raised, plus the circumstances of our lives. Nature + Nurture + Environment = Me.   That being said, I believe those of us who are prone to trauma, are wired for it. We're more nurturing, caring, peace-loving, kind-hearted souls. Our Hippocampus glands are noticeably smaller on PET scans than the hard-core resilient bullies of the world. The hippocampus gland does play a key role in trauma response, and it's been proven many times that the HGland in us is smaller than normal. So...we are wired to be good, but easily bruised people. Add to that, we were raised by narcissists who used our kindness against us, and Ta-DA! You have us. The C=PTSD community.

On a positive note, my therapist has always told me that it's much easier for him to help a sheepish person gain some self-confidence than it is for him to help an overconfident person become nicer. If I had to choose, I'd become who I am, rather than the opposite.  Kindness may be hard on me, but I'm proud of the people I've helped, and I'm ashamed of any time I failed to help. I struggle with my moods and self-esteem, but I like being a good person. I like being a member of a social group with you and most others on this forum. To me, a little squeamishness about life is worth the kindness that it creates in us. 

 :bighug:

You're not overreacting. Take care of yourself and what you need right now.
If you move and then decide to move back in a month that's OK too!

Journal Entry for Monday, December 26, 2022

Temporary setback. the Washington Coast is under heavy winds right now. My beach house alarm system sends me text alerts when power is out, and I've been getting those during the night. Today is a bad day to drive through the woods to the coast. Downed trees and mudslides are common on that route, so I'm holding off my plans to move down there today. Maybe tomorrow. Wednesday at the absolute latest.

I'm still struggling with mental exhaustion over how to deal with everything from exploding cars in my wife's workplace, to bad neighbors, to incessant barking, to constant short power outages in both houses, etc, etc, etc,...None of these are a single disaster, but the buildup of unfortunate events is making a big pile of medium level problems that are just adding to my annual emotional insanity of the Holidays.

In years past, I've come to notice that my emotional distress starts shortly after Halloween, and increases in "crazy" and an inability to know whether I should be happy or scared, all the way up to New Years Eve. In past years, I wake up on New Year's day...completely healed.  It's freaky. It's as if the new year is bright, and happy, and comfortable...I have NO IDEA why this happens. What is it about the new year that suddenly snaps my brain back into a temporary state of self-confidence, inner joy, and a sense that I can handle the little rocks life keeps throwing at me? 

I am hoping, that one week from today, On January 2, I'm a whole new person...for a month or two. From Thanksgiving to Christmas I'm in an anxiety-ridden panic, feeling like a victim (It's when the sexual abuse happened when I was 7), and when January finally comes, I'm Mr. Well adjusted, helpful, volunteering, happy Mr. Coco. But then, in late February, I tend to go into a dark depression. No anxiety, but instead; Depression. Sadness. Suicidality. It's when I keep the suicide hotline closest to my heart in case I go too far. I find myself having dreams my sister is still alive, and I find myself falling into sobbing fits over the losses of her, and all my old friends from years past. I sleep a lot. That usually lasts through March and then, I gradually become mentally healthy again until Just before school years start in September where I go through a minor, melancholy state of wishing I was someone else, somewher else, regretting not having been able to enjoy, or learn at, school.

It took me many years to figure this puzzling routine out. But after working with it, and recording my moods year over year, I know:

---Nov/Dec: Anxiety and vicitimhood: close to memories of sexual abuse. Fear.

---January/February: Happy and productive. On top of the world.

---March: Sad, suicidal, depressed. It was this period of time when, at 10 years of age, my entire Christian community mislabeled me as gay and turned into an evil mob of hateful monsters, ostracizing me from "god's love" telling me that everyone on earth, even God itself, hated me. They convinced me they would be happier if I was dead. God's unconditional love was not unconditional enough for scum like me. I knew that if they could get away with it, they'd kill me and throw my body in the weeds, and no one would ever bother to come looking for it.

---April-July: Happy and fun loving. Summer vacation. No school. No one telling me they hated me, and for at least a couple of months, I could live free of the condemnation of the loving church world that hated me.

---August/Sept: melancholy, hate my life, wish I was someone else, somewhere else, feeling the need to mourn childhood all over again. Coincidentally it's the month, during my younger adult life, when I used to always move to a new residence, buy another new car, and change myself as much as I could...obviously trying to stop being who I was, and trying to become someone else.

---then Oct: can be a lot of fun, as I LOVE the autumn weather and colors and smells.

---then the entire schedule starts all over again.

Knowing this is not the same as being free of it, but knowing my cycles helps me not feel so hopeless while I'm in the throes of the varying moods.

So....MAYBE in 6 days, I'll be a whole new person. Ready to take on the world, and just be like everyone else, ignoring the car bombs, the weaponization of christianity in America, the barking dogs and arrogant neighbors, the storms and power outages....Maybe there's a good month to two months coming where I can relax.

Let's hope.

Maybe this reaction will seem trite, pollyannish, unrealistic, or what have you. ... but whatever good vibes you set aside for a future time, when things will magically pop in place, can be accessed right now.

This might not seem possible in the present crises, and in the external sense, may not be. But when you go inside your heart-sense, all of the positives are there, even if hidden for long or short periods of time.

Viewing the new as new, for real, may seem awkward at best and foolish besides, yet it can help us reach heights we never imagined, where the view is suddenly pristine, where the past is dissolved of its troubles, and we can feel confident in our ability to move on.

A while ago, you never thought you'd find this site/forum, and perhaps considered it as a dim ray of hope, and not like a functioning lighthouse. Having read your story, it seems that's changed. And if it has, what's ahead needn't repeat the past.

I know, it sounds as if maybe I don't get it (per one ancient liturgy, we are in the Feast of Fools). As recently as a couple days back, I was also deep in a rough spot. It never evens out, but the nice thing is when you realize you're further ahead than you once thought possible. A glance in the rear-view mirror shows all the rough spots, but they're receding further each moment.

Okay -- lotta words, but here's a more basic way I can share my feelings --  :bighug:

Hi PC,

Sending you a hug if that's ok  :hug:

I just read something by a guy who lectures on dreaming and he said that when plans are disrupted, it's time to look out for the trickster. He kind of comes along and can cause a mess with things that we think are going a certain way. Maybe the trickster is also there to help us turn our ways of thinking on themselves and for us to see that sometimes things are not as we see them. I think you do have every resource in you to deal with those people as you mentioned in your previous post.

I could talk on what's happening globally for a long time hahaha. Social media is really not good in my eyes and seeing the photos of Elon Musk with Jared Kushner and the Russian propagandist at the World Cup makes my skin crawl but that's another matter! If you're interested, there's another good documentary called The People You May Know which talks about churches in the US mining facebook data for vulnerable people, getting them into religious groups to sway their voting principles. It's up there with Cambridge Analytica documentary called The Great Hack where  they talk about the practices as weapons grade information warfare (Cambridge Analytica was previous a military defence company).

I am really sorry that both you and your wife are having to go through that and it is very sad that a lot of people are willing to let thing like that happen so that they can make money out of it. It shouldn't be how the world is run. Not that I'm a vigilante, just an advocate for the truth.

Sending you support,
dolly

Woodsgnome, Thanks for the encouragement. I agree with your sentiment, that I know January is coming, and I know the chronic fear and fatigue and sense of being attacked on all fronts will likely just POOF, disappear on Jan 1st, like it usually does, so in that lifelong war between my intelligence and my emotions, intelligence has a leg to stand on now, and is able to help my emotions ride this out. I know I have a pretty good life right now, and I just have to love my frightened parts until the calendar does its usual calming magic on the first.

Dolly, thank you also for the encouragement to see the world for what it is. I agree with you about social media. I have long believed it is the most dangerous invention of all time. Fun to share pictures of the grandkids, and...for some reason...meals, but other than that it's too much of a doorway into our private lives, and, like with every invention in all of history, it became weaponized immediately.

Ultimately, even in my own sober intelligence, I can see the truth that this world is in bigger trouble than we even realize. Today we've since learned that social media is the most insidious WMD ever invented. Like a vampire, we welcome it into our homes, and then it destroys us, one angry post at a time.

I never watch the news. But because I'm still trying to find out who/why that guy bombed my wife's grocery store, I've started watching a bit of it. Sadly, the media has already lost all interest in the story of the car bomb, so I'm watching the news in vain, and not even getting what I want. Instead, I found out that on Christmas day, organized groups targeted 4 power plants in Washington state. Somehow, they'd learned (probably through social media) how to disable the power.

I will think about watching that documentary you suggested, but I have a bad trigger when I see religious people gaining power over smarter people. No one rescued me from the clutches of religious abuse, so when I see that abuse gaining momentum again, unchecked and unrestrained, I go into some pretty serious anxiety.

I like that you tell me that this is happening. The trigger is not really there when I don't have to watch the anger and hatred of religion with my own eyes. Knowing THAT it's happening is helpful for me. Watching it has to be done in some very small doses.

LOVE REALLY CAN WIN OVER HATE, but in small doses right now.

The Discovery Channel's Documentary series called "Why we Hate" is an amazing look into why we do this to each other. It also follows the actions of some very good souls who have found a way to fight against the hatred with love and acceptance. They have proven that love and acceptance can often turn weaponized religious people and politicians around. I personally believe it's a must watch for all humans on the entire planet. But for me, watching the episodes on weaponized religion was pretty tough. I did watch it. I'm glad I did, but wow...I was shivering and shaking through the whole episode.

We, the people who really do want love and peace, are good to stand together. It's a war we may lose, but finding little spaces for our own peace, within the deluge of religious hatred, is, at least, some places of peace outside of the storm that we can't stop. Safe harbors in violent seas.

If I can achieve just one more success before I die, it will be that I am finally able to find peace while the world around me burns. That last scene in Schindler's List had me bawling when Schindler was saying something like, "If I'd just sold the car, I could have saved one more person."  That's true heroism. That's a man worthy of respect.

I held to my 2022 New Year's resolution, which was to learn how to pray successfully without having to sell my soul to a religion and a fake sociopath in the sky. I followed that rule all year long. So, if I'm able to do that again in 2023, maybe a good resolution that I might actually follow will be to follow the peacemakers and ignore the haters. Maybe if I can spend my time reading about people like Schindler and Ghandi and Mother Teresa, maybe I can saturate my brain with a connection to selfless love and stop this self-torture of watching the haters burn down our grocery stores and power plants in the name of their great sociopath in the sky. Both factions exist. I do have some latitude as to which one I give my attention to. Which one should I be learning from? The haters or the lovers?

2023 could be what I call "the year of love." Love is patience, kindness, forgiveness. It doesn't hold grudges or push its opinions onto others. It doesn't seek revenge or burn down grocery stores and power plants. I need to put these attributes on my walls and email footers and bathroom mirrors. Reminding myself all the time that love doesn't have to be driven by fear.

I love the conclusion of your post! I've read a good way to short circuit negative thinking is to journal about the good things that happen each day, no matter how small, and this feels along the same vein.  I'm trying a similar thing with positive affirmations on my bathroom mirror. Let's give our energy to the positive things in life!

CrackedIce,

I'm with you! I'm going to do it! I agree that what we choose to focus on is what becomes the most real to us. Beginning today, I'm going to start finding sources of how to find love in and amongst the barrage of attacks and violence that keep coming at us from media and our friends. I want to find my inner Schindler and start making motion to fix what bugs me. Mother Teresa said "Love not put into action is only a word." I need to find my way into providing a loving contribution to problems too big to handle.  I'm not going to be silly about it, I'm going to contribute actual loving energy to real fear-based problems. I listen to music while I sleep (because of the dogs) so maybe I can go out and find, or record my own, positive affirmations to run through my brain while I sleep.

I can still acknowledge pain, trauma, loneliness, but I can try to frame it with less of a doomsday theme and more of a "this is our challenge to overcome" theme. No empty phrases that shame us when we're down, like "if life hands you lemons" bullship. There are ways to be fully engaged and empathetic with ours and our friends' pain, and still look for a positive lifeline to hang onto and pull ourselves up and out.

I'm up for this challenge!  Come on 2023!

Hi PC,

I like your strategy for 2023 very much!  :cheer: This is our challenge to overcome. It's interesting hearing people talk about generational trauma and being cycle breakers, and that at a certain point in time, someone stands up and says there has to be a better way to do this. I often thought love was the answer, but also learned that the love I was giving was a learned love that led me to keep getting hurt. However, it doesn't mean that love doesn't exist or is all bad. I watched another documentary called Unveiled about abuse in the Light of the World Church and it struck me how they were all banished for speaking up about what was going on, which is something you can relate to. It also reminded me of something I heard that toxic people are uncomfortable around healthy people. It doesn't mean they are wrong, just that it makes people uncomfortable.

I've been learning about Dzogchen over the past few years and there was a bit in the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep that stuck out for me where we are to treat everything as a dream. All consciousness comes from the same place and returns to the same place and there is no difference between dreaming and waking. So, he says that when something comes up that scares you, to remember that it is a dream. All consciousness just is and it's the power we ascribe to it that determines how it affects us. Great in theory but harder to put into practice for people wired differently from a trauma background! There was also a good talk that he gave, and I think I wrote the quote in my journal somewhere, but basically fear is the state of being without knowing love. Because of all the things that happened to a person, they can forget that there is love behind it.

edit: I didn't actually post the quote just the lecture the first time but the quote is "Fear is experiencing the emptiness of self without the awareness, warmth, sense of perfection, completeness (love essentially). This is the lecture and thank you for your post as it prompted me to dig it out and I think was something that was good to listen to again. It would be great to do a trauma informed reading as his examples I think are for the "average" person, but once you shift them still apply. Though perhaps somewhat difficult concepts for younger developmental minds.

Moving Beyond Fear: The Ultimate Protection Is Within You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn0g05e8QIs

Sending you support  :grouphug:
dolly

Folks, I am an atheist for many of the reasons discussed in this thread but we need to please stay away from calling out/using derogatory language about any religion in particular.  It is can be quite incendiary and we don't want to pit one religion against another nor atheists against those of faith.  As always, please choose your words carefully. 

Thanks all!   

Papa Coco:  :grouphug:

It is ok. You are protected, loved, welcome, not bad. Hang in there this week. The weather up your way is intense. I hope you get some relief at the coast soon and there's no harm in moving and then later changing your mind. It's all open to you and you are in charge of your life and where you want to be.  :grouphug:

Daily Journal, Saturday, December 31, 2022

My New Year's Resolution: 2023 is the Year of the Light at the End of the Tunnel.

I have developed a four-part plan to help me accomplish this.

1)   I purchased a SAD light for over my computer desk. According to the Mayo Clinic, the best way to use a SAD light is to position it just overhead, in front of me, and sit under it for no less than a half hour at roughly the same time every morning. By doing this, it's supposed to trick the brain into believing I'm in a bright sunrise. This is supposed to reset the melatonin in the sleep cycle. Same bedtime each night, same sunrise each morning. This is supposed to help my brain know when to shift from awake to sleep and back to awake again. It's supposed to bring me to a happier place each day.

2)   I've created an avatar for my profile, which represents me walking toward the light at the end of the tunnel. Walking with my back toward the darkness, my eyes pointed toward a brighter tomorrow.

3)   I will engage in a year-long, research project around the unsung heroes of our current world. Average people who've turned their lives around and are now selflessly contributing to the great problems of the world by helping people, one at a time. My greatest inspiration of the moment is Schindler, from the movie, Schindler's List. When at the end of the movie, he was wishing he'd sold the car because if he had, he could have saved one more person. That's the kind of heroism I admire...not football heroes, or Marvel superhero movie characters, but normal, unassuming people who give from what they have because they are compelled to.  I can't connect with fast-talking millionaires on TED talks telling me why I need to be like them. I can only connect with real-time, common people who are like me. So I don't study the famous people, only the common people that have a heart for giving. Experts on the science of Happiness say that happy people feel equal to their peers, are thankful for what good they have, and they contribute to society in some meaningful way. So I'm studying people who are in my peer group...normal people...whose heroism will never make them famous or rich. I hope to saturate my brain with stories of normies like me who've turned their lives around through giving. Maybe I can become more like them.

4)    This one will be the most difficult: I commit to continue to post as I have been, but that the end of each post is pointing toward a positive light. For this I need to be careful, because when I think about people who are "positive thinkers", I tend to assume they ignore the negative and can't connect or empathize with others, and therefore are not helpful to others. To be blunt; They're annoying. Disconnected from reality. They're runaway trains just focusing on their own forced happiness. They wear blinders so they can't see the negative. When I display any pain or sadness, they invalidate me and tell me to "just be happy" like them. They live in fantasy. I wish to be real and true and empathetic, never invalidating mine nor anyone else's sadness. As aware as ever of the negativity in the world. All I want to do is become better at seeing the positive with the same emphasis as I do the negative. My current negative bias is too strong. I need to balance it out with some positive bias also. A few weeks ago, I admitted on this forum that I believe most people are bad. I believe that because it's what I was taught to believe. I need to teach myself now, how to find the good in people and to begin living my life conscious of that goodness. So, without being insulting to anyone, I need to work very hard at making sure that no matter how bad I or someone is feeling, that I can at least find some good in everything, everyone, everywhere. This will be a challenging balance to achieve.

My neuropathways were created by narcissistic parents, siblings, friends and church. But I'm in charge now. I know these pathways are difficult to change, and if they are changed, they are changed slowly. But as with any journey from one place to another, each forward step is a step forward.


I started this morning off by reading a short article I found online called "The Storybook Barber" about a barber who gave free back-to-school haircuts to kids who couldn't afford haircuts at all. He enjoyed his time so much that he now gives free haircuts to these underprivileged kids every Tuesday in his shop. He makes the children pay for their haircut by reading him a story out of a book while he's cutting their hair.

Hi Papa Coco,
I like your new avatar, and what it represents.  I also read your New Year Resolutions and they are really good ones, and I hope that you enjoy doing them and that you succeed with them all.

Wishing you the best for 2023, and sending you a hug too  :hug:
Hope  :)

Hi PC,

I admire your ability to always take new steps forward to deal with your trauma and the authenticity you want to respond with.

I'm a big fan of Hope Dies Last by Studs Terkel. It's an oral history of peoples' experiences through different social action movements in the US and is about keeping faith in troubled times. I found a lot of those people very heroic.

I'm not a big fan of forced happiness either and find that sometimes people in "wanting to help" are only pushing their idea of what they think something should be/look/feel like because that's what's comfortable to them, or is some sort of idea about how they think the world should look. I've been guilty of this myself and realized over time that there was actually a "motive" behind my giving because in fixing other peoples' problems, being "nice" etc it makes me feel more comfortable/how I want to feel. Dr. Ramani had a great quote in one of her videos that said love is the opposite of narcissism.

Here's to 2023  :cheer:  :bighug:

Sending you support,
dolly

Happy New Years everyone.

Dolly, thanks for yet another book reference. I just downloaded the kindle version of Hope Dies Last.

Interesting title. I know that hope, by itself, is self-torture. Hope, alone, makes us sit and wait for some outside source to improve things--which it never does. Hope waits for winning lottery tickets that never pay off. Hope makes us wait for apologies from the narcissists who we once loved. I say Hope, by itself, is just a wish.

But hope can be used to fuel action. If I hope I can make a difference, and then go out into the world to make a difference, hope guides my actions. It sets the goal and drives my feet forward.

What I'm dealing with today, is probably a colossal loss of all hope. I live in this chronic sense that the world is about to end. I've been feeling this way more and more since my sister's death in 2009. My sense of emptiness has been getting worse every year since.

I have been out in the garage for the past two days working slowly to get it organized. Today, I can't do it. I go out to the garage, and I think about all the effort it will take to organize a few more shelves, but my heart goes hollow. The energy of my body drains into the floor. I ask myself why it matters. The world is ending soon. Why organize what's about to be destroyed? I think I've literally lost all hope in there being a tomorrow that can interest me.

I know my way around psychology, and I know this is a symptom of clinical depression. My sense that the world is about to end has nothing to do with the world ending, it has everything to do with my own depression. Living in depression is living as if life is over and there's no point in cleaning or mowing or organizing.

It's 2023 and I've made a commitment to end all my posts on a positive direction. So here's how I am going to try to end today's post on a positive direction: Here's how I will position myself to be looking toward the bright future, while not ignoring my chronic clinical depression:

I believe I need to get out. I need to stop hiding in my house. I need to do some one day road trips. I need to see some cities near me that I've never seen before. I need to feel like there's more to this world that what's inside my house. I need to find my hope again, and start to believe again that there's something to live for. For me, the only thing worth living for is connection with other souls. So, I'm taking today's hollow chest, hollow body, empty, depressed spirit, and I'm telling myself that my body and soul will fill up with life again once I get out of my house and start visiting others again.

Tomorrow's another day.  I have friends here at the beach. I can call one of them.  Meanwhile Coco just told me she's coming down on Tuesday and can stay until Friday morning. So now I know that I won't be alone for most of this week. In fact, I can spend tomorrow sprucing up the house to welcome her with a clean kitchen and vacuumed floors.

I'm going to take another run at building some hope to guide me forward in life.

Happy New Years Papa Coco!

I've definitely been where you're at before.  Even earlier in December I had a bleak week or two where it felt pointless to meet up with friends, focus on work, try to complete some hobby projects - that depressed state as you mentioned.  Seems to come and go, sometimes weeks apart, sometimes months.

I find that the presence of those who care about you can help (assuming they're also in a good space), even if it's just to distract you long enough to get out of the spiral / flashback.  Hopefully you can find some comfort with friends and your W's visit in the near future.  I also love your one day road trip idea - I'd love to visit some small towns nearby and even just pop into the local coffee shop for a cup.

Dolly, I agree that Love is the opposite of narcissism. In my own brain I see love as a synonym for connection. And narcissism a synonym for disconnection. I believe love is the only goal that matters on the earth. I believe the word "sin" just describes any action that stops connection and causes disconnection.

Well, it's 2023 now. Time to go into another new year with hopes that things will improve on the earth. Hope is a word I have a love/hate relationship with. It's time I reevaluate its meaning. Up until recently, I've seen hope as something fragile. Having hope gives something to live for. Losing hope is losing all purpose for living at all. I lived my life as a workaholic fawn, hoping things would get better with age, and I'd finally, one day, find my utopian life of peace and rest. Now that I'm in the last phase of life; retirement; Many of my hopes never came to be. In fact, my knees hurt so badly now that I can't do many of the activities, I've enjoyed my entire life. So, I'm letting my knees take away my zest for life. As a retired man, I now have found myself with a longer list of dashed hopes than realized ones. So, since 2009, I've believed hope is the great evil that poets write about. (Example: "Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man"--Friedrich Nietzsche). But as of yesterday, I've begun to think that perhaps hope has a purpose. But to realize that purpose, hope has to be accompanied by action. Otherwise, it's just another word for a wish. I'm going to find a new hope to try and motivate me out of my clinical, long-term depression. Hope can be a great evil if it's not used properly. But I'm starting to see that it can be of great good if used to fuel action...and a sense of purpose.

CrackedIce, Yeah, these dark weeks are no picnic. I'm sorry you have to endure them periodically also. Yesterday, my commitment to ending my post (about depression) on a positive note, which was a plan to get out of the house, I actually took my own advice a bit early. The positive ending to my post motivated me to stop whining about being a shut-in, get on the bicycle and pedal down to the beach. I've been here at the house since Wednesday and hadn't made the 5-minute bike ride to the beach yet. So, with 45 minutes of daylight left, I took that first ride. It was freezing. I don't tend to dress warmly because I run hot. So, I wear shorts year-round. Yesterday, at 40 degrees F, I should have been dressed a bit warmer. But on the other hand, being down on the water in freezing wind, while wearing shorts and light coat, being so cold actually kind of helped me feel alive again. It was a short trip, only about 20 minutes total, but it got me out. I even said hi to a few pedestrians and a family getting into their car on the sand. Connection. For me, it's all about connection. I have a poor self image, but I do enjoy smiling and laughing with friendly people. So if my own company can't keep my mood up, then I need to make company with others.

Today, rather than a road trip in the car, I might dig around in my closet to see if I can find any long underwear and other cold-weather attire and start riding my bicycle more often in cold weather. Winter just began a few days ago and I prefer to ride bikes, rather than drive the car, into town to buy groceries and hardware, so if I can start dressing more cold-appropriate, I can ride the bike more often. Also, I didn't ride it as much this past October because we were having a big problem with bears. As many as four at a time, and very large ones, would be seen walking the streets in a pack. They pretty much ignored us. The big problem was garbage. On more than one occasion, I was out in the street, just ahead of the garbage truck, getting mine and my neighbors' trash back into the cans before the truck came. I got a little sheepish about riding my bicycle in the woods and out on the sand alone, knowing these huge animals were probably watching me from their hiding spots.

To end this midnight post on a positive note, I learned two things yesterday: Hope needs to be reassessed and I need to stop hating it. Just because I've lost the hope that the world would become a peaceful place when I became an old man, doesn't mean hope itself can't be properly managed and reignited on some new terms. I need to find a goal, reignite the flicker of hope that I've let die, and use it as a motivation to perform some actions to realize that hope.  And secondly, I learned that I need to find my thermal underwear and get out on the bicycles again. Bears are all asleep now. It's winter.

Happy New Years, my friend.
I am so sorry to hear you have been struggling the past few weeks.
In German, we have this word "Weltschmerz" which describes the overwhelming sense of pain and depression we can feel when we look at the world around us and see how much suffering it holds. I've always liked the word as it encompasses so many different feelings and so much philosophical awareness. There is so much depth hidden in this one single word and there have been entire books written about the concept but to be stuck in this sense of "Weltschmerz" is just such an awful feeling.
Sometimes I look at all the terrible things happening in this world and (much like you) I lose all sense of hope. There's so much violence, so much pain, and so much suffering and somehow things seem to be constantly getting worse rather than better.
In the UK, for example, we currently have so many strikes and it feels like the system is collapsing. People are dying unnecessarily because the situation in hospitals and emergency services is so awful. So, how can one maintain any hope when you see this every day?
I'm desperately trying to cling onto hope by trying to take action, signing up as a volunteer, raising awareness, etc. I can't say I have regained much hope, yet, but I feel like staying active and doing things is reducing the desperation a tiny, tiny bit. It's probably not going to do much in the grand scheme of things but at least I feel a little better about myself and my place in the world and that's already worth a lot.

Your post has made me smile a big wide smile imagining packs of bears roaming the streets threatening a kind retired man with bad knees. And how you can bicycle now because the bears are hibernating. It seems like a metaphor even though I know it is meant literally.  :grouphug:

Happy biking, Papa Coco.

i hear you, PC.  i have little hope for the world.  i do my little bit of recycling, repurposing, reusing as my way to help.  your biking amongst hibernating bears is great.  unfortunately, they must be getting pushed out of their homes to come walk the streets in gangs.  let's hope for a stronger, kinder new year.  love and hugs :hug:

MilkandHoney, Weltschmerz. What a great word. Thanks for introducing me to it. Knowing it's a real condition that affects others gives me permission to stop thinking I'm a freak and the only person who can't look at the world we live in with fear and a broken heart.

I truly believe that the purpose in life is to connect with others. I also believe you and I, and most of the good people on this forum were born with a strong empathy. That's why we turned out to be so loving while our own siblings, who took the same abuse we did, turned out to be narcissistic jerks (at least mine did). My sister RoSatan was born a narcissist. (I strategically placed an extra T in her name to make it more appropriate to who she really is). So she became unbelievably cruel after being raised by our selfish parents. Being 11 years older than me, I didn't know her as a child, but relatives have told me that she was a mean, selfish, lying, theif of a child right from birth. As a teen, she stole from the jewelry boxes of all the people who hired her to babysit. My little sister and I went the other direction. We were born with emapthay in our frontal lobes. We became kind and caring. Fawns. We were born with brains shaped for empathy. We are the lucky ones who are able to see that the world is all connected. We humans, animals, plants, and structures were all created from the same stardust. We're one community whether we like it or not. And those of us with this intrinsic knowing that we are all connected end up with PTSD because we struggle so much with the ups and downs of that connection. We are more terrified of being cast out, while our narcissistic relatives couldn't care less about being thrown out. They aren't connected in the first place. They live the lives of predators who beleive that life is "eat or be eaten." They don't understand the connection, so they just suffer in hate for their whole lives, not knowing why they can't find true happiness. Rather than accept the truth, that empathy is good, they instead strike out at us, hoping that since they can't feel love, (which in my vocabulary, also means Connection) they don't want us to feel it either. Jealousy drives them to hurt us because they hurt. That's how they see connection. Share the pain.

I suspect C-PTSD and Weltschmerz  are two conditions that often work together in our hearts. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Young Charlie suffers bad C-PTSD. He's in high school and is struggling just like I did in high school. In the last scenes of the movie, when he's in a hospital recovering from going "crazy" from having remembered the sexual abuse he'd endured as a child, he asks his doctor why there's so much pain.

CHARLIE:
Just tell me how to stop it.

DR. BURTON:
Stop what?

CHARLIE:
Seeing it. All their lives. All the time. Just... how do you stop seeing it?

DR. BURTON:
Seeing what, Charlie?

Charlie breaks.

CHARLIE:
There is so much pain. And I don't know how to not notice it.

DR. BURTON:
What's hurting you?

CHARLIE:
No! Not me. It's them. It's everyone. It never stops.

I believe that those of us who have C-PTSD know exactly what he's talking about in the movie. I believe the author of that movie knows that people who are born good, share a propensity for trauma and feeling the pain of the world. We are the connected ones. Connection is beautiful when we are connected with people who are in joy. But it's painful when we feel connected to the pain of others. It's not a curse, it's a blessing. We just need to learn how to use this connection as a blessing, and not let the pain of the world defeat us.

I also believe, with all my heart, that empathy is the greatest healing power in the entire universe. Empathy changes a common doctor into a gifted healer. I had 6 bad therapists before I met my current one. All 6 were more narcissistic than they were helpful. Always telling me how I SHOULD feel, and making sure I knew that they were the smartest one in the room. My current Therapist is a gifted healer because he's suffered as I have, and he knows the road out, and he shares it with me. He connects with me and helps me connect my fractured parts back together. Empathy is what made him a gifted healer, while narcissism just made my first six therapists richer. My current Therapist drives a subaru outback he purchased 15 years ago. My last one drove a jaguar and made sure I knew it.

That's my own theory. C-PTSD creates fawns out of people who were born to care about others. It creates monsters in those who were born with Narcissism in the frontal lobes of their brains.

Armee, Yeah, the bears are kind of a fun thing. I carry a small air horn in my pocket in case I ever need to scare one away. I also own several cans of bear spray, (highly concentrated mace), which I expect I'll never have to use, but it makes me feel somewhat protected when I'm on the beach alone or on a nature trail on my bicycle. We've always known the bears are here. But this last Summer/Fall, there was a shortage of berries up in the woods, which drove the bears to dig through our garbage cans with a vengeance this year as they were carbing up for their winter hibernation. No one was hurt by them. When they saw us they just ignored us and kept walking, like they were in a parade, down the streets.  I don't feel any danger around them. But it's kind of cool to be in a community that still has so much nature in it. We have a constant problem with deer, coyotes, and racoons also. We have regular sightings of cougars and wildcats too. The deer are so unafraid of us that they walk right up to see what's in our hands. Picnics can be a bit frustrating. There's a $500 fine for feeding them, but when their nose is in the plate in your hand, the choice to not feed them is not always mine to make. One year, I was mowing my lawn with a loud, gas powered lawn mower. Five deer were standing in my yard. Four of them slowly moved off the grass, but one of them refused to move. I had to mow around him because he wouldn't move out of my way.  I have to say, I really enjoy living in this community with the wildlife. I trust wild animals more than I do selfish humans.

San, I do my little part too with recycling and repurposing as best I can. I have a lot, because I've always been a compulsive shopper, trying to buy my happiness, so I give a lot of really good things to people who can use them. I hope, with you, for a brighter, stronger, kinder new year. Since I can't make the world a better place, I have a deep need to stop wallowing in my pity and start helping make it better within my circle of control.

I've been researching official volunteer opportunities in both my communities. I'm already a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteer, and there are CERT programs in both my communities--(actually I believe they're in nearly every community in the US, and possibly even Europe), but CERT responders are only called upon during catastrophic events, like floods, earthquakes, bombs, etc.  So far, the four new volunteer programs that intrigue me are: 1) Cleaning up parks, 2) Driving Meals on Wheels weekly to shut-ins, 3) Visiting shut-ins one-on-one, and 4) Animal Rescue facilities that are always in need of loving volunteers.

None of us need to be signed up on any official volunteer rosters to do good for the world. I can put on my gloves, grab a garbage sack and start cleaning up my beach any time I want to. No official title needed. At the end of the day I can feel like I made the world a tiny bit better for others who want to walk on a clean beach without seeing the dirty side of humanity...garbage left, because of the ugly human selfishness that so many of us are just tired of looking at.

Steven Covey's Circle of Control always reminds me that I have a small circle of life that I have complete control over. Beyond that, I have a broader circle of things I can influence. Beyond that I have a circle of things that concern me, but I have NO control nor influence over.

Cleaning up the beach or driving food to shut ins is within my circle of control.

I once heard a story of two people walking on a beach. THOUSANDS of starfish had been washed up after a storm. One person kept bending down and tossing starfish, one at a time, back into the ocean. The other person said, "Why are you doing that? There are THOUSANDS of them. What you're doing doesn't matter."  The other person, bent down, grabbed another and as it flew into the ocean, that person said, "It mattered to that one."

That's my positive ending to today's post. 

Happy New Year everyone. I love you all!!!!!!

Group hug! :grouphug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug:

I haven't seen that movie yet Papa Coco so I am going to make time to watch when the kids go back to school. I need to recover from so much time with people. All lovely people I am happy to see but I need peace and alone time and there's been none for 2.5 weeks.

I've seen a lot of buddhist meditations pass by my screen focused on this topic of how to manage the pain of living in a world where so many are suffering and to feel that pain without being consumed by it. You are definitely not alone and who knows maybe some of those would help you too. If you wanted I could look through my inbox for some links. 

I used to be a total softy and very distressed at what was happening in the world. Unfortunately having to shut off my emotions softened the intensity of what I feel for all suffering. Not to say I am heartless or don't care but it is much more muted now.

Your positive starfish story reminded me of a happy memory in Greece I was with the two kids on the beach and hundreds of lady bugs were dying in the ocean. I don't know what happened, maybe a strong draft carried them out. We had a little boogie board or floaty or something and swam around putting as many little lady bugs on it as we could scoop up then would paddle to the beach to put them on the sand and go back out. The grandfather made fun of us for trying to save stupid little bugs of course but it gave the girls a good feeling of saving life. I wonder what makes people so evil and heartless. I'd rather be among people like you Papa Coco.

i've heard that starfish story before, PC, and it's so true.  one of the things i had to learn when becoming a therapist was that it was not possible to help everyone who came to my office, but if i helped just one, they and the world would be in a better place.  i've hung my hat on that, and it truly helped.  keep doing your thing - it all counts.  love and hugs :hug:

Hi PC,

I spent a lot of time in Washington State growing up as we used to go camping there around Whidby Island and Deception Pass. The coastline is beautiful.

I agree with you about hope. It was the thing that likely kept us from realizing who our parents were because we hoped they would change. It's only been in the last year that I've realized that I go into relationships with this kind of fantasy about what I think will happen, and often it blinds me to the bad behaviour, red flags, and just general incompatibilities. So, I end up allowing a lot of bad behaviour that I probably shouldn't. I'm also realizing that I have a tendency to escapism, which I think is a kind of false hope. I think reality felt like a dead end growing up, and I didn't stop wishing for a better place to be. Not to be hard on myself though because this hope was a survival mechanism and maybe it's the one of the things that actually kept my heart open, so that I didn't grow up to be like the people in my family. Of course, hope coupled with people pleasing and bad boundaries like I had because I needed my family for survival, is not a healthy mix for adult me, or for staring adult relationships. But it doesn't mean that the good people aren't out there I think.

I found this a really affirming about doing the "right" thing after dealing with these people for so long because it does feel at times that yeah, I should be in survival mode and why do I have to take this stuff on? Maybe there's something in there that resonates. If not, please disregard.

The narcissist plays dirty... should you play dirty too?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko1IxT23RVM&list=PLaSy-g6A5sG3Jvh8Ru5k--D_0VUlZPpEw&index=31

I'm glad you're getting some rest at the cabin. I can imagine after having your body on red alert after the run in with your neighbours, a lot of feelings come up when it begins to relax. Part of me is also curious if given what you said about moisture and damp, you notice that there is a change when you come into the cabin vs. when you're not there? Like if the mood hits you at the beach house and perhaps there is something in the environment that is triggering this mood shift.

Sending you support and Happy New year  :bighug:  :phoot:
dolly

Hey Papa Coco!  Just wanted to stop by and say hi, hope you're able to get some R&R at the cabin.  The Circle of Control concept is interesting - I think the trick for us fawn types is to wrestle back the control from others (whether explicit or implicit) and try to steer the ship ourselves.  I still struggle to 'grab the wheel' so to speak when there's someone else available to drive.  The joys of co-dependency I guess.  :Idunno:

Hope you have a great week!

CrackedIce, Thanks for stopping by to say Hi. Hi back to you! I saw your post today about how you and your wife are enjoying some closeness right now. Congratulations!  And, boy do I know that feeling you speak of of waiting for others to make the decision. For me, that comes from having been punished by family and church and peers whenever I made a decision of my own. I won't go into it with details, but in summary, my narcissistic people (Family, church, school and peers) either didn't allow me to make any choices of my own, or if they did, and I got what I wanted, they would wait until the perfect time to tell me that because I got what I wanted, I hurt someone else. Okay: a few details:  If I ever got my parents to take me someplace I wanted to go, which was rare, within a few days I'd find out that they missed an important phone call because they had to take ME to some stupid thing they didn't want to take me to. My parents were so good at blaming me for their misery, that at 14 I was accused of making my dad buy a pickup truck that he ended up hating. I wasn't even WITH him when he bought the stupid truck. But boy...because I liked cars back then, somehow it was MY fault he'd bought that truck. That's one of over a million examples I could bring up, but it's a good one. They never didn't punish me for asserting myself. And it wasn't a hit and miss thing: they were relentless. It was their steady, 24x7 mission to prove to me that I'm incompetent and dangerous. They never let me NOT feel shame for their misery. This shows how I was made to feel responsible for ruining other people's lives by getting what I wanted, and this was without exception. My therapist often has to calm me down when I can't make a decision by reminding me that I was born, grown and nurtured within a no-win scenario. I was bullied at school, bullied at church, then bullied at home also--those are the kids who grow up at the highest risk of suicide, drugs, unemployment, multiple divorces... He also reminds me that I was either not allowed to make choices, or if I DID make a choice, I was punished for it later. So I grew up, like you, being afraid to decide what restaurant to take Coco to. I always make her make all the choices. I cook all our meals, I buy our groceries, I pay all the bills, and when it's time to cook or buy something, I first ask her what she wants for fear that if I cook something that she wasn't hungry for, I'll be blamed for making her life miserable. And groceries is a major ordeal because I try to keep ingredients for HER favorite meals stocked up better than for my own favorite meals. If she says she'd like fish and onion rings, and I don't have enough onion rings, well... I go into my EFs. I can say with confidence that I've learned that Coco doesn't blame me for her misery when I buy the wrong ingredients. This is PTSD. This is about the past and the wiring that I got stuck with as a result of being the scapegoat in a nasty catholic family.

In reality, all people face this. Nobody can please everybody all the time. We make choices that sometimes please others, but sometimes don't. But the lucky people who were raised with a sense that they are welcome on the planet just deal with it. They are able to handle the snide comments made by someone who didn't like the meal or didn't like the restaurant, and they just deal with it. They might say, "Well if you like onion rings, you should have picked some up before you told me you wanted them." But for folks like us who spent our early learning years being punished with massive amounts of shame and guilt every time we wanted something, or made a choice on our own fruition, well...there it is: PTSD. The gift that keeps on giving for a lifetime.


Dolly, The Puget Sound is my favorite place on earth. I've only been to about a dozen states, and whenever I return home, and am surrounded by the mountains, the ocean, the rivers, the lakes, and the sounds of seagulls flying overhead, I feel like this is the only place on earth for me. My city house is 3 minutes from the ferry terminal to Whidbey Island. I hear the seagulls and sea lions barking off in the distance. On foggy days I hear the ferry foghorn. It's magical for me. My beach house is out on the coast, a 3 hour drive from there. Again: Seagulls and foghorns. By looking at photos, I sometimes wouldn't mind visiting New Zealand and Norway. But only for the scenery. I have no interest in traveling. I hate it. HATE it. I hate airports, flight delays, and when I'm somewhere else, I want to be home. My only trips out of the US have been to the Carribean, and to Montreal Canada. Montreal was a business trip, Sint Maarten was for pleasure. But once I'd seen the place, felt the temps, and met the locals, I was bored. Time to go home to my cold ocean paradises.

That's some powerful talk about hope. I am having a new thought all of a sudden. My therapist often comments that he's amazed I survived and was able to keep a job and a marriage, despite the insanity I was steeped in. He says that most people who've lived through what I have, don't manage a life very well.  You have put some good words to "hope" that is making me realize, that my HOPE that my parents would one day love me for who I am, and my HOPE that aging out of the family would magically make my life wonderful, and the HOPE that my finances would some day shape up, and that my kids would grow up to be wonderful, etc, etc, was a double-edged sword. On one hand it was the greatest of all evils, because it helped me to hide in my head and wait for the day people would love and respect me for who I am. But on the other hand, having not lost hope until I was in my 50s gave me a survivability that kept me alive and on course with my life.

Hope is a double edged sword. It's needed for survival, but it can't be left to do the job by itself. I'm really starting to see how it is the fuel that keeps our motors running, but if we just sit in the parking lot with the motor running, we aren't going to go anywhere. We have to also move forward by using the hope as our motivation. It's our actions that move us forward. I could have left my family 30 years before I did, but I didn't know I could. I thought they would one day respect me. Anyway...I survived, as did you, and so many others, because, we were too "good" to give up hope.

Now that I understand this about hope, I am trying to rekindle it. I want to contribute to the world again.

San: You said something that really hit home. You said that as a therapist you've hung your hat on knowing that you can't help everyone so your goal is to help who you can. That's a big deal for me. And I'll say that it's part of my thought process whenever I think about getting another job. I'm retired, but sometimes I think about finding a job just so I can feel valued. But I couldn't drive a bus or an Uber or be a therapist or an EMPT or anything where I risk failing to help someone. A pilot or driver has the lives of the passengers on their shoulders. I can't deal with that. If someone bumped into my bus and a passenger got hurt, I'd take the guilt to my grave. When I was a sexual assault victim's advocate, I had some clients who claimed they couldn't get the judge to stop sending their child back to the abusive dad's for weekly unsupervised visits. The mom claimed the dad was still abusing her. I couldn't help. I was just a Hospital Volunteer. A judge is a judge. And how would I know if this woman was telling the truth about the x husband? The pressure, and envisioning that little girl being in danger while I was comfortable in my safe home, had me crying myself to sleep every night. I kept feeling like I should be able to help, but I couldn't.  It's the biggest reason I don't upgrade my degree to a psychology degree and get a job. My therapist says I'd make a very good teen counselor, which is an area that is screaming for help, but I know I wouldn't be able to deal with not being able to help everyone I came across.  It's a curse I wish I could overcome, but that shame of not being able to help is burrowed deep into every molecule of my body and soul.  I am impressed by your ability to hang your hat on knowing you can only help those who can be helped.

Armee, That movie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower really shows how difficult it is to be a caring, compassionate, traumatized male in a world where males are expected to be tough and cold. Boys are actually supposed to punch holes in walls rather than feel emotional pain. So those of us who are like Charlie (Logan Lerman) are screwed, (and that hurts). And to your comment that you had to shut off your emotions to deal with stuff, is something I've never been able to do for more than a few hours. Dear God, I wish I had a volume nob on my frontal lobe, so I could turn down the empathy long enough to get something done in my own life. I don't know how to do that. I suppose that's why healing is happening so sloooooowly. I don't want to give up who I am. Whenever I feel like I'm starting to lose some empathy, I panic. I'm not me anymore. I'm supposed to be the one who suffers. If I'm not suffering as a victim, that must mean I'm now the predator. I am not good at finding middle ground. To me, everything is either a hammer or a nail. That's my PTSD in action. I'm either safe or in danger. Hot or cold. Kind or mean. IN pain or CAUSING pain. One or the other. No in between.

Final Comment: I'm living in 2023, the year that I always end every communication on a positive swing upward. In answering this post, I put a lot of "why I'm broken" comments in it. That's good. I'm being open. I hope that some of what I said is helpful to others, or is helpful to myself, as people respond.  So to end on a positive note, I'm going to watch some of the videos that Dolly has recommended and do some learning.  My therapist says he'd rather work with people like me who need to gain some assertiveness, than with people who need to calm down and become more empathetic. He says he can help people like us who want to become more assertive, but overly aggressive, confrontational, selfish people are very, very difficult to help.  So I'm glad I see myself as a nail, rather than a hammer. I'm proud to be a person who takes the pain but tries to NEVER give pain. Now all I need to do is keep learning from you all, and from him, and from the books I read, how to bring that pendulum to center, so I can be kind to everyone INCLUDING myself.

NOTE: These endings are helpful. Every time I force myself to end on a "here's how I'm going to fix this" note, I end up spending the better part of the day doing more positive things that I wouldn't have done if I'd have just complained and left it at that.

 :grouphug:

I like you just the way you are and really hope there's a way to stay compassionate without being a nail. I think there must be. Im not religious but it seems Buddhist monks manage this.

I think there is a knob for dialing up and down emotions but we don't really know how to use it thanks to trauma. All or nothing is the heart of it. I sure hope there's a cure.

Hey PC,

For me there is something very calming about the rain and the constant sound of the rain against the window. Yes, it rains all the time and yes, it's grey, but it's also very quiet when you go out into the forest. The mosses that grow have a way of softening everything around you and to me, that's really nice. Thinking about this actually brings back the good memories from growing up and makes me a little homesick.

I I think hope is the blueprint for how you wanted your life to be, what you wanted in it, and you went out and did that. That's pretty amazing, and as you say, for someone steeped in insanity, even more so.

I also wanted to say that I don't think you're broken, even if it seems like that. We all create narratives in our mind about how things are/were etc, what we have to tell ourselves and others. Stories are a powerful way to cope but it's "not the whole story." To me, CPTSD is like being in a car and you're going somewhere all the time and everything is passing you by so you can't really experience it. Yes, you can see it, or experience it in a way, but you're still in the car and it's like it's a blur. Every once in a while though, the car does stop and you can get out and stretch your legs. Here's to 2023 and hoping we all can reach our destinations and spending more time outside the car.

Sending you support,
dolly

a thought struck me, PC, as i read your final paragraph.  you listed all these amazing resources from which to learn. may i add that you are also learning from yourself?  you have a treasure trove of insight into who you are, where you came from, limits and strengths. to me, as we go inward w/ all this, we are able to learn more about who we are, who we want to be, what we want to keep, what we want to change, and what we want to let go of.  it's ok to give yourself credit.  you do a great job of putting things together and gleaning what you need from all of them.  love and hugs :hug:

Hey PC!  Wanted to comment on your post a few days ago.  Your reply about not being able to be assertive and always prioritizing others over yourself really rang true for me.  I'm not sure if it's from the same source (I think mine was just wanting to have as little "surface area" as possible to avoid abuse) but that feeling of being a failure, of not being good enough over one stupid little thing like missing a grocery ingredient or making a meal that you enjoy is definitely true for me.  I've gone from cooking full meals (I love cooking!) every day to cooking out of boxes just so my kids and wife don't get upset at me.  And like you said - in reality them getting upset or making a remark about the food isn't the end of the world for anyone else but myself.  It's just easier to reduce the odds of it ever happening than trying to process it :/

But let's end on a positive note!  It's been a great past week, I'm really enjoying a new board game I got a few days ago, and the weather has been really nice!  Hope you have a great week as well!

Journal Entry for Tuesday, January 17, 2023

I'm reposting this on Thursday, January 19, with a TRIGGER WARNING. Some of the people who read it, or tried to read it, found it triggering. I sincerely apologize to anyone who was triggered by it, and encourage anyone who is feeling any hopelessness right now to NOT read it. It has some hopelessness in it. Rather than delete it, I'll put a trigger warning so no one reads it if they're not ready for some deep darkness.

Meanwhile I'm going to try to go very light on my posts for a while. I don't want to go offline, but I do want to try and keep my posts lighter and happier until I feel like I'm gaining some control over my darkness again.

I love you guys, and don't want to become a downer to any of you.


Well I'm doing it again. I'm out in the world, in a panic, looking for that silver bullet. I'm already steeped neck deep in talk therapy, Ketamine infusions, Uplifting vitamins, and I own a metric ton of paperback self-help books, and now I'm out there again: I just signed up for 4 weekly sessions with a hypnotherapist.  Now, my internal voices are punishing me again. I hear this, "Why can't you just live your life like everyone else?" "Why can't you just take all that money you throw at all these different silver bullets and take a vacation or something to get yourself out of the funk?"

I will be returning to the city on Friday. I'll need to stay there for a month because that's where these hypnotherapy sessions will be taking place. Which means I'll be wearing headphones for a month to block out those nasty dogs that live a few inches from my city-house bedroom window.  When I get home, I feel like taking Coco aside and just apologizing profusely for my chronic, self-induced tortures. I'm once again falling down the rabbit hole, where I feel more and more like I'm responsible for all the darkness in our relationship. Part of me knows that's not true, but a bigger part of me is just wallowing in shame over being so "broken" that I can't...just...get...over...it.

I'm truly beginning to resonate with my own theory that when my sister died in 2008, I lost all sense of direction and hope. Our big family was built around a big, dormant hand grenade, and her death was the pin that was pulled out of the grenade which then blew my entire big family apart. It's good that the family finally ended. It's my opinion they're the reason she lost her battle with the depression that they had created in her. They were toxic and poisonous people, and I was drinking the cool aid every day in order to force myself to hold to the fantasy that I was in a big, happy, supportive family. It wasn't true in real life, but my stubborn brain held to that fantasy for 50 years. Her death tore off my blinders, and then knocked over the first domino, which toppled the rest of the family, who went into "Knives-out" status until no one was left.

I've been struggling to find hope ever since. The saddest day in any gaslighting victim's life is the day we see the truth...that everything we had spent our life believing to be true about our relationship was a grift. A lie. Smoke and mirrors. It wasn't real. Every time they said they loved us, they were lying. And we suddenly realize we'd lived our lives by their lies. There's anger mixed with embarrassment mixed with irreversible loss and grieving. The anger and embarrassment wane away. But the sense of having been so profoundly betrayed is hard to deal with--and irreversible--and goes on for a long, long time. Fifteen years so far for me. The feeling is often called disillusionment, and it's no small thing. People think you can't change the past. But when you realize you've been a victim of narcissism, and a lifetime of lies, your whole past falls apart and nothing you can do can stop it from collapsing. Suddenly, even family photos have new meaning. You finally see the bitterness in the faces that were always bitter, but you never noticed that before.  For me, it's like I'd put smiley faces on monsters, and loved the smiley faces. Then one day I walked away from the monsters, and found myself grieving for the rest of my life over losing the smiley faces that I had pretended were real--and who had once loved me.

For me, the disillusionment is around the fact that my past has made me who I am today. If my past was a ruse, then who am I now? I'm not from the family I thought I was from. So who am I now? And who should I trust now?  Waking up and discovering I was in a prison that I pretended was a theme park, unsettles my belief in the people who I trust today.  I guess that's what Gaslighting is specifically designed to do: take away the victim's ability to trust reality. Blur the lines between good and evil so badly that the victim never again knows up from down, real from dreams, wants from needs. When is love real, and when is it just another deception?

---

But I've made a commitment to 2023, that it will be the year I find a fresh, new hope, which will send me off in a new direction. One that fuels my excitement to get up in the morning again. I've always been troubled, but I've also always been so active that I balanced the depression with good days between the bad. I want that feeling back. I want to smile again. I want to matter again so that I can ultimately leave this world as an old man who is still active and still making positive contributions right up to the moment of my final breath.

I suppose, scheduling these not-so-inexpensive 4 weeks of hypnotherapy is me TRYING to move forward in my 2023 commitment to find hope again. I now believe that hope is the fuel that we use to get our motors running again each morning. Hope is why we get out of bed. Hope is why we try to achieve any goals. Without hope, I'm just sitting here, in my locked house, waiting for my body to die along with the rest of me.

I'm just embarrassed at how much money and energy I expend trying every single type of cure I can find, only to continue falling down this rabbit hole.

My other promise for 2023 was to make sure I end all my posts and emails and texts on a positive note. A call to action. When I write books or blog posts, I know that I need to end with the solution. No one wants to read a novel that ends in hopelessness. And I've begun to notice that if I'll apply the same rule to my posts, that no matter how dark the story is in the middle, ending it with a positive idea for solution does seem to help me rise up and take some positive action, at least for a few hours.

I've started to notice that when I make myself end with a light at the end of the tunnel, that I spend the rest of the day feeling a bit more motivated to gain control over my depression.

So here it goes: I noticed, yesterday, after my free Zoom consultation with this new hypnotherapist in my life, that I left the call feeling more energy than I had felt in several days. I felt like NOT eating so much junk food, and I actually got in the Jeep and went into town twice to do some chores which I had been putting off for a week or more. So, my positive ending to this dark post is that I am feeling a little bit of hope that this adventure with hypnotherapy does its job and helps me to rekindle a new hope that will supersede that old hope that I lost when my loving little sister, and childhood best friend, lost her lifelong battle with the depression that she and I shared as the two little ones in that nasty family. I have to close that chapter and start a whole new one.

There is a light at the end of this story. I haven't embraced it yet, but I can see it, and if I'll put forth some effort during this hypnotherapy, perhaps I'll come out the other side with some success. I'm learning to not expect much. This is NOT a silver bullet. I always go into every healing effort expecting it to be the silver bullet that finally ends my suffering. That means I always come out of the effort disappointed and more hopeless than when I went in. This time I'm going in hoping to get at least a little help rekindling some hope that will help me rise up out of bed each morning.  I am trying to give myself just the right amount of hope that this works. Not too much hope and not too much resistance to hope.

This may not be a cure, but it may be a positive stepping stone that leads me to finding my way up and out of my depression long enough to get my life restarted.

On one extra positive note: More than one therapist has told me that they are surprised I survived my childhood at all. I've noted on several occasions, that some of the boys I went to catholic school with didn't survive. My little sister didn't survive it either. My current therapist says that I survive, in part, due to how I never give up trying to find someone to help pull me up out of this rabbit hole. Those who give up, all too often, end up drinking or drugging themselves to death. For 62 years now I've been, somehow, able to stay just a few inches ahead of the Grimm Reaper. My therapist will probably praise me today when he finds out I've committed to four weeks of hypnotherapy. He's always proud of how I never give up...no matter how many times I ask myself why I don't just give up.

I refer to my new icon of me walking toward a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm in the dark, but I'm walking toward the light. I now have hope that I might be able to find new hope. So I hope for hope. Hey...it's a move in the right direction.

QuoteThis may not be a cure, but it may be a positive stepping stone that leads me to finding my way up and out of my depression long enough to get my life restarted

This is a good realistic expectation!  Good luck with it, Papa Coco  :hug:

I have so much I want to say in response to this post Papa Coco but I can't right now. My heart hurts reading it but not in a bad way but I sure do relate to every last bit of it.

I've been thinking about hypnotherapy too and will read with interest your reports of whether it helps. For now just a huge hug.  :bighug:

You survived and are surviving.

lies, smoke and mirrors - they are horrible parts of an unhealthy relationship.  i've had too many, so couldn't read past that, but the struggle to find relief can be a seminal objective in our hunt for wellness.  with you on this.  keep taking care of you, ok?  love and hugs :hug:

Journal Entry for Saturday, January 21, 2023

I'm back in the city. Neighbors are all up in arms. The dogs have been running around causing problems again. GOOD! Now that I've moved away from the problem, other neighbors are feeling the pain without being able to just let ME deal with it. One neighbor said she saw an Animal Control truck prowling around. The driver even went  up to the lying dog owner' door, which means OTHER people have finally complained, and the city knows the address of the lying trash and his wild dogs. Who knows if this will solve the overarching issue? I still had to sleep with powerful noise blocking headphones on last night. Welcome to the city house, eh? I'll be GLAD when these 4 weeks of hypnotherapy are done so I can return to the peace and quiet of the beach.

San, Armee, Bach, thank you for the feedback on my last post. You helped me to see that I needed to add a trigger warning. I'm so sorry I didn't think to add the TW before you tried reading it. I PROMISE, this post today is very positive. I used BOLD to highlight main points so the long-windedness of it is easier to navigate with the naked eye.


I'm pulling up out of depression. I'm pulling up out of the isolation. I have lunch scheduled today with some former coworkers. Then I'm driving up into the mountains to fetch my youngest grandson, and possibly even my eldest grandson, if he's willing...to spend the night with us so my son and his wife can have a date night. These two little humans are good for my mood. They're such loving, comical little guys.

Tomorrow is a big day too, We're getting a visit from our former foster son, now in his forties, with a wife and two teen children of his own. We haven't seen him or his family since 2013, and we are really excited to have him stop by. He lives 4 hours from us, but is passing through the city on his way home from visiting some relatives in Canada. We really love this kid and do think of him as our third son, so we are super excited to see him and his family tomorrow. 

Super positive new direction:

The biggest news I have is that I've made a conscious decision to stop looking for a charitable organization to sign up with so I can rise up out of my depression by giving to others. What my wife and I have recently realized is that we have the money and I have the time to help people without having to go through an expensive charity which usually takes around a third of all donations to pay their staff. I was planning to start driving for Meals on Wheels, but as it turns out, I don't need to belong to an organization to drive for other people. This world is in terrible need, and that need is at our doorsteps. If I have $100 to give to a charity that will take $18 of those dollars (or more) to pay their CEO, then I have $100 to give to a person in line at the register whose credit card isn't working and they now have to put back all the baby food and diapers in their cart. I can pay for that stuff and no CEO gets half my money.

Next Thursday I'm scheduled to go to my wife's coworker's apartment and take her two long-haired cats to a groomers two cities away. The coworker is in the hospital with failing kidneys. We went in with a few other friends and purchased an iPad for her. It's becoming clear that this coworker may never be able to return home again, so the iPad was a gift that could reconnect her with the outside world. Now her lonely little cats need some care and attention. I don't need to sign up with an organization to go take care of these cats for her. My wife is FAR too allergic to cats, otherwise we'd take them home with us and keep them for as long as needed. But we can't. Coco would have to move out if these cats moved in. But they're loving, sweet, lonely little creatures, and it's so easy for me, a retired isolater, to leave my little prison, and go out on the town with them for a single day.

Best Antidepressant I know of:

So, no more official charities!!! I lose only a tax credit by giving money and energy and rides to point of need. The tax credit isn't a motivator for me anymore. I'm done giving money to Charity CEOs. I now give it to people in need. For me, giving is the most effective anti-depressant that I know of. And, frankly, it costs less than Ketamine Infusions, medications, hypnotherapy, talk therapy, self-help books and the rest of the stuff I throw money and time at to try and feel valued on the earth.

My new epiphany is sort of an "If you can't beat em, join em" philosophy, around how narcissists raised me to be a fawn. A slave to their narcissistic desires. So giving to people has been a dark experience. So I used charities to let other people give my money to other people without me having to feel all dirty and chained to the fawning. 

Now I've decided that since I was raised to be a fawn, and I compulsively feel responsible to help everyone, why fight it? Why not just redirect that energy to NON-Narcissists? Like I said earlier, the needs in this world are at our doorstep now. Neighbors are struggling to pay for heat and food now. Why give my $ and my time to a CEO when I could give it directly to the person in need?

I have a new perspective now. I NEED to fawn voluntarily so I can feel like myself again, but in a happier setting. (A non-narcissistic setting). But I NEED to do this stuff on my terms now. No longer because narcissistic parents and churches TELL ME TO. This charitable fawning behavior is on MY terms now, and I am going to feel better about myself for having done it. My inner fawn needs someone to fawn over. So, even though the act seems selfless, it's really got a big self-interest embedded into it. Our friend needs help, and I NEED to help. I need to do this for my own depression. It will be good for me and others. I receive while I give. Being charitable is a self-interest. I'm not using the word "selfish" because selfish is a negative word. Self-interest is a neutral word. It has no positive nor negative tone. It just means that I'm doing something that is good for me to do. I was wired to fawn. So fawning makes me happy as long as it's not for narcissists.

It reminds me of that old saying about the fact that we were given two hands, one for giving and the other for receiving, and if we'll keep both hands moving, the Love of the Universe will flow THROUGH us and balance our need to be connected with other humans. Once again, my favorite Mother Teresa saying; "Love not put into action is only a word."

So, giving is something that I have to do if I'm going to stay up out of depression for as long as I can. Perhaps it is the silver bullet I've been looking for. As long as I keep it in check. When a person becomes known as a giver, the scammers and narcissists see a target. Once the giving goes dark and starts to feel like abuse, that's when I must stop, change direction, and change plans. But for now, while good, compassionate, caring people are in a current situation where they need a helping hand, I am blessed with a chance to rise up out of depression for a little while as I step up to help them with something that is easy for me to do. Driving two cats to a groomer is a very easy thing for me to do, but it means a LOT to a woman whose life has taken a bad turn for the worse.

I feel kind of bad that it's taken me this long to realize the simplicity of all this. But I think I really did have a very dark cloud over "giving" because I was forced to give (to the underserving) for 5 decades. Now that I have learned what narcissism is, and have studied the various forms of narcissism, I can clearly see that I was trained by bad people. But those days are gone. I can now smell narcissists from miles away, and I now can choose to use my training for GOOD instead of evil. I'm excited for the isolation to end.

Today I learned, from Holidayay that isolation once served me when I was surrounded by scoundrels, but it no longer serves me. That was such a good message to read this morning. It's really helping me develop this new lifestyle that I'm planning to run headlong into, beginning TODAY.

wow!  you're sounding quite powerful, PC.  lots of good strength vibes coming off the screen.  i think giving is a good thing if it comes from one's heart - otherwise, it's just a manipulation for someone else's benefit.  keep up the good work!  love and hugs :hug:

I smiled to think of you with your grandsons and also with your former foster son and his family. Enjoy your time with all of them. What I read about your giving made my heart feel warm.

 :hug:

Oh Papa Coco.  :grouphug:

You didn't trigger me with your post. You were speaking so directly to what I experienced in my own gaslighting family that so much resonated but I didn't have the energy to dig into it. I appreciated reading what you wrote in that moment and only couldn't untangle all the truths to properly reply in any way. It was not triggering, for me at least.

Fingers crossed that others stepping up too on the dog situation will help, and I remain curious how hypnotherapy will work with and for you. I have so much amnesia I don't know if hypnosis would be healing or deeply destabilizing.

Journal Entry for Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Today I had my first Hypnotherapy appointment #1 of 4.

I feel different. I got home a half hour ago and I feel better than I have ever felt, probably ever. This therapist bills for 50 minute sessions but gives as much time as is needed. I got 3 solid hours with her. The first 2 ½ hours were getting to know each other. She had me describe my life to her. As I did so she posed some fresh thought-provoking ideas that I have never considered before. As I told her about my FOO, and how I was never, EVER allowed to talk about what I wanted to be when I grew up, NEVER allowed to consider college, NEVER allowed to think about girls (and that in order to marry Coco I had to keep her a secret and marry her very quickly behind their backs so they couldn't take her away from me. We married in secret 28 days after we met, 40 years ago), and NEVER allowed to be sick or injured...She asked why I thought that was, and I could only say that I had literally no idea.

She asked me to consider that since my elder siblings were such difficult people: Sib 1, a girl who married at 19 and left the state, never to return, Sib 2 a narcissistic monster who stole from the neighbors, only dated married men and always made sure to contact their wives to rub it in, never held a job because of how hard she always worked to get all the other women fired, and so on and so on, and sib #3 who was an aloof boy that never helped out, never participated in any family function, etc, that when I came along, they were not going to let me leave them. I wasn't allowed to be sick or injured because I was of no use to them when I wasn't at 100%. I wasn't allowed to want anything, nor to want to grow up to be anything, nor to date anyone, marry anyone, go to college...NOTHING. She posed that maybe, in their twisted reality, they saw that I was kind and giving and wanted me all to themselves. I was their helper and they wanted me to stay that way.  Their own fear of losing me made them try to block all my exits so I couldn't/wouldn't ever leave them.

Just that comment alone has opened up a whole new room in my brain that I've never been in before. What if she's right? If she is, it works on helping me continue to know they were abusing me, but at the same time it sort of reduces my hatred for them. They abused me, not out of hatred for me, but out of their own sick need to keep me close.

I'll be contemplating this new tack on this old journey for a while now as I try to come to terms with it. My goal in this hypnosis venture is to stop feeling so much anger and hatred for not only my own FOO, but also all the abusive narcissists all over the world.

After talking for about 2 ½ hours, she brought me to a separate room where I sat in a comfy chair. She gave me a candle and guided me through a relaxing exercise that only lasted about 15 minutes. I was conscious the whole time and trying very hard to not let my mind wander. I didn't feel hypnotized but wow. Our visit ended because she had to take her aging mom to a medical appointment, but she admitted she'd love to have talked with me even longer.

So when I tried to leave I had to stall my departure. When I got to the Jeep, I couldn't drive. I was too dizzy and lightheaded. Luckily for me, it was a cold, dry morning, so I stood next to the Jeep for 10 minutes, drinking a bottle of water and breathing as deeply as I could so I could drive without crashing. It only took about 10 minutes for me to completely reinhabit my body.

Since that moment I have felt like a whole different person. Like my happy self has been given full permission to bloom and take over my body and brain for now.

I don't know how long this feeling will last, but my goal is to make it last for as long as I can. She told me how to use a candle and do a similar meditation alone as often as I want to, hopefully no less than once a day. I intend to do so, so that I can keep this feeling alive for as long as I can.

I see her again next Wednesday at the same time, 9:00 AM.

I told her that one of my great fears when I pray is that I'll get what I pray for but will have to lose something of value to pay for it. That old saying "Be careful what you pray for" is how I live my life. I told her that in my prayers, I often ask the divine for freedom from anger and hatred, but then I usually give the divine the caveats that I don't want to have my house burn down, or my family to die, or to be injured in an accident, or get cancer, or be humiliated, or be falsely accused of some stupid crime and be sent to prison. All my life I've heard people say that good only comes after bad. The "school of hard knocks." "No pain, no gain." All those stupid limiting sayings have always stopped me from "asking for too much."  That and, my FOO did ALWAYS make sure that if I ever did get something good, they made sure I knew that I'd hurt them by getting it.

So, by rule of thumb, I don't accept too much good because of my chronic belief that the other shoe is going fall to make me pay for my gift with pain and suffering.

She assured me that we will be able to ask the divine for a life of joy and freedom from hatred and anger without having to pay for it through some horrible loss.

So for this moment, the hours following hypnosis visit #1, I'm feeling like it might be possible that I will one day be able to lose, or at least reduce, a formidable sense of my hatred and anger for narcissists without having to first lose my family, home, money, health, or anything else that I value.

She said a lot of the same things my therapist says about how as each of us pursues healing...as we heal ourselves, we heal the world also.

I will be interested to see my future posts, say, a year from now, to see how much of this sticks with me. I know there are always going to be bad days mixed in with the good, but I sincerely hope that this adventure I'm on gives some lasting sense of healing that I can hold onto for life.

 :hug:

Thank you for sharing this in detail.

It's an interesting new take on why they kept you down.

Hi PC,

I read your last post last night and woke up thinking how I was going to comment on it. I know it's disappeared into the ether but I think there was something you were trying to communicate.

How I read it was that it sounds like a very protective way of thinking, one that you had to develop growing up. I didn't have any psychic boundaries growing up I think, I had to take on all of this stuff from people (who were often aggressive) and it put me in the world like that as an adult to an extent. I'm still very much struggling with people who are passive-aggressive and how to set boundaries with that kind of behaviour for example.

As children of narcs. we're very much enmeshed with our caregivers from an early age. I'm learning about the powerlessness I had, or felt, growing up and the ways I tried to deal with that. As an FA, I'm learning that I view every relationship as a threat and that I have to be one guard for those threats from people, and that if my security is threatened, my survival (life) is threatened. Relationships to me feel like kill or be killed and it's not something I can turn off because someone "seems safe." This comes from a very deep, young place. One thing that stood out from the interview with Dan Brown for me was "to know me is to control me," and the control is linked to the abuse that I experienced. So, it's better just to keep people that little bit on the outside (in whatever way we need to do that), even though my intention is to not. But it's all related to a feeling of powerlessness and the ways that I needed to develop to protect myself (psychically or behaviourally). This is how I read and understood your post, that there is a similar protective mechanism at work because in order to know people the way you described is to know and judge them as god that they are inherently good or evil, and there is a sense of power in being able to do that, one that we might have needed to feel as a (small) child. In the Tibetan Buddhism I have been learning, good and evil come from the same place. We all come from the same kunzhi, or base, and return there. The good and evil only have power because we give them power. (This has actually made me go back to the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep and find something I needed to hear on p94 about how to lessen the grip on our own negative emotional states)

I hope I'm not overstepping by commenting on something you deleted but I think the emotion behind what you were saying was valid. I hope you find some space with this,
dolly

Me, too. There was good stuff in there.  :grouphug:

Dolly,

Your posts are so well thought out. I'm always impressed by your level of detail.  I fully understand your sentiments about how if people know you they can control you. It makes perfect sense that we would feel that way after having been known so well by our controlling, abusive FOOs and teachers.

So far, I've listened to Dan Brown's interview twice and will likely listen to it a few more times. I've done his free "attachment style assessment", and almost ordered his workbook for my style. I just haven't pushed the button yet. His prices seem high. HIs Kindle workbook is $27. His paper book is $65. Who charges that for a book? So, I've been feeling like I need to be sure he's not trying to drag me into an Amway franchise or something. Also, I'm not ready to accept his bold statement that there is no such thing as C-PTSD. His information about attachment theory is very good and I'm liking it, but something about him feels arrogant, and his statement that there's no such thing as trauma is making me kind of suspicious of his own possible agenda, and his own heightened narcissism. Like he's trying to prove that he's the only one who's right in the world. Add that to the prices he charges and I'm not ready to buy any of his books just yet.

I confess too, that I am the one who deleted my post from yesterday. As a child of Narcs, and a victim of the Catholic church, I live on a fine line between self-confidence and utter shame. My FOO and that nasty church forced me to keep a lot of secrets no little boy should ever have to keep. Then, any time when the * hit the fan, they denied everything, and spun it all around to make me look like a liar. I had to live with the shame of believing I'd "misinterpreted" life and made false accusations that I should forever be ashamed of.

I live with a deep desire to be known. Seen. Validated. I am an open book who chooses to expose my own issues because my stomach hurts when I hold my thoughts in. NOT being authentic sends me into a crazy place. I lose sleep, can't digest food, start to hear voices screaming in my head. I have no choice but to be open and revealing. Authentic. I lived on secrets my whole life and I just can't stand the feeling that I'm not allowed to be ME around other people. I've never been capable of lying. I've been forced to do it a few times, but it leaves me feeling ugly and wrong. Keeping secrets (discretion) to protect myself or someone else is one thing, but openly lying is too ugly for me. The pain I inflict upon myself is not worth it.

When I posted that about clowns and narcs being the same, I was trying to describe how I can almost telepathically sense the facade in people who are hiding their true identities, and when people are hiding their true identities from me, I become afraid of them. Clowns and narcissists are the monsters that hide in the closet or under the bed at night. The Boogeyman. Killer robots from outer space, wearing human clothing. They are inhuman monsters disguised as caring or fun people. I've even met a few actors, but they make me uneasy. Like they're just too good at pretending to be someone else. The energy around the actors I've met is strangely confused. Like eratic. Like they're benign narcisissts who mean no harm, but can't connect with other people. Like clowns. They present a false image of themselves, and somehow I can just feel it.

In my post I was proposing that we C-PTSD types, or as Dan Brown would call us, we who suffer with attachment disorders, have developed a 6th sense. Somehow, we can "sense" a person is hiding something for the purpose of taking something from us.

I have to confess, lately I've been feeling like I'm not making sense anymore, and I keep asking myself if I should stay on this forum. My biggest fear in life is that I'll accidentally hurt someone during my lifetime. If I'm starting to sound like a crazy person on this forum, I risk hurting someone by making them leave the forum because of this one crazy guy who talks about clowns and narcissists being the same kind of person--and then claiming I can psychically feel the same fear from either one.

I deleted my post after it sat out in public for most of the day and didn't get responded to. So I became afraid I'd said things that exposed me as crazy. Shameful. Stupid.

You know, Dolly and Armee, after 40 years of therapy, Ketamine, SSRI's, alcoholism, hypnotherapy, volunteer work with rape victims, about a hundred self-help books, this forum, etc, etc, etc, I have to assume that my fears are incurable. I deleted my post because of my own fear of being shamed the way church people used to shame me, and family used to shame me, and the "John Wayne Generation" of old men used to shame me anytime I was authentic. Somehow, I never grew that thicker layer of skin, and never just decided to be me and not care what others think. I still shiver at the thought of being thrown out into the weeds and left for dead for not being secretive and avoidant and "like everyone else" in my culture.

It was trauma that made me delete that post. For that I apologize.

Thank you for responding anyway, even after I'd deleted it.

Your response has some good points in it. That by being authentic, we open ourselves up to being attacked by narcissists who use our own truths against us.  They "slap us with our own hand" but can't do that if we keep a distance from them.

I'm sorry that I let my own traumatic fears delete this post from yesterday.  In honor of Armee and Dolly's responses, I'm reposting it.

Recovery Journal Entry for Monday, January 30, 2023

I've been recently trying to put into words the fact that I can actually feel the presence of someone's spirit when I'm with them. What scares me the most is when I meet someone who doesn't appear to have a spirit. Up until now I've just called it "a gut feeling" but I'm starting to realize that we humans can feel each other's presence. We can feel it when we're being stared at. We can feel it when someone we love is thinking about us.  My wife and I, after almost 40 years seem to always come up with the same ideas at the exact same moment. We are like two people sharing a single mind. We were sitting in front of the TV one night 6 years ago, when Coco suddenly jumped to her feet "I have to check on Mom!"  Her mom lived with us for 14 years. she had her own section of the house, and we were used to her being in bed by this time of night. Coco had NO reason to jump up and run to her mom. But when she did, she found her unresponsive. We called 9-1-1. They tried to revive her but couldn't. She'd apparently had a quiet stroke of some kind and her daughter felt it from three rooms away. They took her to the Emergency Room, where she lived for only 2 more days on life support, but her brain had died. How did Coco know to jump up and suddenly check on her? Because we're all connected. And some of us can feel that connection in our bodies and brains and spirits. But narcissists can't. Their spirits don't reach out to our spirits. Life is a game to them. Their lives go like this: "Get what you can, hurt whomever you want, and then die alone and unloved."

Example of a time: 33 years ago, when we purchased our home, a neighbor and his 20-year-old son came by to help me work out a braking issue on an old car I had. When I met the son face to face, he appeared dead. His eyes looked toward me but not at me. I couldn't feel his presence. Like a clown, he was standing right in front of me but wasn't "human." His demeanor felt lifeless. He appeared "empty" inside. Like a robot. My gut told me to steer clear of him and to keep my kids away from him. A year later he rocked the neighborhood when he went to prison for 25 years because it had been discovered he was a serial rapist with many victims in his history.

So this  morning, as I was pondering how I fear narcissists, Borderline Personality Disordered (BPDs), sociopaths, psychopaths, or anyone who harbors a narcissistic inability to connect with others, I realized that I fear narcissists for the same reasons I fear clowns.  Check this out: I googled "Why are we afraid of clowns?" and got a lot of hits.

HINT: In the following quote, if you replace every word "clown" with "narcissist" the paragraph makes just as much sense. The points in red are the reason I fear clowns and narcissists equally:

I copy/pasted the following quote from Britanica.com:

"...according to researchers, there are actual psychological reasons why we fear clowns. To begin with, a clown's makeup can be unsettling. It hides not only the person's identity but also that person's feelings. Worse, the makeup can result in mixed signals if, for example, the clown has a painted-on smile but is frowning. Then, there's the uncanny nature of the makeup itself. The oversized lips and eyebrows distort the face so that the brain perceives it as human but slightly off. That oddness is heightened by a clown's bizarre costume. In addition, clowns are highly unpredictable as well as mischievous, which puts people on edge. Are they going to squirt water at you or give you a flower?" Copied from: https://www.britannica.com/story/why-are-people-afraid-of-clowns#:~:text=The%20oversized%20lips%20and%20eyebrows,or%20give%20you%20a%20flower%3F

Clowns are people hiding their identities and acting "larger than life." Narcissists are people hiding their authentic identities and acting "larger than life."  When clowns and narcissists are a long way away, they're funny to watch. But when they get into your private space, their fake personalities feel inhuman, even scary. Why? Because we can't connect with someone who is disguising themselves. We know they're unpredictable, and we don't feel safe around them. We humans feel connection with each other. Clowns and narcissists are all about behavior only. No authenticity. They're just acting like people. Their behaviors block and disguise any authentic human feelings. Robots behave like humans. Clowns behave like humans and narcissists behave like humans, but all three of them are not sharing their souls with us, and because we can't feel their authenticity, we find that frightening. As well we should.

Accepting the fact that we have 6 senses, not 5, and that our spirits seem able to connect with other spirits, explains to me why I sometimes meet people I simply KNOW to not trust. Other times I meet people I somehow just know to trust. I met Coco in a gas station in 1983. I asked her out. 4 weeks later we were married.  That was 40 years ago and our faces still light up when the other enters the room. Somehow we both just knew we were meant to be together.

We learn who to trust in this world through several means: 1) we learn how to identify dangerous people by reading a few books on sociopaths and narcissists. 2) we learn how to read physical signals, and to pay attention to red flags. 3) Sometimes we simply feel their presence, and when we do, either our skin crawls with disgust, or we can't help but feel good about the person. We have to use all our senses when learning how to place trust in the right people. Learning about narcissism from experts who've written books and podcasts on it has been one of the 10 best things I've ever done for my own healing. They're EXTREMELY easy to spot once we've read a few books on them. And now that I'm ready to accept the fact that sometimes I can just feel their evil in the room is moving my ability to learn how to trust to the next level.

Wow, PC, I've only just read your post about your first appointment with your new hypnotherapist. What a wonderful experience and outcome! I'm so glad it was a positive experience for you and left you looking forward to the next session, and feeling heard and supported.

 :hug:

So many warm and safe hugs for that traumatized little boy who had to come up with so many ways to try to keep yourself safe and sane.

You do not sound crazy, not at all. You are not crazy. You are traumatized. I'm sorry I'm so sorry all those terrible things happened to you. Both the SA and the narcissistic abuse. They are both horrid.

The reason I didn't respond yesterday and often take a long time to respond to your posts is because they have a lot of thought provoking things in them that really resonate with me and I need to take my time in digesting and responding. Often I am writing posts in between obligations, popping in here and there for a few minutes each time.

Your post yesterday really struck a chord for two main reasons:

1. My mom was utterly vacant. She had ice blue eyes and would just stare at me but with nothing absolutely nothing there, though occasionally hate would be there especially on her deathbed. The thought and felt sense of that vacuousness is the most disturbing thing about my mom to me, even more than her saying again on or very near to on her deathbed that she should have thrown my sister off the Golden Gate Bridge. I once visited my mom and then left and went to a store where I had to pass in front of someone clearly high on meth. She had a similar vacant feeling as my mom yet passing in front of her was far less disturbing than being near my mom. I've really struggled with how to make sense of her. Her actions and lack of them were cruel and yet her intention was never truly to be cruel but her need to protect herself from any hurt was so high. So I was resonating with what you shared about empty people and feeling things about my mom and trying to square it with the concept of evil or psychopathy.

2. I am often very hard for people to read and don't let them very close, so guilt and shame that maybe if we knew each other in real life you would read me as empty too.

[And no please don't feel guilty. What you wrote did not make me feel that way about myself. The way I was raised by my mom made me feel that way. I'm the bad one.]

Hi PC,

I don't think you have anything to feel ashamed or sorry for deleting that post, nor any shame in writing it.

I'm going to be busy over the next few days and won't have time to make a proper reply until then butI wanted to say that I heard you.

Sending you support,
dolly

Dolly and Armee,

Thanks for "talking me off the ledge" as my wife often calls it. And Dolly, thanks for letting me know you're going offline for a few days.

Normally, my posts that don't get responded to don't bother me. This one had some specific stressors in it for me. I was exposing my own belief that I can feel energy in people. That's a dangerous exposure in some circles. If I ever said anything like that back in my church / religious days, I would have been quickly punished for it.  I remember one time when Coco went to bed early because she didn't feel well. I came to bed an hour later, spooned up behind her, laid my left hand over her side and onto her tummy. Immediately, my stomach got sick and my head started to pound, and I fell fast asleep. The next morning, she said, "When you put your hand on me last night, my stomach stopped feeling sick and my pounding headache went away and I fell right to sleep."  I was shocked. NO one had ever said anything like that to me. I got excited and told my Baptist pastor about it, and his reaction was of panic. He said, and I quote perfectly. "DON'T WORRY!  THAT MIGHT NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!"  Then he coached me on how just because his bible says we can do miracles for each other, he needed me to know that miracles don't happen, no matter what the bible says. (HA HA! Talk about openly exposing his own hypocrisy).  Because of that and several other coincidental revelations, I left Christianity shortly after that. BUT to my point, I'm used to being scolded, punished, laughed at, or left for dead whenever I talk about any part of my robust spiritual life. So, because of my experiences, I panicked when I'd realized how vulnerable I'd made myself by talking about being able to feel other people's energy.

My Trauma EF was turned on by my exposing something about my spiritual beliefs. So I was a thousand times more worried that I'd gone too far.

Armee, your story of your mother really touches me. Thank you for sharing the story with me.  I know that narcissism isn't really one of the reasons why some people are quiet or find it difficult to let others in. Narcissism is boisterous and self-aggrandizing. They like to be the center. The leader. Their trick is to pretend they're someone else while they're pretending to care about us.

Truth be told, I tend to make friends quickly with people who don't easily let others in. Somehow that reminds me of how closed off and secretive I had to be when I was a sad little boy. I tend to actually gravitate toward people like you more than I do the boisterous, open people. Being quiet and reserved is very different from a narcissist, who lets people into their fake identity of being a good person. Narcissists are seldom quiet and reserved. Like clowns, they like to perform. But. like clowns, they hide behind a fake identity. They're the people I am afraid of. I can FEEL the absence of their souls.

Chances are good that if I met you face to face I'd be comfortable with you right off the bat. My wife and son are Autistic, and not good conversationalists. I'm used to people not being as open as I am about my inner workings.  I have specific reasons why I can't keep my emotions hidden. But I know most people are better at it than I am. I can NOT play poker. My poker face just simply doesn't exist.

So, again. sorry I let my fears win and delete my post. I'm glad I was able to recover it and put it back up. When I read it now, I can see that it wasn't anywhere near as crazy as I'd imagined it was when I deleted it.

The people on this forum are so NOT like my FOO and my former teachers and leaders. But, that's trauma. Some days reality is so hard to discern that fear takes over and forces some wrong behaviors.

 :hug:

Dear Papa Coco,
I would love to give you a longer reply but I am afraid I am currently experiencing a really stressful period (family issues, legal issues, and starting my new job), so I am only able to write a few lines but I wanted to respond to you nevertheless.
I understand how hard it is to talk to other people about intuitions and feelings like this because most of them won't understand and a lot of people will start fighting so aggressively against your beliefs/ assertions that it can most definitely cause a lot of trauma. People who speak about these intuitions and gut feelings have been called crazy, lunatics, schizophrenics, and all kinds of terrible things and a lot of them have been subjected to the most cruel and harmful treatment so I just wanted to applaud you for being so brave when deciding to talk about this with us.
The truth is that I have often experienced the same thing and I believe you are absolutely right: we are all connected in some way. Not everyone is equally tuned into this invisible network we are all sharing and some might never get to experience this whereas others receive these feelings and intuitions all the time.
I think a lot of people are afraid of it as they can't understand how this is possible, but to me this is not something to hide but a wonderful gift to share.
I myself don't experience these kinds of things to often but there is one very special person that I care deeply about and when we were still in contact I had those kinds of feelings all the time. I could always feel their presence from many, many meters away and knew they were approaching far before I could actually see them. I used to be able to spot them within seconds when being in a crowd of a thousand people or more. And I could literally sense whenever they sent me an email to the exact same minute. I would be out and about or doing something completely different when I would catch a sense of their smell and hear their voice, so I would look at my watch and remind myself to check my mailbox later and I was always right.
If things like that had happened once or twice one might have thought this was simply a co-incidence but like you I believe that there is a lot more to it.
To me, it makes only sense that I should be able to feel how this person is doing because I love them and feel that we are very much on the same wave length, sharing very similar attitudes and vibrations.

I am still working on being able to sense people (Narcissists) negatively as well and be more cautious when I meet them, but I just wanted to say that I believe you 1000% and hope that this might possibly reduce some of the shame you have been feeling when writing your post.
Your ideas, thoughts, beliefs etc are always welcome here and I always appreciate them a lot.

Hey Papa Coco!

When I had originally read your post on being able to feel others I was reminded of part of the Healing Developmental Trauma book I had read which explains the concept of a 'energetic boundary' that all humans have, and how that boundary can be violated.  The TLDR:

- Everyone has an energetic boundary.  It's the feeling you get when someone's standing too close to you
- Intact energetic boundaries give a feeling of safety and the ability to set limits, and often aren't consciously noticed
- Chronic early threat can impede the formation of these boundaries
- Those with ruptured boundaries can be symptomatic and extremely sensitive to environmental triggers, hypervigilant/hypersensitive
- Because of the feeling of constant threat, those with ruptured boundaries use self-isolation and interpersonal distance to compensate
- Because most people don't register that they have an energetic boundary, when more sensitive people complain about a rupture they're often dismissed or written off

Those with healthy energetic boundaries
- feel comfortable in their own body
- feel an implicit sense of safety
- feel a clear sense of self and other
- can say no and set limits

Those with compromised energetic boundaries have
- extreme sensitivity to others' emotions
- energetic merging with other people, animals, and the environment
- hypervigilance
- environmental sensitivities
- feel uncomfortable in large crowds
- agoraphobia

Sorry for the large wall of text, but just wanted to reflect on how the text reminded me of your comments on being able to sense and detect others.  I often feel the same way, although not to the same degree - I can often tell other's emotional states before they even register them themselves, but I always chalked that up to the hypervigilance I developed out of necessity as a child, making sure to avoid potentially harmful situations caused by others' stress.

Hope you have a good week!

Wow, thank you Cracked Ice. That feels spot on

MilkandHoney, I'm sorry to hear about your complicated place in life right now. I appreciate you checking in on the forum and responding to myself, and I assume to other members as well, even though you've got a lot on your plate.  I like your story of that friend you have/had who you can sense and feel. That does happen to me a lot, and also to my wife. Our sons and one of our grandsons seem to also be tuned into the people we are connected to. I believe that the more we accept that to be true, the more skillful we become at sensing the energy/presence of others. Any time anything strange happens around this, you are free to talk about it with me. Intuitions and inexplicable human connection are of my favorite topics to talk about anytime anywhere. In fact, I think the reason I get so chilled around people who hide their identities is because connection with other humans and pets is the only thing I truly value in life. Anyone who blocks that connection with clown makeup or evil intention feels cold and inhuman to me. Growing up feeling like a freak of nature, has left me feeling warm and welcome ONLY when I can feel the presence of and connection with other people or animals. When I can't feel a connection, the world is cold and dark.

Armee, Thanks for the hug. I can really feel these connections. I learned to appreciate hugs and smiles when I was very young. I discovered the musical/comedic antics of Victor Borga when I was only about 5 or 6 years old. I became a fan and wanted so badly to be like him. I was forbidden from learning any musical instrument, but at one point in my thirties I did become a comedian for a few years. I fulfilled half of the dream. Borga was a musically talented, hysterical comedian, and I believed that he truly loved his audiences. So, I really wanted to be like him. Whenever anyone asks who I'd want to have lunch with, alive or dead, his is the first name I blurt out. He used to say, "The shortest distance between two people is a smile." I've lived my life by that mantra, and when I get these little hugs from yourself and others on the forum, I can feel the kindness that drove them. These little hug emojis feel like a real-life smile and I LOVE em.  So, here's another one back:  :hug:

CrackedIce, thank you for sharing these bullets. This is very good information, and I realize now that I bought the book a few months ago but buried it into my future-read pile. Your post is reminding me to find the book and start reading it now. Those bullets are spot on with my experience of this world. Also, no one on this forum ever has to apologize to me for posting a "long wall of text." I think I could go head-to-head with anyone as the member who provides the longest walls of text almost every day. LOL. I like to write. Another favorite quote I live by is from Mark Twain: "I didn't have time to write you a short letter so I'm writing you a long one."  HA HA! It's so true.

Hypnotherapy Update:
Yesterday I had my Hypnotherapy appointment #2 of 4. The hypnotherapist is a former trauma counselor, and a very spiritual person. So, this therapy is a combination of talking, sensing each other's energy in the room, and hypnosis. My sessions have been going on for about 3 hours each. She spends more time talking with me about connections and gives me a few tools designed specifically to help me focus more intently on the future than I do on the past. Then she gives me a good 45 minutes of hypnotherapy where she helps me target the pains in my body and to relate them to my trauma, and helps me start to release the trauma, which in turn can heal the pain. As most of us know, we have bodies that respond to our traumas, and under the umbrella of "mind over matter" we armor or bring about pains that are directly related to our traumatic experiences.

It's too early to tell how long her help is going to stick with me. Some people say hypnosis changed them permanently, but I'm learning to cool my jets whenever I try something new. All too often I set my expectations too high and end up defeated when the "silver bullet" didn't permanently and profoundly change me.  So, I'm not being skeptical, but I'm being cautious to not put too much blind faith in this. Time will tell.

She's mentioned that in April, she's going to host a 3 Sunday series of group sessions. MY experience over many years of experimentation with human connection, is that when I'm in group meditations, or group prayers or group energy work, that the power of the connection is exponentially increased. That doesn't sound as crazy when I compare it to attending a live concert, a play, or a sporting event, rather than just watching it on TV for free. Being in the crowd raises the experience because the fans can all feel the energy of the crowd. At home it's just you and the TV. People prefer being in the crowd more for the energy they feel than the need to see the event. The TV usually gives a better view than sitting a thousand yards away watching it on the Jumbotron. It's the group energy that greatly increases the experience. I've found that to be true in mediations and hypnosis also.

I can be hypnotized easier in a crowd than I can in a one-on-one session. Somehow, I can feel more energy when there's more energy to be felt. A dozen people focused on the same thoughts really powers me up. When my hypnotherapist sets the dates for her group sessions and opens it up for registration, I hope to sign up to see if the group sessions bring more connection, like being in the stadium rather than sitting alone on the sofa watching it on TV.

I hope everyone has a good day today. Coco is off work today and we're going to go out and goof off a bit. The weather's nice in Seattle this week. It should be fun. And it will get me OUT of the house and NOT isolating.  That's always good. Here's a hug for everyone!  :grouphug:

Quote from: Papa Coco on January 31, 2023, 10:31:49 PM
Truth be told, I tend to make friends quickly with people who don't easily let others in. Somehow that reminds me of how closed off and secretive I had to be when I was a sad little boy. I tend to actually gravitate toward people like you more than I do the boisterous, open people. Being quiet and reserved is very different from a narcissist, who lets people into their fake identity of being a good person. Narcissists are seldom quiet and reserved. Like clowns, they like to perform. But. like clowns, they hide behind a fake identity. They're the people I am afraid of. I can FEEL the absence of their souls.

Chances are good that if I met you face to face I'd be comfortable with you right off the bat. My wife and son are Autistic, and not good conversationalists. I'm used to people not being as open as I am about my inner workings.  I have specific reasons why I can't keep my emotions hidden. But I know most people are better at it than I am. I can NOT play poker. My poker face just simply doesn't exist.

Hi PC,

I don't think you have to be sorry for deleting it, really. All your feelings were valid for why you wrote it and why you wanted to delete it.

I don't talk about a lot of that stuff generally with people because, like you, I learned that people will think I'm crazy, but it really matters and is very important to me. So, in the spirit of full disclosure sometimes I dream about things and then they happen. For example, I had been involved with this guy and had a dream one night that I was in this big house and saw him in a mirror with this other woman. I woke up wrote the dream down and then saw on facebook that he had posted a photo on facebook during the night of his reflection in a mirror with another woman in front of him. I don't like talking about this stuff a lot because I don't like being othered. I don't think I'm special, I think anyone  can do it. No one can fully "know" because that is being a god and I'm not a god or bodhisattva, but it is your connection to "god" whatever that is for people. I've opened up with a collegue recently about it but we have been talking about other things as well. He wants to doubt but we have good exchanges about things so I'm up for the debate about what it means. I've told people in the past that I dreamed about someone before I met him on a dating app and they stopped talking to me.

I also agree that having to be really fined tuned to peoples' reactions from a young age probably helped us tap into the finer nuances of what is going on than most people.

I do feel that seeing people as "good or evil" is to judge them in the way that god would judge them and only god can know those things. What I responded to in your post was that boy who probably needed to believe those things as a form of protection. That growing up there was no appropriate filter in your life for who, or what was acceptable, to be around you which is what functional parents should provide. I'm working on my need to feel "power over" right now because I felt powerless most of the time growing up. So, it was my way to survive and protect myself. A lot of times I feel what CrackedIce wrote, that there is no energetic filter between me and other people and it was like it's like being invaded. I think it's getting better recently though. Maybe it's do with more self knowledge and what/when/where I am giving things up so I can start saying no. Maybe it's having a more stable sense of self where (at times haha - still healing) I realize that I'm not a terrible person and that yes, these people are in the wrong and I'm being reasonable saying something to them about it and I can do that, I have a duty to myself to do that. Then it becomes a struggle to have empathy for them and what they have been through because, when I step back, I don't think they are all bad like in my mind at that time, or they have their issues too. Though it is really hard to see that, I mean really hard haha. I think that is the black and white thinking of my fearful avoidant attachment style coming up, trying to protect me. Of course, this is me and my experience and it's through this lens that I saw your post and how I relate to needing to feel a sense of power/control over the things that come into our lives.

I also wanted to respond to what you wrote above about being drawn to unavailable people because I think it's a way to now show our authentic selves and to play out our own attachment issues with our caregivers since they were unavailable. I do this in relationships a lot and feel a "spark" with people who are unavailable in some way. I guess in a way it's familiar and what I always got from my m and family. When I had a situation recently where I felt it might be more open and I have to show some of my authentic self (that shame self), I shut down in panic. I also like being around unavailable people because I do lack those energetic boundaries and it means that I don't become enmeshed, but is it getting to show my authentic self? Definitely not.

Dan Brown is probably the bridge between the old and the new thinking about developmental issues. I find it hard to believe that every trauma survivor with insecure/disorganized attachment is a collection of personality disorders and not something else. There's also a lot of information out there on attachment styles without buying his book but that being said I think it's probably more expensive because it isn't mass produced? I wanted to buy the Attachment Focused EMDR book and it was around $50 but i don't know. The Therapist Uncensored podcasts are really good and look at issues through an attachment lens. Those Heidi Priebe videos also do a good job of breaking them down.

I'm glad your hypnotherapy sessions are going well and I hope you have a great time with Coco.

Sending you support,
dolly

Just a quick note on the energetic boundaries CrackedIce mentioned. It's worth looking for videos and courses by Wendy De Rosa. She does a lot of guided meditations related to healing and clearing energetic boundaries, particularly where they've been compromised due to early trauma. I find them very effective.

hey, PC, sounds like the hypnotherapy is interesting work.  i totally relate to the energy thing, can often sense bad energy coming off someone, and you're absolutely correct - there's nothing like enjoying a positive shared experience.  the energy can lift us above what we thought we could feel.

keep up the good work.  love and hugs :hug:

Dolly, Snowdrop and San,

Sorry for my slow responses. My wife has COVID and I am having a hard time leaving her side. So I'm kind of distracted right now.

Thank you for being open about your spiritual experiences. They are right there in line with mine. It's a huge relief to feel like I'm okay to talk about these energy experiences. And I'll definitely look into Wendy De Rosa, thank you for the referral Snowdrop.

The first metaphysical message I ever got was when I was about 12 or so. Pets were not allowed in our home. One day I was finally allowed to buy ONE fish and a fish tank. The tank had to be in the family room, which was as far away from my bedroom as it could be. This fish/pet was a huge deal for me. That red fish was the only pet I was ever allowed to have during my entire childhood. One Sunday morning I had a dream that he/she had jumped out of the fish tank and was dead. Sundays were church day for my catholic family, so Mom woke me up for church and said, "Your fish died last night." Without even thinking, I just said "Yeah, I know."

Since then, the stories of knowing things just before they happened, dreaming about old friends the night before bumping into them in public, and feeling danger before it happens have been just "another day in the life" for me. I also discovered that the more I allow it to happen, and the more I talk about it, and the more I connect with others who have the same experiences, the more powerful the experiences become.

(Trigger Warning: A quick story of how my last suicide attempt was stopped via unseen connection)

My life was saved in 2010 on the 2nd anniversary of my little sister's suicide. I was fetching my car keys so I could drive to a bridge 5 miles from my house to jump off it. I was NOT in my right mind. I had been hallucinating the Grim Reaper all day, He'd been standing right behind me, getting stronger and bigger as the day progressed. He was forcing me to do it. Death was a dark ocean that was getting so close to me that I could just about step into it. But as I was getting up to walk to the car, my phone rang. I said, "Hello". But the person on the other end, who was 2,200 miles away, and hadn't spoken to me in months, yelled "JIMMY! WHAT'S WRONG?" As I fell apart on the phone, she reported that she'd been sick to her stomach all day and couldn't get me off her mind. A friend of hers called her a few minutes ago (From over 1,000 miles away from her) and said "You have to call Seattle NOW! Something terrible is about to happen!" The minute this person got me to tell her that I was on my way to the bridge, the Reaper vanished. POOF! Just...gone. The spell was broken. She made me put the suicide hotline phone number in my contacts in position #1. My life was saved, and I am the proof that the phone call was not even remotely a coincidence. It saved my life only minutes before it would be too late.

No one can ever convince me that we humans (and often our pets) aren't positively connected in ways we can't understand.

So, as a positive message for today, I'm going to allow myself to dive headlong into practicing unseen connections again. Maybe I can find the joy that's been eluding me these past few years.

THANK YOU all for commenting and validating that I'm not the only person who believes in this.

Hey PC,

I'm sorry you had to go through that on the bridge. I don't always understand my experiences and am trying to learn more about the world in that way. So, thank you for being open about it as well. It's also weird that I really don't like to talk about it and should explore that a bit. Sometimes I think it scares the bejesus out of me so I shut it out. On the topic of good bad energy (vs. people) you might want to look into Robert Falconer's work around unattached burdens in IFS. I came across them when I had some stuff come up in IFS that I couldn't explain and did one of his courses. There's not a lot of info out there on unattached burdens as IFS wants to be accepted as "legitimate," but to me, IFS crosses the line between psychotherapy and the energy work you mention. I think the grim reaper image is interesting and the fact that it was on the anniversary of your sister's death.

I also read Ann M. Drake's book, The Energetic Dimension, as well as her previous one. She goes into detail about energy transference between people during abuse and how she assists in recovering parts. During abuse sometimes the perpetrator "takes" a part of you, and "leaves" a part in return which she cleans up on an energetic level.

Thank you Snowdrop too, for the recommendation.

Sending you support and I hope Coco gets better  :hug:
dolly

hope your wife is well soonest, PC.

i've noticed when my stress level is very high, my energy connection w/ others is lower.  i think my system is using all the energy it can spare to get me back to basics.  i've even been called a 'witch' (white/good) before which has never bothered me.  i've often been able to put my energy flow into others for healing purposes.  and my magnetic energy field is so strong, i stop watches.  so, no, you don't have to back away from this, PC.  i think it's a gift.

keep taking care of you, too, ok?  love and hugs :hug:

 :bighug:

It's safe here and that is a very very powerful example. I believe you and think it is special, not weird.

I hope Mama Coco feels better soon.  :grouphug:

I hope your wife feels better soon.

Hi Papa Coco,
So sorry to hear that your wife is ill at the moment with Covid, and hope that she feels better very soon.  All the best to you as well.
Hope  :)

Journal Entry, Thursday, February 9

I've been offline for a few days. So sorry. As I scan the new updates to everyone's journals, I feel like I've been gone for months. So much activity. I hope to get some time in the next few days to get caught up with everyone. You all are my friends, and I like to keep up with your posts.

Dolly, San, Armee, NotAlone, Hope, Thanks for the well wishes for my wife. She got through the COVID pretty quickly. She's testing negative now and her energy levels are beginning to normalize.  Her symptoms were mostly fatigue and congestion. She has a frail system, so I worry more about her than I do most people. Today she feels just kind of weak and icky, but not as bad as last week. She hopes to go back to work on Saturday.

----

Today's journal entry will expose more of my spiritual beliefs, and how the hypnotherapy is not telling me anything new but is reawakening a deeply spiritual life that I've let fall into disrepair over the past two decades.

My time with Amy Marohn, who is my new hypnotherapist/spiritual teacher/former trauma therapist, is validating for me what I've been suspecting for a while now: that those of us who have found this forum are the "salt of the earth". We suffer because we care. I believe that we suffer because somehow, we know this world doesn't have to be as cruel as it is, and we did not want to be abused as badly as we were, and we somehow know that abuse didn't have to happen because cruelty shouldn't even exist.

I believe we're right about that. How frustrating that this world doesn't have to be cruel, but it is anyway. UGH! I just hate that!

But we are the salt of the earth. We are the good on a struggling planet. Where other abuse victims perpetuate the crimes by becoming bullies themselves (like my middle sister and brother did), we here on this forum chose to not perpetuate the suffering. It's OUR wish that the suffering end. And for most of us, in our families, we are trying very hard to let the family abuse end with us. So I'm proud to be a member of a group of souls like you all.

The compassion and empathy that I read on this forum from all you beautiful souls is my proof that we really are the ones who are on the right path, but we are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of cruelty and suffering that has happened to us and to our friends and to our world.

In other words, I believe we suffer because we can see the truth, and it frustrates us that suffering is allowed to continue when we know it doesn't have to. That's something to be deeply proud of. Seeing the suffering and being unable to just ignore it and move on shows how beautiful our souls really are.

Every truly influential leader of all time, from Budda to Jesus to Mother Teresa to Dr. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Tutu, to all the local heroes I know in my community, to alcohol rehab counselors to big brothers/big sisters, those of us who become the healers in this world, become healers by first experiencing suffering. People born into charmed lives all too often grow up to be self-entitled bullies. People born into suffering seem to have an easier time growing up to be saviors to others. Some common terms for this phenomenon are around "graduating from the school of hard knocks" or "walking a mile in someone else's shoes".

It's significant for me to see my heroes, like Budda, Jesus, Mother Teresa, MLK, etc, etc, and realize they rose up out of despair and made it their lifes' mission to try and bring positive energy to a negative world.

----I'm coming out of my spiritual closet: I believe that the Healing Energy that originally created us is still very real---

In the mid 1990s, shortly after I had that healing experience with my wife by laying my hand on her stomach and accidentally "curing" her headache and stomachache, I met someone who showed me an even more startling example of how energy is passed around between us humans: 

In the middle 1990s I got the chance to meet Dr. Wayne Dyer. At that time, I did not know who he was. I'd heard he'd written a book called Your Erroneous Zones. I'd never read the book. I think I was still trying to find my spiritual foundations through a Baptist church at that time. This would be just before I finally stopped identifying as a Christian and realized I had access to the divine without a religion telling me to go through them.  As I shook Dr. Dyer's hand, I felt an indescribable sense of absolute peace and joy slowly creep up my arm. It saturated my entire arm as if I was dipping it slowly into a vat of warm, cozy wax. I held his hand tightly for as long as I could get away with. By the time I had to let go, the peaceful sensation had made it past my elbow almost to my shoulder. I felt like if I could have held on longer that peace would have completely engulfed my entire body. Coco and I sat down to get ready for his presentation. I leaned into her and said, "I wonder if he knows how much peace he really gives off." Well. DUH! He did know. In fact, that's what his hour-long presentation was all about. He'd been raised in a loveless orphanage and made it his life's mission to find peace and connection through spiritual means. He taught that the more he focused on Peace and Unconditional Love, the more that peace and Love would reach out and affect others. Exactly as his handshake had spread Peace into my own arm.

What I learned from that unforgettable handshake is what I'm choosing to experience for myself now.

The reason I'm calling us the Salt of the Earth is because just a few granules of salt will change the flavor of an entire stockpot of soup.  If the soup is bland, just throw a pinch of a few hundred granules of salt in, and the entire soup gains flavor. The salt doesn't need to do anything but exist. It doesn't need to feed the poor. It doesn't need to sell its possessions and give the money to the poor. It doesn't need to go to church every Sunday. It doesn't need to teach or become a doctor or cure cancer or take in stray dogs...All it has to do is BE salt. It's mere existence transforms the environment it inhabits.  Dr. Dyer taught me that in 1996, and now Amy Marohn is reminding me by teaching the same thing.  All I have to do is focus on the fact that Unconditional Love is real, and others begin to feel it with me.

Current Example:

On Monday, I drove up to my son's house in the mountains to spend the day with him talking about Hypnotherapy, and offering to pay for it if he wants to participate. My son has been very connected with spirit since he was born, but it has caused him a lot of fear. At nine, he once predicted the death of a family friend. In the back seat of the car he said, Something bad is about to happen to Trevor." Two weeks later, 28-year-old Trevor died in his dad's arms, of a disease nobody knew he had. My son was young and believed he'd caused the death by seeing it before it happened. He has been a mess ever since by trying so hard to ignore his "gift", which keeps pestering him even to this day. But these past few years he's been trying to reconnect. His confusion and not knowing what to do with his "gift" is always bugging him. So, I wanted to have a few hours to really talk it out with him and see if he wanted me to give him a few sessions with Amy also. People and animals have always been inexplicably attracted to my son. He now has a cat that came to him two years ago by sneaking into his house as often as he could get away with it. At the time, the cat belonged to a neighbor. The cat was emaciated, skinny, his hair was falling out. For some reason he loved my son and refused to go home to his "owners." My son bought a litter box and food and just let him stay whenever he came around. The neighbors gave my son a lot of grief at first, accusing him of stealing the cat. But the cat kept coming back and sneaking in. About a year ago, the neighbors gave up. -- The cat is now my son's pet. He's healthy, strong and has a beautiful coat of long, luxurious black hair. He likes being petted for a few seconds and never lets anyone pick him up. Monday, as I was driving to the mountains, I was focused totally on the Unconditional Love that created us all. Kind of like meditating on Unconditional Love while driving. Whenever I meditate like this, I find that strangers respond to me more quickly with smiles and conversation. But on Monday, it was the cat. He walked up to me in my son's driveway and lifted up onto his back legs, reaching up with his front paws for me to pick him up. My son couldn't believe what he was seeing. I picked up the cat and held him for almost 10 minutes as he tried to burrow himself deeper into my arms so I'd keep petting his neck and throat. My son is still absolutely amazed at what he saw that cat do. He says it's the first time he's ever seen the cat not only allow someone to pick him up, but actually reach out and ask me to. I attribute it to the fact that on Monday, I was focused on the creative love of the Universe and the cat sensed it and wanted to be closer to it.

To be clear, I don't believe that I have any powers. I believe that Unconditional Love is the only true energy that exists, but our brains and bodies don't understand that. I believe that by focusing on "God's Love" or The Unconditional Love that created us, that all I'm doing is opening up a window and letting Divine Consciousness shine its own light through me. I don't possess any special powers. I'm just a guy who no longer believes there is any happiness to be found in money, power, looks, health...the world. To me, happiness and joy are found ONLY in knowing that I'm a part of the Unconditional Love that originally created us.

So to finalize today's Hypnotherapy report, I'm discovering that the more I focus on Unconditional Love, the less I feel connected to my past of abuse and Trauma. The more I focus on Unconditional Love, the more I spread that Peace, in any form and to any degree, to others. As of right now, it seems to me that by focusing on Unconditional Love, and not giving my trauma much thought, Trauma is kind of fading out of my conscious awareness of the moment. I'm old enough to know that time will tell whether today's epiphanies will last, so I'm not yet ready to say this is changing me fundamentally, or if this is just a happy, fleeting moment in my life. I suspect I will go forward freer to feel the Unconditional Love that created us, and, hopefully, less apt to fall into those EFs that have plagued me my whole life. I feel sure that, even if the EFs continue to slam me, I'll still have a slightly better ability to rise up and out of them.

This is more than just hypnosis; Amy gives me 3 hours per session so she can use a few minutes of hypnosis in conjunction with hours of spiritual discussion and a deep understanding of human trauma disorders.  In my desire to begin being more connected and charitable, in hopes of losing my need to isolate and hide, I'm now thinking I don't have to join a volunteer organization, or give more money to more charities, or take in stray animals or be at the soup kitchens on Thanksgiving, but by giving myself over to a wider view of our human existence, and by embracing the Unconditional Love that originally created us, that I'll begin to reconnect with a joy I haven't felt in decades.

My fingers are crossed that what I'm feeling now will stay with me for life. Only time will tell.

I hope I'm not sounding crazy or "woo woo". I'm just being open and transparent about my experiences with spirit and meditation and hypnotherapy. I'm still me. I still know C-PTSD is real. It's a gripping disorder that I still have, and that we all need to weave our way through as we seek any help we can find. Like I say: Fingers crossed this direction takes me somewhere better than my traditional feeling of helpless during my EFs.

Papa Coco thanks for sharing your new spiritual insights and experiences.

Quote from: Papa Coco on February 09, 2023, 09:15:13 PM
Journal Entry, Thursday, February 9

But we are the salt of the earth. We are the good on a struggling planet. Where other abuse victims perpetuate the crimes by becoming bullies themselves (like my middle sister and brother did), we here on this forum chose to not perpetuate the suffering. It's OUR wish that the suffering end. And for most of us, in our families, we are trying very hard to let the family abuse end with us. So I'm proud to be a member of a group of souls like you all.

I absolutely agree with this.  Thankfully, I had about 6 years of recovery (in 12 step and therapy) before having my first child.  I made a vow that I would NEVER repeat with my children what my mother did to me as a child.  I was certainly not perfect, but when I did get frustrated and yell, I apologized to my children.  I poured love into them from the day they were born.  They have both turned out to be good people.

It's wonderful that you are finding a strong spiritual life. 

Papa Coco. What beautiful stories! The cat! Wow! And I found your story of the man who wrote that book to be really powerful. When you think about it, many of us were not raised in that different of an environment from a loveless orphanage. In fact I absolutely shudder to think of my mom in charge of babies in an orphanage. That feels so wrong. So so wrong. And yet that is what raised me. But to think about how he turned that experience into his life mission. Well like you and Naturlover, I've made it my life's mission at least to break the cycle here. Obviously there are some pieces of the cycle that will pass to my kids, but much less.

I agree with your assessment of people on this forum, Papa Coco, you very much included. I'm so glad your hypnotherapist is helping you reconnect with the most spiritual side of you. It sounds like a gift.

Love your last post Papa Coco, and particularly the salt metaphor.  Definitely going to let that 'season' my thoughts for the next few days :)

Have a great week!

Thank you, Natureluvr, Armee and CrackedIce.

Spirituality is a tender topic, so I appreciate your support.

I just know that I don't feel drawn to join a monastery in the mountains of Tibet. I still want to continue to own a home and a car and have some income and savings, and I really do want to feel healthy and energetic, but none of that brings me joy. I'm finding that health, wealth, and safety are important to survival, but they don't...bring...joy.

Only feeling connected to any level of unconditional love. That's the ONLY thing that brings me deep joy again. Swimming in Unconditional Love. So, that's where my push to become more connected on a higher sense of reality is coming from. I'm searching for my own ability to feel joy by trying to bring myself back to feeling love for others again.

Today a neighbor contacted me expressing his frustration with those barking dogs that live next door to me. This family not only allows their dogs to bark day and night, they also like to have live bands in their backyard on several occasions every single summer. We have tried SO HARD to ignore the bands and the dogs by either leaving for a long drive, or using sound deadening headphones inside our own home, but now that other neighbors are FINALLY starting to join into the frustration, I'm finally joining their legal battle to get it all to stop. It's got me beside myself. I ALWAYS fear retaliation any time I ask ANYONE to respect me. So I'm assuming, retaliation is next. When/If that happens, I hope Coco finally becomes willing to discuss selling this house and leaving the city altogether.

For now, my prayers are that "god" or "guides" or "spirit" or "the universe"or whatever/whomever it is that talks to me from time to time will teach me HOW to pray to return the peace to my home. Obviously, my current prayers have done nothing to stop the barking. Talking with the neighbor did NOTHING to stop the barking. Repeated attempts to get help from the city have done NOTHING to stop the barking.  So, if I'm going to become more of a spirit-based person, I need spiritual guidance on how to either accept the barking as a happy noise that keeps me up all night, or I need someone on the "other side" to teach me how to pray for this miracle to happen. I don't want bad things to happen, I just want the dogs to STOP barking!  I'm VERY frustrated. My home has been invaded by what sounds like junkyard dogs 24 x 7. I want to move back down to the beach, but my hypnosis still has one more session. THEN I have to start living in the city again for the entire Spring season due to that's when all our family birthdays and anniversaries are, and I want/need to be present for all of them.  Otherwise, I'd be living at the beach right now where peace and quiet are the norm, and noisy dogs are the rare occurrence.

I believe in the power of prayer. It's proven itself many times. So obviously, this barking dog thing is a kind of prayer I still need to learn how to go into. I don't want to be stricken with deafness, but if I'm the one who needs to change, or have some kind of an epiphany that makes me enjoy 24 hour barking from multiple dogs at my bedroom window, then I'm happy to be the one who changes. I just need help figuring out how to become unaffected by abusive noises 24 x 7.

I don't believe I have ADHD, but I DO believe that I am HSP and hypervigilant, which provide the same symptoms/behaviors as ADHD does. Being very easy to distract, the barking keeps me from reading, or enjoying soft music in my own home, or sleeping, or watching TV while, the barking keeps pulling my focus off what I'm tryiing to enjoy doing.

This particular hypnotherapist specializes more in a multipronged approach, which includes some light hypnosis. I really am enjoying her help, but when I'm done with her, if I still can't get past these offensively loud neighbors, I might have to find a more traditional, PUT ME UNDER Hypnosis that can change my brain and make me love the sounds of other people's dogs and live amatuer bands. I may have to set up with a second hypnotherapist--a more aggressive one, as soon as I'm done with this one.

OMG: This chronic abuse by these coldhearted people is driving me insane. On a positive note, I guess they're driving me back into my deep search for unconditional love. Maybe they're the tool "god" is using to bring me back into prayer. Maybe they were sent into my space to teach me how to deal with abuse better than by running away from it.  If so, that's great. But...please help me learn it fast so I can stop this suffering.

Hey PC,

I'm sorry you're going through that and I hope you're able to continue to stand up to them and set some boundaries about what is and is not appropriate for neighbour behaviour. Dog barking is a form of psychological torture and prisoners in Abu Ghrahib were threatened with them. I don't think you are out of order for asking for something to be done about it but I know the fear of retaliation very well, and is something I'm working on now. It's like once I set a boundary, there are these forces in motion that try to undo it, and I'm only beginning to understand where they come from. I had a neighbour situation myself recently over storing things in the common area when I needed to use it for a short time to move some things. It's a long story but she called me some names for suggesting that it would have been polite if she offered to move her things so I could get my stuff in and out, which is not even supposed to be stored there. I felt horrible about it, but also that I was justified for doing it. It was just an experience that left a bad taste in my mouth - I hate standing up for myself like that or telling someone that something they're doing is bothering me. Anyways, I got a letter on Friday that someone had contacted building management and they were getting a bailiff to remove the stuff. Someone must have overheard, or got tired of it as well, and I didn't have to call even though I threatened to. I guess it's an affirmation that maybe people are there when we need. I'm hoping that your neighbours come through for you as well. Neighbour stuff is hard.

I think the anger and emotions you're feeling towards the neighbours and the situation is very valid. You have every right to feel those things that are coming up and are not a bad, or less spiritual, person because of it.

I've been thinking about it for a while but I used to be quite jumpy at work with lots of loud noises etc and it's either since I started treating the mycotoxins or microdosing that I'm finding it's going away over time. I started wearing earplugs at work to stop being so reactive and I don't even think about wearing them any more. I don't find that same level of jumpiness is there.

Sending you support and a hug  :hug:
dolly

Thank you Dolly,

And thank you for your report that your microdosing is making your hypersensitivity calm down a bit. That's really good news. If I could get past my fear of how to find and properly use Microdosing, I'd still love to try it. I just can't get past my fear of doing something that might get me into trouble. (The paranoid roots of my raising run deep).

Being Hypersensitive is common in people with PTSD, and I certainly do struggle with it.

I have found some interesting music on Apple Music that is helping me a little right now. I put on my heavy-duty over the ear, construction grade headphones, and bluetooth to my Apple Music and listen to 30-60 minutes of Singing Bowls. These are the bowls used in sound therapy, which I know is effective for a lot of people. I feel a lot of physical changes in my body as I listen to the vibrations of the bowls. With headphones on, it feels like the bowls are surrounding me.  I am one of those people who is calmed by these vibrations. What I really like about these recordings I've found, is that the "musicians" who are recording it, are using multiple bowls, and different pressures. They let the vibrations go for a short while and my brain starts to distract onto other thoughts, but then, all of a sudden, they introduce another bowl, and it immediately brings me back to the meditation.

For me to meditate is a tall order. I distract so easily. But because these bowl recordings keep changing the tones, somehow, they keep bringing me back to meditation. I try to meditate on gratitude, love, and health. And, for now, I'm trying to do this for 30 minutes every morning and 30 minutes every night. I'm working to bring myself back to a daily routine of remembering that in this world of bad news and crime and global problems, good still exists, and I still have a lot to be thankful for. What I choose to focus on determines my happiness levels each day. So my meditation time is my chance to think about the love and the good in my world.

Setting a tone of gratitude
I start every meditation with a conscious list of things I'm grateful for. I always include this forum as one of my top 10 gratitudes. Often I even list a bunch of the names on this forum as people I'm particularly grateful to be connected with. You, of course, are one of those people, and so are a good number of other members. Being on this forum has been a good experience for me and has given me a lot of validation and a lot of useful information. I can't let myself minimize that, so I keep it on my gratitude list each and every day. From there, I then focus on my desire that healing happens for everyone on the list, not just myself. We're all connected, so we're all able to share our gratitude and our love and our positive wishes with each other at any time, night or day. On the list, is my T, my wife, kids and grandkids, and the positive aspects of my health and safety. I believe that meditation works best when we are focused on gratitude, love, and honesty.

This is my version of a blanket fort. Inside my 30-minute meditations, immersed in sounds of the bowls, or any music I am drawn to at that moment, the bad world is kept outside of the meditation. I'm in my fort. and for thrity minutes, I'm only focused on the good in my life. It's like a half-hour vacation from the world, and the music I choose helps me stay focused.

Why I'm suddenly trying to hard to use meditation and spiritual connection
I've done 40 years of talk therapy, a long list of medications, another long list of religions, a ton of self-help books, forums, ketamine infusions, hypnotherapy, etc., but I continue to be too connected to my past abuse. So I'm currently diving headlong into spirituality (NON-religious spirituality) to see if I can separate myself from the physical traumas and let them fade.

To me, Spirituality just means "Knowing that we are all connected". (Note my use of the word knowing. Not believing. Not hoping. Not assuming. But knowing. Knowing the earth is round, knowing water is wet. Knowing gravity is real. Knowing we're all connected. Very different from "believing" or philosophizing. Knowing! When someone knows something, it's a conscious and subconscious absolute fact all day and all night).

It's not a religion, or a cult, and I don't follow any leaders. I learn from various practitioners and then move on to my own private practice with what works for me. Some of what people teach works, some doesn't. So I'm customizing my spiritual connections with the tools that are working for me. For now, that's 30 minutes of quiet contemplation each morning and 30 minutes each evening, using these bowls as a way to manage my focus problems. I'm not trying to be a woo-woo, I'm just trying something new after a LONG list of things that only gave temporary relief but didn't really stop the EFs.

I enjoyed learning about your experience with the sound bowls.  I just ordered some heavy duty over ear headphones and might try this out.

 :hug:

The sound bowl meditation on gratitude sounds lovely.

Hi Papa Coco,
Those Sound Bowls sound interesting, I am going to check them out as well - hopefully tomorrow.
:hug:
Hope  :)

Rainy, Armee, Hope,

I was introduced to crystal singing bowls in the 1990s. Coco and I once experienced a "bowl circle". 7 bowls, 15 people. We did about 3 hours of some home-made ritual where the bowls were in a circle.  Seven people sat at the bowls, seven more sat between those people and one person sat in a chair in the center of the circle. The hosts had the person in the middle say their name out loud. Then the 14 people surrounding them would sort of sing their name while seven of those people rang the bowls. We rotated positions every 5 minutes. It was an amazing experience. Hearing one's name sang to them by 14 people while the vibrations of the bowls filled the room was otherworldly.

Then, for the next three days my body cleansed itself. I was having controllable, comfortable, easy diarrhea and finding myself with a different appetite. I told the store owner of my experience and she just said, "Yeah I hear that all the time after these bowl ceremonies."

Okay, so>>>over the course of the next 20 years, each time I could afford another bowl, I'd buy another one. I now own all 7 bowls, some of which are two feet across and two feet high. We don't use them much, but they are beautiful on the shelves in our living room. I put candles in them sometimes just for the ambiance.  However, that experience that I had with the live bowls in the 1990s was the evidence I needed that the vibrations of the bowls affects my body, mind and spirit.  So, when I got my over-the-ear headphones, I decided to download singing bowl music and give it a try for my meditations. It works fantastically. The first night I did it, I woke up after 4 hours a bit agitated. I'd simply overdone it. The bowls were changing my brain waves too quickly. I now meter myself to an hour or two max. A few hours is good, but I'm finding that the more often I do it the better it works and the longer I can go into sleep with the music still playing.

I feel so connected to "god" now I feel like I can almost see "him" "It" "them"---whatever/whomever God actually is.

For now, after 4 hypnotherapy sessions and my daily bowl meditations, I'm feeling a bit unattached to my trauma-drama. I feel like life in a spiritual environment is lifting me above my life of thick, stuck, slow moving energy and trauma.

I hope this lasts for a lifetime. I am being as open as I can on this forum about my experiences in hopes that if anyone else is contemplating some of the same things I'm doing, that you'll be able to glean from my reports what I felt it did for me. I will continue to move forward being as open as I've been in case what I'm doing backfires on me, or helps me, or is just a temporary relief. Naturally I hope I'm moving permanently forward, but I'll be honest about it if I don't.  For now: So far so good. I'm happy for the first time in a very long time.

 :hug:

Thank you so very very much for sharing these experiences. I hope this peace lasts a lifetime for you too Papa C. Even a month of peace is better than  our normal day to day experience.

I appreciate your openness and perspective.  The only experience I've had with the sound bowls has left me feeling uncomfortable with the way my brain processes sound.  I am curious to seek out some more experiences to see if I have a different experience.

Quote from: Papa Coco on February 19, 2023, 08:17:03 PM
For now: So far so good. I'm happy for the first time in a very long time.

That's great news PC  :cheer:

I can relate to your sound experiences and think that they're valid. In the Tibetan meditation I have been practicing, chanting (and sound play a part in the meditations along with breathing and vizualization. Sound is one of the ways to activate the "bodies" I believe - physical, emotional and "subtle." (If anyone is interested, it's elements healing. Have a look at Healing with Form, Energy and Light. Ligmincha also does courses in it which I took). I think sound has the ability to "loosen" things that maybe analytical therapy etc might not.

Over the Christmas holiday I found a post I made last year about what happened during and after I listened to some Solfreggio frequencies. I had a lot of body tremors and a very accurate dream of the situation with my m and sf around that time. Maybe it was releasing what happened in the body? I found that it happened when I was relaxed and lying in bed, and not when I would listen to the frequencies in the car. It actually kind of freaked me out and I did a search about them but didn't find anyone with similar experiences. After rereading my account over Christmas, I looked into it more and I did find some studies and this book which looked interesting, but haven't read it yet. I think there's actually some research behind this.

Music Therapy: Understanding the Science of Sound
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01FXDDZL4/?coliid=I1S0CC3H2XN62C&colid=1KU4O7L0QCQKB&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

From the Amazon blurb: "Current medical and scientific technology show that music and sound may be some of the most effective tools for patient recovery from surgery, trauma, and mental or physical disorders. But you don't have to be ill to benefit from music. Music is helpful for maintaining personal well-being throughout life."

It sounds very relaxing what you have going on right now and I'm glad that you're getting some time and space to enjoy it.

Sending you support,
dolly

this is quite a wonderful spiritual journey you're creating for yourself, PC.  altho i've come about it in a much different way, i also had to write my own spiritual script in order to escape religious teachings that didn't resonate w/ me.  it's worked well for me over the years, too.  who says there only has to be one way to be spiritual?  the turning point for me was at my first 12-step meeting.  altho i'd been extremely active in the church i grew up in, i'd never found a sense of spirituality there as i know it now.  i'm just so glad for you.  love and hugs :hug:

San and Dolly

I'm discovering a real sense of joy and release from trauma through my spiritual focus. Churches couldn't provide the freedom for me to experience God and eternity with such vibrant energy as I do now.

I would enjoy finding a place where the spiritual methods of healing my traumas can be shared freely with others of similar interest. I suspect this forum would be the wrong place. I barely grasp the rules of when a little spirit talk is okay, but a little more is not appropriate.  Perhaps I need to go on the hunt for a second forum to join, one that is centered around miraculous stories of healing and joy.

All I know is that since I've begun connection with spiritual thought, that for the first time in years, I feel like running and jumping and dancing and making friends wherever I can.

I think my therapist is right on the money when he says to me "When we claim what is ours, what isn't ours falls away."  As I claim a more spiritual lifestyle, my trauma lifestyle seems to be fading out.

Again: Only time will tell if this is permanent or a flash in the pan.

Journal Entry for Saturday, February 25, 2023

It's been 5 1/2 weeks since I had my first hypnotherapy appointment. And I haven't felt this good in years. I feel connected to the world but not to my traumas. I feel Independent, and like I have the right to be alive. I'm ready to go back out into the world and socialize again.

I don't feel fear of people like I did 5 weeks ago. I am now okay with the truth that life is filled with plot twists and good versus evil. It's the world we are all living in. so I don't need to personalize the world's bad behaviors. The narcissists. The liars. The greed. It's not my issue.

I still have EFs but they don't stay around. They just show up, and I let them go as quickly as they appeared. I know that I have trauma disorders. But I don't feel connected to the disorders anymore.

For the first time in nearly two decades, I'm actually happy. From the inside.

Time will tell how permanent this new change is. But one thing the science is teaching me is that it's up to me to keep it going. The hypnotherapist I used also taught a lot of "letting go" skills. I know that if I choose to not do my daily meditations and get myself out in the world while I feel so inclined to do so, I will revert back to my unhappy state. So I'm committed to daily meditations and holding firm my new perspective on life.

The world still sucks but none of that is my fault. I don't need to connect to the chaos and hate. For the first time ever, I can now say "I'm a good person. I'm above the hate and pettiness and narcissism of this world. I don't need to ruminate about it anymore. I make friends with good people. I'm immune to the lies of the narcissist. I have a good life apart from all those nasty aggressors."

I hope this is the new me, and not just a temporary high. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about all this. Fingers crossed it becomes my baseline emotion from now on. And my crazy times of the year are yet to come upon me. I want to get as strong as I can right now so I can weather the crazy EF months when they come back around. Fingers crossed. Both eyes on the prize. It's up to me to make this work. 

This is really great PC  :cheer:

Even if it weren't to last per se, you found something that did bring you relief that you can return to again if needed. Healing is like peeling back the layers and sometimes you do the work on a deeper level. I understand the drive though to be "strong" so that you are not triggered so much. I think EMDR helped with me in a similar way, so it could very well be that the hypnotherapy will do the same for you.

Sending you support and a hug for the emerging you  :hug:

dolly

 :hug:

Thank you Dolly and Armee for the hugs!

I truly love getting them.

Here are my return hugs.

:hug: :hug:

Hi Papa Coco,

I'm sorry I didn't say more sooner other than a hug. I deleted a lot of posts the other day not trusting myself.

I'm really really happy you're feeling so much joy and spirituality right now. Even if it isn't permanent with this cptsd roller coaster we ride, I love those moments of relief and joy because it helps me know what state of being I am aiming for and capable of reaching. A North star of sorts.

I hope it stays for a really long time and when symptoms return that they are lighter and shorter than before.

Quote from: Papa Coco on February 25, 2023, 10:40:52 PM
Journal Entry for Saturday, February 25, 2023

It's been 5 1/2 weeks since I had my first hypnotherapy appointment. And I haven't felt this good in years. I feel connected to the world but not to my traumas. I feel Independent, and like I have the right to be alive. I'm ready to go back out into the world and socialize again.

I don't feel fear of people like I did 5 weeks ago. I am now okay with the truth that life is filled with plot twists and good versus evil. It's the world we are all living in. so I don't need to personalize the world's bad behaviors. The narcissists. The liars. The greed. It's not my issue.

I still have EFs but they don't stay around. They just show up, and I let them go as quickly as they appeared. I know that I have trauma disorders. But I don't feel connected to the disorders anymore.

For the first time in nearly two decades, I'm actually happy. From the inside.

Time will tell how permanent this new change is. But one thing the science is teaching me is that it's up to me to keep it going. The hypnotherapist I used also taught a lot of "letting go" skills. I know that if I choose to not do my daily meditations and get myself out in the world while I feel so inclined to do so, I will revert back to my unhappy state. So I'm committed to daily meditations and holding firm my new perspective on life.

The world still sucks but none of that is my fault. I don't need to connect to the chaos and hate. For the first time ever, I can now say "I'm a good person. I'm above the hate and pettiness and narcissism of this world. I don't need to ruminate about it anymore. I make friends with good people. I'm immune to the lies of the narcissist. I have a good life apart from all those nasty aggressors."

I hope this is the new me, and not just a temporary high. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about all this. Fingers crossed it becomes my baseline emotion from now on. And my crazy times of the year are yet to come upon me. I want to get as strong as I can right now so I can weather the crazy EF months when they come back around. Fingers crossed. Both eyes on the prize. It's up to me to make this work.

It sounds like you are doing fantastic!  I hope to get to the point you are at someday.  I really want to be able to stop personalizing the bad behaviors of other people.  I'm working on that. 

What are EF's?  emotional flashback? 

Your post is giving me lots of hope and encouragement! 

i think coming to the point where you can now say 'i'm a good person' is a real biggie, PC.  i've just been able to come to that myself lately.  there's a lot of relief involved in that.  so glad this is helping you, and that your perspective is changing for the better.  i also like the idea that you need to do your part to keep this going.  it reinforces the idea that there is no 'miracle pill' for this.  it just sounds like you've been able to break thru barriers you were stuck behind in the past.  it sounds like a wonderful start.

you are a good person, PC.  you are kind and caring and loving.  love and hugs to you :hug:

Armee,  Thanks for the follow up. And just sending a hug, as you'd done before, still means a lot to me. So hugs are always appreciated.

Natureluvr, Yes; EF means Emotional Flashback and it refers to the period in time when something has triggered our trauma responses. An EF can last for any period of time, from a minute to a season or even longer. The term comes, I believe, from Pete Walker's book, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. 

San, Thanks so much for the kind words. I'm glad to hear you're also starting to sense the truth that you're a good person too. It sure smooths over the EFs when we are finally able to start understanding that we don't deserve to be tormented by them.

UPDATE on progress:

San is right, this is not a silver bullet. A silver bullet would be something requiring no effort on my part, like how penicillin cures strep without any effort on the host's part. This is not a penicillin shot, it's a new way of experiencing my identity, which I am fully responsible to manage from now on. Like exercise, spiritual awakening works only if I work it. Ongoing, daily participation is my responsibility. Hypnotherapy may be what finally triggered this new perspective. The timing certainly points to it.

Viewing the "bigger picture" is something that can be done by most anyone who truly seeks to do so, whether they are religious, gnostic, or flat-out atheist. I don't negate anyone's religious beliefs through what I'm experiencing. There's a lot of room for God or aliens or spirits or guides or angels in this new view of life. This is about meditation on peace and the size and eternal nature of the universe. Nowhere in my posts am I talking about gods or angels or aliens or any other human belief. It's about quieting the mind and experiencing our small existence within the bigger picture.

The more I meditate and read about focusing on a greater existence than my own life, the less I feel leashed to my trauma-dramas. I watch documentaries on Near Death Experiences (NDEs). British comedian John Cleese hosts one of my favorite documentaries on the topic. (Here's a link to that documentary on YouTube-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RGizqsLumo).  I have friends who've had NDEs who report that the documentaries are pretty accurate. A great number of NDE survivors report that their ability to let go of human issues is greatly improved post NDE. They now know that peace awaits. Suicides are not as peaceful, so I'm eternally grateful that I never fulfilled any of my past attempts, but surviving natural deaths by illness or accident seems to make a dramatic improvement in many people's abilities to let go of human problems from that day on.

Science supports the same sense of peace when viewing the bigger picture. Will Smith hosted a 10-episode docuseries called One Strange Rock on National Geographic TV. He had 10 astronauts helping him narrate this docuseries about the scientific history of the planet earth. The astronauts all expressed that their lives were profoundly improved by being able to spend months in space looking down at the entire earth. They said that when you're in space, you don't see divided races and divided cultures and money problems and crime and abuse and corporate greed...you just see a silent, beautiful blue ball with one race of human beings. There are no map outlines of country borders, no huge letters naming cities, like on a globe. It's just one single natural ball spinning peacefully through space. Bette Midler used to sing a song called From a Distance, which told the same story as these astronauts, who were seeing the bigger picture from a window in their space station. The world is at peace when you see it from a distance. The farther away from earth you go, the smaller you realize it is in the vastness of space. To me, I feel like as I'm contemplating the Universe as a single place, and earth as just a small part of that space, that I'm somehow experiencing some variation of what the astronauts are experiencing. Seeing and knowing that the bigger picture is real shrinks my small trauma-dramas into something I don't need to stress over.

I've also watched some documentaries by mathematicians who try to help us grasp the mind-boggling concept of eternal time and infinite distances. That's mind blowing, but at the same time, really truly helps me grasp how small my life is compared to how big eternity and infinity are...again, something any religion or atheism can study without feeling like their beliefs are being challenged.

I'm not religious, nor am I an astronaut nor a mathematician. I'm just a guy who is choosing to look at the bigger picture, high above the walls of my own body and identity.

Whatever this is, it's working. I'm feeling better.

I still have the trauma triggers. I still cringe at the sight of people who remind me of my past abuse. The difference now is that I let go of the triggers as quickly as they come on me. No more EFs. At least not in the last 6 weeks. The triggers still make me cringe, but the knowing that they don't matter seems to not engage the usual EF. I'm still living in a world that is falling headlong into utter chaos. My past still happened. I still hope to never see my narcissistic family or former narc friends ever again. I think what my new perspectives are giving me is a new and real sense that I'm just visiting or witnessing this chaos, but am no longer required to participate in it. I'm allowing myself to view my life as small part of a big, infinite, eternal puzzle. I no longer believe it, I now know it. Knowing saturates my reality far deeper than believing does. I'm claiming my spiritual awakening as my new path in life. My true reality. Once again, I quote my therapist who says to me, "When we claim what is ours, what isn't ours falls away." I guess, as I'm claiming my place as an innocent witness to a crappy world, my feeling of participation and my former 62 years of claiming responsibility for its flaws are falling away. I guess I could say a plant not watered withers and disappears.

A few days ago, I was in a bad dark place. I felt like I was happy and not-suicidal, but at the same time, bored with life and uninterested in hobbies, chores, or anything at all. Those are the symptoms of clinical depression. So how could I be both happier than ever and clinically depressed at the same time?

I googled it. I entered in the words "Spiritual Awakening is Painful" and got a long list of hits. One of the top websites was this one, https://www.sherylwagnermedium.com/blog/symptoms-and-signs-of-a-spiritual-awakening.  the author names 15 symptoms of transitioning from a physical perspective to a spiritual awakening. It made perfect sense and calmed my fears that I was headed for a meltdown. As it turns out, transition, even from bad situations to good ones, is unnerving to the brain and body as the consciousness goes through the process of disconnecting old neuropathways and rebuilding new ones.

Even a good change causes mood swings. In fact, these NDE survivors whose lives have been transformed also often report that they lost a few friends and marriages because their partners couldn't grasp their changes. Their own families started calling them crazy. I believe it is frustrating for a non-spiritual person to be around someone who isn't leashed to the world's dramas as firmly as they are.

I feel better now. In fact, I'm now viewing my mood swings as evidence that my spiritual awakening is really happening. For real. If I weren't struggling, then that might mean I'm not actually transitioning at all. No pain, no gain. Right?

I think you're absolutely right that these internal struggles are the signs of cracking free and moving to the next level. You're doing great Papa Coco and i love reading about your journey.

:bighug:

Journal Entry for Tuesday, March 7, 2023

I'm experiencing some slowing on my hot ride to happiness. I'm feeling some melancholy sadness again these past few days.  I'm feeling my old self tugging at me to come back into my natural funk. I'm feeling trapped in my overwhelming responsibilities, maintaining my yard and this old house and our old vehicles, which are giving me a run for my money. I'm so out of shape and fat that I can only work in the yard for a couple of hours before I feel like I'm going to have to call 911 if I cut down one more shrub or drag one more old fence board to the truck. All the while I'm in my own backyard, on the watch for the neighbor's aggressive, barking, growling dogs to knock down the fence and kill me.

A few weeks ago, I started to allow myself to watch news again. It's been okay, since it's mostly been about weather and nasty millionaires murdering their own nasty families. These are things that don't affect me. But as we come into election season AGAIN, I'm starting to have to fast forward past more and more stories of the monsters whose selfish greed can really destroy my way of life. I can't watch or listen to the hate and racism that our degenerated US politicians are currently spewing as if they are angry 13-year-olds without a lick of ethics or intelligence anywhere in their ugly heads and am starting to think I may have to put myself back on a time-out from the news just for my own sanity.

In my spiritual awakening I've learned that whenever I feel threatened, I immediately move to feeling helpless against such things as bad neighbors, dangerous dogs, a failing government, world wars, corporate greed, etc., and as I feel more and more helpless, my fear turns to rage, and rage turns inward to self-destructive desire to leave the planet altogether. Feeling helpless against powerful bullies leads me back into suicidal ideation. So, since I can't do anything about the dimwitted foghorns who are leading America to its own end, I'm better off just not sitting at the TV watching it happen. It's imperative that I keep my mind on happy thoughts if I'm going to survive every day from now on. I think the news might have to go back into its closet at my house again.

---

Last night it dawned on me that my new spiritual perspective on reality is still a good perspective, but as I'm learning how to adapt to it, I've accidentally gotten sidetracked a bit with daily human stressors. Any time a person has to learn a new job or a new skill, it begins with a time of an overwhelming feeling of trying to drink from a firehose. It becomes difficult to digest all the early information needed in order to become the new person wholly.  Last night as I was trying to access my meditational state, which had been doing me so much good a week ago, I realized that I'd forgotten to first give myself over to an attitude of gratitude.  I was doing the other parts of the meditation, but they weren't working. I now realize it's because I was forgetting to start my "prayers" with a gratitude exercise. Meditation doesn't access universal peace if it's not done in an attitude of gratitude and love. No point in praying if I'm angry or afraid, because those are not the language spoken in our souls. Our souls only know love and peace. I have to first put myself into a state of love and peace if I want my meditation to take me to my happy place.

I've learned new jobs, new skills, new talents, etc., and I know that false starts, stops and repeats are normal in the learning process. I'm not worried that my new spiritual endeavors are failing, because I know that I'm just experiencing a normal adjustment period as my neuropathways are still disconnecting from old habits and trying to connect to new ones.  Rather than giving up and trying something else, I'm going to stay the course.

There is a concept called the Dunning-Kruger model for learning. It's easy to find on a google search. It's a graph that shows the process for how we humans adapt to new things. New jobs, new lifestyles, etc. It's a graph. Across the bottom, left to right, is a timeline. Up the side, from bottom to top is confidence.  When a person learns something new and wonderful, they immediately fly to the top of the confidence scale. Think of a teen boy who just got his driver's license. He immediately feels confident that he's the best driver on the road.  The Dunning-Kruger scale shows a fast, sharp spike in confidence in the first few centimeters of the timeline. But then...accidents happen, and the spike drops right back down to the bottom again as the teen is shown that his dad's wrecked Buick proves he wasn't such a good driver after all. The teen then has to either quit driving, or admit to himself he still has more to learn.

For me, I shot up that spike, as humans do, feeling like I'd just learned the way of the world. Meditation! Oh man! I was so good at it! I really found my niche!  My confidence in my new spiritual awakening was fun and exciting, and I was having great successes with prayer and healing and letting go of my CPTSD. But then, the world hit me again, and I'm now sliding back down the right side of the confidence spike. That's where I am now.

But in the Dunning-Kruger model, this is normal and unavoidable. The DK graph shows that, in more cases than not, this is where people give up. They sell the business that is failing, they quit the music classes, they quit the exercise program and the diet, because they feel like they failed and that their self-induced confidence was a mistake. But for those who will ride the spike back down to reality, and continue moving along the timeline, still pursuing the new thing, they soon begin to rise back up in confidence, but at a shallower, slower, sturdier, more realistic angle of ascent back up to confidence. Earned confidence this time.

In my case, I'm learning to let go my human fears, and adopt a life of meditation instead of medication. Since I've experienced the Dunning-Kruger path so many times in life, I'm comfortable in knowing that this is just the normal setback. I know that if I keep going with my new skills, I'll begin the next rise up the slower, shallower, more controlled scale of earned confidence.

So here I am, feeling defeated, but not feeling like it's a bad thing. The feeling of defeat is actually a feeling of being humbled, which is what separates those of us who earn our lives, versus those who are handed good lives they didn't have to earn. It will drive me toward practice and future success in my new life of meditation rather than medication.

In the Dunning-Kruger model of learning, people who stay the course, and allow the defeat to make them stronger, eventually end up at the top of the scale, way over to the right side of the graph, which is when they become "experts" in whatever it is they chose to learn.

Today, I'm returning to the ascent of my learning curve by remembering that I forgot to list the things I'm grateful for before I went into a meditation. I say this in nearly every post, "When we claim what is ours, what isn't ours falls away." So, today, I'm claiming gratitude for the things that make me happy. Petting my son's dog. Texting with my 8-year-old grandson to hear his latest joke. Loving my new, amazing recipe for homemade chicken soup. Being able to get out of bed. Not being eaten by the neighbor's dog yesterday. My head gear that blocks the sounds of the dogs barking. My wife. I have a lot to be thankful for, and as I claim those things, and ignore the racist, hateful, greedy, incompetent government, I am claiming my gratitude and allowing the rest to fall away.

The Dunning-Kruger affect's basic message is this: Time plus dedication to learning leads to long-term, honorable, competency. It starts with a quick ride to unearned confidence, then a rapid drop to humility, followed by a slow, steady rise back up to genuinely earned confidence in whatever it is one is trying to master.

PC, the ups and downs you speak of sound like the natural progression of any kind of recovery, as in recovering oneself.  in 12-step meetings, that initial spike you described is sometimes referred to as being on a pink cloud.  then reality hits and we do have to do the work of maintaining recovery, maintaining our reality rather than continuing to ride a pink cloud.  that's not reality - it's like the honeymoon phase of recovery.

it sounds like you're learning so much about yourself, your progress, how you have to earn your way through the trauma to stay on a pos. note (not always, but more than before) and something that i think is quite rare - humility.  true humility, not the false humility we too often hear.  it's a roller coaster, for sure, but it sounds like you're on a good track.  keep going, ok?  you're worth it.  love and hugs :hug:

You are completely spot on about the ups and downs and I'm so very proud of you for seeing through the down, for seeing it as normal in any growth. And for putting yourself back on the graph instead of curling up and giving up.  :grouphug: way to go, Papa Coco.

You're an inspiration to me and many others. It's OK to have the lows as much as they suck. And they really do suck, especially when we think we've figured out how to beat the symptoms. But you are right, it's just part of the process of learning and growth.

I'm also reminded by your post of the concept of impermanence in Buddhist practice. I don't know a lot about that but it's something my T impresses on me when we do any kind of meditating together, the way the clouds are impermanent, the breeze comes and goes, a feeling or thought comes and goes, sadness comes and goes, and even happiness comes and goes. It's all impermanent and always changing.

Quote
In my spiritual awakening I've learned that whenever I feel threatened, I immediately move to feeling helpless against such things as bad neighbors, dangerous dogs, a failing government, world wars, corporate greed, etc., and as I feel more and more helpless, my fear turns to rage, and rage turns inward to self-destructive desire to leave the planet altogether. Feeling helpless against powerful bullies leads me back into suicidal ideation. So, since I can't do anything about the dimwitted foghorns who are leading America to its own end, I'm better off just not sitting at the TV watching it happen. It's imperative that I keep my mind on happy thoughts if I'm going to survive every day.

This is a little painful and sad to read just because it puts me right into the heart of you as a little boy, who had no safety and no escape when you were threatened. Ending it was your only out. But you made it to safety now, where you do have control over your life and happiness, even if terrible neighbors and dimwitted foghorn politicians (lovely phrase for them!) threaten your safety, you still have control over your own life and body. There are so many choices now that you have that you didn't have as a boy. And most importantly you have a safe haven inside your home with Coco.  :hug:

San and Armee,

Your support is so important to me. Thank you for sticking with me on this roller coaster. You both have such big hearts and are always so supportive to everyone, and on my daily gratitude exercises, you two, and a few others on this forum are always high on my list of what and who I'm grateful for today.  I say it all the time, We're stronger together.

San, your reference to twelve-steps is important. Not only for what was taught about the pink cloud, (Thank you for that), but it's a reminder to not try to make major life changes alone. I'm finding it difficult to locate face-to-face interactions with others who are working toward the same goals as I am.  AA meetings were critical in my early years of sobriety. Without them I'd have failed. If I could only find an AA group for people who are trying to break the addiction to the world's toxic, chaotic dramas. Spiritual thinking is a release from the daily dramas of life at ground level. I know churches were created for this purpose, but churches give me the creeps. I have reached the point where I can't set foot inside a church of any denomination, including Unity, without feeling sick to my stomach and like a dark, moldy blanket has just been thrown over me. That's my traumatic past: Religious hypocrisy and all the ways churches have abused me and many of my friends, and my former clients when I worked for Sexual Assault Victim Advocacy. My challenge, facing me as of this morning, is to find my "Spiritual AA groups". I just need to find physical locations where I can meet up and become part of any groups of individuals who want to pursue living our lives in our higher selves.  There are New Age book stores spattered around. Maybe I could access their events calendars and start showing up for various group activities. I'm not really New Age, but they aren't a church, which gives them one point on the pro column.

Armee: Your reference to impermanence is helpful. Yesterday, I watched another episode of Will Smith's One Strange Rock documentary on the scientific history of how the earth was formed. The topic of impermanence was visited. They showed the Buddhist practice of painstakingly creating absolutely beautiful, meticulous, huge, art projects with colored sand. They spend days or weeks making these amazingly detailed, absolutely beautiful pictures that can be as big as a house. And as soon as they're done, they destroy them. I always cringe when I watch them brush the work away immediately after finishing it. But they say it is how they teach themselves to let go of that feeling of permanence. I didn't really grasp why they would do that, but your reference to their believe in impermanence helps me grasp it. From a spiritual perspective I see it as genius. What a great way to change core beliefs and remove a sense of wanting to hang on to the past and the world.  You also referenced my past of being left unprotected and unempowered to defend myself on a daily basis for most of my life. I had temporarily forgotten about that. As I was focused only on a spiritual sense of reality, I was trying to forget where I came from. Being suicidal because of a sense of being helpless in danger, is actually a way of exercising FLIGHT.  I'm a Fawn, Freeze, Flight, Fight. When fawning and freezing don't work, fleeing is what's left. If it's the world that is scaring me, then death is really the only way out of the world. I'm hoping that spiritual awakening will be an alternative way to flee the chaotic, toxic dramas of the world without having to die. If I can stop being attached to this nasty place, maybe I can flee to being a crazy guy who believes he talks to God. Spirituality is a better place to run to than suicide. It makes sense to me when I think of it that way.  For the first time ever, I'm wondering if I should study and connect in some small way to the Buddhist teachings. I don't need to walk away from life and join a monastery, but I think Buddhism might be a way I can practice disconnection from human drama without having to join a church, Buddhism is not religion. It's meditation and support for letting go of toxic drama. Rather than just read about it, I think I need to find a way to connect with some live human beings who are on the same trajectory. The trick with any spiritual group is finding the ones who take it seriously but who don't start to turn it into a religion.

Journal Update: Wednesday, March 8, 2023:

Today I can clearly see that my next step in turning my focus to the spiritual realities, and loosening my grip on the ground level dramas, is to find people I can interact with who are on the same journey I am. Now that I'm off the pink cloud, where I proclaimed how important it is to be linked with others who share my interests, it's time to put in the work. Time to stop saying it. It's time to actually do it. Put my money where my mouth is. It's so easy to know what I need. It's more difficult to put on my shoes and go out and DO what I know needs to be done.

But that's what happens after the pink cloud. The excitement ends and the work begins.

Time to put in the work.

Journal Entry for Thursday, March 16, 2023\

I want to send a shoutout of gratitude to Kizzie for getting this forum back up and running. It seems there was a certificate that expired, but Kizzie did what needed to be done to get that certificate issue renewed, or...whatever. Anyway: Thank you Kizzie for keeping the forum up and running!

Trigger warning: This post is written from a place of deep depression.

In Tuesday's therapy session, T and I were talking about my spiritual awakening. He's very spiritual himself, so he is helping me to understand what I'm learning. My post-hypnosis drive toward understanding the world from a spiritual position has helped me immensely, in that I no longer have EFs. I still have triggers, but they are now just rogue memories that are stored in my brain somewhere. They show up, I don't react, and they leave. That's been a good thing. 

He still finds it sad, however, that while my spiritual life is thriving, my physical life is tanking. I have lost all interest in living a physical life as a human being. I exhibit most of the symptoms of clinical depression. I have no interest in doing anything that used to interest me. My bicycles haven't been out of the garage in half a year. My kayak hasn't been in the water for close to 7 years.  My woodworking tools are lost in the mess that is my neglected garage. My car hasn't been washed in almost a year. I am fat and out of shape because I eat sugar and salt and processed foods and I do nothing for exercise. I just...don't...care anymore about any of it.

Once again, I resonate with a line from one of my very favorite movies about CPTSD: The Perks of Being a Wallflower. In the very beginning of the movie, 16-year-old Charlie is writing to someone. We never find out who he writes to, but movie and novel authors often use diaries as a way to give the audience a glance into a character's head. He writes, "Only you can understand how I can be happy and sad at the same time."  That's how I feel as I learn about spirituality. I'm happy about the good things I'm experiencing through meditation, prayer, and a less-physical way of understanding all that is.  But at the same time, as a physical being, Papa Coco is sinking deeper into clinical depression.

Today, with the forum back up and running, I've been trying to say meaningful, uplifting things to my friends on the site, but I think I had best stop for now. I'm feeling like I'm not making sense. I'm misinterpreting things my friends are saying and I'm giving back confusing answers.

Luckily, my T has scheduled another session for me on Monday. I get to address with him what I might need to do to keep pursuing the joys of spirituality without losing any more zest for physical life here. 

Looking at my life from a strictly physical viewpoint, it has been sad and lonely since birth. Then in 2008, my little sister's suicide, and the follow-on collapse of my entire family due to the abuse of my older sister, brother and parents, has not left me. Sadness is all I see when I look at my first 62 years of life. I made the best of it for as long as I could, but the 2008-2010 deaths and betrayals by my own family have knocked me into a mire I can't get up from.

No matter how confused I am right now, not being drawn back into EFs has been the very best part of all this meditation/prayer/spiritual exercise. I'm sad, but I'm not in an EF. That's a good thing. I just don't think it's healthy to love one life because I hate the other. I have to find peace in both physical and spiritual activities. I want to believe that I'm moving toward joy. Right now I suspect that what I'm doing is more about moving away from pain. Same direction. Good direction. Bad motive.

 :bighug:

Your words to me from maybe a week ago touched deep into my soul. Now that the site is back I'll be going back and responding. Sometimes the words hit me just in the most reassuring way where I feel completely seen and understood that I am almost stunned silent. That was what your words did for me.

It's also OK to get things wrong sometimes because it gives us a chance to clarify ourselves and through that to understand and be understood more deeply.

Sometimes when I develop a new interest I let all my old ones slide until they seem like they never were a part of me, or a part of me so distant it feels like lifetimes past. I think this may somehow be related to the way our brain has been set up to keep all these parts separate from ourselves. I wonder what happens if we try to merge an old interest with a current one? Like if you meditated while biking or listened to meditations while cleaning your garage? If that would form stronger neural connections between both parts and lead to more unity between spiritual and physical?

I'm so glad your T is seeing you again soon. Sending hugs to hold you upright during this bout of physical depression.

Armee,

As usual, you speak directly to my soul. I'm so grateful for your report that some of my words reached you in a heartfelt way. Thank you so much for the kindness you gave me today. It really helps.

That is a brilliant idea you have to try and blend my physical actions with my spiritual actions. I can put earbuds in, and listen to Tibetan singing bowls, or some other meditation music, or even the band Enigma while I ride my bike along the beach feeling the wind in what's left of my hair. LOL. It has reached 50 degrees Fahrenheit today. Just now. That's just warm enough to take a bike out for a short ride.

I usually know when I've reached my happy place when my whole body, especially my hands, begin to tingle as if they've got electric currents running through them. So...maybe I can get my hands to tingling while gripping my handlebars as I merge these two worlds back together out on the beach.

Again. Thanks for responding so kindly and so quickly. Your response has lit a small fire in my boiler and is making me want to drag a dusty bike out of the garage and go live my life for a few minutes on this cold--but sunny--day. :sunny:

I'm so glad Kizzie was able to get the forum back up and running again. She's awesome. I get so much benefit from the good souls on this forum.

 :hug:

Me too. Sometimes I'm so lost I can't put my own words down but responding to yours and others words help.

 :bighug:

Journal Entry for Friday, March 17, 2023

Yesterday it hit me. I was trying to do a little yard work. I was only able to work for about an hour, maybe a bit less. My chest was so  hollow, and my eyes so unfocused that I just gave up. It was then that I recognized the feeling in my chest. It was loneliness.

For years now, I've been blaming clinical depression for my lack of interest. But yesterday, for some reason, I was able to identify the feeling of hollow emptiness as the exact same feeling I always feel when I'm lonely.  I think it's important that I make this distinction. Just being depressed gives me little hope of finding a cure. But knowing that loneliness is driving the depression, now I can see that if I can fix the loneliness problem, the depression will likely go away on its own.

I found this on the web:  https://www.countryliving.com/uk/wellbeing/a34295947/physical-symptoms-loneliness/#:~:text=Insomnia%2C%20disrupted%20sleep%20or%20other,block%20out%20how%20they%20feel.

I have all seven of the seven signs of chronic loneliness: 1) Social Anxiety 2) Higher than average blood pressure, 3) Difficulty sleeping, 4) Loss of confidence, 5) Loss of appetite (Or stress eating, never in between) and zero interest in exercise, 6) Feeling a constant "unpleasant" state of mind and 7) Increased desire to binge-watch TV so as to take my mind off of my loneliness.

I see my shrink on Monday. I'm going to focus the whole 50 minutes on this if I can.

I've been lonely my whole life, but never so much as I have been since my sister's death, then my parents' deaths, my lay-off/retirement from my job of 42 years, and my estrangement from the nasties from my FOO that may or may not be still alive...if any.

I'd say too, that this year, the loneliness has taken its greatest toll on me. Since I was raised to never give myself anything good, but instead to give all my hard work and energy to others, now that I don't really have anyone in my life telling me what to do (I'm retired: no boss), I'm lost.

I can't find it in my soul to do anything for myself and I think I really miss all the people for whom I was a servant for 50 years. Sure, I hate them...but I think I miss them also.

I feel like I'm lost at sea in a raft with no motor or sails. I'm just...alone. 

I expect that attachment disorders, C-PTSD, and clinical depression are all bedfellows with chronic loneliness. Attachment disorders cause the loneliness which then causes the depression, which is all a part of C-PTSD.

 :hug:

I'm here.  :grouphug:

I've had that lost at sea feeling, except floating away in the sky. It's awful.

Thanks for the hugs Armee. I honestly do feel and cherish my connections with you and others on this forum. Thank god for this forum. Being able to write my journal here and interact with others who also struggle with what I struggle with could be what keeps me afloat. Loneliness is a lifetime problem for children of attachment disorders, but if it weren't for this forum, I don't know how I would deal with it at all. This is the only true outlet I have for reaching out to others who know what it feels like to live with what I live with. You, as well as a few others on this forum, are keeping me from total, total isolation.  THANK YOU FOR THAT!!!!!!!!!!!

:hug:


Journal Update for Saturday, March 18, 2023

Trigger Warning: I'm depressed and I describe my depression and my loneliness and my negative view of this world we're living in.

I believe loneliness is a common thread with people of CPTSD. I've always felt alone, even when I'm with people, but it's never been so in-my-face as it is now that I don't have a job or any reason to get out of bed most mornings.

I just feel like I am really struggling with it more than I should be. I'm going to work this angle, that the loneliness, caused by early life attachment disorder, is the root cause of my daily depression. Thankfully I now have meditation to fill some of the day's hours, and thankfully I'm not feeling EFs anymore. But EFs were my escape from reality, and by no longer having EF's I am now forced to face the sick reality that is our world. I can't hide from it anymore. By no longer being able to dissociate and hide from the real world, I guess I'm just forced to deal with a very deep disappointment in the reality that I can't escape, except through meditation. It's the only way I can find to escape the ugliness of the real world now. Even binge-watching TV is starting to get old. It was a great escape, but even TV is annoying me now.

No pain, no gain, right?  I suppose it's possible that I'm healing, but healing makes me face things I've put off facing for 60+ years. So it's very uncomfortable to keep my eyes open all day and not rely on medication or booze or dissociation to help me hide from what I should have been facing all along. It'll get better. Rewiring old neural pathways means disconnecting them from what we know and letting them reconnect in better directions. It's good that I'm facing my loneliness. I hate it. It feels awful. But as far as I know, it means I'm healing. Neurons that fire together wire together. Right?

I sometimes tell my T that I think I'm getting worse, but he corrects me over and over. He reminds me of the anxiety and insanity that I used to live in and reminds me that I'm getting better. I just don't feel happy about getting better. I don't dissociate anymore. I no longer believe that everyone on earth hates me, or that some are just being nice by pretending to like me, or that they're being nice to me so I'll reach into my pocket and give them money, or help them move, or paint their house for them. 

I guess I finally popped the bubble I used to live in, but I landed in a really ugly world, and now my bubble is gone. Escape didn't work, so I have to accept the world for what it is. That's a challenge I'm not sure I'm up to. I have a more "sober" look at the real world and it's ugly. I guess I'm doing all the right things, and they're working for me, but there's actual social pain that I'm no longer able to hide from. I'm evolving past all my escapes. The triggers are still there, but I don't fall into EFs, so they pass quickly. I just have to face the triggers. I'll get good at it one day. I'm just not there yet. I am being forced to face the dragon, and the dragon is terrifying. (Trigger Alert: The rest of this paragraph is in white because it describes why my depression is soaring and how ugly the world is to me).  Crime is soaring. People are becoming meaner. Teachers are quitting their jobs in droves because students are so mean to them now. Banks are failing. Wars are brewing. Here in Seattle Road Rage is killing people every week, cars are stolen at a rate of thousands per year in just one city. Criminals are boldly walking up to us to take our cars so they can smash them through windows. Criminals are boldly breaking into our homes and police are not allowed to arrest or even pursue them. The planet is warming and nobody does anything about it. Politicians have learned that hate sells, so they're pedaling it on TV and social media, and millions of people are falling for it.




So, I'm not getting worse, but I feel like I just woke up into an ugly world and I'm no longer able to drink or hide or dissociate from it. So, my T shows me that I'm getting better, but I'm feeling the pain more because I'm not hiding from it anymore with fantasies or booze.

Even people on social media are hiding from the real world by ONLY posting pictures of themselves on vacations, or standing next to new cars, or bragging about their fake happy life.

Lying is another way of hiding from the truth, and now that I truly grasp what sociopathy really is, I can't bring myself to even tell the tiniest fib. Sociopaths lie because reality didn't give them what they wanted. So they make up their own fake reality and run with it. I can't do that. If I'm not good at something, I'm not going to lie and say that I am. I quote Popeye The Sailor Man a lot now when I say, "I am what I am and that's all I am."

Meditation is my new way of escaping, because it is the only escape I know of that is healthy and enlightening. So I'm using it as best I can to mitigate the pain of the world that I can't hide from nor fix.  And it's possible, that my switch from EFs  and medication toward prayer and meditation is part of what is forcing my neural pathways to disconnect and start forging new paths. The cure is making me feel lonely and afraid. But if I had been able to face the real world 60 years ago, I might not be such a mess today. It's not too late to learn how to stand up to the ugliness of the world. It hurts for now, but I HOPE the light that I see up ahead at the end of the tunnel is sunlight and not a train speeding toward me. LOL.

I don't have a ton to say right now but want you to know I read, I feel the pain you are describing and it feels existential. And even disgust I feel that coming through too with how the world is right now.

You know too the world at the same time it is filled with utter crud it is also filled with its opposite and when you pop out of this current state you are feeling (and are feeling it for a good reason!) I have no doubt you'll reconnect with the good parts too. Until then lots of hugs.  :grouphug: :bighug: :hug:

PC, i hear you.  i also feel disgusted.  i've never felt so much hate before and it's very uncomfortable for me to live in this world.  it's so very depressing.  and, yep, when we don't have our 'go-to's' anymore, it makes everything that much more vivid, more real, more painful.

i'm glad you have meditation to help you escape for at least a little while.  i'm able to submerse myself in book stuff at times.  keep hangin' tough, ok?  i'm hangin' right beside you.  love and hugs :hug:

Papa Coco, I relate with so much of what you said. It is so valid, and so hard. The world is heavy. When we give up unhealthy ways of coping, the heaviness is still there. Life doesn't suddenly become more tolerable when we give up those ways of coping, but instead demands to be felt? I'm glad you've found meditation to be helpful. Finding new, healthy, helpful coping mechanisms can be hard but they are there  :)

Armee, San and LittleBlueJay,

I'm so glad you all responded. I need these interactions pretty desperately. Otherwise I tend to assume I'm the only person who can't deal with the state of the world. My wife's a sweetheart but she deals with the rising insanity better than I do, and she doesn't give me a very sympathetic ear when I express my anger and sadness at how everything is going into chaos.

I would describe what I'm feeling as:

- Grief about what's been lost
- Anxious about what's going to happen next
- Overwhelmed by how big the problems are, or how much work it will take to solve them
- Disillusioned by the people in positions of power
- Guilty for not doing more
- Paralyzed by all these feelings

My wife, bless her heart, is better able to shrug the rising global problems more easily than I am.


I made the decision today to schedule another Ketamine Infusion for next week. Those infusions are expensive, but they raise me up from the deepest depressions for up to a few months now.

It helps a little to know that I'm not alone with my anger and depression about the state of the world.

I've often referenced the world's most prolific healers, such as Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Tutu, even King Solomon, all of whom were unable to stop seeing the pain and suffering in the world. This is partly why I honestly believe the reason we, the members on this forum, suffer is because WE are the peacemakers. WE are the good on this planet, which is why we are so adversely affected by the evil and the pain and the suffering of others. We know peace is the right way...so the current world isn't making sense to us. It's difficult to accept it all when we know it simply does not have to be this way.

My therapist reminds me that openly acknowledging the suffering and unfairness of this world really is a part of the pathway through it. I just wish looking at it didn't hurt so bad.

My current movement toward trying to become more spiritual is an attempt to experience some level of what our famous healers experienced when they became who they were. All of them used meditation and prayer. So it must be the way through this pain and anger. So far it's a slow progress with small moments of joy. But my therapist keeps saying that those of us who continue to hold the vigil for peace are the only thing keeping the world from completely collapsing. So...I continue with my vigil. My prayers for peace. My meditations. I can say that while I'm meditating, I feel peace and love, but nothing else. It's a nice short vacation each day. I'm just not successfully keeping up the peace and love while I'm living the other 23 hours of the day.

Not yet anyhow. But neural pathways break and redirect over time and persistence. So I persist. Like they say, Neurons that fire together wire together. So every day I go back into an hour of meditation in hopes that my neurons keep firing together in more peaceful and loving pathways.

Again, thanks for responding, and for sharing that you feel much the same way. I really hate the anger that boils up in me. Anger isn't comfortable for me. And it's not what I want to be known for.

Even though you experience anger, that will never ever be what you are known for Papa C. You are kind and loving and gentle. Having anger is part of that kindness.

Sending love your way. 💛

Thank you Armee.

:hug:

Glad to know you are here   :grouphug:

Hi Armee,

Yeah, I've been quiet lately. Partly because I'm busy with family stuff. But also because I feel like I've been mentally distracted and unable to respond to forum members accurately. I feel like I'm not truly understanding what I'm reading, so my responses are inappropriate or "off-base." I'm afraid of offending anyone by misunderstanding them and making comments that don't make sense...like I'm babbling incoherently online. So to stave off any chance of hurting anyone's feelings by saying something dumb, I'm not responding to much at this time.

I feel like I'm losing touch with the world and it would be best to keep silent until I feel like I know what's going on around me again.

I've been reading some of the things you say to other members. You say such beautiful things to people. So I'm kind of sitting here, cheering you on, and feeling like I couldn't say it better so no need to risk adding something that confuses the direction of the threads.

Meanwhile, I've scheduled a Ketamine Infusion for Thursday in hopes it will help reset my mental state. I've also signed up for Kizzie's upcoming ZOOM group. I'm excited to see how that goes.

Thanks so much for caring and for checking in with me. These aren't just words. Having someone care enough to check in with me is a huge deal, and I very much appreciate it.

:bighug:

Sending all the love your way while you hunker down. It's OK to take a break. You always give so much of yourself to each reply and that's hard to keep up.  :grouphug: I'll keep my fingers crossed for a successful infusion that brings at least several weeks of relief.

Thank you my friend.

hey, PC, i'm glad you're doing what 's best for you.  i can so relate to the idea of not wanting to post replies to others, have often deleted what i've written cuz i've gone too far or become preachy or just rambled off topic.  i hope you get some relief w/ your infusion.  best to you w/ that.  love and hugs  :hug:

Thank you San!

Papa Coco you have a really big heart, just from what I have read of your posts on here, and how you have responded in my thread.  My theory is that those of us who have suffered deeply on an emotional level have high levels of empathy, and we also suffer with the world when the world and the living things in it are suffering.  So many people become cold and calloused to protect themselves.  But there are some of us who stay tender hearted, and the sufferings of others hurts us. 

Take care, and I hope you are doing OK.  Sending thoughts and prayers your way.

Thank you Natureluvr,

Your thoughtful words are a big help for me. And I resonate with your theory. I believe empathy is the greatest healing power known to man, and, like you, I believe that those of us who were born with empathetic natures are tapped into that healing power.

I'll follow your lead and let this response guide me to today's Journal Entry:

Journal Entry for Wednesday, March 29, 2023

When we study the natural world, we notice that animals and plants live out their lives according to their specific species' natures. A bee acts like a bee because it's a bee. A bee creates life by pollinating and spreading seeds. Bees are critical to keeping the world alive. A locust acts like a locust because it's a locust. Locusts travel in swarms and destroy fields of food for no reason other than that's just what locusts' natures makes them do. Bees have no choice but to spread life. Locusts have no choice but to spread destruction.

Humans are likely the ONLY creatures who get to decide whether we spread life or destroy it. Most of us seem to have a choice as to which nature we wish to serve. Albeit, we are each born with our own individual prewired nature which starts us each out somewhere between empath and sociopath. So some outlier people are born to be especially evil and some to be especially good. But on an average, most of us are born in a safe space somewhere between these two polar opposites, and most of us do have a choice whether to spread life or to spread destruction. We humans are the only species that can choose whether to be bees or locusts, or to be nails versus hammers.

My heart belongs to those of us who have chosen to be the nails rather than the hammers. Hammers pound nails, but nails hold the house together. I love people who were bullied and chose to NOT become bullies themselves, but who internalized the trauma and became emotionally bonded with other victims. While it can be incredibly painful at times to spend our lives feeling the effects of the trauma, we are also able to help each other in ways that the hammers can't do. We reach out and offer to hold each other up and help rather than hurt each other. We choose to be bees, not locusts. Becoming a selfish locust is easier than becoming a life-giving bee. Each day, we awaken and choose the high road. We keep this world from imploding under the weight of the unbearable greed and lust of those who were too weak to choose good over evil.

What I love most about this forum is that it attracts us bees. We help each other through words and hug emojis that I can actually feel. Maybe not as fun as a real hug or a real smile, but the kind words I receive from other "bees" and these hug and smile emojis are enough to help get me through the day each day because I can feel the sentiment behind them.

Before joining this forum, I didn't know there were so many people in the world who are like me in that respect.

As a boy, being treated like a disease in my catholic school because I was kind and quiet and obedient, while most of the nuns and priests and teachers and other children were judgmental and cruel, I would dissociate into my head and imagine getting into a boat and getting lost at sea, then being washed up onto an island where I found an entire colony of people who were just like me. These people wouldn't make fun of me. They wouldn't call me stupid and ugly and weak or make me fight for my survival every day. I could trust them. I could feel accepted. That fantasy would help me fall asleep at night. But I believed it was a fantasy. I believed I was the only person alive who was as unwelcome on the earth as I was. But then a miracle happened. Today, I feel like this forum is that island which has popped out of my imagination and is now real. I found my island and I'm now able to be myself without having to feel ashamed of it.

So, that's why I so appreciate the kind words that I receive from yourself and so many others on this forum. It's also why I appreciate that I can give kindness to others and not be called a "bleeding heart" or a "tree hugger" or "feminine" because I'm a man with a nurturing spirit. I can be me.

I like that old analogy that we were born with two hands. One to give with and the other to receive with. And that as long as we're giving love with one hand and receiving love with the other, we're allowing love to flow through us. For me, and likely for a lot of people on this forum, it's easier for us to give love than to receive it. I've spent decades working on learning how to receive love. As a child, those who showed me kindness usually were grooming me to take something from me, or set me up for a humiliating prank. So love was a dangerous thing to accept back then. That's why I say that I'm so grateful for the kind words people give to me today. For the first time in my long life, I'm able to feel the kindness that's coming my way. And I so appreciate the support I get from all the people on this forum.

So to all of you who trust enough to share your stories openly with the rest of us, and who appreciate my responses, and who reciprocate in any way you can, I'm just grateful for you all.

I know that a lot of people read more posts than we respond to, but not because we don't want to. Often, for each of us, we don't know what to say all the time. Or we're in a Flashback mode and are temporarily muted by our own traumas. I take breaks that can last days or weeks. One I tool last year lasted for months. I just...didn't know what to say so I took a break. But I returned when I could, and I know that happens to most of us on this forum too. So I know that for every kind response given, ten more are in the shadows just unable to respond due to the reality of our personal trauma cycles.

Anyway. I ramble. Tomorrow is a Ketamine Infusion. For me, they help. I'm sliding back into my feelings of shame and feeling unforgivable for any unkind thing I've ever said or done. That's my cue to get help. Luckily, the time between infusions is getting longer. I hope that I'm slowly rewiring my neural pathways, and that a day will come when my new pathways will bond so tightly that they become the new baseline for my shame responses and one day I won't need the infusions anymore. Like they say, neurons that fire together, wire together...eventually...as long as we persist and work with them until they permanently settle into place.

Journal Entry for Saturday, April 1st, 2023

I think I just figured out today that happiness is not tied to any other emotion.

My therapist started me down this road on Monday. I was ruminating again on that feeling of utter and complete loneliness that has haunted me for 60 years. I told him that no matter what I do, I can't stop feeling lonely, so I can't find happiness. He said, "I think that for your whole life, you've blended your state of loneliness in with your state of happiness, like they're the same thing." He explained that I can separate the two states of mind so as to feel pain, or loss, or fear, while still acknowledging that I can be happy.

I've tumbled this idea around in my head for a week now, and today, I think I finally understand what he meant.

I have to remember what happiness even is. It's not elation. Or laughing. Or even smiling. It can't be found outside of myself. A person can be miserable at Disneyland.

True happiness, to me, would be an intrinsic sense of satisfaction with who I am, regardless of what's happening extrinsically around me.

It's no wonder I struggle to find happiness when I keep thinking it's tied directly to my loneliness.

I think of a child wearing a cast on a broken ankle, feeling the pain of the break, and the itchiness of the cast, but laughing joyfully on a swing set with friends. The child is in pain, but happy at the same time.

I think, maybe, my painful, broken heart is like that child's foot in the cast. Sure it hurts. It doesn't mean I can't smile and laugh and play also.

I'm making this my theme for the week. I'm going to experiment with choosing to feel satisfied with myself, even while I'm feeling sadness and fear and confusion over the state of my family and my world and myself.

Chronic loneliness and a sense of not belonging is part and parcel with C-PTSD in many of us. But as long as I keep my belief that I can't find happiness because it's tied to those difficult issues, I don't stand a chance at finding that sense of self-satisfaction.

I hope to find that I can move forward in my healing by deciding I can be happy on the inside even when I'm feeling lonely and afraid. Disconnect them. Accept the loneliness as part of my life and then move on and love myself anyway.

I appreciate you sharing this reflection PC.  Reading your words and those of others on loneliness makes me feel less lonely as I'm not the only one. 

hey, PC, i've struggled w/ feeling happy most of my life (but now i know it's another feeling i haven't been able to feel).  at one point, i was married, my own house, 2 D's, and i remember standing in my living room, asking myself why i didn't feel happy.  i had the 'american dream', so to speak, so why?

i can remember feeling content and satisfied on 2 occasions, and i felt joy when my D1 took her first step, but only w/in the past year did i feel about a minute's worth of happy for living w/ my wonderful D, and this was in the midst of all kinds of crapola going down.  it was a surprise, albeit a good one, and i'll never forget it.

what i've learned about myself is that human feelings were consistently not allowed, that i was consistently dehumanized from babyhood on.  i could feel glad, could smile a lot, make jokes, be funny, but that underlying feeling of happiness eluded me, as did most of my normal emotions.  i think what your T said is interesting.  the idea that one specific emotion does not necessarily connect w/ a state of being.  pretty profound.  love and hugs :hug:

I really like that thought Papa Coco. That happiness gets to coexist alongside any other emotion. You can be both happy and angry, happy and sad, etc. This has been a big source of confusion for me, in my recovery too. Because my life is exactly as I want it and I am full of gratitude and happiness for it, and yet I walk around and behave as if I am terminally depressed, but I am not, not at all. But both seem to be true, just in my case the depression is an expression being offered up from the past and playing through my body. So this interplay between the two is very interesting to me. I hope it offers a sense of peace and gives you permission to feel happy. I can feel underneath the trauma how joyful you are.

Hello,
Well done for your journal.  Just wanted to say, I don't think any of us should be apologising for ourselves, for being ourselves, for writing long posts (although, maybe it's helpful for us to try to boil things down to the essentials ?) Unless we have set out to deliberately hurt someone, there's really very little need.  I like to think of our emotions as like the weather.  That's to say, the weather can be many things at any time, is not always predictable and we are not always wearing the right clothes.  If we can just accept ourselves, our moods, our feelings as we do the weather and just let the clouds drift by till the sun comes around again as it surely will, sometimes the day can be a little easier.  I think people are many things, not just a person with one dimension, but with many.  You are not your feelings or emotions.  When we feel ill, we should not think that we are the illness.  It is not who we are.  We feel bad, but we are not.  Oh, that's pretty brave doing stand-up.  I've done some acting and am singing - I get totally * scared every time and think it's my risk-taker that makes me do it, setting my self up for failure and being rubbish......  but it's also a good way to lose ya self, ha ? 

Thank you Rainy, San, Armee and Mandox for the corroborative support. I'm sorry that you know the struggle to feel happy also.

I feel like saying to everyone to be careful of my epiphanies. None of them seem to last more than a few days. Some of them feel like genius thoughts, but within a few days I retract back to my depressed, confused self again.

I've been quiet lately because I've been with my grandsons on spring break. Coco and I took them to the beach for a week. They had a blast. So did we. But the 9 year old is getting interested in soccer now. He brought his soccer ball with on the trip. The weather was mostly wet, cold and windy all week, but on Friday we got a break in the weather, which offered a chance to get down to the sandy beach, where he marked off two goals so he and I could play soccer. I thought it would be fun, but whoa. I'm old, fat, lazy, depressed, and have bad arthritis in both knees. That was only the smaller half of why I didn't have fun playing soccer. The bigger half was the EF it triggered.

I was an amazingly strong boy. Using only shovels, a wheel barrow, two axes and one chainsaw, my dad and I dug roads into the hillsides, and logged trees to sell as firewood from the time I was 9 until I was 16. As small and skinny and shy as I was, my core strength was impressive on any scale. A few boys tried beating me up on the playground at religious school, but to their chagrin, they couldn't get me down to the ground no matter how hard they tried. That being said, I had NO sports skills. Even though I was strong, I also had some physical limitations from birth that left me uncoordinated and "clumsy" on the ball field or court. I only have slow-twitch muscle action. I don't seem to have any fast-twitch muscles, meaning I can't move quickly as is needed in every sport I know of. My self-worth was in the toilet, because that's how the church and my family kept me as their servant for most of my life. In order to try and use self-abusing humor to stave off the critical abuse by the bullies, I impulsively laughed during sports. I was trying to force myself to appear as if I was having fun, but it backfired. Self-abusing laughter on a ball field only made me look stupider.

On the beach on Friday I felt that same thing. I was laughing and making excuses. This nine-year-old has some soccer skills and I have no sports skills of any kind. I wasn't letting him win—he was beating me on his own merit. Thankfully, this little guy is the sweetest, kindest, funniest, coolest little dude I have probably ever met personally. When I made an excuse why I couldn't play anymore, he just said, "Okay." We kicked the ball back and forth for a few minutes, and then did other beach stuff in the sand for an hour or so. But while that ball was on the sand, I literally felt myself trying to find a way to hide from him so he wouldn't kick it to me again.

Why did I tell this story? Because no matter how many epiphanous moments I have, no matter how many thousands of dollars I spend annually on therapists, Ketamine Infusions, books, apps, vitamins, treatments, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, and any other new fad that comes along, when real life happens I baseline right back to being the humiliated, bully-bait that I have always been.

I was born with a funny, comical, cheerful, kind disposition, but all that means so little against the traumas that I just...can't...seem...to...get...past.

Happiness, as I say, isn't a giddy feeling of joy, it's a sense of feeling safe and comfortable in our own skin. If I feel validated and free to be me, that's what I call happiness.

There was a lot of joy in my life. So many happy years. I bring the sadder times to this forum because it's the topic that drove me here in the first place. I didn't join to talk about my happy times, I joined to find support with the other half of my experience. But I can say there really were a lot of happy times. My comical nature just might be the only reason I've survived all the other crapola life threw at me.

I made a commitment to make 2023 a year where I never leave a post hanging in despair, but to always make sure that no matter how good or bad I'm feeling, I will always end my posts on a positive note. So, I'm not sad that I spent Friday living in my abused self as my awesome little grandson wiped the beach with me in a soccer match. I'm glad that, for some reason, I wasn't drawn fully into the EF. My body and brain fell deep into the EF but only during the event. I seemed to know that the EF was a learning experience. I saw it happen, and felt it, but as soon as my grandson stopped playing soccer with me, the EF ended. That's a huge step forward for me. I guess it shows that while I'm still struggling to find long-term happiness (safety and confidence to be myself), I'm finally becoming able to not let the EFs drag me through the mud for weeks on end after a single soccer game.

I'm calling this a win. My therapist would say that I successfully witnessed the EF, rather than participated in it. That's a win.

My grandson never said ONE single negative thing to me. He didn't care that I looked like a fat slob missing the ball and not making one single point. He just enjoyed playing with his papa. I'm  so glad I didn't fall into a long, quiet spell like I used to after feeling this humiliation. Like I say, I'm calling this a win.

I'll say more later. For now a  big :bighug:

Perhaps the EFs can be viewed as guideposts too, to know what needs looking at when you have the strength.

I don't want to veer into advice either but I'm also wondering if perhaps emdr might help? It's helped a lot of people. I'm one with the particular oddities of my brain that emdr is not such a clear cut path to relief but its still helping. It's like slowing down the processing enough to do it the justice it deserves. I can see the potential for it to help a lot if I didn't have the limitations I have.

I resonate with having epiphanies that later feel like they slip through my fingers and feeling like I am the same no matter how much changes or grows.  I appreciate you sharing as it helps me realize I'm not alone.

PC, when i asked my T about returning thoughts and feelings that harsh my own sense of well-being - one day things are ok, the next intrusive thoughts take over again - she told me 'you have c-ptsd.' that helped put the frustration to the side for a time, and when i continue to struggle i can conjure up those words and bring some peace to my mind.  it's trauma brain, and until we can resolve some of those issues, we'll continue to battle this beast.  it's a difficult thing to accomplish, and at my age i don't have much hope about it, but my T does, so i ride her coattails on it.  as has been said here before, 'this, too, shall pass'.  keep up the good fight, ok?  we're fighting alongside you.  love and hugs :hug:

Yes, everything San said.

You know it is ok to have epiphanies that help point in the right direction but that don't solve everything right away. When you share these insights they are showing the path, the next steps, a new piece of the puzzle toward healing. We are all stitching these insights together building a path so we can step out over the abyss of trauma safely. We add pieces of the path as we walk it. Maybe a bigger insight gives us a bigger foothold. It doesn't mean we can run across the bridge all at once because we haven't finished building it. But we can get a better view and we can get closer to firm stable land.

You've got this. We are never finished, no human is. You are great enough as you are and we just need to reduce our own suffering as much as we can. But you are GOOD. You are a good human. You ALWAYS were. They hurt you. They fed you lies. This is the abyss we need to get across. You - Papa Coco - are good. You are fine as is. The suffering needs to go though. One piece at a time. Too much too fast we crash.

Thank you Rainy, San and Armee,

Thank you again for your compassionate responses. I need those. I'm always there to tell other people that they are okay. That this is trauma and they feel its sting because they're good people. Bad people don't feel the effects of trauma, they use their past bullying to become bullies themselves. Good people internalize it and try to become helpers rather than bullies themselves. 

But then, when it comes to my own traumas, I don't tell myself the same things. So, I need to hear it from my friends, since I won't say it to myself. So, again, thank you for your compassion.

I guess it really highlights something I've never said before. I've never framed my unhappiness this way before. But it's accurate, and it's painful.  As it turns out, after my therapist yesterday brought me back to my beginnings and had me tell him the story of my earliest depression, I am now able to clearly see that the only thing I like or love about myself is how I make other people feel.

I think this new reframing of my current life is accurate because when I try to find any other thing to like about myself, I almost burst out crying. After 40 years of therapy, I've just now stumbled onto a genuinely authentic part of myself that I've never looked at before.

It's good that being kind to others brings joy, but, to me, it's sad when that's the ONLY thing that I like about myself.  It explains so much about why I am who I am. It explains why I have to try to make others smile in order to pull myself out of a depression. Because there's nothing else about me that I like.

Yesterday, my therapist brought me back to age 6 when I first told my family that I hated myself. They were religious, so instead of comforting me, they scolded me. They said "THAT'S A SIN!  GOD WILL PUNISH YOU FOR SAYING THAT!" So, naturally, my self-hatred set up like concrete as they tried to shame the self-hatred out of me.

So, I guess this gives me a clear picture as to why I am kind. Kindness makes other people feel good, so while I'm being kind, I'm feeling some love. While I'm isolating, I feel safe. No one can judge me while I'm alone. So my daily choice is to either feel safe and alone, or loved while I'm making someone else feel loved.

It also explains what happened to me back when Robin Williams took his own life. I was a standup comedian and was publishing my first three books when he passed. Two different friends called me to say "Just because he did it, it doesn't mean you have to."  That's the day I learned that people could see through my happy façade. Robin Williams' friends now say that he was "the loneliest person on a lonely planet." They say that he was ONLY happy during the moments that he was making others laugh. His kindness was legendary. And now I know why he was so kind and funny. It was the only cure he had for his loneliness and his depression. I get it. Totally.

Tonight I'm going to break my own 2023 commitment to ending every post on a high note. At this moment, I can't think of a high note for this.

I don't know where to go with this. Going back to the 6-year-old boy who hated himself and was shamed for it is so painful I...I just don't know what to do with it. 

PS: I was about to send this when I just had an afterthought:

Armee, you mentioned EMDR might be of some help to me. I think I need to ask my therapist if he'll do some of that with me. Or maybe I can find a clinician somewhere who I can get some good EMDR with. The only time I've experienced it was when my current therapist did it with me using his thumb. He told me to keep my head straight forward and follow his thumb with my eyes while we talked about my past. That was 15 years ago. It was very, very helpful. I need to find out how EMDR is done now and give it a try while I talk about my 6-year-old self being trained to hate myself for life. If I can't think about my self-hatred without crying, then that means there's some juice there that we could work with.

Okay, I just surprised myself. I ended this post with a light to aim for. Maybe I didn't break my 2023 commitment after all.

Thanks to all of you for being here for me. You're the only real outlet I have for processing my trauma experiences. I need you. Those aren't just words. I only get 50 minutes every two weeks with my therapist. My wife isn't someone who can process any of this with me. You're it. You're my lifeboat. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I appreciate you sharing the reflection about feeling best about oneself for how we make others feel.  I resonate with that and it is good food for thought.

 :bighug:

You come here and process all ypu need. It doesn't need to be perfect it doesn't need to make sense, it doesnt need to end with a positive if that is not your frame of mind at that moment.

It is really really sad though not surprising that your family responded that way. I've seen this type of knee jerk reaction from someone in my family who is very religious. Meeting self hatred with shaming behavior guess what makes the self hatred worse. You needed to hear that it is normal to feel that way. It's a human feeling. You needed to hear that the bad things you believe about yourself are not true, that you are a beautiful human, all your good and all your flaws add up to a unique and beautiful soul. You needed to hear how much you are loved just as you are. I'm sorry you did not get that.

I'm sorry they failed you over and over. But since you are pretty good with your parts you can tell that little boy what he needed to hear when you are not in an emotional flashback and can believe the good things.

What I see is a human who has persevered. Who is strong, despite failing knees. Whose greatest value is connection, whose very soul emanates: Do No Harm. You are insightful and kind. You keep going. You see the good in people. What happened to you was AWFUL. That is a physically, emotionally, and psychologically searing thing to go through.

You are still here and you are still a beautiful human to have on this planet. Could you imagine what the world would be like if it were filled with people like you? Wouldn't that be a good thing? What is there to not like about you, separate from the evil committed on you? From the lies you were told about yourself? Under that rubble, and rising above that rubble? Nothing but goodness. Sending love.  :hug:

PC, i am an emdr therapist, and there are many ways the process can be done.  eye movements, tapping, and something newer which i've had a lot of success w/ (my T also does emdr) is the 'flash technique'.  it allows me to deal w/ memories/feelings/incidents/thoughts that are very deep and disturbing, by bypassing the emotional razors which can rip me to shreds.  something to think about. 

i want to cuddle up that 6-yr. old, give him a big ol' hug, and let him cry on my lap until every last bit of poisonous belief is gone.  he didn't deserve that, you didn't deserve that. 

i get the thing about robin williams, and your own revelation about yourself.  i've had that feeling, too, when i've helped others.  it makes life worth living. 

glad you were able to attach something light and pos. at the end of your post.  way to go!  love and hugs :hug:

One more thing, to add, about emdr therapy....what you suggested is how I did it. I asked my existing therapist to learn emdr. it was a fairly quick training  process and has given him a useful tool to weave in with other methods he knows well. He worked with other clients who were more straightforward before we started to use it on me (not intentionally, just it took 6 months for me to do the eye movements without dissociating immediately). He's really liked having this method to work with. I was not willing to start with an emdr-only therapist or to start over with anyone to try to get them to understand how my mind works. I'm so grateful my T learned this. It isn't magic, it needs skill and trust. It isn't the thing that will heal it all. But over time (much longer than noncomplex trauma) it does put this stuff in the past, upsetting but not horrifying. It connects the pieces so you have a narrative understanding. And it gives witness to the horror, which it deserves. It seems to give the brain the space to come up with more healthy ways of viewing it too, and to believe those healthier views. They get woven into the fabric of the memory. So for me for instance I can start to believe that I didn't mislead them and that what happened happened because they wanted it to happen and tricked me, not because I was not what they needed. This is a deeper knowledge and believing than trying to tell yourself these things.

Rainy, Armee, San,

Thanks for the feedback. It's helpful. My Therapist is 73 years of age. He's an amazing, loving, empathetic man, but, i suppose because of his age, he's been resisting returning to the office since COVID. He's recently started talking about maybe resuming our inperson visits very soon. I'm going to ask him to do more EMDR with me as soon as we can be together in the room again.

Meanwhile, I had a revelation yesterday. There is a small business in town that I seem to have not been noticing. I saw it yesterday. It had a big sign on it "MUSHROOMS". I pulled in. He says he's been there for a while, but I just keep driving past, looking forward and not noticing it. I bought a bottle of thirty capsules of fully legal microdose of psylocibin for trauma and mood disorders. It's call SOLA, Mood Magic.  I live near Seattle, and here, it's legal for anyone over 18 to use. He advised me to take one capsule per day, and two if I feel like experimenting. One capsule lasts for 6 hours. So I'll do one a day, starting today, and if I feel better during that 6 hour period, I'll up it to two capsules a day, 6 hours apart for 12 hours of benefit. They're inexpensive. I hope they provide me some relief while NOT causing any side effects. I'll keep you posted as to whether they work at all, and how they make me feel.

In my new endeavor of finding spirituality, I've learned that most all ancient religions have deemed "Overthinking" as mankind's greatest downfall. Living in the moment is the opposite of overthinking. One of the major issues with C-PTSD is that we often become hypervigilant. We were raised to be attacked for everything we said or did, so we grew up like we were pawns in a chess match, having to pre-think everything we say or do so as to not be criticized or ridiculed by our narcissistic parents, elders, or peers.  We avoid being attacked by hypervigilantly predicting every possible attack that might be coming at us at any moment. It's exhausting.

As a result, I overthink everything. I sit with my back to the wall so I can see who's entering or leaving a room. I watch eye movements and smirks to predict when someone's about to torture me for being who I am.

SO!  Now, as I'm working toward learning  how to be more In the Moment, or more "listening to the still, small voice of God" so i can find peace and self-love, I'm learning to simplify. I go into meditations with only one thought now.

We humans have a way of cluttering our heads and distracting ourselves with too many thoughts. I am experimenting with trying to go into prayer/meditation with only one thought at a time, perhaps I can go in, decluttered and ready to discover the peace and the answer to only one thought at a time.

As a result of this I've simplified my own self diagnosis. I'm boililng down 40 years of therapy to two simplistic statements:

      1) I hate myself. I only love knowing that I've made other people happy.

      2) I am living in the cluttered ashes of a life that was once important to me.

I am soon to turn 63 years of age. I've lived my entire life distracting from self-hatred by being overly kind to everyone else. Retirement has taken away my bosses and customers, so I no longer have anyone to serve, therefore I'm depressed. I distracted for 60 years by being an overachiever. I made as much money as I could, and I stayed busy with volunteer jobs, kayaks, bicycles, woodworking projects, yard work, remodeling work, car repairs, etc, etc, etc. Today I sit in the clutter of all these kayaks and tools and trucks and trailers and aging house, etc, etc, etc. Last night, as I sleeplessly walked around this big, dark house that I designed and helped build 20 years ago, I just said to myself, "These are the ashes of what was once important to me."

These two statements: I hate myself, and I'm living in the ashes of what once mattered, are helping me to find clarity. No more cluttered thoughts. No more excuses for why I sit around the house NOT doing yard work, or remodeling or kayaking. I don't have to make up excuses anymore for why I'm not fixing my rotting fence or repaving my walkways. I'm not doing it because of one simple reason. I don't want to anymore. Period. I lived my life how others told me to, and now no one is telling me how to live, so I don't have to anymore. It's not because of the weather or my aching knees or my wife's schedule... What once mattered to me, no longer does. I'm living in the ashes of what once mattered. Period. No deep soul-searching required.

Now, when I go into prayer or meditation, I don't have to search for answers. I have them. I can just live in the moment now.  I hope that as I accept these two truths, that the only thing I don't hate about myself is that I'm kind to others, and that my former life is over and it's all ash now, are the only two reasons I'm depressed.

As odd as it sounds, these two new baseline truths are helping me feel somewhat unchained from the complexity and overthinking of everything I used to blame my depression/anxiety on.

Sometimes, the simplest answer is the best one to work with.

 :hug:

Your ashes sound beautiful while also being ashes.

PC, hopefully that's exactly what will happen.  the ashes will only be ashes, not active volcanoes, and your true kind, caring, nurturing, understanding self w/ be able to show itself to you more regularly rather than the manufactured-thru-trauma self that haunts you.  i give you so much credit for tirelessly searching for what might help you, being openminded to what's out there.  love and hugs :hug:

Thank you Armee and San both for the encouraging comments. Again, it means a lot.  :hug: I guess in a positive light, ashes from the destruction of the past become fertile soil for the future. I like the way you both helped me reframe this.

As I allow myself to accept the simplicity around the baseline knowledge that I have always hated myself and that my current life is nothing but tasteless ashes in my mouth, I'm finding even more clarity of thought.

Today, in my meditation, I committed myself to only one ask of the Universe. I want to be happy. NO OTHER WORDS were spoken. The more I study spiritual joy, the more I see that overthinking is what blocks success. I now commit to only one ask per day. Today it's happiness. Period. It's a laser focused request for a single gift from the gods. happiness. I don't care where it comes from. I don't care how it comes. I don't care what it costs me. I no longer add specific boundaries to what I ask for. And what I ask for is what my brain and heart attempt to achieve. ONE thing. Nothing else. To be intrinsically, completely, holistically, and permanently happy. That's all I want.

Remember, I don't see happiness as euphoric excitement. I don't see it as wealth or even health. Quite often the happiest people on earth are the poorest ones, but they love themselves and their peers. I see happiness as a sense of being comfortable and grateful in one's own skin. A person can be a happy person even while mourning a loss. Temporary feelings of sadness are okay, as long as the baseline of the person is happy. I want to feel happy in my own skin, happy with my environment, happy with my friendships and activities. Good and bad days can still happen, but from a place of baseline happiness in who I am and what I have and what I do. Period. So I ask for baseline happiness. Nothing else. Don't care how I get it.

Journal Entry for Sunday, April 16, 2023

I took my new supplement twice yesterday, six hours apart. I noticed a very slight improvement on my mood and my clarity of thought. VERY slight. Like maybe 1% improvement.  Then, last night, I went to bed without taking anything at all. I usually take a supplement of some kind, from CBD to Melatonin to over the counter sleep aids. Last night, nothing. And I slept for nearly 8 solid hours, only having to get up as usual to pee twice. But I fell right back asleep as soon as I returned to bed.

This morning I feel maybe 3% better than usual. By better I mean slightly more clear of thought, and slightly less depressed and slightly more interested in MAYBE fixing or repairing or cleaning something. I have a leaking bath/shower diverter. It's been a problem for over a year. It's a fix that should cost less than $12 and should take me less than 15 minutes to fix. So I got a small screwdriver and attempted to remove the screw that holds the failing faucet onto the copper pipe. To my disappointment, I discovered that this faucet takes an allen wrench instead of a screwdriver. It's in a blind spot so I can't see it, I can only stick tools up into the hole and feel around. It was a GD allen screw, not a phillips. GRRR.

I got a little angry. I went looking for an allen wrench. I own many, many allen wrenches, because my house and garage are so badly disorganized that I can never find one when I need it. So I just go out and buy new for $1, use it, and then lose that one too. After looking in about 4 places for my allen wrenches I became furious and threw up my hands and said "F@@@ it!" I was so angry that I decided to not do any projects today at all. To organize my garage will take several days. I first have to pull EVERYTHING out of its piles. I have to put both cars in the driveway for a week, which makes them vulnerable to theft and break-ins (I live near Seattle. Crime is not illegal here anymore, so the odds of having one's car stolen are very, very high. The only thing police are allowed to do about crime is document it after it happens. Period. not allowed to help other than that). Okay, so I'm only slightly exaggerating the problem with crime, but I promise you, this is only a very, very slight exaggeration. We law abiding citizens are at great risk now, so we absolutely MUST keep our cars hidden--which is one of the factors that makes me feel so victimized these days! I don't do a lot of things because I'm afraid of being robbed or shot at while doing them. That makes me look at my garage and, again, just shout "F@@@ IT!" I can't leave the cars out for a week, so I can't organize my garage, so I can't use my tools, so I can't fix my $12 leaky shower diverter.

STILL, as small an improvement in my depression as it is, it was still an improvement! YAY! I am calling it a win that for 15 minutes today I felt like doing something other than sit and watch TV. If I keep taking these supplements and keep only pursuing only ONE thing per day--happiness and nothing else--then perhaps I'll feel stronger and more and more like doing things again in the not too distant future...A guy can hope. Right? HOPE.

I answered a post this morning on someone else's thread where I reminded myself that anytime I start to feel happy, I also start to swirl in chaos within my head. Dreams increase, confusion, forgetfulness, and an overwhelming sense of chaotic thoughts and feelings. In answering that post, while experiencing a slight clarity of thought, it dawned on me that if I can allow myself to accept the chaotic side effects of happiness, maybe I can start to accept a little bit more happiness.

My therapist calls it "shaking the snow globe" when something good happens and my brain goes into its chaotic storms, the feeling of wanting to calm the chaos of accepting happiness is akin to an addict needing another drink so as to ruin the happiness and calm the chaos that comes with being too happy. Too many of us use distraction or self-sabotage to keep from feeling too good, because feeling good upsets the discomfort of feeling bad, which is all we know. We accept the joy we think we deserve. We sabotage the joy we think we don't deserve. Sort of like choosing the devil we know is safer than experiencing the angel we say we want to know. I call it returning to being uncomfortably comfortable in my familiar feelings that I'm not allowed to be happy.

I have to issue a correction.

The product I'm now taking has no psilocybin in it.  I'm reading the ingredients as: Ibotenic acid & Muscarium. I have  nooooo idea what these two words mean, but they are not psilocybin.

The kid who introduced me to the product was one of those guys who answered every simple question with a complicated and confusing answer. Like he wanted to teach me everything he knew in every sentence. By the time I left the store with the bottle I truly didn't know what it was.

That's okay for now though, because the product is helping me a lot. After writing the above post this morning, I found myself cleaning my bathroom. This is no small task, as I have a copper sink that, up until an hour ago, was black and green the way copper gets. I've been avoiding cleaning it for months and months. Today I just had the urge to pull out the copper cleaner and rubber gloves, and to happily scrub the heck out of it. It's bright copper color now. Beautiful!  I then organized the drawers in my dresser.  Who am I? What have I done with the real Papa Coco?

I know that I was very happy after my first few Ketamine Infusions. That happiness has since worn off. I know that I was in a whole new world of happiness in February during my 4 weeks of hypnotherapy, and now, months later, that's worn off.  My hope is that products such as this one will work for a longer period of time than Ketamine and Hypnotherapy did. I'm glad that this product has appeared for me now, but I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic that it isn't another temporary feel-good product. It's all above board. They have three stores here in Seattle, one of which is in a popular shopping mall right next to our Apple computer store. So it's not illegal. The product is called SOLA Mood Magic. This store is also on the web at   www.CBDbySOLA.com. Legal in Seattle, but I don't know the laws and rules anywhere else.   

So again: I correct my earlier statements: These capsules contain NO psilocybin, but within the first two days of taking it I feel energetic and ready to get back to living my life like I did when I was  younger.

Quote from: Papa Coco on March 27, 2023, 02:46:33 PM
Yeah, I've been quiet lately. Partly because I'm busy with family stuff. But also because I feel like I've been mentally distracted and unable to respond to forum members accurately. I feel like I'm not truly understanding what I'm reading, so my responses are inappropriate or "off-base." I'm afraid of offending anyone by misunderstanding them and making comments that don't make sense...like I'm babbling incoherently online. So to stave off any chance of hurting anyone's feelings by saying something dumb, I'm not responding to much at this time.

I feel like I'm losing touch with the world and it would be best to keep silent until I feel like I know what's going on around me again.

Hey PC,

Thank you for your message btw. I wanted to respond this because I think that this quote was because of something you wrote in my journal, and which I responded to. I think that my asking for clarification on what you meant perhaps took you to a very old place with lots of past stuff coming up for you, and perhaps you took what I said personally? I can say that I wasn't expecting you to be on my side, but wanted you to elaborate on what you were talking about. To me, this is the beginning of communication and secure communication where each person is able to state their views and while they may not align, there is respect and a seeking to understand. Your experience may not be my experience but that doesn't mean it's not valid, and no one should anyone push their experiences on others but they should be able to express them. I think this a forum where a lot of people had to grow up without that and without that freedom. To me, my journal is a place to express things that are going on and I do appreciate other points of view on things that happened to other members that they might feel relates to them. It's also my personal experience and the short paragraph may not relate to others, or be what they initially thought it was.

I think for me, it was a challenge that you abruptly ended the conversation and went into a personal place but I get it. I'm learning more about being avoidant and dissociation and sometimes when "feelings" come up people can withdraw. Whether or not that resonates with you, I don't know. I feel like it does give me the impression of walking on eggshells and knowing me, that's something I will avoid at all costs. I am realizing this is again on the avoidant spectrum and not necessarily secure relating.

I do want to say that just because something feels like something from the past where it will be the same outcome, doesn't always necessarily mean it will be. Also, something that I'm trying to implement into my own life.

Sending you a hug if that's ok,
dolly

Dolly,

Thank you for the response. This was all about my own traumas. I get so depressed sometimes that I can't make sense of what I'm reading or what I'm writing or what I'm saying. I often isolate just so I don't say something stupid to my wife, kids or friends. Better to hide than to open my mouth and show my confusion to the world.

I've recently truly began to understand my own life-long level of self-loathing. I've come to realize that I pretty much hate myself. The only thing I truly love about myself is that I seem to be fairly good at making other people feel good. So when I fear I've made someone feel bad, I go straight back to self-loathing.

You are correct, that I have a hair trigger on feeling like I've said something stupid and have hurt someone's feelings. There were several threads at that time where I felt like I was being insulting with my inability to read and comprehend. Add to that, the fact that my family wouldn't allow me to stay quiet. If I didn't respond to them, they saw that as me being insulting. Then when I forced myself to say something that I didn't know how to say, they'd become even angrier at me. Somehow, during that week when I wrote this, I was feeling like I'd be hurting people if I didn't respond at all, so I was forcing myself to try and be as responsive as I could, even though depression had me so in its grips that couldn't comprehend anything I read or saw or heard. 

I feel so responsible for everyone's happiness, that every time a member sort of goes silent for a long period of time, I automatically assume it's because of a post I wrote that made them feel unwelcome or unsafe or misunderstood. And if I hadn't written any such post, then I assume it's because I didn't respond. It's a self-torture that eats at my stomach lining 24x7x365.

My time on this forum has been good for me, but there have been many times I've worried myself sick that I said something stupid or accidentally misinterpreted someone's deepest thoughts. Mmmmmmmany times. I can't count the number of posts I've deleted 5 minutes after writing them for fear I've said something insulting or stupid. (It's how I was raised. Everything I ever said was eventually used as proof that I was responsible for my family's unhappiness).

It's trauma, no doubt. And I'm a Fawn-Freeze-Flee-Fight. If my fawning doesn't make someone feel good, then I freeze and flee back into my own self-loathing. This had nothing to do with you. This was a bad EF I was in at the time. I was living in the memories of being humiliated, punished, and abandoned by other people for an entire lifetime. Family and church blamed me for their misery all the time. I'm grateful for my power to help, but I'm mortally terrified of my own power to hurt others. My entire life is a balancing act between helping and not accidentally hurting. When my family ignored me, that was the best case scenario. When they weren't ignoring me, they were accusing me of hurting them by being who I am. I was a scapegoat. THEY taught me to run when I get confused.  And, as I mentioned above, this was not one single post that made me write what you've quoted. I was feeling like I was hurting everyone on the forum by opening my big, stupid mouth (as family would say).  Thankfully it only lasted about a week. I sort of came out of the EF a week later.

I'm trying to grasp the fact that this specific anxiety will never end for me, so rather than freeze-flee, I need to find ways to mitigate the inevitable. This includes with my wife, my kids, grandkids, friends, neighbors...It's a common occurrence for me to feel like I don't belong in other people's conversations.

Yes, please feel free to send me a hug. I love hugs. Here's one for you right now. :hug:

Papa Coco:

QuoteI feel so responsible for everyone's happiness, that every time a member sort of goes silent for a long period of time, I automatically assume it's because of a post I wrote that made them feel unwelcome or unsafe or misunderstood. And if I hadn't written any such post, then I assume it's because I didn't respond. It's a self-torture that eats at my stomach lining 24x7x365.

Me, too. Exactly. You aren't alone in that.

And I deleted a reply I left to you yesterday because I was answering in a triggered state and worried I'd offend you or make things worse for you. But also worried that no reply at all would also be bad.  :grouphug:

i've done this, too, PC.  worried, deleted, rewrote, worried again . . . yep.  sounds very familiar.  however, there have been mistakes made by me and others toward me, and we've been able to resolve them and carry on from there.  this group of people i've found to be extremely patient with each other on the whole, willing to walk thru the 'conflict' and still be there for each other. 

we're all here doing the best we can. the idea of feeling responsible for someone else's happiness is an old one.  ingrained in us in so many different ways by so many different people.  isn't that where the word/concept 'selfish' comes from?  not allowed to have your own toys, feelings, time, energy, whatevers because someone else wants them and we're taught to 'share', give away what's ours and what we enjoy so that someone else doesn't feel bad. 

i have liked the idea of reframing selfish to be self-ish, as in self care, boundaries, doing what's best for your 'self', speaking your own self's truth - all with kindness and caring, of course. a lot of people don't like it when we do it, but pooh to them.  love and hugs :hug: 

I simply want to share that 1. I relate to this conversation and 2. I so admire you all not giving up and working through it by being truly honest, vulnerable, honor yourselves and each other.

This is a powerful thing I'm experiencing here and it makes me cry and scared. The crying  and fear are about hope.  There is a ray of hope that maybe, just maybe I can get there too and then fear of course because this means that I would have hope again.  Topic for next session with T.

I thank each of for who you are and for where each of are at.

wow. Thanks everyone for responding with such kindness and comradery.

I say this all the time: That we here on this forum, the Fawns and Freezers and Fleers feel this type of pain because we're good. We all know that many people who are traumatized by bad families just become abusers themselves.  But we didn't. Turning our pain inward was us being kind and wanting to never hurt anyone else the way we've been hurt. As difficult as it is to be us, I would never, ever, ever want to pass on to others what was done to us.

Moondance, your emotional fear and crying touch me deeply and tell me that you feel what we're feeling. And with some hope that you've finally found a place where you are allowed to be you, and you don't have to be "teflon" here. I believe totally that people are social creatures. The most damaging thing that can be done to us to be isolated, either emotionally or physically. So when we find out that we aren't alone in our traumas, that's when the anxiety of the decades begins to release. Crying is one way we release anxiety.  I'm super touched by your comments that the conversation here with Dolly and Armee and Sanmagic, and soon I assume even more members, has touched you so profoundly. It makes me want to say it one more time: Welcome to the forum. This is who we are.

San, you are so right. This forum is loaded with people who are forgiving and empathetic and compassionate. We all know that we all are flawed and we all accept each other for it. It's like we're the type of people who should have been a family. Families SHOULD be this supportive of each other. But on this forum, a great many of us are from families who were the opposite of supportive. This forum is a far cry better family than my FOO was.

Dolly: Your comments about the avoidance spectrum couldn't be more spot on. Walking on eggshells is exactly how I've lived my entire life, from birth to now.

Armee, I can't imagine ever taking offense to anything you'd ever say to anyone on this forum, but trust me, I KNOW what it feels like to worry about it.

BIG HUGs to all of you :bighug:!

Journal Update: Monday, April 17, 2023

Two full days of microdosing are under my belt. They've been great, but not without fear of the future.

I preach and teach and comment all the time about the fact that we should all be focused on progress, not perfection. But I have the tendency to push myself to standards I don't push onto others.

My wife and my therapist often praise me for not giving up.  My little sister gave up in 2008. Two of the boys I went to catholic school with gave up at age 19. I am as damaged as they were, but I keep pursuing any and all help available. I keep pushing on.

I have a great fear now: Ketamine Infusions worked--for a while.  Hypnosis worked--for a while. Meditation and the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment worked, and it still work, but ONLY if I pursue this path fervently every day. ANY time I start to relax from daily meditations I go right back to ground zero and have to start over.

What will I do if microdosing goes the way everything else has?

I want to find a way to accept my damaged self-image on my own so that I don't have to keep setting myself up for crash-and-burns.

A while back, a member suggested a comedian on Netflix and YouTube. His name is Neal Brennen. His story is that he has tried everything imaginable, and none of it has helped him stop hating himself. His final message is that he is who he is and nothing is changing it. I need to come to terms with this. I need to accept myself with the same love and compassion that I accept you all with. In my opinion, you're all really wondeful people, and I'm just a tagalong who's in need of being a better person.

Heavy sigh. I don't know what to do with this. I'm still planning to ask my therapist for some EMDR, but I don't see him for 8 more days, and that's over zoom. So...

Another day. I'll enjoy these legal microdosing capsules for as long as I can, but I need to be focused on finding a way to accept who I am, rather than keep shooting arrows at temporary "cures."

Meanwhile thank God for you all. In AA I often hear members begin sharing by thanking all the members for helping them stay sober. I feel that same gratitude here now. I thank all of you for showing up and for accepting me for who I am. You're keeping me from bursting into a billion molecules and spreading myself out into space.

Meanwhile, I'll keep giving regular updates on the progress of whatever gimmick or cure I'm trying next. LOL. A lot of these things really do help a lot of people. It's sort of a custom fit for each of us what will work and what won't. Perhaps by routinely reporting on my experiences, I can grant the world a look at what they might want to try and what to avoid.

You are such a good and beautiful human. I wish you didn't hate yourself. It's so unfair. Actually it really is unfair because you weren't allowed to hate your abusers and to express that anger and it had no where to go but inside. There's nothing to hate about you.

I have that voice too. It's been pretty loud the past couple days. I hate myself I hate myself I deserve to die I'm disgusting. Those voices flare up when I am close to something painful but am still fleeing from it. It quieted for awhile and now it's back. It's just a distraction. To remind myself I am bad. I am the bad one. Bad things didn't happen. It's me.

I strongly suspect the same is true for you or something similar. If you looked at yourself as anyone but yourself, you would love and admire the person you saw. ❤ I sure do.

Your statement to me. That you couldn't imagine me ever saying anything to offend anyone made me tear up. I know why, because no matter how nice and loving I was to my mom she constantly made me feel like I was doing something wrong to her. It was her own mental illness but when I'd do nice things for people I'd feel like I was being a horrible person. It's such a Topsy Turvy world we grew up in.

I had just been worried about whether the pills were trustworthy since the guy was fast talking you, but I realized too I was very triggered because my dad died of an intentional overdose in WA. And I don't want anything bad to happen to you.

I have read your posts PC and Armee and can so relate. I am thankful for your shares, your growth and your continued strength to keep at it.

PC, my T does emdr w/ clients over zoom all the time.  i even do it w/ her just by phone.  it's flexible, versatile, and accommodating.  wishing you the best w/ it.

i agree w/ you about family being here.  it does feel like that for me as well.  and, yes, we could have turned into abusers, but we didn't, you didn't, and, using your words, we are good people, which includes yourself.  i think eventually you'll discover that good person w/in and will be able to stop punishing him w/ hate for being human.  love and hugs

 :wave:

:grouphug:

 :hug:

Thank you Armee, Moondance and San,

I will see (zoom) my T tomorrow. I will discuss the idea of EMDR over Zoom. See what he thinks of the idea.

I have an update about my self-hate. I have always hated myself. But I have always resisted believing it.  Meanwhile I've also always had several squirm-moments every day of my life. Any time anything has triggered any memory of me saying or doing something dumb, or hurtful, or accidental, I've had a several minute trip in my mind to my dark place.

For most of my life, if I see something that reminds me of a time when I wasn't able to make someone feel good, or a time when I humiliated myself (and with all the years I've lived, there have been many less than stellar moments), I have automatically looked up to the sky and said "I'm sorry" to the universe. Even during a good day I'll have 30 or 40 squirm-moments, each followed by 5 minutes of excruciating self-torture.

BUT!  Things changed two weeks ago when I just flat out admitted to myself and to you and to my wife and my friends that I have always hated myself. NOW when I see someone who reminds me of someone I didn't do right by 40 years ago, I trigger a new response. I just say, "See? This is why I hate myself."  THIS IS GOING TO SOUND INSANE, but saying those words (instead of "I'm sorry") stops the EF immediately in its tracks. It's like...I've always hated myself, but I've never just openly admitted it to myself, which has led to a follow-on 5 minutes of wallowing in the confusion and shame of events from years gone by.

It's like: the problem has always been there, but I've never faced it head on. Now that I'm facing it head on, I have something tangible to work with. Tomorrow is my T appointment, and along with talking about EMDR, I am going to bring this to my T to see what he'll do with it. My guess is he'll be happy to hear that I'm finally facing this dragon and he might (fingers crossed) be able to move me forward a few steps in the healing process.

I hope it isn't too confusing, but thank God I'm finally facing this dragon.

To make this feel even better, I hate a lot of people; Bad politicians, Evil corporate CEOs, racists, murderers, etc, etc, etc..
   Main stream psychology, as well as spiritual religions, repeatedly teach that we can only hate in others what we hate in ourselves. I hate people who bully because I hate that I was so bullied. I hate child molesters because I'm a victim of CSA. I hate thieves because I've been stolen from... and don't even get me started on narcissists and sociopaths!!!!!!

By admitting that I hate myself, I wonder if I'm clearing the air. I'm just openly admitting something that will help get me past my confusion. Whenever I see a news article that a family of a murder victim has forgiven the murderer, I'm both dumbfounded and impressed. How do they do that?  How can someone be so beautiful that they can forgive someone who has hurt them so irreversibly?  Maybe those families just don't hate themselves so much that they also don't project that self-hatred onto others???? Just a thought. I need some true, professional guidance to move past this for my own life.

 :hug:

There's power in naming and facing and turning toward a difficult feeling or thought like that self hate. The way my T describes it is saying "yes, I see you." For me those thoughts are protective and distracting (in a protective way), keeping me away from more difficult feelings and memories. Mine are: I hate myself. I'm stupid. I'm disgusting. I'm bad and wrong. I deserve/need to die. I know their purpose now though and I know the pattern of when they show up and it is less distressing now because of that.

I hope that looking that thought square in the face and telling your loved one about it helps, and that your T can help you with it too. At some point I hope you don't need to feel those thoughts and feelings anymore, that they serve their use to you and then mosie on down the road to live in someone's head who maybe should feel that way.

Armee,

I'm struck by the way that you can see the good in me, and I can see the good in you. But neither of us can fully embrace the good in ourselves. I guess this is more proof that we both struggle with the same trauma-induced, non-realistic self-hatred. We're both battling the same disorder in similar ways. So when you feel self-hatred, think of how I see you as a loving person. When I feel self-hatred I'll try to remember that you see me as a loving person. If I can't maintain a decent self-image, maybe I can trust your judgement. And the same goes for you in return.

:hug: :hug: :hug:

 :bighug:

That has really helped me, exactly this. When you write about hating yourself or there being nothing to like about yourself, or describing these beautiful parts of your life as ashes. All I see is this beautiful talented kind human. And I can know that's what's happening with me too. I will remember.

And yet I also find those thoughts about ourselves are serving a purpose. And stripping them away too soon can be dangerous. So please do continue to hate yourself when you need to. When the alternative would be worse. Just know it isn't true while you do that and yes please think of me feeling the same thing and know it's preposterous! :grouphug:

I've made the most progress with feeling disgusting. I smell myself and my clothes and shower multiple times a day and change my clothes multiple times a day and smell myself telling myself I'm disgusting, but I've noticed over the past couple months um I'm actually not disgusting? So my mantra before being close to people or going into stores used to be "I'm disgusting I'm disgusting no stay away! I'm disgusting!" But now I can think "I might FEEL disgusting but I am not actually disgusting." It seems like a horrible thing to have to think but it is leagues better than what I used to think. Little non-threatening steps. It is all about survival after all.

hey, PC, i'm jumping on that bandwagon - i see you as a loving person as well as kind and caring.  as you once told me, people who are truly bad don't question that part of themselves, don't pay attention to it, don't give it any weight in their lives at all.  opposite of you, they take their hatred and anger and rebellion out on others in an intentional way - to hurt, humiliate, cause pain and suffering. 

as another who has been held up to impossible expectations about how to be, getting off that ship is a tough one.  we continue doing to ourselves what was once done to us.  i think the little child inside, who would always protect their parents, is still doing that.  we've been taught not to hate, always forgive, but the human side of me has found a place for that hate emotion lately, and to me, that's all it is.  another human emotion.

as far as forgiveness goes, i've stood on the philosophy that i've taken what they gave me, felt what they did to me, and survived it the best i could.  that's enough for me.  i let someone/something else, whoever/whatever form that might be, to do the forgiveness if that person warrants it.  i don't think i have enough in me - too ravaged by what was done to me - to have the energy to go an extra step on their behalf.  let the powers that be take care of that piece. 

best to you w/ your T and the whole emdr thing.  i hope you get some satisfaction.  love and hugs :hug:

Hi Papa Coco,

:wave:

Thinking about you, how did your session go with T? Don't have to answer but did want you to know we are thinking of you.

:bighug:

Hi PapaCoco,
I am also thinking about you and hoping that you're ok and sending you a supportive hug  :hug:
Hope  :)

 :bighug:

Armee, San, Moondance and Hope, thank you all for your hugs and responses. Your care and concern and fellowship mean the world to me right now.

I've been distracted this past week. My wife and I are celebrating 40 years of marriage this week. We've been together at the beach, sharing this small house, which does not have a place for me to privately use the internet. My computer is in the living room here, and I keep this forum discrete. My wife knows I communicate with people like myself, but she doesn't know the forum name or address. This is my private space. I wouldn't be able to feel open if I knew she could read what I write. Even though I never say anything bad about her, because there really isn't anything bad about her. But she doesn't have CPTSD so, while she respects what I go through, she doesn't understand it. My privacy issues come from childhood. Mommy Dearest routinely searched my room, read my diary, punished me for every word I wrote in my own private diary, and basically taught me that if family can see what I'm writing, my brain shuts down and goes into paranoid mode. Writer's Block. So, to keep from having writer's block today, I have no choice but to keep this forum private. My wife knows that, and respects it. She knew my mom.

So she just left a half hour ago. She needs to return to the city to go back to work on Friday. So, now, I have the freedom to write to my fellow forum members with a clear head.

Micro Dosing Update: The Capsules wreak havoc on my GI tract. I get bad, bad heartburn if I take them daily. I read up on the ingredients, and found that this is common in many people. I took them for a week. I then stopped for a week. Yesterday, I took one with two spoonfuls of honey and a big glass of non-carbonated ginger water, and a Prilosec for good measure. No heartburn.

I think the micro dosing is changing me more than I had realized.  Last week, I traded off my aging, but very exciting bright orange Jeep. It was aging poorly and coming apart at the seams, but up until last week I loved that Jeep like it was a person. Suddenly, the bling and the exciting colors and lights and flash felt wrong. Suddenly I don't want to feel like a 19-year-old, peacocking all over town in a high-profile, blinged up kid's car anymore. I traded it for a new one in basic black with very, very few options. I feel oddly comfortable in it.

In fact, I feel free from my past right now. Even the abuse I took feels like it happened to someone else in a book I'd read or a movie about someone else.

This is really a good feeling. I hope it lasts. My curiosity is about whether it was the Ketamine Infusions of 2022 or the one week of microdosing that did this. I feel okay being an old man now. I feel okay with where my life is right now. It's an odd feeling. Not sure I've ever felt "satisfied" before.

Update on "I hate myself": I met with T on Tuesday of last week. He approved of what I'm doing. I have at least 30 flashbacks a day. Up until three weeks ago, each little memory of something I said or did that I regret, would send me into a five minute downward spiral of shame and anxiety. But three weeks ago I suddenly realized how badly I hate myself, and I started replacing my shame spiral with a single sentence: "See? This is why I hate myself." It felt painful at first, but it felt honest. Like I'd cut through the crapola and had found the root of my shame spiral: self-hatred. My T said it was me letting myself off the hook. He was okay with it. I didn't just start to hate myself, but mostly I just finally cut to the chase and admitted it.

Today, I still say those words each time I remember an embarrassing event, but to my relief, 30 episodes of shame each day have been reduced to just a half-dozen or less. And the words, while still true, don't bite at me anymore. Maybe I don't hate myself as much as I did when I hid from it. Not hiding from it truly does feel like I'm letting myself off the hook.

Well, I have a lot of work to do here. I have to get the house ready for guests. I've got a lot of laundry to do and some beds to make up with clean sheets. I will be able to check in on the forum more though, now that my beautiful wife has gone back to the city.

sounds like you are doing a good thing for yourself, PC.  i hope it continues.  love and hugs :hug:

I'm so glad you got some time with your beautiful wife away from the stressful city house.

I'm the same way about keeping things private. For many of the same reasons too. I actually look like I am guilty of doing something horrible if my husband walks in on me doing anything except I don't know cooking or cleaning I hide whatever innocuous thing I was doing like I've been caught cheating or doing drugs. Its funny but sad.

I think you are on to something with calling out the self hatred, for sure. And I predict over time after you acknowledge that feeling for awhile you'll shift to something more kind and truthful about yourself.

 :bighug:

Journal Entry for Tuesday, May 9, 2023

I did it again. I dented up my brand new car....again. AGAIN!

I've done this before: In 2010 I bought a brand new Jeep Wrangler. When it was 3 weeks old, I got into a dissociative funk after a heart-treadmill test and backed it into a parking garage pillar, destroying the taillight, denting the body and denting the bumper. The repair estimate was $1,300 but I didn't have it, so I replaced the tail light and drove it dented for 13 years until I just traded it for a brand new 2023 Jeep Gladiator three weeks ago.

In 2009, on the day my mother's doctor announced that she was dying and only had weeks to live, I got into a dissociative funk and caved in the side of our 2001 pickup. We still drive it. But that dent is a constant reminder of mom's death, my FOO's explosive ending, and my dissociative tendencies to destroy what's mine.

Today, that Gladiator is almost 3 weeks old. I just mowed my front and back yards. I tend to work too fast. I have anxiety issues: I can't do things slowly. I wore myself out and was shaking and a bit out of sorts, but I got behind the wheel anyway to put my yard trailer back into its parking spot. But as I was backing up, I literally forgot I had the trailer on the hitch. My mind was out in space, completely dissociated from what I was doing. I jack knifed the trailer and destroyed my brand-new Jeep's rear bumper. 

History repeats itself again and again.


Probably if I'd have documented the day I destroyed the side of my 2001 truck, I'd probably discover it was 14 years ago today and that I'm rerunning a dissociative trance and ending up in the same results. Anniversary issues come up a lot for me. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to know that these accidents always happen on the same day every year. It is, after all, "a trauma thing."

I stain all my new shirts and coats. I tear all my new pants. I spill coffee or oil onto any new shoes I wear. I spill onto new carpets. I scar new wood floors. I dent walls and doors when I move furniture in the house. I break some part off of every tool and toy that I buy.

I am now willing to accept the truth that I don't seem to believe I have the right to own nice things. I believe there may be a psychosomatic reason why I ALWAYS dent or scrape or scratch or break my nicest cars, or tools, or bikes, or any remodel I do in the house or yard.

A favorite line from my favorite movie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, is "We accept the love we think we deserve."  I can now alter that saying to: "I accept the damage I think I deserve." My parents worked hard to teach me that I didn't deserve to have nice things. I was always given low-dollar gifts, regardless of how much money my parents had. For my wedding gift, I got a $4 plastic clamp lamp. And yes, it was meant as an insult because I was never supposed to ever have a wife or any children. I was supposed to be that son who dedicated his life to taking care of a nasty, hypocritical, covertly abusive Catholic family. My siblings got crystal and appliances, etc when they got married, but I got a lamp that was hanging on the rack with the candy bars at the checkout stand of some hardware store somewhere.

So, yeah. I know why I damage everything I own. I was taught that I don't deserve better. I go into dissociative trances just long enough to dent and scrape and stain and crack everything I buy for myself.

For me to ride a pristine bike, or wear designer clothes, or drive an undented car, or plan an exciting vacation is a torture all its own. I feel like I don't deserve any of it--and apparently, I also sabotage it all to bring wahtever is mine down to the level of junk that I believe I deserve. Even more telling, I don't believe I have the right to own something that isn't broken, scratched, dented, or flawed. Good things are for good people. Not for CinderFella. It's my job to serve others, and to give good things to others and then build what I can for myself with the leftover pieces.

I'm only comfortable in dented cars, using broken tools, floating in cracked kayaks, etc. I do something to dent or scrape or bend or break everything I own.

C-PTSD gives us large and small problems for life. This is what I would classify as a smaller issue. Not feeling like I am allowed to enjoy nice vacations, nice possessions, etc. is a problem, but it's one of the lessor problems C-PTSD has given me. 

But for today, DANG IT! I CAN'T BELIEVE I'VE ALREADY DENTED UP THE NEW CAR AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes I just get so tired of all the self-made traps and trances I go into.

I've been microdosing for only a couple of days a week, due to the product I'm using gives me bad, bad, bad heartburn. But the microdosing does seem to be helping me a lot, even on the days I don't take it. Today, after denting up my 3-week-old vehicle, I decided to take a capsule to try and keep a clear head about what I did. So...hopefully I can sleep tonight without the sharp pains in my chest. But thankfully, even though I'm distraught over damaging the new car, I am not as angry at myself as I usually am. I'm just heartbroken about the dents, but not angry at myself. That's a new thing.

I am so sorry Papa Coco. I am so so sorry this keeps happening. I am so sorry for the cause of it and the trauma repeating itself.

But is it OK to also admit? I am laughing so hard I am crying. Or crying so hard I am laughing. Because you just described ME to a T. Ditto every single thing you said except the microdosing. It's either really really funny (and frustrating!), or I've cracked.

:hug:

 :hug:

I resonate with the feelings of repetition and feeling so much over dents and dings in belongings.  It feels to me like the movie Groundhog Day. It feels so heavy to have this sense that we bring this repetition on ourselves. 

Armee, San, Rainy--thanks for resonating with this "I can't have nice things" sentiment.  Armee, your report that you were crying/laughing at my post got me to laughing hard also. Laughing is a sign that we connected on something. Thanks for breaking the ice with your admission.

A few days have gone by, and I have been ruminating over this for a while. I'm starting to settle down and accept that what is just is. I do have what I need in life. Most of what I have is scratched and dented and stained, and you know what? Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Once a possession or vacation is marred, the stress over that first stain or first dent or first scratch is gone and done with.

My wife and I have this little house on the beach. It was built in 1981 and it needs work. The carpets and vinyl flooring throughout are totally worn out. I have no intention of replacing them. I'm not out to win a perfect home contest, and I like letting my grandsons and their dog come in and go out without having the stress over sand in their shoes. The cabinetry is worn out. Everything is perfectly functional, but in faded, scratched, and stained condition. (It's not bad, it's just obviously in need of freshening up). But I like it. No stress. The kids can be kids without being scolded for soiling Papa's perfect house.

Maybe my need to damage everything I own comes from having been raised in a perfect house. I guess I learned how NOT to be from my mother. Her house was sterile. It was beautiful. Strangers always complimented her on it. She ran an in-home business where she made wedding cakes that were undeniably perfect. Absolutely, freakishly, disturbingly perfect. The cakes were smooth, and perfectly shaped.  Every flower was made by hand. Her perfection led to her becoming semi-famous with the wealthy, by being the cake maker to the stars here in Seattle. She made cakes for the Washington State governor, and some rock bands like Queensryche, and some of the wealthiest families in the Seattle area. For decades--my entire childhood and young adult life--people were in and out of our perfect home to design their perfect cakes and pastries for their pretentious and perfect weddings and celebrations. Mom was never without cakes to make for her customers. From the day she opened up shop in the 1960s until she retired in the 1990s, she had cakes being made nearly every week. My friends weren't allowed in the house. I grew up being allowed to play in my friends' houses, but they weren't allowed in my house. The perfection couldn't be compromised by stupid, sticky, icky, children. I grew up knowing my home was not mine. I was a guest in my mother's house and I was always afraid of making a mess or denting or scratching or staining any of her possessions.

Now that I've calmed down a bit after denting up my brand new car, I'm settling in to feeling like maybe it's actually easier to enjoy the car now that I don't have to worry about that first dent. Life is not about perfection. Perfection makes us crazy. Trying to maintain perfection turns us into angry lunatics. Life is about livability. Flawed humans living in a flawed world. I pray, every hour of every day, to find happiness deep within my body and soul. When I dented the bumper I accused God and the Universe of making me Unhappy, but now, a few days later, I'm thinking the Universe fixed it so I could relax now...the first dent has been installed and the Jeep feels like it's officially MINE now. It's a pickup, and pickups should be dented and scratched. Otherwise they're just luxury cars that get really bad gas mileage.

I'm so sad that you had to grow up like that. And I'm still actually kind of smiling at your ingenious subconscious way of making this car and your other possessions, YOURS. You GET to dent or muss up something and it is ok. It's genius work by your brain.

:bighug:

 :wave:

Yes thinking about it makes me smile as well.

Although you have made peace with it as stated in your second post about it I recognized the pain in the 1st post as well. 

I can relate to being brought up in a sterile environment, way back when FOO were still together and how that has had an effect on my life. 

Thank you for sharing your thought process to get to "the other side". 

:bighug:

yep, PC, i get it.  neat freak mom - cleaning was more important than almost anything, certainly more important than having an emotional connection w/ her kids.  sterile environment, indeed.  i am as messy as they come (different from dirty, tho), and lots of my stuff is stained, scratched, or otherwise imperfect.  doesn't matter.  they do what i need them to do and i'm ok w/ that.

yeah, the first scratch on a new car - i always waited for it to happen, always expected it to happen, and it was a relief when it did happen.  didn't have to think about it anymore after that.  love and hugs  :hug:

San , Moondance, Armee, thanks for the support. Perfection sucks. I was raised being compared to it by family and church. I find it interesting how many similarities we, on this forum, have, even down to the little things.  Everyone lives with bumps and bruises and scratches and dents and stains. But those of us who were raised to be criticized by our families and churches for not being absolutely perfect, ended up on this forum feeling bad about ourselves for being normal, flawed humans. Trauma: the gift that keeps on giving. San, I'm like you. My home is messy and cluttered but it's clean. It's not filth, just clutter and disorganized. (and dented and scratched and stained, lol).

I've been extremely busy these past couple of weeks. I've hired people to work on my yard, fence and house, and I've been hauling debris for them in my truck and trailer so they can keep working. They keep me pretty busy. Also I'm feeling a bit better emotionally, and able to reorganize and declutter in small, but progressive motions.

I'm doing pretty well these days. I credit the microdosing capsules I bought. They don't have psilocybin in them, so they are perfectly legal, but they do have other, legal components of mushrooms in them. Somehow, ever since I started taking them, not every day, but two to four times a week, I've just been feeling more stable, better at making decisions, more able to throw away clutter and old memories. So far, I'm giving this microdosing product a thumbs up.

My wife and I have both started to fall into situations with friends and her coworkers who are struggling with narcissistic, incompetent, immature and bully parents. What we've been through with our own two FOOs, and what we've learned through books and  experience, and what I've specifically learned through therapy and this forum, is making both my wife and I into people who can help. Sort of like how recovering addicts make good addiction counselors, we are recovering Gaslight victims who are able to help other gaslight victims gain a sense of not being alone with their emotional ups and downs.  For me, reaching out to share my life with others who feel isolated and confused makes me feel like I'm part of the cure, and less of a pointless victim. It powers my sails a bit. It helps to feel like I'm able to take my own experiences and turn them into help for others who are where I've been, (or even where I still am in some cases). Feeling useful in any way really helps me, and it staves off that Grimm Reaper character who comes around whenever I feel absolutely useless to the world.

The sun is shining in Seattle finally, so I'm going to spend some more time today in the garage. My new Jeep is 2 feet longer than my old one, so I'm having a heck of a time getting it in the garage where it's safe from car thieves and bird droppings. It's slow progress. Part of me still thinks I need every possession I've ever acquired. The microdosing helps me feel less trapped by the nostalgia and fear of getting rid of what no longer serves me.

Meanwhile I'm sort of on a short pause with the forum. I'm reading posts from many of the participants, but feeling writer's block when I try to respond. So, to avoid saying dumb things that make me feel bad later, I'm just keeping quiet. This will pass. A day will come where I feel like I know what to say again, and I'll be back, responding to posts.

So great to hear from you and that you are doing well, all things considered.

Enjoy yourself Papa Coco, enjoy your beautiful wife and nourishing yourselves and others.

:bighug:

I own a Honda HRV but currently there is a Nissan Sentra in my parking space. Why is that, one might ask? Because my car is in the shop. The auto body shop, that is. Why? Because for the 3rd time (yes, the 3rd time), when I was backing out of my parking space in the carport, I failed to turn the wheel soon enough and basically rammed into the pole. Three times!!!!  The driver side bumper panel had to be replaced.  Twice. The last time it happened was a couple of years ago but I was waiting for my insurance to decrease a bit before I filed a 3rd claim (in 4 years). lol.

IOW, I can truly relate to your story and understand how you are feeling. :heythere: The last time I did it, I put the car in park and just cried like a baby. I beat myself up and worse, heard my ex's voice talking down to me. Every time I look at it, I think of how I felt when I did it rather than just seeing it for what it is. 

After reading about your experience, however, the only logical conclusion that I can come to is that that is just what happens to intelligent, insightful people when they are on a serious healing journey.  :bigwink: We are (finally) more focused on our respective internal worlds after spending years - way too long - focused on our external worlds. My therapist told me once "healing can be messy sometimes".  I think this just may be one example of that.  :)

Hey, Papa Coco.

I have no insight on the subject of your latest posts but it's good, I think, that you have been able to journal it and work through the issues. I am completely unlike you in that I very, very rarely damage something or spill drinks or whatever. I am naturally clumsy but I learned how not to be. It wasn't even that I was guaranteed a punishment for damaging something as a child. It was just that you never knew what you were going to get. Easiest to go un-noticed - and that meant never damaging anything.

But your post resonates because my husband damages everything, just like you do. He hates himself for doing it and I have never understood how he does it. I was able to learn to control myself and can't understand why he won't. I take being careless as a sign that he actually does not care. Your posts have moved me to consider his behaviour with more compassion and wonder whether he is in the same boat as you. He was brought up by a monstrous mother in a fundamentalist religious home. So thank you for your posts.  :hug:

Wow, thank you for these responses from all of you. You've helped guide me toward a better understanding of what the real problem is here. It's not about the dent in the car, it's about the dent in my self-image.

Denting the Jeep gave my trauma memories a chance to punish myself deeply again. I, once again, became comfortably uncomfortable in being unable to manage my life without making public mistakes. Whenever I break, stain, dent or chip something. The first words out of my mouth are to insult myself for being "An idiot!" or I'll yell out, "It figures!"

My FOO isn't here to punish me anymore, so I'm doing it for them.

When I saw the damage I did, I said horrible things about myself. "GDI! Why am I such a F*** IDIOT?" I wanted to give the Jeep back to the dealer and admit that I don't deserve it for being so careless, and then go lay on the couch and not move until I quietly starve to death.

The most important thing of all here is that the feeling of self-punishment was a familiar feeling. Like a "my family was right, and this is who I really am" feeling.  Like I "got what I deserved", which is really telling me that I think I deserve to be that homely, confused, messy little problem that my FOO always said I was.  This makes me think that I subconsciously drop and spill and dent and scratch things because I don't feel like I'm ME if I have something that's in good condition.

I sabotage myself because the narcissists who raised me were jealous people. Narcissists punish good people like us when we make a mistake AND they punish us even worse when we feel good about ourselves. Anytime I did anything wrong, I was accused of being born incompetent. In my Catholic upbringing, no one ever said, "you dropped something" they would say "Why do you always have to drop everything?" It's a much more pointed insult to who I am at the soul level. Attacking ME was more fun for them than just addressing the mistake itself. I can't count how many times my Catholic teachers AND my own family would ask "What makes you do things like this?" To that question, especially to a 5 year old, there's only one answer, and that's "I guess I was just born broken."

To feed their jealous brains, any time I did anything right, I was intentionally ignored or even later accused of making THEM miserable because I was happy.  So my trauma brain believes that I can't let myself get too happy, or I'll hurt the people around me. So, to stay in my comfort zone, I break or dent or diminish the success of what I've done. Then my trauma brain can do what it knows how to do...feel shame and self-hatred, as I was so well taught to feel.

I'm glad you all responded how you did, because I think focusing on how I punish myself for not being perfect is the real issue here. Denting the Jeep just helped open the door to a place in my head and heart that I need to address.

 :bighug:

You're a wonderful human.

Today someone told me about their body issues, and how when they are working with a body worker, (I assume like a massage therapist), they report to the body worker what part of their body feels off. Then the body worker manipulates that part of their body, and relief is delivered.

What struck  me the most was that this person didn't try to figure out why that part of the body was in pain or tingling or whatever. They just told the therapist what they felt and the therapist just worked on that body part.

As soon as this person said what they said, I felt a gripping weight on both of my shoulders as if someone from behind was holding me down. It was tempting to try and visualize why I was feeling that, but then it hit me that NOT pursuing the why might make the healing work better.

Body memories are fascinating.  I've read that scientists who map the brain can find which areas process our memories, but they have yet to find the location of the memories. Scientists don't know where memories are stored.  I also, recently read, that people who recieve organ transplants, sometimes also begin to remember places, people and events that they have never known before. Occasionally, these organ transplant patients can connect with the families of their donors, only to discover that the memories are from the lives of the donors.  In other words, MEMORIES are stored inside the organs: the liver, kidneys, hearts, etc. Not in the brain.  This leads me down the path to thinking that if my shoulders have a memory that they are harboring, those memories might not have had visions to associate with. It was just the feeling of being gripped and that's all the shoulders know. So...maybe when i do my massage therapy next week, I'll see if I can pinpoint a body part that feels like it wants her to manipulate, and STOP myself from trying to remember why the body part wants to be worked on.  I'll hazard a guess that it will be my shoulders, as it usually is my shoulders that give me the most fatigue. Maybe, if the shoulders are still feeling heavy, I'll just shut up about wondering why, and let the body ask for help, give it that help, and go on with my day.  Sometimes I think that by me trying to remember why a body part hurts or is damaged, I clutter the space to the point where I can't move through it.

Just a thought.

That's a really helpful thought for me too, Papa Coco and I'm so grateful you shared it here. I only experience body sensations and emotions by virtue of the parts of my brain that don't work (or maybe they work exactly how I need them to, by not sharing visuals). I feel crazy trying to attach and share the narrative that belongs because how do I really know? And yet having the narrative has also really really helped me heal. But I really like the approach you learned and shared and I'll think about that, too.  :grouphug: Just today in therapy this came up.

I think it's fascinating how much stuff comes up in the body.

It occurs to me that your idea of simply treating the issue rather than ruminating on the "why" is a good one. Partly because it would be easy to jump down the wrong rabbit hole. My thinking here is that maybe there is no memory, per se. I have suffered from horrendous muscle tension in my back and shoulders since my teenage years. In my case I suspect it started from me being constantly scared, tense, holding my body under tight control etc etc. There is nothing in that area of my body directly connected with any traumatic memory. I am completely sure of that.

Of course my muscle tension is very different from the feeling you describe. But your feeling could arise from something traumatic, or maybe from an area of the body that has asked for help before but been ignored. Or maybe it comes from a time you were distressed and somebody kind was gripping you to help you be still and calm. There's any number of possibilities. Although people often suggest that one should treat the cause, not the symptom, I don't think there is anything wrong in treating the symptom in the first instance. So long as you are open to the fact that there could be a root cause that needs addressing, and you listen to your body, I am pretty sure it will soon let you know if treating the symptom is not doing the whole job.

I'd love to know how you get on with this approach if you want to share later on.

:hug:

Quote from: Papa Coco on May 19, 2023, 10:32:04 PM

As soon as this person said what they said, I felt a gripping weight on both of my shoulders as if someone from behind was holding me down. It was tempting to try and visualize why I was feeling that, but then it hit me that NOT pursuing the why might make the healing work better.

Hey PC,

I've been taking abreak from the forum working through some things and a little bit of what I've been reading is on preverbal trauma and somatic IFS. I've started reading Susan McConnell's book, Somatic IFS and there's a lot in there. I find it brings up a lot of things and I have to keep taking breaks. I tried some of the jaw movements and I had very strong dreams for two days that I'm still incorporating. I'm also reading Robert Falconer's book on IFS and the Porous Mind.

I'm glad you came to the realization that you do deserve nice things and you're not a bad person if you make a mistake. That's something I struggle with too.

Sending you support  :hug:
dolly

hey, PC, i believe we do take over the job of punishing ourselves when the original perpetrators are no longer in the picture.  the same goes for the things we think about ourselves.  it may be much more difficult to realize and accept that those people were wrong, rather than that we are wrong.  and so the trauma runs rampant as ever.

i've had poor posture from the time i was very young, was mocked, called names, and threatened because of it.  i did make a narrative for myself to explain it which was that i've been carrying a huge weight, probably from unrealistic expectations, and it bent me over.  plus, that i was in protective mode. that helped me for some reason.  i know it doesn't work the same for everyone, but i've been making these narratives for myself for a very long time.  i think they were survival techniques.

i think it's a good idea to let the massage therapist do their work and release whatever's hiding in your shoulders.  i hope it helps.  love and hugs :hug:

Quote from: Papa Coco on May 17, 2023, 05:07:01 PM
San , Moondance, Armee, thanks for the support. Perfection sucks. I was raised being compared to it by family and church. I find it interesting how many similarities we, on this forum, have, even down to the little things.  Everyone lives with bumps and bruises and scratches and dents and stains. But those of us who were raised to be criticized by our families and churches for not being absolutely perfect, ended up on this forum feeling bad about ourselves for being normal, flawed humans.

Samey, samey.  Yes, perfectionism sucks. I feel you on this one.

Quote from: Papa Coco on May 17, 2023, 05:07:01 PM
I've been extremely busy these past couple of weeks. I've hired people to work on my yard, fence and house, and I've been hauling debris for them in my truck and trailer so they can keep working. They keep me pretty busy. Also I'm feeling a bit better emotionally, and able to reorganize and declutter in small, but progressive motions. 

I'm glad to hear you are doing better emotionally.   :)

Quote from: Papa Coco on May 17, 2023, 05:07:01 PM
My wife and I have both started to fall into situations with friends and her coworkers who are struggling with narcissistic, incompetent, immature and bully parents. What we've been through with our own two FOOs, and what we've learned through books and  experience, and what I've specifically learned through therapy and this forum, is making both my wife and I into people who can help. Sort of like how recovering addicts make good addiction counselors, we are recovering Gaslight victims who are able to help other gaslight victims gain a sense of not being alone with their emotional ups and downs.  For me, reaching out to share my life with others who feel isolated and confused makes me feel like I'm part of the cure, and less of a pointless victim. It powers my sails a bit. It helps to feel like I'm able to take my own experiences and turn them into help for others who are where I've been, (or even where I still am in some cases). Feeling useful in any way really helps me, and it staves off that Grimm Reaper character who comes around whenever I feel absolutely useless to the world.

This is excellent!  I'm a moderator on another forum, and I understand how much it helps to be of help to other people.  For me, it's like, at least the suffering wasn't pointless if it can help me help someone else. 

Thank you, Everyone, for the supportive comments.

I did have my massage appointment on Thursday. My Massage therapist is a gentle, very, very spiritual woman who doesn't aggressively hurt me while digging deep, but for some reason, her gentle manipulations work. I get 90 minute massages. I had time to think about my trauma pains and armoring and skeletal anomalies brought on by feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders for 60 years and tried to not put meaning to what I was feeling. It was helpful.

I've been dabbling in the spiritual teachings a bit. I've learned that in most ancient spiritual cultures, that the best way to connect with my body, spirit, soul, emotions, etc, and any higher power that exists beyond our human experience is to focus on feelings, rather than thought.  I believe that it is important that we DO find comfort in identifying our problems. C-PTSD created a salad of problems that made me believe I was a complete and total mess for most of my life. Trauma therapy helped me identify and name the components, or ingredients, of my trauma salad, and that gave me my first ever sense of control over my life and my problems. So I agree that it's good to know the source of my pain.  BUT THEN, once I feel like I finally have an overview of the complexity of my life, THEN, it's good to start allowing the pains and idiosyncrasies of my life to work themselves out without me having to overthink them.

Now that I know what C-PTSD is, it's time for me to start "letting go and letting god." It was important that I intellectualize my issues at first, but now it's important that I pull back some and let the healing happen as it needs.

So now, when I meditate or "chill" or pray or get a massage, or soak in a tub of hot water, I try to clear my mind and let my body talk to me in any way it wants to. Many of the ancient spiritual cultures said that thinking is what causes all our problems. The more we think, the more we ruin. Being "in the moment" is the most peaceful place I have ever been. I can't do it for too many seconds, but for the seconds of the day that I can shut off my thinker and just exist and just hear the sounds of the world around me, feel the temperature of the room, feel my legs on the chair, my feet on the floor, smell the scents near me...that's where I find peace. It's likely where healing can happen also. It's not easy. And I don't do it every day anymore, but wow, when I can just let my body feel whatever it wants to feel, it does calm me down, if even for a minute or two of accumulated time each week.

Years ago I used to walk an hour a day. I'd find urban trails or beaches or marinas where I felt safe and I'd walk as fast as I could for an hour. One day, on a walk along an urban trail, I came around a bend and saw a bunny eating in the path. The bunny saw me and hightailed it into the shrubbery. I walked past, went about 30 more steps, turned around and saw the bunny sitting again in the path, chewing on something again. I was jealous. That rabbit was only afraid of me until I was gone. Then it just resumed its eating as if nothing was wrong. I beleived that bunny was living in the moment. Stress came and saved it from me. Then the stress left and life went on. If only I could do that. I live in fear of tomorrow, and remorse of yesterday. The only time I don't live in is the present time.  I later read The Power of Now and learned a ton more about how to live without thinking too much. Naturally none of these things "cured me" but they have helped a little as I learn how to manage my anxieties. Maybe I should go read The Power of Now again. A refresher might stick with me a bit better this time.

I'm no spiritual guru, not by a long shot. But I'm finding some of the ancient teachings are pretty sound. Like don't think so much. Live in the moment as often as I can make myself do it. In these modern times, a lot of people use music to escape the world for a few minutes. I don't play any instruments, but I have headphones and iTunes. I can, at times, find a song that speaks to me, lean back in my chair and let that song take me out of my anxiety for 3 or 4 minutes. I will likely never make it to feeling "in the moment" for more than a few moments a day, but for the few moments I can accomplish not thinking too much, those moments are priceless.

I'm super busy now. I've got a house painter coming on Monday to start preparing the exterior of the house for paint. I've got a ton of work to do to move things away from the house. And I expect he'll keep me busy for the next couple of weeks moving things around and such.  I'm still here, I'm just in one of those busy times in life where I have less screen time available to me each day. And tonight by 9 year old grandson is hoping Papa will come to the car races with him. He is an excitable, amazing little man, and he's made it very clear he wants me to be at the races with him tonight. LOL. So I'm putting away my own project for the day so we can smell the fuel, hear the roar, and cheer for his favorite car.  Good way to be in the moment. Perhaps this is why people go to these events. The sounds and smells and crowd excitement puts us "in the moment" for hours at a time. Hmm. There's something to this I think.

I just had another thought about the appropriate times to think about the past versus the appropriate times to not think about it.

If I think in terms of Internal Family Systems (IFS), which is the idea that I have many identities living within my brain, those identities can more easily release themselves to me if I'll shut up and let them. In western religions there is a term "Be still and know that I am god."  I think this is a way of practicing that concept.

Now that I know intellectually why I have CPSTD and I know why it affects me and I'm able to recognize trauma responses, I don't really need to think so much about it. When I get traumatized by a frightening person or event today, I go into a trauma induced EF. Once I recognize that I'm in a trauma flashback, then if I can slow down, be still, accept the pain that I'm feeling, welcome the trauma response in, then it's easier for my IFS identity who is living in my brain, to trust me enough to disclose why it's feeling what it's feeling. My EFs last longer if I resist them. They heal more quickly if I accept them as part of who I am, and not try to stop them. If I try to overthink it, I stifle it. If I be still and let it speak, it speaks.

It's really good to do this with a qualified therapist at first, but after a while, I find I can do it myself now by just remembering my therapist's words and doing what he's taught me.

My therapist has been teaching this to me over the past 20 years. He tells me to not resist the pain or anxiety but to sit with it. Thank it for trying to help me in its own way. Be quiet. Let it talk to me if it wants to. Use slow jaw movements and soften my glance, to look around the room but not focus on anything intently, and to name the feelings and sensations of the moment. It's good to move my feet on the floor and feel the contact. It really helps. A lot of the mileage I've made in recovery from trauma has been made during the times that I just shut up and let my world speak to me. For example, recovered memories come to me now because I'm not trying to find them. Once I just accept the abuse was abuse, and stop trying to remember the details, that part of my memory relaxes and unveils itself to me. I remember more now that I don't try so hard.

So, in my opinion, there is a time for intellectualizing and thinking and a time for quieting my brain and letting thoughts come on their own terms.

It's a balance I guess.

Papa Coco, I've read your posts today, and I resonate with a lot of what you say.  I have been working on feeling safe in my body, on being present and not being afraid of it and running away.

This is deep:

QuoteMy therapist has been teaching this to me over the past 20 years. He tells me to not resist the pain or anxiety but to sit with it. Thank it for trying to help me in its own way. Be quiet. Let it talk to me if it wants to. Use slow jaw movements and soften my glance, to look around the room but not focus on anything intently, and to name the feelings and sensations of the moment. It's good to move my feet on the floor and feel the contact. It really helps. A lot of the mileage I've made in recovery from trauma has been made during the times that I just shut up and let my world speak to me. For example, recovered memories come to me now because I'm not trying to find them. Once I just accept the abuse was abuse, and stop trying to remember the details, that part of my memory relaxes and unveils itself to me. I remember more now that I don't try so hard.

Thank you for sharing.

Your posts resonate with me, too.

Interestingly, I have just come to your thread from another where somebody asked for advice on getting in touch with their inner child. I had just finished responding there along the lines that if I intellectually try to access child me it doesn't work. The whole experience is emotional and I need to feel it rather than think it.

So thank you for posting what you did, when you did.

i'm glad you're finding ways to let your body talk to you, PC.  so important.  the body does hold the score, and lets us know exactly how much we've been abused, stressed, and disturbed.  listening to it can only be helpful, to my mind.  you're making some wonderful progress in tackling this beast.  keep up the good work! :thumbup:  love and hugs  :hug:

Papa Coco, I resonate with your insight about not thinking so much, and allowing ourselves to be in a feeling state instead.  I know for me, deep recovery has come from allowing my inner child to feel and express her anger and hurt (in healthy ways of course) over what happened.  Cognition is a good thing, but I think in western culture we place too much emphasis on that, and not enough on emotions and feelings. 

 :bighug:

I love all the responses. Thank you so much for chiming in.

As I read them, I can see my own emotional pendulum swinging. I know you all understand this: I have different moods on different days. I feel healed for a while, then BAM! I crash and feel helpless and confused again for a while. I like learning about how to not overthink things. I still believe it's good advice. I see how it really helps...when it helps. For me, it's a lot easier said than done.

I still agree with what I wrote, but I know not to be too naive as to believe that I'll always feel this sure that overthinking is something to not do. In a few days, or weeks, or months, I will find myself deep in the bowels of overthinking and feeling the trauma again.



I don't know if this is a guy thing or what, but on some days I feel like I have all the answers. Then on other days I'm humbled and crushed again. The pendulum swings slower than it used to, but it still swings. Both realities are real. On some days I DO have all the answers. On other days I'm completely baffled at life.  I still remember that we here support each other for whomever we are on this day.


--
Today is a good day. I'm distracted by a hardworking house painter who is helping me clean up after 30 years of neglect on my house. He's working me hard. I've been trying to stay a step ahead of him. Yesterday I had to replace the rotted siding on one of the first-floor walls, move concrete chunks from the other side of the house, remove cameras and wall decorations, and tear down some old fence posts, etc. This kind of work keeps me distracted, which puts me in a GOOD mood. I may go into these projects whining, but I come out feeling good about myself and my accomplishments. Therefore, today, I have all the answers for how to not let myself overthink my life.

I've learned, the hard way, not to expect this to last too long. A day will come, when I am crushed by some event or person, and I'll fall back into my other self. That's okay. I've learned that even the confusing days don't last forever.

I am not trying to "mansplain" how overthinking relates to trauma to the world. I know that I sometimes do mansplain. I am sorry for that. As I age into becoming a kindly old grandpa I'm getting better at not doing it. I guess that for now, I'm just expressing what tidbit of intellectual knowledge I learned this day. Not overthinking is good advice. But it's easier said than done. Today I feel emotionally healthy and physically sore from all the hard work. I'm sleeping good because of the hard work. So today I feel like I have answers.

I've made this mistake so many times in the past that I've learned to recognize that I feel healed only because of the circumstances of the day.

I live very close to the ocean. I see ships of all kinds. There's one that sits in the entrance to the harbor near me that has been anchored there for a very long time. Some days it's facing East. Other days it's facing West. Obviously, it's facing whichever way the tide is pulling it. That's me. Today I'm facing the direction of a favorable tide. It's good for me to remember that tomorrow I might be facing an unfavorable tide, and that I shouldn't feel disappointed or even surprised when it happens.

In the past I'd fully embrace the good days and allow myself to believe I was fully cured. Then when I'd crash later, I'd become suicidal because I felt like at failure. Like I was suddenly fragile. Like all the good that happened was fake. But it wasn't. Good days are good days. Bad days don't negate the good ones. Recognizing that I have good days and bad relieves the pressure off me to keep feeling good no matter what. I used to set myself up for crashes. Now I allow myself to go with the tide. The difficult days don't feel so mortally wounding now. It's the changing tide of my emotions. Knowing that difficult days come and go make them not feel so disastrous.

So I still agree that overthinking is a problem. I also know that it's who I am and a day will come when I won't be able to stop overthinking everything again. That's okay. For now, I'm facing a favorable tide. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

Thanks everyone for being the friends I can say this kind of stuff to. It helps me a lot to disclose what I'm thinking on any given day and that I won't be criticized later for not putting my money where my mouth was when I was feeling good about myself.

PC, it's not just a guy thing.  i can feel in the throes of a panic attack one day and the next day i'm ok, like i figured it out and it went away.  this is trauma we're talking about, and i don't think gender issues are involved.  i get stuck in overthinking, too.  like you said, that pendulum keeps swinging.  love and hugs :hug:

Trauma is a roller coaster. I often think I have it all figured out (in fact lol I was thinking this morning I might not even need therapy anymore).

I never ever think you are mansplaining and mansplaining is definitely a pet peeve of mine from being a quiet female in a STEM field. I think you are trying to figure things out and connect things and concepts and people. Seems like an engineering trait.  :hug:

The ups and downs are part of it. All guideposts toward where we are coming from and where we are trying to go. I love that you are constantly moving toward healing. It is inspiring.  :grouphug:

San, Armee,

Thank you.

Armee, I laughed when I read your words that today you think you might be done with therapy. I laughed because I do that same thing whenever I'm on a high note.

I share a self esteem issue with a lot of C-PTSD survivors. After having been raised by jealous parents and jealous elder siblings, I've learned to not walk into a trap of letting myself feel self-confident. When I assert something, I later feel like I've overstepped my boundaries. I have brought this up before: the Tall Poppy Syndrome. In a field of poppies, every flower is the same height. If one grows taller than the rest, the farmer cuts it off. That's what my Catholic family and peers did. But they went a step further by cutting me down to below the level of the others. I wasn't welcome in the ranks of "normal" people.  They made sure that I knew that I was worthless and I needed to accept that.

So today when I bring up an idea, if people think it's a good idea, I go into a trauma generated panic. Oh God! The farmer's coming to cut me back down to below average again. I'd better voluntarily take my place before he comes. So I apologize. I rationalize. I make sure I don't even follow my own advice.

My religious upbringing was one of judgement, jealousy and gossip.  The most dangerous thing I could do in my church, school and family, was succeed at something. It brought the full wrath of their jealousy down upon me. Being humiliated for being sure of myself is engrained deeply into my psyche.

I expect that what I say is resonating with others who also have C-PTSD from being raised in jealous, judgmental narcissistic environments.  We were the good kids, so we were the chum for the bad teachers. The easy targets for bullying and making us feel bad so they could feel better about themselves.

Here, on the forum, I feel safer than anywhere else, but as you both said; trauma is trauma, and it plays out in us often.

hey, PC,

the tall poppy syndrome.  interesting.  i can see that in my own life, especially pertaining to my spirit.  too spirited was i, let's always repress her back into our way of seeing the world, and how we believe she should think, act, and behave.  ugly stuff, and, yes, very stunting.  no wonder my longing to be free is so overwhelming.  thanks for this, PC.  it brought up stuff i didn't even realize.  keep taking care of you, ok?  love and hugs :hug:

 :hug:

You are such an amazing person and I just wonder what would have been if they hadn't been cutting you down that whole time.

I do the same thing to myself of backtracking and panicking if people like something I say or do. Go into that trauma-generated panic as you put it. The source of the behavior is a little different but the outcome is the same. There was so much doubt and fear in our lives.

When I left my Union job on the factory floor and transitioned into a white-collar job in engineering training, I learned that I had left a community of workers who felt trapped in their jobs. I entered a community of career-minded people who loved their jobs. Engineers want to be engineers. Factory workers only want a paycheck. I had to go through a paradigm shift because in the world of workers who felt controlled by their bosses, I left a community of jealous people who strived to bring each other down to the level of the lowest common denominator. The first thing anyone wanted to know about me was what kind of car I drove and how big was my house. From there, they'd judge each other as to who was having the best time with their money, and from there they had the ability to bully each other.  If I ever tried to take my employers offer of free college education, my peers would call me a kiss-a$$ who thought I was better than them.

My big culture shock was that in the engineering community, nobody cared what I drove or where i lived, and they ENCOURAGED me to rise above my situation and to take advantage of the college reimbursement program. 

My lesson: People who feel bad about themselves, or feel they don't have control over their own lives, often take their own self-hatred out on those around them.  That's what my family and peers did. People who feel like they have some say in their lives, and take accountability for their actions or circumstances, are better at encouraging those around them to do teh same. To find their bliss and take control of their own lives.

I just see a correlation between the angry union workers and my parents and my religiously oppressed peers.

a lesson well learned, PC, and so very true.  the self-hating bullies in our lives turned their anger/frustration/pain onto us, while people here who have also been bullied, threatened, abused, etc. and wound up hating themselves turned it on themselves.  i don't know why this happens, why some turn it outward while others turn it inward.  what i do know is the bullies had as many chances as we did to do the right thing toward others. love and hugs  :hug:

Recovery Journal Entry for July 5, 2023

I've been distracted by chores and busy-ness for over a month. It's been wonderful. I felt like I was alive and purposeful. My moods have been steady and positive all night and all day.

But distractions are temporary and I'm starting to find myself alone with...me...again.

The hard work for this year is winding down and I'm, once again, faced with the boredom of being me.

I have a theory that who we are at 14 is who we are for life. At 14 I was lonely and quiet. Afraid of my family at home and of my classmates at school. The only safe place was anywhere I could be alone. I had a few friends in the neighborhood but none at school. Even after 63 years I still don't understand the body I was born with. It walks funny. It talks funny. It laughs funny. It moves and sits funny. No matter what I do in athletics people snicker and laugh at me for how uncoordinated I am and how strangely my body moves. As soon as I sense them judging me I get worse. I dissociate just enough to where I move even funnier and get even more uncoordinated. Even my own nasty family used to remind me that my nose was too big, my teeth were too crooked, and I talked funny. All things I couldn't fix or change or even understand. So, at 14, I fantasized all day and all night about being someone else. My own personality and physical body was flawed from birth.

So I learned, at 14, that the only time I could feel safe from ridicule is if I did all my activities alone. If I hid my own inadequacies then I wouldn't have to endure being laughed at for being what god made me to be. I rode my bike alone. I wandered shopping malls alone. I played with small cars on the fireplace mantel alone. I built models alone in my bedroom.  Today, almost 50 years later, I still feel safer doing activities alone. A huge part of my brain is still 14 and is still finding safety in doing my daily activities alone. No one laughs at how I walk or throw or catch or bat or run or fall if no one is here to watch me.

This is why I'm lonely all the time. I am social by nature, but beaten into solitude by a cruel world and a strange body I can't seem to control as well as others control theirs.

Decades ago I read a book on trauma where the author compared childhood trauma to a puppy who is fed in a bowl, but when he tries to eat, his humans beat him. They traumatize the dog for life. for the rest of its life it wants food and is afraid to eat.  That's how I feel about socialization. I like being with friends, but I'm afraid I'm being laughed at the whole time I'm with them. So I want friends, but I'm afraid to spend time with them. Like the puppy, I live in this conundrum.


It's morning now and I just got my first cup of coffee. But yesterday was a tough day and I'm worried today will only be worse.  I'm still healthy and still have my mind, so I should be out in the world having fun and enjoying social interactions and hiking and biking and kayaking, but no matter what I do, it ends up being lonely. As soon as my work distractions wane away, life starts to again taste like ashes in my mouth.

Yesterday I started internet searches on suicide hotlines. Not that I'm at that point yet, but I keep wondering if there is anyone out there in this crowded planet who knows how to help me get past this sense of not being able to enjoy life.

I purposely make sure I'm alone, and then I suffer in loneliness. This is insanity, right? I could make friends and join clubs. But I don't. Because as soon as I have to keep up with other kayakers or bikers or Jeepers, I start to feel scared and start to look for ways to hide or leave early. I start to assume that they don't really want me there, but they let me join because they felt like they had to. So why bother joining groups if I already know the group experience is going to intimidate me into leaving alone anyway?

I create my own loneliness. I can't stop doing it. I need to either find ways to enjoy being alone, or to stop being so afraid of judgement when I'm with others.

This is getting old. I can only do so much yard work before the yard is done, the money is gone and the weather has turned too hot or too cold to continue outdoor activities. That means that for most of the year I'm sitting around wishing I had a purpose and refusing to go out and find it. It sucks to be social and anti-social in the same body on the same days. It's confusing. It's frustrating. That puppy wants food but is afraid to eat it. I want socialization but am afraid it'll backfire on me.

So I sit in safety rather than risk being laughed at and insulted for being who I am.

Trauma: The gift that keeps on giving for a lifetime.

 :bighug:

I wish I could go kayaking with you. We could be awkward together and enjoy our crazy dissociated movements. I relate to all you wrote, feel the same. Glad to have you here.

Armee

I am smiling ear to ear at your comment that it would be fun to go kayaking together. Being awkward together. It sounds like fun, fun, fun. A picnic lunch, a couple of kayaks, and a day to just goof off with a safe friend.

You gave me my first smile of the day. ;D

Quote from: Bermuda on June 22, 2023, 08:32:41 PMI don't know if that link will work at all, but it is the first post at the top of the second page of the thread Songs That Connect us to our Trauma/Feelings. Bermuda posted it some days ago and your post made me think of it for some reason.

Thank you for sharing your theory about us being who we are at 14. I am going to sit with that a while because it resonates hugely with me.

I'm sorry you are starting to feel down again. I'd like to go kayaking with you, too. But you for sure don't want to go kayaking with me. Not in the same boat, at any rate. I used to do dinghy sailing with my grandfather and then we had an opportunity to do it at school. I remember the teacher complaining to my parents that I was the only girl in the history of the school who had managed to capsize a dinghy with the teacher in it. Hah! Even in separate boats I would probably manage to crash into you.  :whistling:

Maybe one day some of us from here can actually meet in person and have fun. You never know.

 :grouphug:

Thank you for the link Narkciddo,

That's a great song. You met me when I thought I was an alien. Such a great way of describing ourselves.

Hi PC,

I'm sorry you're feeling that way right now. If you want to entertain it, I have another theory. We are/were never good enough for our FOO and now, even into our adult selves, we are never good enough for us. There is a voice inside that says, "I should," which I think translates to the me right now isn't good enough. I think perhaps there is a part of you that still holds onto the idea that they were right and I get that, no shame. It's how we learned to survive by thinking that way. We were also never given the tools to communicate our emotions, or have them in the first place, which is why it probably feels easier to handle these things on your own. The kid you was never allowed to have negative feelings and perhaps when they come up now, it's very foreign and you don't know what to do. For me, I think I learned what something felt like when I was "bad" as a very tiny baby and a part of me still equates having those negative emotions to this bad feeling. My t this week explained a cycle and I'm going to have to get her to explain it again because I'm forgetting it, but at the end there was self-criticism, and that in order to deal with these feelings we end up punishing ourselves for something.

I think those people would want you there and, like anywhere, there would be people you get along with and people you don't, but I think what you're speaking about is the trauma replaying in your head. Perhaps it's easier to think too, that they don't want you there than it is to deal with the emotions that come up when you do. I also find that people, and getting close to people, can be overwhelming, and that all of a sudden it's like my sense of self disappears and I don't even know how it happened because I was never allowed to have boundaries, probably even as a tiny baby. So, even though I want to be close to people, I always keep distance.

I also think you've been doing a lot of work to understand how this stuff shows up for you and maybe right now you are meant to be that guy in the house to find your way, or find the right way for you.

It's good to see you back posting and hope you're feeling better,
dolly

Hi PC,

I still can't figure out the "quote" function so I'm going to just say that the first couple sentences in your post on the 5th I totally relate to. When I'm busy with projects and feel purpose and joy it's the best. Then when projects are done it's me and my thoughts and that's a dangerous place.

I'm truly sorry you were born into the nightmare that you have related to us, it's just unfair. Humans can be so so different and when they treat others the way you were treated it's just effing wrong!!!

I relate to your kayak example, uncanny you mention it. I have been at camp for about a week and am back home now. I had many projects to do there and thoroughly enjoyed completing them. Then I got bored so I decided to do a bit of trimming down by the shore. While doing that I had an inspiration to build a small platform out over the water in a secluded little cove, trees around, out of the sun it's an idyllic spot to sit and meditate or just hang out.

So when asked what I was up to by my wife and kids , I said, "it's a place to launch the kayaks". I don't need anyone's approval to do anything there, it's my camp! For some reason I couldn't just say that building this deck for a secluded place brings me joy in building and joy envisioning a safe secluded place.

So I put a bit of spin on it. The kayaks are next to what i'm building, the truth about me and kayaks is I love to go out but the getting in and out of the boat is a nightmare, i many times flip either in the entry or getting out and I worry what will happen if I flipped out in the lake so it's hard to relax and enjoy the activity, rambling now.

PC thanks for posting and being honest about who you are and how you are in the world, I'm attracted to and admire people that tell their truth, please keep telling us your truth, it's all welcome here.

Thanks for listening!

Dolly, you are so right on with your alternate thoughts. I believe in wiring. The way I understand the human brain is that it is prewired from birth to give us a baseline personality. We are all born on our own unique and finite spot on each of life's spectrums, such as narcissism, Autism, athleticism, mathematics, music, art, etc. Science tells us that 50% of our ability to find happiness is born into us. The other 50% is shaped by circumstance, trauma, and personal choice. Once we've begun our lives under our own wiring, then nurturing and circumstance further define us. Pre-puberty our wiring is fluid and still under construction. Once puberty brings us across the threshold into adulthood, our wiring is mostly set and locked into place. So, the abuse we took as children of narcissists is now our primary wiring diagram as we build our relationships and live with the hand we were dealt. We spend the rest of our lives learning to live with the wiring we ended up with at 14 years of age.

So, I agree with you that since we were never good enough for our peers and parents when our wires were being laid, we now struggle for the rest of our lives to overcome that expectation of failure in everything we do. The wiring takes me to shame. I have to consciously keep myself aware of that. As soon as I relax, the wiring takes over again.

Steve, thanks for the kudos. I've just discovered, over the years, that when I'm open about my inner workings, people appreciate it. It draws me closer to people, and that's truly the only beauty I see on the Earth: People loving each other. Nothing else is really as important. I've spent most of my life hiding my idiosyncrasies from others only to now discover that most of my friends saw through my act and aren't surprised to hear my open stories now. I wasn't as clever as I thought I was. People saw my suffering. I was the only one being fooled by my disguises. When Robin Williams took his own life, friends of mine contacted me to say, "Just because he did it doesn't mean you have to." I was floored at how my friends had spent decades knowing I was suffering while I thought I was hiding it from them so cleverly.

I would love to see that dock you're building. It is such a joy to find a little spot in nature that feels solitary and peaceful. I can't count how many times I have gone to sleep at night by pretending I was alone on a pond's edge listening to the trickle of tiny waves on the rocky shore.

Recovery Journal Entry for Tuesday, July 11, 2023

Last night I reentered the valley of the shadow of death. Today I'm stunned. Confused.

It started with my wife asking me to pay the fee to join one of those people search sites, so we could try to find out where our oldest son might be. I joined BEENVerified. My membership allows me to look up as many as 100 people per month. I figured I'd paid for it so I might as well use it to look up others as well. I wish I hadn't.

I looked up my evil sister. I haven't been in contact with her since 2010. She drove me to my last suicide attempt. I believe she drove our little sister to her suicide. To be honest I was truly hoping to find her obituary. Instead I got the worst news I could have even imagined. Her last known address is less than a half mile from my beach house.

My beach house is a lifelong dream that manifested into reality in 2015 and is still one of my favorite lifelong accomplishments. It's where I go to feel safe from family and church and all the other abusers of my past. My wife and I bought it during a housing market crash. The price was so low we couldn't say no to the deal. I've wanted to live there since I was 11 years old. I remember when I fell in love with the community there. My dad took us camping there a few times when I was a child. The beach is so quiet. The surf roars all the time. People are chill and relaxed there. It's cold and wet, but that just drives people away. It's 90 minutes from the nearest Costco, so people are too isolated to live there.  So it's private and spacious and funky. At 11 years of age I began to live within a fantasy that I had a house there and could escape all the evil of my family and my abusive church, and the city. Every time I felt the abuse of my family, mostly driven by my most evil sister, I hid inside my imagination in my private, safe, funky little beach house.

Being able to live there now, in peace and solitude, is one of the things I am most grateful for whenever I list my gratitudes.

A few hours ago I discovered that the most evil human being I've ever known personally is living just a few blocks away from my safe place has me in a state of dissociated confusion. What the H**L just happened? What  do I do now? The fantasy that I'm safe and hidden there is gone. GONE.

I will NEVER feel safe there again. Everywhere I go I'll be looking at every face to be sure that I don't run into that B***CH in the grocery store or the theater.  I'm baffled as to why she even bought that house. She lives by the rule of grandiosity. She believes she has so much class that she should be living in a penthouse somewhere in Paris or Manhattan. This coastal town is a dump. That's why I love it. Houses are sinking into the sand slowly. Power outages plague the area all winter long. Cars not in the garage rust. Houses rust and rot from the damp, salty air. What would make this horror of a human being buy a house there?

Sadly I looked myself up in the BeenVerified app and discovered that the app gives my beach house address as my address. If she looked me up, as any narcissistic stalker might do, did she decide to buy that house just to intimidate me? It's a 1 bedroom 1 bath house next to an elementary school. Did she use the money she stole from my inheritance to buy it as a rental investment just so she could laugh at how she's still stalking me? Is she living in it? Will I ever feel safe there again?

My wife, and some of my friends who are not Trauma victims, are telling me to just forget about it. Just let her live next door. Don't let her take my dream away from me. That is so easy to say, isn't it?  After all, I'm 63 and I'm smart and kind and well liked. She's 74, mean, hated by everyone, and she's been a heavy smoker and drinker her whole life. People wonder why I don't just blow it all off and not give a darn that she's living in my fantasy.

As a trauma survivor who was rescued from a suicide that she had driven me to, I feel like I'm in a place where my fantasy life of being safe from my family now is crashing into the reality that I don't really need to be afraid of her. I'm in a spiritual conundrum that I do NOT know how to get out of. My wife and my son and his family absolutely love the beach house. It's everyone's favorite hiding place for vacations from the insanity of the city. I don't have the right to sell it. My whole family owns it and I'm the only one who doesn't want to be there anymore. They still want it. And my wife has not retired because she makes the payments on it. I can't tell her that all those years of working when she wanted to retire were for nothing. She deserves for us to keep going with this. She's wanted a house on the beach for as long as I have. In fact, it was HER decision to buy the house in 2015. I can't abandon it. And time will tell whether I'll feel safe there ever again.

How do I handle this? Do I use it as a platform to overcome my fears of an ugly, obese, smoking monster who has no friends? Or do I honor my trauma triggers and just stop going to the beach? I can hire people to mow the lawn. I don't need to go down as often as I do.

I'm spending the morning wondering who I am right now. Am I going to man up and refuse to let satan take my dream house away from me? Or am I a CPTSD survivor who is flying too close to a flame that has almost killed me more than once?

My only plan right now is to do nothing. Let my wife and I have a few weeks of candid conversation about this new development and see where life takes me. It's not my primary residence, so I don't really HAVE to be there. I can stay in the City house if I want to and for as long as I want to. There's little urgency to me being forced to figure out who I am, the big strong man or the traumatized, suicidal boy. If there's a god, what would be the reason for that god to decide to keep me tied to the most horrific satanic monster of my life?  All the experts say to run, not walk, RUN away from any narcissist who has this much power over us. It's the right solution to put distance between us good people and narcissists. But why is my narcissist following me?

Conclusion: I'm confused. I see no solution looming. I have only one power now and that's to stay away from the beach until I figure out what this is really all about.

I hate narcissists. I absolutely HATE THEM.

 :bighug:  :bighug:  :bighug:  :bighug:

Oh my heart is breaking for you.

You're likely not wrong she did that intentionally. My hope is eventually you will be able to go back and reclaim your home and feeling of safety. But obviously you need time and maybe lots of it for the trauma to settle.

She doesn't control you anymore. I couldn't imagine running into her somewhere. Can you have a friend stalk her house a bit and see if she's even there? Perhaps you are right and it's rental property just to mess with you. She's powerless now. You are strong. And, yet, I know. I let myself be terrified of my 69 year old obese smoker mom riddled with cancer. I get it. I'm not shaming you, but hoping you can take your power and know that if you see her you can spit in her general direction and turn around and leave. She is detestable. You are not. Time has shown the truth here.

Hang in there, please. Hunker down in the city till you feel your true strength. It's there I promise you.

Armee

Thank you. Good words all around. I accept every hug you sent.

This is a case where my fantasy world (my trauma world) is clashing with the real world. I've spent 52 years fantasizing that this beach community was my own private hiding place from the evils of the real world. If fate has writer, that writer is making sure I find my way into the reality that life just sucks and no place is safe from any of it. So I might as well stop fantasizing about being happy and safe by putting distance between myself and evil. I guess I have to find it in my soul to stand up to the bullies and let them live next door.

I say it all the time, and now I'm being forced to live it: If I won't face my dragons, my dragons will eventually turn and face me.

Whether this new information that it's her living up the street is accurate or not, my dragon is facing me today and I've got some decisions to make about who I am and what I'm capable of. Could I face her in the grocery store and then go home to have a great rest of the day at my own BBQ? In the past she could get me so tangled up that I'd be drawn toward ending my own life. I never chose to commit suicide, it always happened TO me as if I was being dragged into it by forces too great to fight off alone. There's where my biggest concern sits. Will she be able to take over control of my head again like she's done thousands of times before?

Oh, Papa C, this news totally sucks. But just because your dragon is facing you today does not mean you have to slay it today. It's facing you but not charging at you breathing fire. You have not bumped into the evil one unexpectedly and you now have warning. Like you said, you don't have to go there while you are coping with a trauma reaction. You can stay in the city while big Papa C comforts little Papa C and works out how to deal with this information. I am sure that big Papa C is brave and strong and more than capable of keeping little Papa C safe even if it doesn't feel that way right now. Be gentle with yourself. Hugs.

 :hug:

I know how strong you are. She doesn't get to win this one. Good wins this time. I like what NarcKiddo said - your dragons have found you but you don't need to slay them today. Just let them know you see them.

The idea of fate having a writer makes me laugh a little. Because I've had those moments where I'm like: of course this. Of COURSE! If my LIFE were a NOVEL! NICE NARRATIVE ARC UNIVERSE!!!! It does keep sending us our dragons.

 :hug: Stay safe. We love you.

Papa I am so so sorry she has taken away the peace you've felt at your beach house. I absolutely know how much that has shifted your internal sense of safety because I could not live close to my NM or NB. When I did I thought I was going to run into them all the time, that I was obligated to do things for/with them, and I could never relax. I had to leave for the sake of my sanity, my life and we did.  We moved across the country so I would never run into them and I didn't have them taking up real estate in my mind and heart on a daily basis. Even still, years later I can't even go back to see my NM who is terminal because her N behaviour messes with me so much. Like you I absolutely hate NPD, it gifts the world with such insidious abuse.

I'm honestly not saying never go to the beach house again or sell it, but I would suggest that perhaps you may need some time away to let your system calm. You're on high alert at the moment and for good reason. She had some really despicable power over you before (and likely others from the sounds of it), and that is a huge thing to contend with. When/if you can calm, it may be you can make some decisions about what to do/not do more easily, although I know anything to do with an N is never easy. 

We really care about you as you can tell and I hope there will come a time when you can draw on that to help you chase this particular demon back into a dark cave where she belongs.   :grouphug:
 

 :bighug:

You guys are all so awesome.  Thanks Dolly, Steve, Armee, NarcKiddo, Kizzie, Moondance, and others for responding to my situation.

I've noticed that there seems to be one thing that is common in every, single person I've interacted with on this forum. We all seem to have been gaslighted and abused by narcissists from our birth on. I assume everyone on this forum knows how awful it is for me to find out one of my two childhood narcissists has moved to my beach cottage neighborhood and my family won't let me sell the house because they aren't as bothered by the narcissist as I am.

If the universe balances itself out, I guess it makes sense that really good people like us are going to be balanced out by really bad people like my nasty "narcisSister".

The 5 Stages of Grief Cannot be Avoided

Consciously I'm not obsessing over this new information, HOWEVER, my body and brain are on their own journey through the 5 stages of accepting an unwanted, unplanned, fundamental life change (also called grief). Last week I was so angry I could barely write. I went through disbelief, (shock), Then moved quickly to anger, and tried bargaining by looking to sell the house and find a new place to hide away. But today I'm steeped deeply in depression. Step 4. Very, very, very deep in depression. While I'm not consciously spending all day festering with this problem, I'm obviously subconsciously very affected by it.

The good news is that after depression will be the final step of acceptance. I can't wait.

 :bighug:

PC, i'm with you on the narc bit, the gaslighting, deception, manipulation, putdowns, and all the rest.  got no use for them any more, even tho one is my D1 - no contact w/ her for 8 yrs.  she was killing me and i was on that brink w/ you because of her and her father.  for some reason, we got out and we survived.

also, i'd love to be awkwardly kayaking w/ you and armee.  i've never been before so you're assured of some giggles, chuckles, and outright guffaws, but all w/ goodwill attached.  just pure fun at not being perfect.  yep! :yahoo:

keep taking care of you.  sending love and a hug filled w/ 'we gotcha'!  :hug:

Hi PC,

I just want to say that I hear you and witness what you're going through. I've been told similar things in the past like why does it bother me, why can't I let it go, and I don't think any of those people have felt what it was like to feel like you are in imminent danger of annihilation from someone when you are just a baby, and where you didn't have a sense of self or the skills to defend yourself. I can relate that around situations like this my body seems to go into overdrive hypervigilance and then like a freeze/shutdown because I feel like I have to take these things on, and/or that I'm just left to deal with it. I think at an early age I didn't know how to deal with it, so there was just a shutdown. Maybe this is similar to your depression.

You are an adult now though and you can stand up for yourself/are not in danger from your NS even if it does feel like it. It could be very well that she did it on purpose to get at you and disrupt the nice life that you have built, but she can't take anything from you, and you don't have to give her anything. Nor are you a bad person for not doing so. I am reminded, and sometimes I have to remind myself, that when we are angry it is a sign that our boundaries have been crossed. She has done something to cross your boundaries and you have a right to stand up for yourself and you're not a bad person for doing that either.

I saw a meme the other day with an anime character surrounded by knives with the caption of something along the lines of "when you tell the truth." I feel like that's how it is for children (CHILDREN!!!) to come out and tell the truth against (against because it always seems to be a fight where you will lose) other peoples' self interest. I don't necessarily agree with people being born evil or good, but I do believe they ultimately have a choice how to act and they choose to do what they do, and we were the ones who had to be on the other side. It was a lot to deal with.

Sending you support  :grouphug:
dolly

Papa,
I am not finding a lot of words today. Know that I'm with you in the five stages standing with you, or in whatever stance you want me to be, dealers choice.

I'll be working on my new dock today, do you want a picture when I'm done?
I hope to have it substantially complete this week.

I'm sorry you are dealing with depression, Papa C.  :hug:

It sucks so bad that your Narc S appears to be near the beach house. But, you know, maybe your family is actually protecting you in a way by not just letting you sell the house and run away. I know it probably doesn't feel anything like protection this minute, but if they truly love you they won't want you to be forced into a knee jerk reaction just because some mean-* *&%$! shows up.This is actually buying you time to work through the stages of grief and then come to a rational decision based on what you actually want, not what a trauma reaction is suggesting to you.

I don't mean to speak out of turn, especially in your recovery journal, so please say if you just want me to butt out with the pep talk. Maybe we should form an OOTS posse and go dig an elephant trap in front of her house.

I'm so in for the trap.

Papa I'm so very sorry that your safe place has been invaded.  I wish it to not be true, for her to just go away.

 :bighug:

Oh yeah count me in! A shovel for each hand.

I'm so sorry to hear your emotional self is in depression Papa. All the danger and hurt and pain has welled up no matter what your intellectual self is saying.  I'm glad you know you will likely move through to a grim kind of acceptance and that's when you may be able to figure out exactly what it is you want to do (or not do as the case may be). 

When I first learned my NM was terminal I decompensated fast and in a big way. I am still triggered but less now that I've had some time to deal with it. I hope this is what happens for you, I really do.   :hug: 

another shovel for me, please.  love and hugs, PC :hug:

:bighug:

I'm in!  I'll go get my shovel. 

I'm very sorry to hear that narcsis is moving into your neighborhood.  Yes, you are so right, we do need to work though the 5 stages of grief when these things happen. 

Big Hugs, Papa Coco.   :bighug:

Hi Papa Coco,
I am also sending you big hugs  :bighug:  :bighug:
Hope  :)

Thank you, to each of you who has responded with the kind words, and advice, and for all the camaraderie. It's been a bigger help than you can imagine. What few people outside of the forum that I've told this story to are also struggling with why finding out she'd followed me to the beach is bothering me. She has spent my entire life using gossip and lies to turn my community against me. Now she's living in my retirement community, where she has access to my neighbors again. I'm not afraid that she's going to bite me, or hit me, or key my car...I'm afraid of what she's saying to my neighbors and community members. For years I've said, "It isn't what was said to me that did all the damage, but what was said about me." Odds are I'm safe. She's been there for years and I didn't know it. But trauma is trauma. And even though she's old and unlikable, she still poses a threat, and I feel that threat now.  Knowing how she used to get people to hate me because of the lies she told behind my back, is the threat that I'm still trying to come to terms with.

Here, at least, my friends on the forum fully grasp what it does to a person's psyche to have their abuser stalk them like this.

I'm sorry I haven't been active on the forum. I've been kind of confused and not knowing what to write or say. As I've mentioned in previous posts, when I get this distracted with life's dramas, I become unable to write without sounding like I'm crazy. If I respond to other people's posts, my own duress comes through and I say things that either don't make sense, or accidentally sound hurtful. So I'm learning that I need to refrain from posting when I'm in this kind of funk.

The people on this forum are such good people, and I know that when I'm not feeling connected to reality, I can say things don't make sense and I don't want to damage any of my friendships with any of you, so...I'm choosing to just be kind of quiet until I feel stable again.

It's coming. I'll feel better soon.

Thanks everyone for caring. It feels amazing.

Hugs to all of you. :grouphug:

 :bighug:

I'm so sorry this is happening Papa Coco.  :grouphug:

 :bighug:

 :wave: we get it for sure.

Sending caring and supportive thoughts your way.

Thanks for checking in, Papa C. Yes, we get it. And we care about you and are here for you.

 :grouphug:

I'm so sorry you are going through this stalking, PC.  I would be very upset too if my abuser was stalking me.  Sending love and warm thoughts.   :sunny:

I relate to what you said about not being active on the forum because you're afraid of not making sense or of things not coming out right.  It's very hard when words don't cooperate.

Thinking of you  :hug:  :grouphug:

PC
I totally understand and I am here standing with you against the insanity of people that  mean you harm.
Ramble all you need to, I think it helps to purge.

BTW, I'm all in for the posse and elephant trap!

QuoteI'm not afraid that she's going to bite me, or hit me, or key my car...I'm afraid of what she's saying to my neighbors and community members. For years I've said, "It isn't what was said to me that did all the damage, but what was said about me." Odds are I'm safe. She's been there for years and I didn't know it. But trauma is trauma. And even though she's old and unlikable, she still poses a threat, and I feel that threat now.  Knowing how she used to get people to hate me because of the lies she told behind my back, is the threat that I'm still trying to come to terms with.

100% get this because my M would do the smear campaign behind my back and because she was a covert N I know or at least believed people believed her. However, as I got older and I was successful in life and quite friendly like you, it occurred to me that maybe people didn't just believe her. Whenever I hear a parent of family member put someone in the family, especially a child down, it's a huge red flag for me.  I immediately think it's the person saying those things that has the problem, not who they are talking about. I have an N cousin who does this and I for sure know it's her that is the problem, not her children whom she loves one moment (good mother persona) and then turns on the next. Her son has not spoken to her in a few years and she makes it sound like it's him. He's a really good guy and that shines through like you. 

There's a gentle way of saying someone has a problem and then there's the crueler, N way of putting someone down I'm talking about, the kind of things your sister would likely have said about you. I know it is traumatized you is that is responding to her being there so I totally get it. If I were closer to my NM there's no doubt it would be a source of trauma for me too. I guess what I'm hoping younger you will hear is how likely it was people did see her and not you as the problem. 

I sometimes dream of a secret group of N vigilantes N abuse survivors could hire that will scare the pants off N's who have never been held accountable and offer a bit of payback. I know, silly fantasy but still I like the idea as does younger me.  :whistling:     

Hi PC,

The same quote that Kizzie highlighted caught me as well when I was reading your journal entry. It made me think of a few different things and how most of us are probably trying to get out of the state where we remember these people as threats. There is the real possibility that we are in danger, but also that our bodies just remember what that danger was like. My t and I have been talking recently about the adult part of me that takes care of things, and sometimes I have a very hard time feeling like that adult part of me is competent to deal with things even though there are examples where I have felt like I am very much dealing with them (in an adult way). It's as if I can feel it on the other side of something, that I'm really blended and can't untangle the parts.

I know that as an adult I have faced bullies at work and had a different experience than I did as a child. It was awful to deal with those people and it brought up a lot of stuff from when I was young, but, like Kizzie said, there were other people around who did hear me and listen to what I had to say. I wasn't left all on my own to deal with it eventually and I was able to fight back in ways that helped me, by choosing not to work with those people and seeing that their behaviour says more about them. It wasn't all roses, but I'm not in the same position I was as a child either and I probably feel better about myself for doing it.

Sending you support and we're all here for you,
dolly

Thank you everyone for the supportive feedback.

I'm starting to feel less traumatized by the realization that my Narcissister is still following me around. We still don't have proof that its her living in the house. County records show she owns it, but is she renting it out, or is she living there?  It would be nice to know either way, but the reality of the situation is that she bought it after I bought my house and knowing what a stalker she was to others, I have to believe she knew I owned it. She stalked people all the time. She was fired from dozens of jobs, usually because she was stalking and breaking into the desks and computers of her coworkers, in a chronic attempt to get other people fired. It always backfired on her. But if she was so openly breaking into computers and desks to find out whatever she could on her "opponents" then how could I possibly believe she hasn't dug around in the internet to find out where I'd moved to after I estranged from the entire family?

But, she's sickly now after a life of drinking and smoking and not exercising. And realistically she's not a threat. So in my own IFS, I am feeling like my scared little boy inside me is calming down and my adult, mature, healthy, strong self is taking the lead again, and saying, "I don't like that she lives there, but living in that community was MY life's dream and I'm not selling the house because of her."

So, for now anyway, I'm feeling a little stronger and less attacked. Dolly, you hit it on the head, my child self sees her as a threat. My adult self sees her as a pathetic hasbeen whose reign of terror on her siblings and peers is over. She's just a sad lump of hatred sitting alone in a 1 bedroom house in the woods, most likely without a friend in the world.

She wasn't just cruel to me. She eventually turned on everyone she'd ever come across. My t believes she has Borderline Personality Disorder, which I think of as a violent kind of narcissism. And when I read the books about sociopaths and narcissists, I see that it's very common that these anti-socials die a very lonely or violent death. Like Caesar, they are eventually betrayed. OR they become cornered and they take their own lives in bunkers, or prison cells or courtrooms to avoid being held accountable.

She won almost every battle, but in the end I won the war. I have friends and family who love me. I win.

I have not returned to the house since finding out she's in the neighborhood there. I won't know how it feels to be living there until I finally buck up and drive down and live in it for a few weeks. Sadly, I've been stalked by other predators since I was 10 years old. So living in a house with one eye on the driveway all day long, watching hypervigilantly for my enemies, is just how I've lived most of my life. What's another few years of it, right? I'm good at it. I have cameras and alarms and I keep the blinds closed so I can see out but no one can see in. I try to live in my backyard so I'm not visible to cars driving past slowly. The house has a garage, and I keep it clear enough so that I can hide my vehicle in it, and people cannot tell if I'm there or not. I hide in the house. This will help me feel a bit farther from this monster. If she doesn't know when I'm there or not, I have a strategic advantage. Let her think I'm never, ever there.

She has no other reason to live there. The place is remote and nearly two hours from decent hospitals or a Costco or any large store. The only reason I can think of for why she moved there is because she's a predator and I'm her prey. And predators follow their prey, don't they?

ANyway, I'm starting to feel better. My adult self is stepping up and overriding my frightened younger self. Your support has made a big difference. You accept in me that this fear is real. Others, who are not C-PTSD afflicted can't figure out why big strong me is scared of an old, pathetic, sickly, mean, curmudgeon. Well, the rules of living with residual trauma responses are different than the rules of living without residual trauma responses. Trauma "disorders" must be managed and mitigated, because they don't just go away on their own.

Hugs to ALL of you!  Thank you so much for your outpouring of support!!!!!

 :grouphug:

 :grouphug:

It's really hard work to get to where you are at right now, and I am super duper proud of you.

I remember when my mom was alive. She was frail from stage 4 cancer and multiple broken bones...back, hip (cause she would flaunt basic safety to freak us out. Like going down cement steps filled up with medication that disrupts balance refusing to use a handrail, a cane, or to even wear her glasses which she needed to see. Job well done, Mom). She was harmless but I was still terrified. I would shake and get the heebies around her. Even her house.

I once had to drop something off and couldn't even go up to the house in daylight I waited until it was dark just to leave something on her porch. Another time I had a friend drop something in a mailbox. And it wasn't because she could hurt me but because that trauma reaction could not and would not stop and THAT is what harmed me. To the point I couldn't speak or think or drive. It was actively retraumatizing me and preventing me from healing because the traumas were reupped each time. It's what they do to our mental state that is every bit as damaging as someone could inflict physically. And if you weren't traumatized in that environment, no it makes no sense. Let it go, don't let it bother you, etc. As you say, it doesn't work like that.

But I am so proud of you for standing your ground and she sounds so awful that there is no way anyone could believe her lies over how you show up in your community, full of love and giving, as Kizzie rightfully pointed out. They'll see right through her lies.  :hug:

So glad you're starting to feel better. It's nice to see you back around the boards.  :cheer:

:grouphug:

QuoteShe won almost every battle, but in the end I won the war. I have friends and family who love me. I win.

You absolutely did win Papa. :thumbup: 

:grouphug:

Thanks again Kizzie, Moondance, Armee and Narckiddo.

Armee, your story rings very true for me too. It breaks my heart to hear that you had to endure the same terrors I did. My dad, older sister, older brother and his wife became so toxic at the end that I couldn't even go near any of them without fearing for my life. I totally and completely understand what you went through with your mom. I went through it all with my family also. Word for word, if we changed the names of the narcissists who made us terrified to even be in their presence, our stories would be almost interchangeable. At least, eerily similar.

A big hug to all of you again for being on my team these days. We're all stronger when we stick together.

C-PTSD is something I can't go through alone. I'm getting stronger, but I still can't do this alone. I'm getting better about my sister living near me again, in large part due to the fact that I feel validated now and encouraged by people who have the right to encourage me. I don't respond well to casual coaching from non-traumatized friends or CBT therapists. But when I know that the encouragement is from people who fully understand what it feels like to be in this situation, well...that's the encouragement that works. You are all very important to me and to my recovery.

I honestly feel like I'm gaining my adult strength back to handle my pathetic sister. Thank you, everyone on this forum, for being here and for validating that what I'm feeling isn't just me being dramatic. Had I not had people who validated what my scared little boy was feeling, I probably would have remained stuck in that fear. I believe that empathy is the greatest healing power on earth, and that by empathizing with what I was going through, you validated and gave closure to the scared little boy. You believed him, which calmed him, which then helped him to let go and let my adult self take control again.

For a great number of us, being invalidated as kids while we were being gaslighted did a great deal of the damage we're healing from today. Feeling isolated and alone with the abuse was like being locked in a cage with monsters. It seems like, today, that frightened child still wants to be validated more than he wants anything else in the world. By you all validating his fears when I first saw her address in my neighborhood, the frightened child within me got what he needed. He was heard. His pain was respected. You believed me. You didn't criticize me for being weak or "too emotional" the way my family used to do after they'd do something cruel, and I'd feel bad about it.

I was in real pain these last three weeks and you get it. I get it. We all get it. It's helpful to know that I'm not alone.


:grouphug:

 :grouphug:

Yes agreed- this forum is so very helpful, encouraging in so may ways.  And therefore healing.

Sending continued strengthening and protective armor against narcsis.

 :bighug:

Yup. Feeling locked in a cage with monsters. True then, sometimes true now, or feels true. Keep going.  :hug:

You know I have never felt certain that many T's understand that what we went/go through by N abusers is a very real threat to our self, that they can and may destroy us. N abuse IS emotionally life-threatening. I guess that's why CBT is so lightweight (for me anyway), because it doesn't acknowledge or legitimize the incredible fear these abusers instilled in us, it tries to tell us it was and is irrational. It wasn't.  As you said Papa your family was so toxic and abusive you feared for your life.  That was why my H and I moved across the country to get away from my N family, because I didn't really have a choice.  I didn't think I would make it if I was near them. 

Glad you are coming to terms with your S being close by and feeling adult you move in and take care of younger you.  We're here too as you know. I'm personally glad to be a part of helping any abused child understand they are protected now, and cared for. You win, we all win.  :grouphug:

I am happy to read your update Papa C and to know that adult you is fighting his way through to deal with this.

I am sure CBT has its place, but add me to the list of people who have not found any benefit from it for my main issues. I was very lucky, actually, because when I started therapy it was using an online platform. My poor therapist spent the first 3 months essentially working for free as I spilled out everything into whatever worksheet I could sort of ram it into. When I said to her I wasn't sure about the structure she told me the platform was based around CBT and that was not the best approach for me although she would try to make it work for me as best she could. We moved to face to face after that.

Validation is huge! I find it very tempting to minimise my pain and get annoyed with myself if I have an EF out of all proportion to the trigger. It is so great when people can genuinely confirm I am not overreacting. It makes me happy when I see something on TV like a kid in bed saying "I'm scared there's monsters under the bed," and the parent gets down on hands and knees to check under the bed and reassure the kid. Everyone here is prepared to check under the bed and that is lovely.

 :grouphug:

i'm glad you're beginning to feel less traumatized, PC. the terror is real, the threat is real, and, i agree, this stuff is life-threatening - anything threatening our sanity or future healthy choices can, indeed, cost us our being. i'm also so glad to be part of this forum family.  couldn't have made it w/o them.  also, yes to the idea that non-trauma people, whether professional or otherwise - including anyone in the medical profession - can hurt us more than help at times.  it's a balancing act we're playing. luckily we've got each other to help.  love and hugs :hug:

I'm agreeing with all of us. I think we've made important and healthy connections here that make a huge difference in our recovery. I know that no matter what comes up, I can mention it here and someone will understand. Like, really understand, not just sympathize. I wouldn't wish any of this on anyone, but it does feel amazing to know you're not alone. Giant grouphug! :grouphug:

PC,
Thank you for continuing to risk and share your truth. I believe everything you have written here. Non CPTSD humans can not comprehend at all levels of what it's like to have survived the trauma we all went through. Learned people can read and may get it intellectually, that said, as survivors we bond because we get it at a cellular level, the fear , the terror, the confusion and on and on it goes.

So good for you in taking time to be scared and keep that little one safe and actually quite quickly bring the adult onboard to keep the little one safe. Hopefully you will keep us up to date about when you are going back to your beach house, you will need our collective power to help you through.

Hi PC,

I'm glad you are feeling a little bit more grounded  :cheer: I think you hit the nail on the head too when you said being invalidated while we were being gaslit did a great deal of damage. I'm just unearthing this in John Bradshaw's book on toxic shame where he talks about the way toxic shame was then reinforced in us through schooling, peer groups, and religious shaming. I feel like it made me just go more and more inward.

I'm glad too that you felt you were heard  :grouphug:
dolly

Thank you Everyone!

Your comments have really helped.

I'm feeling better about my sister (Who I will call R) living a few hundred meters from my home at the beach.

I'm no longer wanting to sell the house, and I'm actually feeling more like going back to the plan of selling the city house and moving full time to the beach, even though R is there.

All indications are pointing to R being a shut-in. One friend did have a sighting of R in the town's only grocery store a year ago. At the time, my friend thought it was just someone who looked like R, because we all believed R had left the state with the money she'd stolen from our father. The friend said 74-year-old R looked like she was declining in mental health. She appeared unstable, and paranoid and in a hurry to get back to her car.

I know that R's son hated her guts. I am wondering now if her daughter finally pushed her out of her life also. R was cruel to everyone. Everyone. She may have burned all her bridges and ended up at the beach because she can't afford to live in the city anymore and no one in any family is willing to give her free stuff anymore.

In the end, I now feel very little fear of her. CBT therapists have never helped me, but CBT has a place in society. It's not good for trauma therapy, but it still has a place.  My DBT therapist, who is not a CBT, has given me one good CBT suggestion to practice what I'll say if R or any of her former friends ever approach me in the grocery store and decide to give me a piece of their mind. He said for me to practice, practice, practice saying "I'm on a tight schedule right now" then turning and quickly walking off. Those are words that handle any approach, and they are not aggressive nor are they the words that would be said by frightened prey. They're confident, boundary-setting words of someone who has better places to be than listening to a scolding from an angry relative. Practicing this will make it automatically fall out of my mouth if anyone ever does try to create a public scene by scolding me for not being nice to my narcissistic sister R. Nobody can argue with those words. If I'm on a tight schedule, it's just a fact, not an accusation or a defense.

I've also recently been told that happiness isn't possible in someone who is hiding. It's like my blinders were taken off and I can see that by me spending the last several decades believing I could hide from my family and church and school and bullies that I could finally be happy. I did the right thing by putting distance between myself and my abusers, but I did it with the sense that I was hiding, which was working against my feeling of safety. But now I can see that hiding and finding happiness makes no sense. Putting distance between us is the right thing to do. But a person who is "hiding" is a person who feels they are still in danger. That's the opposite of happiness.

As I began to pray for happiness earlier this year, I suddenly became furious at "god" when I discovered my nemesis was living in MY safe place. Then, after having my EF and my weeks of utter disbelief that "god" would do that to me, I began to recognize that I will never find true happiness if I continue to believe that I have to hide from my evil family. Putting distance between us and going no contact is the right thing to do, but "hiding" sends the wrong message throughout my internal parts. My body and brain and soul need to feel like I'm free from them, but not hiding. I'm just in another location where they can't reach me because they annoy me.

A class I took recently said that happiness is dependent on becoming my authentic self. To me, authenticity is not found in hiding. It's found in being who I am, no matter what others think of that. It's found in not selling my dream home because my sister moved in next door. It's found in being me. ME. Truly, authentically, unapologetically ME!

Okay: Now that I've said it, it's time to begin the slow movement toward embodying it. As an example of how far I still have to go: My wife gave me a well-tailored, very nice kilt for my birthday last month. She said that a man who she works with suggested it to her because he wears them when he works in the yard so as to have freer movement to get up and down in the soil. Pants and long cargo shorts bind and keep me from freedom of movement. I wear that beautiful garment now ONLY when no one can see me but her. I'm terrified of being laughed at if I wear it in public, even though I see men in kilts fairly often in my city. To me, this is a sign that I'm not there yet. I'm not yet willing to stand up and be my authentic self if I worry someone might laugh at me.

So I've got a direction to go now as I move my prayer to "Help me find happiness and help me find the courage to be unapologetically who I was born to be" whoever that is.

You people are amazing. I love all of you. Thank you for all the support. This ordeal with R could have been the end of me. But the support I got from you, and from my wife and therapist have gotten me through it for now.

Papa Coco, this is beautiful.  I learned some things from what you shared here.  I like your analysis of how hiding can prevent us from happiness, and being our authentic selves.  I also really like your idea for setting a boundary by saying "I'm on a tight schedule", and walking away.  I'm going to remember this.  Years ago, I mistakenly thought boundary setting meant confronting the person, and being honest about how they hurt me, etc, but that just isn't so.  I'm really glad to hear that you are at peace in spite of R living close by to you. 

Isn't it vindicating when we see that our narc abusers are the ones who end up falling apart?  Mine had me believing I was the mentally ill one, but now from what I hear, they are the ones falling apart, and I'm recovering and getting better.  Their karma catches up with them, sonner or later. 

Sounds like you are doing fantastic!   :cheer:  :cheer:

It sounds like you have made great strides, Papa C.  :cheer:

As for the kilt, it is a very practical garment. My husband is a Scot so I am no stranger to men in kilts, though I would be surprised to see someone round here wearing one other than to attend a formal function. I would certainly not laugh at him, though. Men look very good in kilts, in my opinion, and the garment actually suits a huge variety of body shapes. I can understand why you might feel a bit self-conscious initially, and there is nothing wrong in that. I'm sure you will gradually feel more confident. If it would help, feel free to get your wife to take a photo of you and maybe show it to some of us here? Just a thought. Sometimes the hardest thing is to put something in front of another person for the first time.

Hi PC,

I'm glad you've found something that helps you feel comfortable setting a boundary with R. It's really important to have something that gives you that space even if you hopefully never have to use it.  :cheer:

I hope too, that you're able to wear your kilt in public and not have to deal with, or feel any shame for doing so.

Sending you support,
dolly

Journal Entry for Wednesday, September 6, 2023

The devil I know
This morning I awoke about an hour earlier than usual and let myself lay in bed resting for another hour. My imagination wanted me to come inside and live for a while in my pretend world. This happens to me during times of stress or distress. If I were a turtle, my imagination would be my shell to retreat into. My brain invites me to come back into my dissociative, imaginative world where I have all the control to make the story of my life go any direction I want it to go. Naturally, most of my imaginary stories take me back to childhood. And sadly, most of my imaginary stories bring back that old familiar feeling of abandonment, belittling, unfairness. It's not a happy way to live, but it's familiar. It's my childhood wanting me to come visit it.

It's hard to deal with this, but when I need comfort, I tend to want to relive my feelings of being disrespected and in need of rescue.  It seems like when a person is in need of comfort they should go to their happy place. I tend to go to my sad place. It's sad, but it's familiar. It's like going home to hide after a beating out in the world. The problem is that my emotional home is not so happy. But it's where I'm drawn to. When I should be wanting to return to my mother's arms, I feel like I want to return to my mother's judgements and mind games. It's not happy, but it's home. 

The upside to these emotional visits to my unsavory childhood are that they tend to usually lead me to living through the imaginary moment when, as a child, I SHOULD have run away from home. Or I should have gotten angry instead of ashamed and I should have moved out on my 18th birthday and not given a forwarding address. Maybe, whenever I wake up and want to go back to my years of abuse and gaslighting, maybe that's my inner child wanting me to rescue him finally. I hate remembering how it felt to be the shameful accident taking up space in mom's house, but I LOVE imagining myself flipping them all off and walking away from them forever.

A downside to this is that it sometimes makes me sort of yearn for someone to treat me poorly again so I can walk away from them forever and satisfy my need to become free from them.

It happens every year. As this school year begins, and the Holiday Season begins with the end-of-summer county fairs, which will move to pumpkins and Halloween, then to Thanksgiving and then Christmas, my sad inner child comes out to live with me. And he came out this morning. He wanted me to spend an hour reliving the pain and loneliness of being the outcast in my own family and church and school. He wanted me to pretend to stand up and walk out on them and never return. Then to become famous or rich or a hero of some kind so they could read about me in the news and regret the wrongful ways they'd treated me when they thought I was a worthless little wimp and had me in their control.

I know that one of the things that drives gaslight victims crazy is waiting for an apology. We wait and wait and wait and we keep thinking, someday they're going to see what they did and they're going to be filled with regret and remorse.  But that seldom ever happens. Our galsighters don't tend to ever regret how they treated us. In fact, once we're gone, they forget we ever existed. MAYBE that's why my inner child comes and drags me back into my imaginary world of being their victim again. Maybe my inner child is still waiting for the apologies that are never coming. 

All speculation aside: What I do know for certain is that I find comfort in remembering how it felt to be abused. One positive outcome of this is that remaining so attached to the pain, keeps me empathetically alert to seeing that pain in others so I can help wherever I can. In order to do any present day good in this world, I need to remember from where I came. I cherish the fact that my abuse led me to become a helper, whereas some of my siblings took their abuse and used it to become abusers themselves.

The feeling of immersing myself back into the pain from childhood feels oddly comforting. It feels like I'm being true to that little boy still living in my subconscious mind, still waiting for an adult to do right by him.

Also, as nice as it would be to finally be free from the feelings of sadness and loneliness, somehow, I feel like I'll betray my inner child if I let go of his memory. Somehow, I'm honoring him by allowing myself to go back into those feelings via my imaginary world.

In summary: Life is confusing. So many moving parts. Even the sad times are valuable to me. Unfortunately I'm better at remembering the sad times than I am the fun times. I've had many, many fun times in life. I just struggle to remember them. But for the sad times, they draw me in to relive as if by magnet. And in some deep, complex, twisted way, remembering the pain is comforting.

Quote from: Papa Coco on September 06, 2023, 03:56:11 PMIt's sad, but it's familiar. It's like going home to hide after a beating out in the world. The problem is that my emotional home is not so happy. But it's where I'm drawn to. When I should be wanting to return to my mother's arms, I feel like I want to return to my mother's judgements and mind games. It's not happy, but it's home. 

My t tells me that we are hard wired to want this. It's an innate wiring that children and people need. We needed that attachment to our mother for survival, it's a part of all of us and is a part of being alive. I don't think there's anything wrong with you for needing that. I think I cut mine off for a long time, or being in therapy has been the process of rewiring it. I couldn't stop that attachment or need, and it persisted long after I consciously knew I would never receive something even close to the nuturing that I needed from my mother. Of course, it doesn't help that we're often transported subconsciously to these places.

Quote from: Papa Coco on September 06, 2023, 03:56:11 PMThe upside to these emotional visits to my unsavory childhood are that they tend to usually lead me to living through the imaginary moment when, as a child, I SHOULD have run away from home. Or I should have gotten angry instead of ashamed and I should have moved out on my 18th birthday and not given a forwarding address. Maybe, whenever I wake up and want to go back to my years of abuse and gaslighting, maybe that's my inner child wanting me to rescue him finally. I hate remembering how it felt to be the shameful accident taking up space in mom's house, but I LOVE imagining myself flipping them all off and walking away from them forever.

I'm reading more about shame, and t has been mentioning this as well, but one of the aspects of shame is then self attack, or shaming ourselves in a way ie I should have done this, why didn't I do this (at the time etc). It's very much a process in what happens in response to shame. I guess this is why it's called a shame spiral (?), that it triggers these things to come up.

Quote from: Papa Coco on September 06, 2023, 03:56:11 PMAll speculation aside: What I do know for certain is that I find comfort in remembering how it felt to be abused.

Quote from: Papa Coco on September 06, 2023, 03:56:11 PMThe feeling of immersing myself back into the pain from childhood feels oddly comforting. It feels like I'm being true to that little boy still living in my subconscious mind, still waiting for an adult to do right by him.

What Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche has said, and these are my spiritual beliefs so please disregard as/when not applicable, is that people are very attached to their pain bodies, but pain is just an identity. It is not who we are.

Quote from: Papa Coco on September 06, 2023, 03:56:11 PMAlso, as nice as it would be to finally be free from the feelings of sadness and loneliness, somehow, I feel like I'll betray my inner child if I let go of his memory. Somehow, I'm honoring him by allowing myself to go back into those feelings via my imaginary world.

Of course, this is very much a part of the things you went through. There is an exile, or a part of you whatever you call it, that went through these things and is holding onto these feelings and that is very much a vital part of you. I hope you're able to find some space for all these things coming up. Sending you a hug for that that time of year feeling  :hug:

dolly

Thank you, Dolly for the hugs and the comments. They mean a lot. And the comments you left are good for me to know, in that, what I'm dealing with is not unique, but others feel them too.

I'm having good days right now. I hope you are too. It's always nice to get a few days or weeks of rest between triggered trauma responses.

PC.

 :bighug:

Hi PC,  nice to hear you are having some good days, 

Thank you Larry and Dolly,

It feels good to be having more good days lately. I'm seeing a hypnotherapist again. I saw her last Spring and she made a difference. So, after living with what I'd learned for a few months, I felt it was a good time to see her again for four more visits, and add to my learning. I'm feeling quite a bit better than I have probably ever felt. She's encouraging me to get out of the house more, and I'm finding it to be nice to get out and socialize again. My wife and I have gone to the Marina for walks every day since Friday. Coco dragged me out the first time, but now, I'm starting to enjoy the walks enough to be the one to suggest another one each day. My knees give me trouble, but we've slowed our pace and, so far so good.

Healing from CPTSD is a long, arduous journey of having to challenge a million bad messages that wired my neural pathways decades ago. Changing that wiring has to happen one wire at a time. As I work through the issues, worst-first, I'm finally starting to see some noticeable--and possibly permanent--improvements in how my reactions to life are starting to bypass my trauma brain, and go straight to rational, realistic reactions. I still have trauma triggers, but, somehow, I'm getting faster at recognizing them as trauma triggers, and, at least for the past few weeks, I've been successfully getting past them. How long will this last? I don't know. I hope the improvements are permanent, but if not, well...make hay while the sun shines, right? For now, I'm enjoying my current state of having a bit more emotional control than I've experienced in 6 decades.

Some really great tools are 1) Five-to-ten-minute mindfulness meditations, (using short YouTube Mindfulness meditations if I can't quiet my mind enough to do them without assistance). And 2) realizing that everyone on earth is having a hard time now. CPTSD is my reason for having a struggle, but I don't really think there are too many people thinking of the earth as the happiest place in the universe at this time in our history. So, knowing that life is a struggle for everyone, helps me feel not so singled out and "broken". That really helps me get past my triggers more quickly.

Also, I'm getting some serious movement in my attitudes through two books my hypnotherapist recommended: The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron, and The Seat of the Soul, by Gary Zukav. These two books are making solid sense to me now, and I'm benefitting from what they teach.

So far so good. Thank you to all my friends on the forum for the encouragement to keep seeking forward motion on my long walk of recovery.

I love this forum!  I love all of you! :) :grouphug:

Hi Papa Coco,
Wow, there are so many really good things in your journal entry.  I am happy that you are seeing the hypnotherapist and that the outcomes are going so well.  That is great. 

I have read the book 'The Artist's Way' - it was so good.  I remember it well.  I will look at the other one you mentioned.

Sending you a hug  :hug:  :hug:

Hope  :)

Hi PC,

Like Hope said, there are some great things in your journal entry and it's great you're able to start identifying your triggers for what they are!

Going back over your previous previous post, I read some more of John Bradshaw's, The Shame That Binds Us after I responded to you and he says that these shame wounds are really at the very core of who we are. It makes sense that it's 1) normal to return to them again and again 2) normal to find it difficult to heal them/move past them etc.

Sending you support  :hug:
dolly

Dolly,

That's an interesting post about Bradshaw. I agree that we return to shame and that it is difficult to get past it. I also believe our overall shame comes from centuries back, and we are living our own lives mired in massive generational shame. I believe shame is a huge issue, and it drives most of our human struggles. I believe that shame is what stops us from connecting fully with our spiritual source. And that our lives here on earth are the workshop where we are working out our shame so we can reconnect with God.

Anyway, I just posted a response to you in the private folders, from my private folder to yours. I got your messages but didn't know it until you pointed me to them. I will now start to check my private folders every day to see if you've responded.

Hope, thank you for the hug!

I am excited to go to hypnosis again tomorrow. It's the Monday 3 of 4.

I've been doing the Morning Papers, which is at the root of The Artist's Way. Each morning I make sure to write my three pages of stream of thought. My GOODNESS, this is a powerful, powerful tool. I learn something amazing about myself every single morning. If you haven't done the Morning Papers yet, I recommend that everyone should at least try it for a week to see if it moves you as powerfully as they are moving me.

My artistic flow is accelerating rapidly through these papers.

Here's a hug back in return!   :hug:

Hi PC,

That's an interesting thought about shame. I can definitely see patterns repeating in my family that are legacy burdens and likely have to do with self worth etc.

I read this this morning and was going to post it in my journal as I'm trying to work out my connection to my (healthy) ancestors and lineage, but perhaps it resonated here with what you wrote as well.

"While of course our blood ancestry is a real thing and must be given its due, unless you descend from an immediate line of openhearted humans with intact forms of origination as a way of life, dependence on Ancestors for an identity will usually be the den of a lot of doctored and unmetabolized grief, hidden behind nonsense and still more intentional habitual Amnesia and mental lockdown. For in all probability, your ancestors for the last millennia or so were suffering just as much from a lack of origins as yourself. These are the "recent" ancestors.

Martín articulated the need for most modern people to reach further back along our bloodlines in order to contact ancestors who lived before the cultural disruption and colonialism that have led to our dissociation from the natural world. Speaking about these earlier ancestors, he continued, "The real, real 'old' ones are the indigenous ones, and they are not going to be tribalist, because they are in the story of all mythic things and have merged into the submolecular awareness in the sap and bloodstream of all living things that feed the present and do not value small-thinking isolationist ancestral prejudice."

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancestral-Medicine-Rituals-Personal-Healing/dp/B07VCVCD92/ref=sr_1_1?crid=37WX2FFUNQGGN&keywords=ancestral+medicine+by+daniel+foor&qid=1696934712&sprefix=ancestrral+medicine%2Caps%2C507&sr=8-1

And there's an audio book! ;)

Sending you support,
dolly  :hug:

Hi Dolly, thanks for the book referral. I'm starting to really like audio books.

Ancestry is an interesting topic around me. My mother had a solid rule that no one in the family was allowed to do a genealogy of our family. She never explained why and, to this day, I have never even considered doing so.

However, I did have some interesting experiences with ancestry. My dad's parents were gone long before I was born. They were immigrants from Norway, settled in the North woods of Minnesota U.S. Nobody ever talked about them. Occassionally, for a few seconds, someone would say tiny things about my grandfather, but it was when they were arguing over whether he had hair or was bald, or whether he'd ever learned to speak English. Mom was a fiercely jealous person, who only valued her parents and two siblings. She hated Dad's family, and I never was told anything about them at all.

One day, I joined into a medium circle. A medium whom I had met at a bookstore was holding a "messages from beyond" circle at a friend's house. I attended. He looked at me and said that my grandmother "Anna" was coming through wanting me to know she watches over me. The only grandmother I knew of was my mother's mother, also gone before I was born, but I'd heard THOUSANDs of stories about her. Her name was Rose. I figured it was her, and that maybe Anna was short for Rosann or something. This was back when I was still talking to my family. I told my sister about it, and said, "It must me short for Gramma Rose's full name." This sister said, "No. Dad's mom was named Anna."

When the psychic was still sharing that she was connecting with him, I asked what her message was, and he said, "no message. She just wanted you to know she watches out for you."

As the years have passed I can see that my dad's family wasn't as evil as Mom had told me they were. That there really may have been some love there. Mom always made me feel like my dad's family was just cold and empty and cruel. But now I'm wondering, what were they really like? Without my jealous mother's interpretation standing between myself and the truth, were they really cold and cruel? Or was she just making sure no one put them before her own parents?

Maybe I should download that book you're referring me to, so I can start to wade through my own ancestry and see what I can discover about myself through my own family.

I'm sorry that your nmom isolated you like that. You should be able to research and connect to your loving/healed family be they living or dead without her approval or interference. Maybe they saw your nmom for who she was and she tried to demonize them in return. What a loving message tho, that she is there watching over you  :hug:

Recovery Journal Entry for Friday, October 13, 2023

Yesterday, Coco left for the beach at around 10 AM. When we're together, we spend most of our time together. We're like two little kids that always have to be with each other. So I tend to think "I can't organize the garage, or build a fence, or write a book, or use the forum while she's here." I tend to use these beach trips, or when she's working longer hours, as my windows for to get things done. I feel cluttered when she's with me. It's not her fault, my family made me feel like they were the block against anything I wanted. They'd block me. They'd lie to me. They'd tell me I wasn't smart enough or talented enough or honest enough to do anything I wanted, but that it was my job to take care of them. Their moods were my responsibility. As I grew older, I had been bullied to the point that I'd learned to just always give them my money, my evenings, my resources, my attention. So, remnants of that sense of my family blocking me from doing anything for myself got transferred to my marriage. My wife is a beautiful person who never judges me. This sense of feeling trapped when she's around is all me. It has no bearing on who she is.

So yesterday, with Coco leaving for three days and two nights to the beach I figured I could organize the garage and declutter it at the same time. What an emotionally triggering mess that was. My garage is filled with tools and toys and parts for all sorts of my old values. The emotional stress was so bad that on several occasions I had to stop working, sit down, bury my head into my hands and ask the spiritual realm for help. Ever since starting this last round with hypnosis, I seem to have connected with a guide who I am now able to access almost instantly. When I ask him for answers, he responds immediately.

So, I asked why decluttering was so hard for me. His answer was that my physical clutter is the result of my spiritual clutter. I'm a jack of all trades, master at none. My guide said "...On earth as it is in heaven." He then showed me that my physical disorganized, jack of all trades physical clutter is the result of my spiritual clutter, and that most of my disorganized spiritual clutter is because I was raised to be responsible for everyone's happiness but my own. I, therefor needed to have all the tools I might ever use to handle THEIR crisis's for them.

I was raised to be "CinderFella". I was praised and loved only when I gave all my time and energy to my family. I was shunned, humiliated, and aggressively ignored if I ever wanted anything for myself. I grew up feeling responsible for other people's stuff, and ashamed of having needs or passions of my own. So spiritually, I am still hanging on to my belief that I have to be tooled up and ready, at any given moment, to do whatever a friend or peer tells me they need me to do. I can build a house if they need me to. I can build them a car from junkyard parts, I've done it several times. I can build furniture, cabinetry, landscaping. If needed, I can sing at their weddings, I can perform on stage. I've learned enough Sign Language and Spanish to not be proficient, but to be functionally able to help people who need interpreters. I have been talked into marrying a dozen different couples (as an internet minister). I can write books and blogs, and even though I'm not a hypnotherapist, I have taken some classes on it and am surprisingly good at doing it.

Why do I have all these partial talents? For most of them I have no passion. For a few I think I might have passion, but I'm not sure I know what passion feels like anymore. I worked my tail off to learn these skills and these languages, not from passion, but because I was told I HAD to. I HAD to be ready to give people anything they need. I keep two fire extinguishers in all three of my vehicles. I keep two injection needles of Narcan in every vehicle and in both homes in case I ever come across someone in a fentanyl crisis. I also have front and rear dash cams in all of the vehicles, so I can be ready to give evidence to the police or insurance companies if I see anything. I am a city CERT volunteer, ready to help the fire department and police in the event of any catastrophic event; such as an earthquake or massive fire.

I don't do any of this out of passion but out of a sense of crushing duty to my role as being responsible for everyone's health and wellbeing. I'm always tooled up and ready to do things that aren't mine to have to do. I've lost myself in these responsibilities. My soul is cluttered with other people's stuff, and it's disorganized from a total lack of passion on my part.

I can do a hundred things adequately but not perfectly. Only one of them is what will make me feel whole and happy and productive—but I've lost sight of what that one was supposed to carry me. And if I'd have kept my focus on whatever my passion was, I'd be very good at just those one or two passions now. Instead, I'm barely adequate at a hundred impassionate things.

How do I figure out which one to focus on and which 99 to get rid of?

Spiritual clutter = physical clutter. The clutter in my garage is the clutter in my sense of duty. The disorganized mess that my clutter is in, is my lack of passion. If I really had passion for woodworking, my garage would be organized to do woodworking. But my clutter is scattered all over the house because I have no focus. No passion. No desire to organize one thing because I feel like I have to figure out how to organize all 100 things in one very small garage. I lose everything I bring home now because my home is in such a mess. When I DO try to build something, I spend most of my time in frustration, unable to find my tools in the mess. This lack of physical organization is a lack of physical AND spiritual focus, which is from a lack of physical and spiritual passion.

My garage is not the problem, it's the end result of thinking I have to be ready to help anyone, anywhere with anything. What personal passion I've ever been led to feel has been replaced by a sense of duty to everyone else.

What my guide showed me yesterday was: On earth as it is in Heaven, which means that I'm cluttered physically because I am cluttered spiritually. I'm disorganized spiritually. I'm a jack of all trades, master at NONE spiritually. That's why I'm manifesting this same clutter physically. As above, so below. I asked my guide what I can do about it, and he recommended prayer. The awareness that I believe I'm fully responsible for all the spiritual pain and healing in the world is a misdirected knowing that I have to overcome, but it has spiritual roots, so it requires spiritual healing, which can usually only be done through prayer. Prayer is really where I need to focus.

I think that the new awareness of my belief (that I have to take on the weight of the world) is the first and most critical step in my healing. As I settle into knowing this about myself--as I digest this new information--I think that asking for supernatural support is appropriate. Like "let go and let god" means I have to actually let go of my grip on believing that I have to know how to fix anything because I'm responsible for everyone's happiness. Let go and leg god is not just words, letting go is an act. I have to let go of my spiritual clutter. I have too many directions I could go, but most of them are directions that people told me I had to be responsible for. I need to let go of my dad's energy, my mom's energy, my sociopathic sister's energy, my mentally challenged brother's energy, etc. I have to narrow down which spiritual talent is really mine, and which of the rest of the other 99 were shoved onto me, and that I should let go of.

Once I find my way through this spiritual (trauma) clutter, my garage will clean itself. I'll see, with laser clarity, which tools to sell or give away and which to keep, because I'll finally be able to see what energy in this world is really mine to work with, and which is someone else's energy that I need to give back to them.

I'm grateful for having heard these words from my guide yesterday. I now have a more specific target for my meditation time: Focus on all my half-baked skills to see which one brings up my passion. Then, through prayer and meditation, I can let go of the other 99 half-baked skills, trim down my garage and my soul, and start moving forward in MY direction: Not my family's many schizophrenic directions. But MY single, passionate direction!

Papa C, that was an exhausting read! I do not mean that to be critical but just reading about all that clutter really illustrates just what a heavy load of stuff you have. I'm glad you now have a target, so that you can start to work out what YOU need and want.

I am all too familiar with the concept of having to be ready to step up if my mother says "XYZ has happened. What do I do?" Google has been both a blessing and a curse. I don't have to physically learn the information any more, just in case, but boy do I spend a ton of time on Google if I think I am going to be called upon. The sad thing is that she doesn't even want the information. Not really. She just wants me to be spending my time on what she says she wants.

It sounds like you are going to make good use of your three days. And even if you don't get rid of a single item I bet you will have made good progress in identifying what needs to be done. And then, like you say. your garage will clean itself.

Narckiddo,

Thanks for reading it. I know I write too much, and too long. I am trying to cut back. I'm not responding to everyone anymore, as I realize I need to stop being so "involved" in everyone's stuff.  I think that in the past I've overwhelmed some other members with my tenacious writing. So I'm putting my wordy stuff in my own personal recovery journals and not responding to the bulk of the other threads. I need to pull back and not be such a constant presence.

I guess the short of it is that we handle our trauma by feeling responsible to everyone but ourselves. Our lives go into clutter and confusion because there's a war going on with our IFS parts, where we argue within ourselves as to who is important. I suspect that a lot of people on this forum would not have any idea how to answer the question: What do you want to be when you grow up?  Our own passions were belittled, and we were given responsibility for our narcissistic elders instead. So we struggle now as our parts try to focus back on who we would be today had we been allowed to be ourselves when we were starting out.

:)

Quote from: Papa Coco on October 13, 2023, 07:21:11 PMOur own passions were belittled, and we were given responsibility for our narcissistic elders instead. So we struggle now as our parts try to focus back on who we would be today had we been allowed to be ourselves when we were starting out.

Yep yep yep or, like me, we pursue what we think we want to , but then are still side tracked by our family's what ifs, and very much playing into that internal struggle.

I feel too, that there's a lot of stuff I need to take on, and it's been a slow process of realizing what is happening. Oh, that person is upset, I will try and help them feel better without stopping to consider if that is my "job." Here, I guess, is where the lines become blurred. But if I don't try to help that person, or offer empathy/sympathy etc, then I must be a bad person? Who doesn't do those things? Just like with family, according to all the outside perspectives, but they're just doing that because they love you, and you need to give this "love" back in families. So, there's all the guilt and loyalty bound up in this.

Our sense of Self does get cluttered because we were never allowed to have one in the first place. I too, am working on putting up boundaries with this kind of energetic clutter right now.

Also, just sent you a quick DM about something.

Sending you support,
dolly

PapaCoco,

I relate to a lot of what you have expressed. I too have had lots of physical clutter and there are times where I get a itch and I have to clean the physical. I do not know if that is helping the spiritual clutter or not.  Based on the energy before I clean, and then the energy after I suspect that I am clearing the spiritual clutter at the same time.

I to have many skills, some that are alright, some that it was from others, with growing up on a family farm having multiple skills was a have to.  Unfortunately my artistic side wasn't on the agenda to be supported. There is anger from that.

I'm very happy that you have access to a guide that is there for you like that.  That would be very comforting to me.

Surprising on how connection to others (in a healthy way) and connection to Spirit is the key, I feel, to heal.

Wishing you all the best

Hi PapaCoco,
Was thinking about you, and just read what you wrote here.  I appreciate everything you've said to me in the past, and wanted you to know that.

I related to what you said about how the different parts can argue amongst themselves, and the difficulty of knowing what to say if someone asked 'What do you want to be when you grow up.'

Hope  :)

Dolly, I resonate with your feeling that if someone needs help, it feels like we are responsible to help them. That old saying "live and let live" used to feel cold to me. Like it doesn't compute. "Live and help others live" felt more like how I was raised. It's tiring. People need to learn their own lessons, and when I help too much, I take their lesson away from them.

StartingHealing, Yes. I too feel anger in that my own artistic self-expression was laughed at and called a waste of time. My brother was an artist. They praised him for his talent. Then I came along 8 years later only to find out that my art was a curse and that I needed to grow up to be a factory worker because the factory was important and I wasn't. I have felt a great deal of frustration and anger over that too.
 
Hope, Thank you for the nice reassurance that my posts aren't too off-the-wall. Your words are comforting for me. Thank you, Hope.

I've been struggling with posts lately because I'm feeling good this year. It's the first Autumn that I've felt good.  What happened was that from late September through mid-October I attended 4 weekly hypnosis sessions with a group of 3 other Complex-PTSD clients and one hypnotherapist. My hypnotherapist was a Trauma Counselor until she had a Near Death Experience (NDE) about 12 years ago, and when she returned from the "dead" she was a changed person. She left her practice and chose to become more of a spiritual helper than a clinical psychologist. She uses hypnosis along with long conversation to help her clients start to feel good about life again.  It works really well for me.

But it has a spiritual twist to it, so I can't really go on and on about it here on the forum.

So for today's Recovery Journal entry, I'm just going to say that I'm feeling better than I've felt probably ever. I don't have a giddy, manic high of happiness, but I am living in a constant, chronic sense of gratitude right now. Not for being alive on the earth while our politicians and corporate billionaires are destroying it with their selfish needs for power and corruption, but a sense of unwavering gratitude just to be a spiritual being. So, where AA teaches to trust a higher power, I think that's what I'm doing here with PTSD. Instead of Alcohol, my addiction right now is the trauma-drama life I've been living for 63 years and counting. I'm discovering that handling life while feeling connected to a higher power is as helpful for my trauma disorders as it was for my sobriety when I was quitting drinking with AA. It seems that the methods used by AA tend to work with quite a few of life's stressors.

My current top priority is learning how to keep this feeling going. I hope it's a lifechanging moment, but if it's not, and if my trusting a higher power is only bringing temporary relief, well then, I'll try to keep it going for as long as possible before I sink back into feeling the way I feel normally. Autumn is usually my craziest time of the year. Memories of the school bullying and the SA that happened during the holidays oh so long ago might return. And I want to try to enjoy at least one year feeling separated from the stressors.

 :hug:

I'm so happy you are feeling great Papa Coco!

Your happiness brings me happiness.

It's lovely that you are feeling good this year. And that you have told us. When most people around us are struggling in one way or another it can feel insensitive to celebrate feeling good oneself. But my therapy and my reading has been saying to me that it is perfectly OK to be happy oneself while still empathising with those who are not. Being authentic is the best way.

 :grouphug:

Hi Papa Coco,

That's great you found some space with those things. What a long way you've come  :cheer:

I'm reading something at the moment where she talks about keeping the "power" of something means not talking about it. This is in relation to letting negative beliefs go, but maybe it fits for those of us who were never allowed to have positive things of our own.

"At this point do not share what you are releasing. Many of us have the habit of breaking the power of the moment by talking about it. You want the power to build up inside you so you are really ready to let it go."

Sending you support,
dolly

Thank you for sharing your experience papa c,   i appreciate you,  and hope you have a great day  ;)

Armee, Narckido, Larry, thank you for the support. I'm feeling better. Healing from Complex PTSD is a lifelong project, so I recognize that I still have it. The days of believing I was cured because I'm feeling better are gone. I've gone down that rabbit hole far too many times, only to be damaged further when I later realized I was wrong and that I still have PTSD. I am happy to be feeling happier, but aware that I can't let my guard down, because my past is never going to be erased. It shaped my personality, and that's permanent. Using daily meditation and prayer is helping, but just like brushing my teeth, I have to do it every day, because my personality is still my personality, and my personality, like yours, is one of kindness. I'm still looking for love in a world filled with sociopaths and narcissists, which is a no-win battle. Narcissists are born every day. They're not going anywhere.

I hope to keep this good feeling going for as long as possible. I have to work at my meditations the same way I have to exercise and brush my teeth every day for the rest of my life. And, I'm okay with that. If meditation and prayer are working to keep me from self-medicating in physical ways, then I just think of it as daily self-care. Like eating lunch. Brushing teeth. Showering. Changing the oil in the car. These are things we have to do to keep ourselves alive and healthy and maintained.

Dolly. Your post has so much wisdom in it. During my meditations, and my daily "Morning papers" (I make myself write 3 full pages of "stream of consciousness" thoughts every, single morning, and the wisdom I get from those papers sets the stage for each day's meditations), I recently realized the truth that I give away my power every time I overshare. I've read a lot of articles about C-PTSD and "oversharing" is one of the top symptoms of being a person with a traumatic past. All too often, I confess what I'm thinking. I say too much. I confess too much. I'm learning that there is an important balance in how we communicate with each other. We want to share so we can bond and see ourselves in each other. The open sharing on this forum has been a tremendous help for me as I leave the belief that I'm the only broken soul on the earth. But that can go too far. It helps me now, to ask myself, "What is my motivation for each time I share?" Am I sharing my inner thoughts because I want to bond with other good souls? OR, am I confessing my thoughts so I don't get punished later for having secrets? It's all about personal power. Sharing the right amount empowers us as a team to bond better. Sharing too much, waters down my own personal power. I guess I could think of it like a chef's secret recipe. I can share the food with others, but if I give away my secret recipe, I lose my business altogether.

OR! How about this theory:
  As a child, I had so many secrets that I felt like I was about to be caught and killed for my secrets. I kept it secret that I was being abused sexually, and that I was being shunned by my entire school, and that I was terrified of people my own age, etc, etc, etc. That terror ate at my stomach and head day in and day out. By day I hid from people. By night I hosted nightmares nearly every night about being abused and trapped and killed. I've been killed many times in my dreams. Somehow, holding onto information terrifies me, because it makes me afraid I'm going to suffer from the secrets again. Somehow, at some point, I learned that if I tattled on myself to others I could avoid being caught later. Telling too much feels like surrender.  We surrender when we finally realize we're outmatched. Surrender is a way of surviving what we cannot survive. Somehow, my urge to tell everyone every thought I have is a way to surrender to avoid one day being outed for my fears and foolishness.

Or even better: This might be the best theory of them all: A major symptom of Complex-PTSD is a fear of my own power. I hate board games and competitions because losing feels bad and winning is terrifying. I don't deserve to win. I don't deserve wealth or happiness. So when I get them, I feel like I have to give them away before I explode. Same with my thoughts I guess. When I begin to gain power because I know things others don't know, I feel like I don't deserve to be a step ahead, so I give it away. I open my big mouth and I tell everyone what I'm thinking. That way I don't have the power anymore, and can relax in my lowly servant place again.

It's a new realization for me. I'm floored that as I'm pondering this new idea, that you had the idea to share what you shared. It's like you knew exactly what I needed to read.

I routinely apologize for writing too long of posts. I write too long of letters. I am trying to shorten them, but that's proving to be difficult for me. I'm working on it. I'll stop here for now to practice stopping at all. (ha ha)

Hi PC,

I think we all like your long posts. When the comment came up, for me, I was thinking about how you felt like you couldn't share what you were experiencing because some people might not agree with the spiritual aspect of it, and I just connected it to what I read (because it also resonated with me in the book). You are having such a connection to what you're experiencing now and it shouldn't matter if other people approve (at least IMO). So, it just made me think that sometimes certain things are meant for just us.

Serendipitously, I've just read something in the John Bradshaw book where he talks about the strategies for dealing with shame and how they get more complex as we get older. So, where we might project or repress earlier on, our coping strategies can evolve into rationalization, minimization, explanation, compensation or sublimation as secondary defenses. By using these we transfer our shame onto others. I think it's like you said where if you held onto your secrets, you would be killed. So, you had to transfer this to someone else. This is just IMO and stuff I'm working with now too. For me, I feel like I have to overexplain myself so that people will believe me, that they'll see what I'm saying and essentially, that I matter, that I have the right to exist I guess.

He also talks about turning against the Self as one of the coping strategies for dealing with shame. I recognized this in myself. I think at a certain level I also fear my own power, or sabotage the things in my life where I can express that power. I think I always made things harder than they needed to be because, like above, who am I to say these things (no one believed me), or always told me I didn'tt know what I was talking about.

Thrning Against Self
Turning Against Self is an ego defense whereby a person deflects hostile aggression from another person and directs it onto self. This defense is extremely common with people who have been abandoned through severe abuse. Because a child so desperately needs his parents for survival, he will turn his aggressive rage about his abuse into abuse of himself. The extreme form of this is suicidality. In such cases, (the French call it self-murder), the person so identifies with the offender that he is killing the offender by killing himself.
Common but less intense examples include nail biting, head banging, accident proneness and self-mutilation. In later life people may injure themselves socially or financially. In all cases the rage at the offender is so fearful and shameful it is turned against self.

Sorry if I'm taking over your journal, I just wanted to share what's resonated. I like your posts  :cheer: I don't think there's anything "wrong" with oversharing, though I don't know if the reasons why we do it will bring about the results that deep down we're hoping for. To me, it's maybe another survival mechanism like you pointed out that we picked up along the way.

Sending you support,
dolly

 :hug:

Journal Entry for Tuesday, November 14, 2023


Thanks to CPTSD I can wake up each morning and wonder who I'm going to be today. It seems that good days and bad ones randomly pick me. I don't pick them.

Today I woke up not feeling so great. I'm taking a break from feeling great. (That's a positive way of saying I'm struggling today). I'm glad that I've learned to be cautious about being too excited about feeling good for a few days (weeks) in a row, because over the past two days I've fallen into an all-too-familiar triggered state. The weeks I felt great were a nice vacation, but guess what...Complex PTSD is a relentless condition. It comes back on us from time to time. It's come back on me as of yesterday.

I met a new IFS part yesterday: It's possible that by meeting him/her/them (I'll go with them/they/their until I get a name to identify them with) that I put myself into this triggered state, and I'll stay here while I process the fear that this IFS part has been subject to for the duration of my entire life. They are the person who lives inside me who is terrified of the future. I haven't settled on their name yet, but I can feel the formidable force that they have been living under for the duration of my time on the earth. The future terrifies me, and this IFS part feels the terror with me. They are the one who buys the locks and alarms and backup water and backup batteries and fire extinguishers and double-n-triple locks on all my doors and possessions. This IFS part is always perched and ready to assist in case the future is as terrifying as I expect it to be. What if someone scams me out of my pension? What if I get sick and live the next 30 years in a bed? What if my family leaves me or is hurt in some freak accident? What if...what if...what if.

The joy of the past few weeks has been that I've been focused only on the present, letting the past and future sit in the background. But today I'm just tired. Tired of expending so much energy trying to not be a traumatized, terrified, hypervigilant, hyper aroused, nervous, workaholic, foodaholic, manic/depressive scared little boy in an old man's body.

I'm SO TIRED!

Sometimes that which is good for me hurts when it does it's job. I finally got the Audible version of The Body Keeps the Score. I listened, this morning, to chapters 1 and 2. I had to stop. It's excellent information, but it hurts my brain and soul to listen to it. HOLY SMOKES I'm discovering that I have even more symptoms of PTSD than I had previously believed I did. I'm so tired of being so freaking scared all......the......time! The excellent book is digging up the muck that I had pretended had settled beneath the glistening surface of my being. Everything's murky again. That's how healing happens, but *** I'm SO TIRED OF IT.

My only hope today, is that this agony I'm feeling is me digesting another positive step forward, and that the pain will only last a short time, and that I'll come out the other side of it feeling better than ever. Fingers crossed. Sadly this is only hope, and hope has no evidence to back it up. I have decided that Faith is hope with evidence as Hope is faith without evidence. (example: I can have faith that my car will start if I have evidence that it always does and there's nothing wrong with it. But I would only HOPE my car would start if I just bought it used and I have never tried to start it before. I call it "hope" when I have no evidence. I call it "faith" when I do have evidence). Sadly, faith is tough now because the evidence sometimes shows that this can go on for several weeks. So, hope that this passes quickly is all I have. I only hope it turns out to be a good thing.

Meanwhile I'm preparing for a cold winter deep within my soul. Up to two days ago I felt on top of the world. For the past 36 hours, the world is on top of me again. I'm used to this going on for months on end. Only time will tell how much permanent movement I got from that last hypnotherapy session. This is going to be my first trigger-test to see how much permanent movement I made.

San and Dolly, thanks for the hugs and validation. Just being heard is one of the top benefits to this forum. I truly appreciate it.

Dolly, do you believe in synchronicity? Because you seem to always know exactly what things to bring up to me exactly when I need them the most.

Yesterday I watched enough podcasts and listened to the first two chapters in The Body Keeps the Score. Adding these two things to what you said about Bradshaw's book, renewed my fascination of how much of my personality is truly trauma-related.


Is it Real or is it Trauma?

Today, I came up with a question that I plan to ask myself over and over as I go through the day: Is it real or is it trauma? It's almost like a game I could play with myself. Like something a late-night talk show host would use to tell jokes. But it's a very, VERY critical question that I hope can really help.

I know that black and white thinking is a C-PTSD symptom. Everyone either loves me or hates me. Everyone is either for me or against me. Today is either awesome or horrific. The gray area is the healthy mindset that allows all our IFS parts to work together as a team that sees the good and difficult in every situation. But when it comes to this: I'm wanting to cut through the gray matter and separate out the wheat from the chaff.

The unexamined life is doomed to repeat itself. That's why we often recreate our own problems over and over in life, because we are magnetically attracted to what we already know. But if I can stop and put each trigger and each happy or fearful moment I have, under a microscope, maybe I can get better at knowing which of my habits, addictions, fears, triggers, are real or are trauma. It's not trauma that makes me afraid to cross the street without looking for cars first, the fear of being hit by a car is a good fear. But the fear of saying the wrong thing to people who like me is more of a trauma fear.

If I'm going to be stuck living with C-PTSD for the rest of my natural life, then at least I want to be better able to know which emotions I'm having, or health risks I'm dealing with, are unavoidable parts of reality, versus which are avoidable parts of trauma-drama.

Black and white thinking, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Only when we take it too far and add trauma-drama to it does it become a sticking point. There is absolutely no way that any human eye can see both sides of a coin in one look. Only through mirrors and cameras can I see both sides of a coin at once. There is no gray area between heads or tails. That's okay. Gray area exists, and binary choices also exist. The trick is to know which are binary, and which are blended. It's also helpful to know which are real and which are trauma responses.

I'm tired of feeling like I have to work SO hard to heal every day. I want, so badly, to go light a fire in the firepit in my backyard, grab a nice cup of coffee or tea, and maybe a book, and just enjoy the moment. Instead, I see a floor that should be vacuumed, or a book I feel like I'm responsible to write. WHAT MAKES ME THINK I OWE THE WORLD what I know?

The books I wrote in 2011-2017 were books I wanted to write. I needed to get the story of my life off my chest. But now, I find myself feeling like I have no choice but to keep writing as a duty to the world. But there are ALREADY enough books on PTSD and enough Podcasts on PTSD and SA that the world isn't looking for what I have to say about it. So I ask myself: Is my pull to write more books real, or is it trauma?

I'm going to play today like it is a gameshow. And every burden I carry will be asked: Is it real or is it trauma? And my first question is: As I'm finding bits of healing here and there, am I REQUIRED to share those with others or am I allowed to light a fire, and enjoy the peace of a quiet night in my back yard? Is my need to teach others real, or is it trauma? That's what I'm going to meditate on today.

 :hug:

The roller coaster! It's real!

Papacoco, you said "I'm still looking for love in a world filled with sociopaths and narcissists, which is a no-win battle. Narcissists are born every day. They're not going anywhere." 

OMG, can I ever relate!  I've been doing the same thing, but have gotten better with this.

You said "What if my family leaves me or is hurt in some freak accident?"  I can really relate to this fear too.

I just want you to know you are not alone - I'm right here with you.   :hug:   

Armee! Yes, the roller coaster is real. I repeatedly fool myself into believing I've found the way off. This time, at least, I remained cautious, since I have, so many times, tricked myself into believing I'd overcome it. There is no overcoming. Only mitigation. Mangement. Learning to live with it. Gads! My hypnosis helped for a few weeks. I guess I should be grateful for having had a few weeks of pretending I'm not still dealing with the traumas.

Naturluver, it's awesome to hear from you again! These fears we live with...They never really go away, do they? Knowing they are trauma-based and not reality-based helps a little. The pain is still there, but at least I'm not confused by it anymore. It's trauma. The wonderful world of trauma.


Journal Update: 11/16/2023

TRIGGER WARNING: There is some hopelessness in the words below this line. I don't like hopelessness, but I have to be honest: I feel hopeless.

Three days ago, the rabbit hole opened up below me and I'm still freefalling deeper down the hole. Today, while listening to the audio version of The Body Keeps the Score, on chapter 11: Uncovering Secrets: The Problem of Traumatic Memory, I found myself on the floor sobbing like the world had just ended. The author, Bessel van der Kolk, was telling the story of a man who had fragmented memories of being molested by a priest. As he talked about how this client would never be able to recall the memories in any proper order, and would never have the luxury of remembering the whole story, but who is destined to live with disorganized fragments, random flashbacks and haunting body memories instead, I actually fell to the floor and started whaling.

Nope. My happy days are coming to an end. I feel lucky I got to have a few weeks feeling on top of the world. What a nice vacation from the reality of the fractured world. I've been doing projects all day, organizing my garage and shed again, I can feel the dark cloud hovering over me. soaking into my body through skin that isn't strong enough to keep it out. The poison of my memories is too strong for my skin to stop it from entering my body and abusing me all over again. As bad as I feel, this book, which is triggering me even further, is actually still a good read. I NEED to know what it's telling me, even though I hate what it's telling me.

It's showing me more symptoms than I ever realized I even have. It addresses my constant fear of being unprotected. It addresses exactly WHY I can't stand the sound of barking dogs or loud neighbors. Van der Kolk is putting a lot of science on his explanation of exactly how trauma rewires the brain and makes us skittish, jumpy, self-destructive, worriers, and, of course, there is a very obvious story behind the fact that I feel like my own clothing and skin can't stop this trauma from entering my body. I'm sure I don't need to elaborate, but I can say that the stark realization that I'm still VERY much affected by the sexual abuse of my childhood that I wonder if I'm actually still 7 years old and it's all still happening. It blew my mind that I couldn't make him stop and nobody would protect me. Today I realize it's been almost sixty years and I still can't make him stop and still, nobody can help. Van der Kolk is giving me a look into my world. I never feel safe. I never feel protected. I'm jumpy. Easily distracted. Unable to focus. Today, while I lay on the floor sobbing, my mouth said words I didn't ask it to say, it kept repeating, "Nobody can help me. Nobody can help me. Nobody can help me." I was thinking about how, even now, all these years later, no matter how many professionals are learning about Complex PTSD, so far nobody has figured out how to help me.

I'm not in my right mind. My body is numb and my brain feels like I'm watching a movie about someone else. It feels like my brain is sitting inside a robot body, looking out the window through my eyes. Like my brain and body are no more one than a human body is one with the bus it's riding in. My body is an inanimate object, and my soul is just sitting in it going for the ride. Just like riding in a bus.

I'm alone right now. But I'm heading home to my family on Saturday morning so I can celebrate Thanksgiving with them. Here in the US, it's Thanksgiving one week from today. I have a serious love-hate relationship with holidays. Lots of FOO drama and fake love. I'm SO glad I'm not in contact with FOO anymore. So Thanksgiving is more fun now with just my wife, and my son and his family, but the trauma shares the ride with me. I was SA'd by priest(s) during the Holidays when I was 7. I was supposed to be rehearsing for the christmas play, and somehow I ended up getting some "special rehearsal times" during the school day. I used to wake up in class around 1:45 PM, having no memory of anything during the lunch hour or how I got to my desk.

Van der Kolk is making me feel more certain that I'll never, ever, ever stop feeling this. Not while I'm alive in this body.

I'm so sorry for being in this mood. One thing that has kept me alive for so long is this constant, hypervigilant search for healing. I keep trying everything I can find. It's time I change my life's mission. If I can't ever find freedom from this, then I need to stop wearing myself out, trying so hard to find that silver bullet. I tell people that we can't be cured, and that we need to work to find ways to live happily while being traumatized, but then I don't listen to my own advice. I keep thinking that the cure is in that one thing I haven't tried yet. And as I partake of the new cure, I use biases to make myself believe that I've finally found the cure. Only to predictably fall from grace again and again and again and again.

Okay, Trigger warning ended.

Hi Papa Coco. Here with you. Also reliving physically what happened. Even though it's still playing through my body quite graphically it's somehow easier now to accept thats what it is that's what happened and to let it be there in all its disgusting awfulness. It doesn't have the same horrible emotions anymore. I'm not foolish enough to think it won't be bad again but I can attest at least that a year ago I sat here with these flashbacks and they were intolerable. The past month and a half, same flashbacks, but they just are there. The bad stuff happened. It keeps happening that's why we hold on and tell ourselves this is something from the past, our body is sharing with us what happened, we are witnessing it, we are presently safe even though it feels like it's happening now.

I wish there was magic to be done. But you went through a lot, there's a lot to process there Papa C. This is that time of year. You're going to get through this and then be ok again. They are memories. We'll be here through the tough times and here when you are riding the crest.

You're safe now.  :hug:

Armee:

 :bighug:

Thank you for being a friend during the good and difficult times. :)

There IS hope, Papa C. And the book will cover that. You just haven't got to that bit yet. I also think that once you have finished the book you may be better able to answer "is this real or is this trauma?" for any given situation. You will have more knowledge, and knowledge is power. Knowledge is also tough and unpleasant at times, especially when it relates to CPTSD. The gift that just keeps on giving. I think, though, that we do not seek to know what we are not strong enough to handle. Digging deeper means you are stronger.

 :grouphug:

NarcKiddo,  Them are some good words. Thanks. I will be driving back into the city later this evening. I can listen to chapters 12 and 13 or so while on the three-hour drive. I would sure love to find a little hope in all this. At the moment, I'm not feeling it. Just a lot of utter, shear exhaustion.

He says some things I already know, but he adds in a lot of stuff I've either never known, or wasn't ready to absorb in the past. And when he talks about how people who were abused or raped as children live their lives in ever-diminishing cortisol levels, I was hearing that for the first time. I would have always believed my cortisol levels were higher than a calm person, but what he says makes sense on multiple levels. Cortisol, like gasoline, runs out when the motors are running at high speed for 60 years. It also explains why I NEED coffee every day. I joke about how I can't sleep at night, and then I suck down all that caffeine, but it's been my experience that without the coffee boosting my cortisol levels, I become so dark and depressed that I can't rise up from it. I've been running my engine at full throttle for 63 years and my cortisol levels are depleted. It makes so much sense now. IT definitely plays into why I feel so run down and tired and exhausted all the time.

I agree with NarcKiddo. It's a slow whittling away of symptoms, sometimes much much slower than we want. Even if we never get rid of some things, learning gives us a slight edge up on it. But one other thing we have is each other on this forum. We understand each other and support each other in good and bad. When I started therapy, I told her that my MPU had the first 11 years of my life, I'm not getting over it overnight. It was hard to read that book, yet like you, it explained so much for me. I'd forgotten about the cortisol issue. I wonder if fibromyalgia has any connection to trauma-lowered cortisol. In any case, here to support you even if I don't post often.

Gentle hugs if you want them, peace and compassion regardless. :hug:

Cactus Flower,

You hit it on the head. This forum is my saving grace right now. Being able to talk about "who I am" without having to explain it, is itself a healing tool.

The book is helping me with my shame issues. For example, I'm always embarrassed that I can't stand the sound of barking dogs, other people's music, loud motorcycles, or anyone, anywhere who is shouting aggressively. Van der Kolk repeatedly talks about our flinch responses. Knowing that listening to the neighbors' dogs barking all day long isn't just me being a jerk, is helping me feel a bit less ashamed of myself for being an adult survivor of childhood abuse. The book hurts. My heart hurts and my brain hurts while listening to it, but the information is only going to make me stronger in the future, so I want to absorb it. Books with this much information in them require me to read/listen multiple times. I plan to do just that. As soon as I've listened to the whole thing, I'm going to simply start it over and listen again. Likely I'll do that about 4 times, maybe more. It's how I learn.  Van der Kolk even mentions that children who were in the he11 I was in have trouble staying focused. I made it through Catholic school with straight D grades because I couldn't even hear the teachers. All I heard was shame and exclusion. Like in the Peanuts cartoons I grew up with, the adults just said "Whaa whaa whaa whaa".

Papa C...I also got a ton out of the Body Keeps the Score and also it was quite triggering too.

I also really liked this book for normalizing my symptoms...so much that this one I bought a second copy and asked my husband to read it too.

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Reinvented-Healing-Sexual-Survivors/dp/0989834123/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?adgrpid=59731235927&hvadid=274753704655&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9032027&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=4898152299617499722&hvtargid=kwd-307961193010&hydadcr=15179_10362783&keywords=life+reinvented&qid=1700257261&sr=8-1

Hi PC,

I'm sorry things are so tough for you right now  :hug: For what it's worth, I don't think you were pretending that the hypnosis was helping you from the trauma. To me, there's different layers of processing that come up. Maybe the hypnosis helped you have some space so that you could get in touch, or realize, that that seven year old boy was there and what it feels like he has to go through all the time, and that there is the adult you now who can do all those things to protect him (the smoke alarms, etc etc) if you need to. You have grown into a fully functional adult who can protect him in ways the seven year old couldn't. Maybe he will give you some space once he starts to realize this, if only a little bit at a time. So, it's like the next step in healing even though it might feel like a setback.

What you said about the compulsion to tell your story is interesting too. I remember coming across an IFS talk by an IFS therapist on youtube and he talks about the "storyteller," and how it's a blended part. To me, it's also a way of connecting with people where someone might not have had that before.

I don't know if it's useful but this is it here. He might have some other videos on it as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BchqogbVfns

Sending you support and a hug  :hug:
dolly

Armee,Thank you for the tip on the book. I downloaded it today on Kindle and am already nearing chapter three. My first worry was that it might be focused on women who were SA'd by men, and everyone else can just fit ourselves into the female mold, but as I read even the first chapter my fears were put to rest. So far so good. I was SAd by men, but also had a lot of non-physical sexual abuse by women, from ages 5 to 50. I like the book. I'm looking forward to learning more of the details around the effects of CSA on my adult life.

Dolly, the video is interesting. I hadn't ever thought about how various parts participate during the telling of a single story. It makes clear sense.

When I was writing my novels, I often found myself stuck with what the next step should be, or what is missing to make some of my chapters feel flat. So I would go for a drive or a walk and I'd start talking to my characters. They would often tell me what to write, or which direction to take the story. While watching this youtube video on storytelling by our parts, I started to think, Hmm. Maybe that's what was happening with me in the car. I was accessing my parts and calling them characters. Perhaps each character is, in fact, modeled after one or some of my own IFS parts.

One of my favorite twists in the books happened when I was planning to continue writing about how the secret abuse would remain a secret, as it did for me, until my character grew up and got old. One day, in the car, I asked my main character, Kyle, "What do you wish would happen next?" Without hesitation, he said to me, "I want to be caught."  I asked for clarification, and between himself and I, we decided to write one more entire section, which would include multiple chapters, and would tie off the story beautifully. I went to the computer and started writing the final section. That section starts with a page that just says, "When you don't face your dragons, your dragons face you." The next several chapters, Kyle's pedophile doctor was caught. Photos were found. Kyle's abuse was made public. His mother saw the photos. His father became quiet. His evil sister (who is modeled after my own evil sister), took full advantage to make him squirm even more. It led to Kyle's exit from the family at 17 1/2 years of age. It capped the story perfectly, and gave it an ending that sticks in the minds of the readers. The reason I'm telling this story to you, about how I wrote the book, is because my characters, who are likely modeled after my own IFS Parts, ACTUALLY speak to me. They give me information that brings important healing information to my conscious mind. 

Writing is a powerful, powerful healing tool for trauma survivors. Like Flannery O'Connor said, "I write to discover what I know." And I now know exactly what was meant by that quote.

There's so much richness in all the information that's bubbling up for us all via Youtube, books, blogs, podcasts, and documentaries. Thank  GOD people are finally talking about this stuff.

Talking WITH (not to, but with) our parts opens up information that can't be discovered any other way. All this work with IFS parts is at the core of the largest percentage of my own healing journey. Learning of the parts, meeting them. Listening to them. Proving I see them and hear them is bringing more healing to me than anything else I've done yet.

That's really interesting Papa C. I have written several novels. They do not attempt to tell my story. At the time I started writing fiction I had only the haziest idea that there was something wrong in my FOO and did not really know what it was. I now realise all my stories are infested with narcs, which stands to reason and is helpful for me when I revise them to see why I am getting stuck in places.

But, although I do not speak directly with my characters, I am very familiar with the concept of them simply refusing to allow the story to go in the direction I had planned. My first novel was supposed to have a happy ending when our hero got the girl. Only he had realised, where I had not, that this would be no happy ending. The girl was a massive problem from which he would have to extricate himself. Two novels, condensed into one, later and I found the right ending. I think...

NarcKiddo,

I'm sure you've heard the old saying that every novel is about the author. I sort of think that even if the author isn't telling their own story, the characters are real written representations of living pieces of the author's real world. Cheesy books and movies are filled with shallow, one-dimensional characters. But authors who are artists, fill their books with real people under different names. Even if the storyline is all made up in our heads, our characters are real people and the way these characters interact are believable. I like to think that, written between the lines of every truly good novel, is the author's true story.

I've been writing stories in my head since I was very young. It's how I created worlds that I could safely exist in. Every day after being abused at school, I'd come home and hide away with my toy cars and Legos. I'd build a setting or a town, and then move the little cars around pretending each one represented the people who'd made me feel isolated that day. The stories had beginnings, middles and ends.  When I walked away from my FOO, at age 50, I finally found the freedom to take the stories out of my head and put them onto paper. The names and cities and churches and doctors' offices were all fictional, but they led my characters to who I am now. (or who I was when I wrote them).

I've noticed that on this forum, and everywhere else where I interact with traumatized souls, that we all have various different backstories. We all came from very different places with very different family histories, and yet, somehow, we all ended up in the same place, dealing with shockingly similar symptoms, reactions, fears and triggers.

I tend to believe that there are more novels walking the sidewalks than there are on the bookstore shelves. Each of us has a cast of characters living in our heads. Whether we are writers, or singers, or photographers, or painters, or any other creative release of our tension, the characters that live within us might as well be as real as if they lived next door in a real house.

 :hug:

Journal Entry for Sunday, December 10, 2023

I've been listening to the audiobook The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. It's triggering but it's also enlightening. I'm listening through it for the second time now. It's amazing how much research he, and other trauma-wise experts, have done and what they've discovered. For me, I'm handling being triggered so far, and I can only listen for a while before I become so irritable that I shouldn't be around other people until I recover my sense of peace.

He has described my personality perfectly as a person who endured sa and loneliness from a very young age. I'm not sure yet why I feel the irritability from listening to him describe a world where childhood trauma defines our adult lives so well. I suspect, for now, that the irritability is coming from the fact that nobody can fix what was done. On one hand, it's changing me into a much, much more forgiving person, because I can see so clearly that "bad" people are mostly trauma victims who aren't getting the help they need. On the other hand, I'm super frustrated that I wouldn't be suffering so much as an adult if someone had just given a darn about me when I was younger.

A takeaway from this book is that, by and large, one of the biggest reasons we struggle with residual trauma disorders is because when our abuse was happening, nobody was on our side to protect us. We are wired to be connected with our tribes. But many of us are then raised to be abused by those same tribes. Our reptilian brain is wired so that we know to cry for help, but then the world doesn't respond as it's supposed to. So, we also learn that our help isn't coming. Our reptilian brain knows one thing, and our conscious brain knows the opposite. So fracturing happens. Our amygdala's wiring fractures. Permanent PTSD is the result.

Learning the science behind how I came to be this mess of a man is actually helpful. It's frustrating, but it's helpful. The one thing that would have saved me from a life of fear and depression and suicidality would have easily been cured from the beginning if my cries for help would have brought help.

The futility of having been in a long-term situation that had no solution is what did the damage. In one chapter, van der Kolk tells of a couple who he treated after the largest car accident in Canadian history, where some 80+ cars and semis drove into a surprise fog bank. The couple's car was pinned under a semi with another car. The driver of the other car burned to death in front of them. During brain scans later, the husband was triggered with overwhelming feelings of fear. He didn't just "remember" the accident the way a person might remember a movie they watched; he remembered it by reliving it as if it were happening right now. He reported that he was overwhelmed with emotions while reliving the accident. Meanwhile the wife's brain showed the exact same evidence that she was also reliving the accident. However, she reported that she felt nothing. Which was how she felt during the accident. While trapped in the car, she was numb. No emotion. No feeling. No fear. No nothing. Why were these two people affected so differently? He then explains that the husband was raised in a supportive home, so he was able to connect with his feelings. His childhood happened how it was supposed to. When he was in pain or fear, he'd cry for help and someone would help. So his brain was wired more like how it's supposed to be wired. The wife, on the other hand, was raised by screaming villains who she had learned, as a child, to tune out. She would go numb when she was being abused because whenever she cried out for help as a child, no one helped. Her amygdala wired itself to expect nobody to help, and learned to numb her because her brain is no longer able to connect with her feelings. PTSD. Fracturing. So when the two people witnessed the exact same trauma, they had two different traumatic responses. Her fight/flight/freeze response numbed her because she has no brain connection to her feelings. His enraged his emotions because his brain is healthily connected to his feelings. It's all about how we were abused, and how our abuse taught us to endure further traumas. And those of us who had no support as children, are far more triggered than those who endured the same traumas but had someone on their side.  This is the reason I like to say "We're stronger together." Because feeling isolated with our pain broke our connection to our feelings and left us with a toolbox filled with tools to endure in solitude.

This just shines a huge spotlight on my constant sense that I shouldn't feel so lonely in a crowded world--but I do. Why am I lonely in a crowd? Because I was lonely in my family as a child, while my brain was wiring itself for its survival in this world. I learned, as a child, that no amount of praying or hope can stop the abuse. So my amygdala went to plan B, and wired itself to trust no one and to find my own way out of any uncomfortable situation, even if it means giving up my own comfort to flee from perceived danger, rather than trust that others will support me.

This book is helping me with my therapy also. My therapist is a DBT, not a CBT. All the CBTs I've had only added to the fracturing by trying to teach me that I shouldn't feel like I do, so all I have to do is stop feeling like I do. DBT is specifically designed to help those of us who are not attached to our feelings, find that attachment and slowly, methodically, rejoin our IFS parts together as if we had been supported when we were being hurt as children. In my own personal opinion: to put it simply, CBT talks to the brain. DBT talks to the heart. The heart is where the healing happens. Van der Kolk says that trying to do CBT on a traumatized brain is like knowing the musician is ill, so the CBT tries to fix the piano. It won't work. The illness is in the creative source, not the instrument.

I am so very glad I'm finally reading/listening to this book. People have been recommending it for years and I'm finally doing it. It's changing me. The irritability is also likely because my wiring is changing. Change causes irritation in anyone. Even good change comes with a period of irritability as the wiring changes in our brains. I want to keep learning the actual science behind why my brain rewired itself, so I'm going to keep listening to this book until I'm finally bored with it. I usually read good books up to 5 times before I feel like I finally know everything it was saying. Repetition is critical in learning. And every time I rerun the book, I learn more than the times before it. Adult learners retain only about 15% of what is learned. So 5 to 7 times through the book should cover the whole enchilada in my brain.

I'm trying to learn to write less and write shorter, so I'll stop here.

Papa Coco,

The body keeps score is a book that I'll need to revisit again.  For me it gave me validation that what I am going through, my responses to events in my childhood and how that set me up for a relationship with a personality disordered individual, was not beyond the pale.  That my responses, my brain wiring, etc. were typical for a person during the various life stages.  In a way, to me it was very comforting.  Admittedly for quite some time I had the self concept that I was a singularity, that I was a-typical for the fecal matter that I went through. The emotional impact was such that the first read though took several days because I would get to a particular passage that would resonate and boom, ugly cry. 

I also garnered a large amount of hope from it as well with the reports of individuals that healed / are healing.  The evidence that yes indeed, that end state is probable was such a revelation to me.  The idea that I don't have to be this wounded soul, this misshapen morass of a being, the so called wounded healer archetype.  He77 yeah!  I'm in.   :bigwink:

There will be "work" involved. There will be spiritual growth.  There will be all the things that happen in healing. So be it.  I don't rightly know what being healed is going to be like, or look like, and that's ok.  I don't need to know because Spirit does.

Wishing you all the best PC.  Blessings.

StartingHealing,

Those are some good thoughts about hope. I would say that I've spent a few years feeling a total loss of hope. I even started to hate hope. I had started quoting Friedrich Nietzsche, who said "Hope in reality is the greatest of all evils for it prolongs the torment of man." I never researched what he meant specifically by that exactly, nor have I researched the context of this single statement, but my lost, exhausted, anxiety-ridden brain saw the words hope, evil and prolongs torment and made it my mantra for a while. Hope, to me, was dashed when I realized I couldn't break free from the trauma disorders. I'd been convinced that I was, as you say, "a-typical" as a victim of my own inability to be included in the fun and futures that "everyone else" was privy to. The books we're reading now, (Thank goodness that experts are writing these books), are restoring my ability to feel a little bit of hope that there might be a place for me on this planet.  It feels good.

PC

While each of us is unique there are enough similarities between us that folks on the parallel path can and does inform our path.  I feel that the concept that we are a-typical is something that screws us up.  Somewhere along the way, I grabbed the brass ring that I'm not a-typical.  For me that is comforting.  Perhaps that is odd according to the current mind viruses that are running rampant in modern society. What are they?  Have we been infected with them?  I know that it's really easy to go along with the crowd.  Let's face it, any time that one of us brings up any type of truth, we get labelled as a conspiracy theorist.  Even when time proves us right.

We are a social animal.  A single individuals survival, eons ago, was dependent on the other members of our tribe, and he77 even now, we are still dependent on others but we don't "see" them in IRL.  Farmers, ranchers, mechanics, the folks that keep the modern infrastructure in operational state. 

Wishing you all the best PC.  Blessings to you

hope you're doing well, pc. love and hugs :hug:

Hi PC,

"Learning the science behind how I came to be this mess of a man is actually helpful. It's frustrating, but it's helpful. The one thing that would have saved me from a life of fear and depression and suicidality would have easily been cured from the beginning if my cries for help would have brought help."

I'm sorry you've had to go through so much pain to get to where you are  :hug:

"The irritability is also likely because my wiring is changing. Change causes irritation in anyone."

This is just my two cents but I think you probably need to feel that irritability and it's probably and amalgamation of emotions that have been long buried that the book is bringing up. Why shouldn't you be allowed to be irritable? Over the holidays I watched a movie that I've probably seen before, but it really struck me this time. Sarah Jessica Parker goes to meet her bf's family for the first time, and she is the opposite of their dynamic: uptight, preoccupied with proprietary, and always saying the wrong thing. However, she means well, and other people can see this, even if they give her a hard time and might not like her. What got me about the movie I think, was that she could be herself with all these "flaws," and there was still someone that cared for her despite all of that. She got to be seen for who she was and accepted, even when she tried to be "perfect" and failed. Hoping you get some space to deal with the things you are going through right now.

Happy New Year  :hug:
dolly

Hi, I've been off the forum for a few weeks. Just trying to get through the Holidays. I'm back now.

I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for checking in with me, SH, San, Dolly, and all,

I'm hitting the books hard. I have three going at once now and have three more in the mail today from Amazon. The Artist's Way has some awesome affirmations in it that I put on a continuous loop in my audio files and let them play over the house stereo system (Or through my earbuds when needed) over and over for a couple of hours each day, and those affirmations around my freedom to be creative are really helping.

However, they are contributing to the irritability that comes when someone challenges my core beliefs. I'm managing that irritability though. The anger is a sign that it's working. That's how I'm getting through this and how I'm actually changing some of my inner dialogues. I'm believing now: "If it doesn't irritate, it isn't doing its job."

For years now I've described my propensity to stay in my torture by saying I'm comfortably uncomfortable in living with my traumas. It sort of describes my relationship with the demons I know. What these books are doing is making me UNcomfortably UNcomfortable in what I brought with me from my past. The reality of their positive message angers me that I have lost so much time by living tied to the negative voices.

Another thought I have is around IFS. I think that by challenging my negative voices, which are all meant to help protect me from being abused by nasty people, these books are making some of my IFS parts really angry. My negative inner dialogue is given to me as a gift by some of my IFS Parts who remember having been abused in the past for feeling good about myself. In order to keep me from being humiliated again, they're giving me the negative thoughts that will stop me from putting myself "out there" for ridicule. It could be THOSE IFS parts who are so angry. Filling my head with dangerous positivity threatens everything they stand for. So I am going to kindly try to reach my IFS parts and ask them how I can help them let go of this negativity.

For me, The Artist's Way is not a book that's teaching me how to be a painter or a potter. To me, I just want to unleash my stifled sense of artistic creativity so I can do whatever I do with an artistic flair. I'm starting to believe that artistic energy is in my heart, but PTSD has forced me to live in my head for 60+ years. It's time to let the heart have some control of me for a few years before I die. That's the only thing I have on my bucket list: Let the heart loose and let whatever I do have an artistic flair to it.

The ultimate goal is; I want to have positive voices burned into my conscious mind that will help overpower the negative voices that I've become far too comfortable with for far too long. This feeling of irritation is when changes can happen. My theory is that if I'll stay with it, and not back down or fall back to my comfort zone of discomfort, then I hope to move to the last level: Comfortably comfortable in who I am TODAY. (I'll keep you all informed as to whether this works or not).

Meanwhile, I'm trying to stop moping around by forcing myself to learn how to bake and smoke meats. Baking and cooking might be activities that will benefit from a freer creative spirit, right? I'm making all my bread fresh now and am even buying quality meats to put in the meat grinder so I can make my own ground meats and KNOW WHAT'S IN THEM. it's fun and keeps me active during the day. When I get lazy and sit around the house, my thinker goes its own direction and leads me to places I don't need to be.

As the Holiday season falls behind us, I sincerely hope more of us are feeling the relief. I sure am. Gads. The end of Holiday season is such a relief every year.

It's funny PC, I wrote down something today from the JB book that really stood out for me and maybe for you too. He quotes, "I cannot rid myself of my demons without risking that my angels flee along with them."

I think that sounds like a very good idea to reach out to your IFS parts and see if they will step back a bit. They probably are, as you suggested, trying to do their best to help you.

 :hug:

I'm so glad you made it through the holidays.  :hug:

That book sounds really interesting. I'm doing a lot of exploring a similar thing. It's weird sometimes I can be that person. And sometimes I completely have no contact with that part of me and it feels foreign. Working on it though and might give that book a read. Thanks for mentioning it!

Mmm fresh bread! Have a favorite recipe?

Baking is a lovely thing to do. I used to do baking with my Gran (closest person to a proper mother) and enjoyed it. Never made bread with her but have done since and really enjoy it. I rarely bake these days as we don't eat much in the way of bread and cakes.

Your comments about the irritation are interesting. I've often found that the books which have the most benefit to me can be uncomfortable or get me questioning my own self. I've self-diagnosed with a raging personality disorder after reading Christine Lawson's book about the Borderline Mother and my T had to talk sense into me. But That wasn't the fault of the book, it was my reaction to it. I think it is great that you are challenging your negativity. I don't think there is anything wrong with having some protective negativity, especially when having to deal with awful people, but it surely must be a bad thing to excess and when not/no longer required.

Dolly, That is a fantastic quote from JB. It addresses a lot of my life's greatest concerns. I do feel entangled with the sorrow of the past, and because I'm so entangled with it, I worry that if I heal, I'll abandon my inner child. I am afraid of healing. I am who I am. If I'm healed, will I stop being who I am? Will I be just another to abandon the pained child still living within me?  Actually, if we do our therapy right, we aren't abandoning them if we bring them into the fold and make them feel okay letting go of the shame and the memories. The past is not real. It's only a series of electrical impulses in our brains or writings in our history books. I repeatedly remind myself: The present is the only real time. And I am no longer the abuse victim today. So, letting go of the unreal past isn't going to abuse people from 60 years ago. It's not easy to let go of a traumatic past, but I can at least convince myself that I'm not hurting anyone from the past by letting go in the present.

Armee, So far I'm just getting started with baking. My mom baked fresh bread every Thursday. I could smell it from down the block on my way home from school. I've made a few cakes for my grandkids' birthdays over the years, but I've never baked. In the city I have a new bread machine which is making it easier. But I'm at the beach now and using a rolling pin and my elbows to do the same thing. I made English Muffins a few days ago and am having one each morning with an egg on it. MMMM! SO GOOD!  I have all the ingredients now to make dark rye bread, (one of my favorites) and will be trying that as soon as my English muffins run low. Currently I'm alone, so I can't bake too much or I'll have to throw it out before I can eat it all.  My mom was not a narcissist. THe narcissism was in my older sister, but Mom was an avid Flying Monkey who protected the evil sister and made me feel  obligated to allow her lies and abuse to affect me for 50 years before Mom died and I went NC with the rest of the Flying Monkeys (My entire family of origin plus their friends and distant relatives). BUT Mom had some redeeming qualities. She had a great sense of humor, and she was a master at baking. She built some local fame in the Seattle area for her pastries and wedding cakes. She made cakes for two Washington State Governors and at least one famous rock band called Queensryche. She was in the papers every now and then. And even though Mom caused me one HECK of a lot of pain with her immature manipulations, her catholic coldness, and her forcing me to be my sister's servant for 5 decades, baking is connecting me with the parts of Mom that I actually liked. Before my sister stopped me, I took as many of Mom's cook books as I could and I managed to get two of Mom's Kitchenaid mixers, which I've been able to put one in the city and one at the beach. I've been buying attachments to use them for making fresh pasta, grinding meat, shredding veggies, and now making dough.  It's kind of fun to be connected with the part of my Mom that I did enjoy.

The trick for me is to not get fat again. I just lost 30 pounds over the summer so I have to be real careful about how to bake and not gain it all back.

NarcKiddo, My Therapist has to talk me down a lot when I read books too. I self-diagnose with every disorder I read about. He doesn't laugh at me, but he stops me quickly and redirects me to what is really true. I don't know why I believe everything I read and hear, but thank Gosh my therapist is so good at stopping me and helping me recieve the information I was seeking, but pulls me back from letting me believe I'm whatever the book was written about. I once told him I think I have BPD, and that was the only time he came close to laughing. He quickly reminded me that Borderline Personality Disorder has a violence with it that I am absolutely incapable of presenting. I haven't got a violent bone anywhere in my body.

Congrats on your weight loss PC - that is huge! (pun intended)

Also, it sounds like a relaxing/creative thing to do to be able to connect to some good childhood memories with baking. You can always freeze the baking/bread if you want to continue (just a thought). I don't eat bread a lot, but there is usually some in the freezer.

My understanding of IFS is that once we unburden those parts carrying that pain, we don't toss them away, but we invite them to take on new roles. They're still with us, but not in pain anymore.

Sending you support,
dolly

Yes, well done on the weight loss, Papa C. Dollyvee is right that bread freezes really well (although you probably know that already). Also you can generally toast bread straight from the freezer, if it is already sliced, which can be handy. I've used a bread maker in the past but my real favourite way to make bread is completely by hand because handling the dough is just such a pleasure. I'm glad you managed to get hold of your Mom's mixers and some of her books. It is nice that you can enjoy some memories.

Journal Entry for Sunday, January 28, 2024

Some people already know this, but I now host three C-PTSD ZOOM groups for a handful of members of this forum. What I can say is, wow. The people who've joined these bi-weekly groups are just as nice and kind and empathetic face to face as they are in writing.

For my first journal entry in a while, I just feel compelled to talk about what a positive experience it's been for me to be a part of these groups.

I have spent most of my life feeling lonely in a crowd. I've always known that most of my family and friends didn't know how much I suffered. And those who did know, politely supported but didn't understand me. So even when surrounded by friends, I've always felt alone. But on this forum, I feel connected with people who know how I feel and understand me.

I haven't posted in a while, but today, I just needed to express how much the support from all the members of this forum, (the writers and the zoomers), how important you are to my healing. Through you all, I feel connected and comforted during my good times as well as my difficult times. I still struggle. But I feel like I can handle triggers so much better when I have access to friends who understand me.

I'm in such a mood of gratitude today. I just needed to share that, and to explain briefly what I'm grateful for.


For information on these ZOOMs, I will post a short note about how they work in the Ideas/Tools for Recovery Section of the forum.

 :grouphug:

Thank you for playing such a big part in making the groups happen.

Quick Entry for Tuesday, January 30

Our Tuesday support group today was only three of us, and all three of us agreed that joining a larger group (the Saturday group) would benefit all three of us better. So I won't be hosting a third support group at this time.

My role was bothering my wife. She knows, as do I, how I tend to overcommit. When I was employed in the fast-paced corporate world, I used to joke that "I always think I can take on a little bit more, until I suddenly realize I couldn't." She is relieved that I'm only going to participate in two groups, which works out to one each week.

I do, however, really truly enjoy the Zoom groups. The people on this forum are so easy to connect with.

Hi Papa Coco,
I'm glad you're enjoying those Zoom groups, and finding a balance that works out well.
Hope  :)

The zoom groups enjoy you too. :)

Thanks for all you do PC, you are the best!

Hi PC,

I'm so glad you found something that helps you here and in the Zoom groups  :cheer:

It's also great IMO that you are setting some boundaries with what you can and cannot do. Having limitations doesn't make us less ourselves, but more of who we are.

Sending you support,
dolly

hey, pc,

the zoom groups sound wonderful and i'm sure they're also very helpful.  good for you for doing this. i'm also glad you set a boundary for yourself - that's always important for us. 

keep up the good work.  and thanks on behalf of everyone. love and hugs :hug:

You are all such wonderful people.  We talk a lot about how difficult it is for us C-PTSD folks to take compliments, but I'm finding that here, on the forum, the kindness and empathy of the people who respond is genuine. You make me feel calm when the outside world makes me anxious. Thank you all for the kind support. It's helpful and deeply appreciated.

I've been quiet on the forum. I signed in today to see if I could catch up on what's going on with y'all, but as I'm sitting here, I'm suddenly aware that I can't seem to get connected with myself. I'm kind of disconnected from myself and everything around me. My body is on autopilot. I'm not full-blown depersonalized, but I am a little bit. Like my body is on auto pilot and my brain is just sitting in my head watching my fingers type words, as the world revolves at its own pace apart from me. What worries me is that this could be the beginning of another descent down into the depths of an impending depressive episode. Now that I think about it, I do have a history of late Feb/early March depressive dips. I used to call this my "ride down the bi-polar-coaster." Anything to add a little humor to the seriousness to make it a little easier to deal with.

It's best if I don't respond to people right now, because I don't feel like I'm in a good space and I might misinterpret what I read and then write confusing responses.

I really enjoy interacting with you all. But I need to be sure I'm not in a crazy space when I do so.

I have been invited to be interviewed on a podcast on Sunday. I accepted the invite. So, I have that nervous jitter going now too. Any public speaking, even though I did a lot of it during my working years, makes me feel crazy until it happens and is done with.  My fingers are crossed in hopes that I'll feel better after that's behind me.

I'll check in more when I feel like I can connect with my own brain.

 :hug:  thinking of you....

Heey PC,

Just wanted to send you a hug if that's ok  :grouphug:

I'm reading a book right now called Healing From Developmental Trauma and there's a lot of interesting information about something called the connection survival style. In an chapter later in the book, the therpist outlines her work with a client called Emma. They have been establishing trust bit by bit through something called NARM techniques and neuroaffective touch (?). There is a scheduling issue which sends Emma into a contracted state, and back into mistrust. What really interested me was that she describes her rational mind as knowing that the therapist wasn't to blame etc. However, it was like her body went offline and couldn't reestablish that connection. The therapist continues to explore the core non-verbal states/beginning of trauma with the client until something releases in her body and she can feel the connection open again. I don't know if this relatable to you, or of any use, but it's something I read recently that I'm quite excited by.

Sending you support and see you back when you feel you're ready,
dolly

Larry and Dolly, Thank you for the thoughts and hugs.  Being a believer that all life is connected, I honestly believe that thoughts, prayers, hugs, and empathy can be felt between us, and I honestly believe I can feel these nudges from you.

Dolly, I've never heard of Nueroaffective touch, but I wonder if that's what my therapist has been doing with me for the past 20 years.  He is so tuned to me, that whether we're together in his office, or using ZOOM, he can accurately feel my emotions as they rise and fall. He stops me when I just barely begin to dissociate and says, "It feels like you're starting to disconnect from me right now."  When we're in the office together, and when I'm leaving my body during session, he asks if it's okay to touch our toes together. He slides his feet toward mine until our toes (in shoes) are touching. He has me just wiggle my toes and focus on feeling his presence with mine. He's known me long enough that if he asks permission, I won't reel back at his touch. I always say yes, because after knowing him for so long, I trust him. His touch feels good. It's not intrusive or invasive. And it's only with my permission. It's not even skin on skin. It's just our shoes touching each other. He also tells me to feel the floor against my feet, and to feel the couch under my bum. At first, when I was really prone to complete dissociation, he'd coach me to look around the room with a soft gaze, like an unfocused gaze, to send my brain the message that I am present in this environment. While adding this toe-to-toe contact, and my looking around at anchoring visuals, he would talk with me to help ground me back and to teach me that this is trauma. He would look straight into my eyes and say it very slowly. "This is traaaaaaauma". It worked so well, we almost never have to do it anymore. He was connecting my brain to my body and helping me see that the traumatic emotions are not the same as rational emotions.

While I'm alone, when I begin to dissociate or disembody in any way, if I want to ground, I take off my shoes to feel the carpet. I go to the sink and run my hands under cold water. At one point a few years ago, he held out a handful of polished stones and let me pick one. He coaches me to keep that stone with me now and when I start to need to ground, I can grab that stone. Having it in my hand helps my brain focus on him. It's like I have a little piece of him with me. Adding physical touch to memory and mind work connects my body and brain back together.

Having not read the book you're talking about, I don't know if I'm talking about the same thing at all. But you're igniting my curiosity to do some searching on the term NARM to see what it is about.

So far today I'm feeling a bit more grounded than yesterday. It's Valentine's day and Coco has the day off so we'll be spending the day just bumming around and being together. Then tomorrow is another big dental appointment with sedation, so I'll be offline then too. But hopefully, in the next few days I'll start looking around in the forum and catching up with my friends here.

You are all very important to me. My healing journey has a lot of tools in it, and you all, in this forum, are among the tools I trust the most.

Happy V-Day!

Quote from: Papa Coco on January 05, 2024, 05:44:07 PMActually, if we do our therapy right, we aren't abandoning them if we bring them into the fold and make them feel okay letting go of the shame and the memories. The past is not real.

I really agree with what you said here, Papa Coco - I also feel that supporting inner parts means they'll hopefully enjoy living on and feeling that support, rather than having to carry some of the shame and memories of the past, which aren't needed in the future.

I also share your sentiments about the healing journey having lots of tools in it, and the people in this forum being an integral part of that.  I also trust the experience and value the sharing that occurs daily in this place.

I hope that you and Coco enjoyed V-day.  I also hope that your big dental appointment was ok, and that you're recuperating.  Take care, and hope you feel better soon!

Hope  :)

QuoteI also share your sentiments about the healing journey having lots of tools in it, and the people in this forum being an integral part of that.  I also trust the experience and value the sharing that occurs daily in this place.

this is a special place indeed, PC, and glad you're part of it.

i also have those times when i'm distressed w/in myself and can't quite get it together enough to respond to others.  you're not alone. love and hugs :hug:

Hi PC,

I hope you and Coco had a nice day together and that your dental surgery went well.

I'm not sure if what your t has been doing is neuroaffective touch. In the book touch is used in combination with exploring the feelings around the distress coming up and what feels good etc to build a bond of connection that hadn't existed before (in my understanding). So, perhaps your t is also trying to be that solid connection that you haven't had before, or a sense of safety? I think there is more holding, and not sure if it's just a grounding technique (though not sure if that's what your t was doing).

For me, even reading about an exercise around the felt sense of boundaries brought up a lot of emotions and contractions in the body. I guess what I would normally label as anxiety, or feeling stressed. In the book when the client went into this state, the therapist used touch and exploring the sensations/emotions to help bring about a change in her contracted state. The therapist said, "my touch was intended to awaken and support a sensory explanation of her internal states, and my words were an invitation for her to verbalize her experience." This is helping name the feelings of dysregulation (called impending doom in the book) that the client felt at one, preverbal time. The therapist is helping her to name and identify those experiences, which her own caregiver did not at that developmental stage. So, it comes up as stress, dysregulation in the body, and the mind tries to make sense of it (impending doom) as I understand.

Sorry take up your journal with my experiences. It's such an interesting concept to me with this model and like you said, maybe it will be a tool for someone else too.

Sending you support,
dolly

Hope, San, Dolly,

Again, thanks for the well wishes. Coco and I are very simple people. We don't aspire to travel or attend populated events. We like to chill and bum around. We spent Valentines Day getting the oil changed in my truck, and enjoying a meal together, and shopping around the used bookstores for treasures. We are getting along well. We laugh a lot when we're together. It was a very nice day by our standards. And the dentist went well. The sedation kept me from feeling anything, or remembering much. I slept until about 3:30 PM after getting home. Then just chilled around the house while my body recovered from the sedation. Today, Friday, we are going up to the mountains to visit our two grandsons, both home from school today. Again, that's how we enjoy life. We don't need vacations to other cities, we find our love here at home. For us, the stress of flying overpowers the fun of the location. I've flown enough in my life. I Hate it. I hate airports, I hate sitting still in the plane for hours on end. Most vacations I've ever seen are about drinking, anyway. We went to the Caribbean in 2018, one year after Hurrican Irma decimated the islands. Rebuilding was in progress and the people were so nice. But since we don't drink, there wasn't much to do. Once you've driven around the island and walked on a couple of beaches, there's not much more to do. Friends who still live there are planning to move back to the US because the post-Irma, Post-COVID world is turning the peaceful islands back into a year-long spring break. I can't understand why people spend tens of thousands of dollars to go someplace where all they intend to do is drink and make noise. That can be done at home for much less money.

WOW! I am just rambling like a crazy person.

Dolly, thanks for the explanations. It really does sound like NARM is different than what I'm used to.  And I'm glad you use my recovery journal to explain things that are interesting to me. I think of this journal location as a great place to just chat with friends on any topic. You were responding to my entry, and I absolutely welcome that. I have a strong need to be connected with others.

In my favorite documentary on the topic of happiness, called HAPPY (2012), one of the stories is a video of a man who gives anti-bullying presentations to junior high students. In this video he tells a story of Annie, a Special Olympics participant who has Down Syndrome. He was her coach. She was winning a foot race, but stopped a few feet before the finish line. He screamed, "ANNIE! KEEP GOING!" She refused, "No Coach." He repeated his encouragement, "But you're winning!" and she repeatedly refused. As the other runners caught up with her, they all took hands. As they crossed the finish line together, she said, "Together we all win."

I created a little sign "Together We All Win" and have it hanging above my computer monitor. I need people on my side. And when someone takes the time to respond to anything I've posted,--whether it's a single hug emoji or a thousand-word essay--, I feel like I'm not alone. I'm not struggling to catch up. I'm not having to defend my feelings or my experience. I'm not struggling to not lose because I got left behind...again. I'm not waiting to be the last one chosen for a team. If everyone could be like Annie, nobody would ever be the last one chosen on any team, ever.

Together we all win.

That's my motto these days.

Hi PC,

I'm sorry you feel sometimes like you got left behind, and that there was no one there to reassure you that you matter. I think it's a familiar thread on this forum  :hug:

Ok I'm glad it's not overstepping. I can be quite effusive when I connect with something and think I may force it on others when maybe they're not that interested, or it isn't for them. I'm sure it comes back to being that kid who wasn't recognized.

Sending you support,
dolly

Can't sleep tonight. I have an interview on a podcast today. Any time I accept any invitation to speak publicly I put myself through Heck on earth. Anxiety. Worry. I always ask myself, "why can't I just be in the audience? Why do I always have to let myself get pulled up in front?" It always goes well in the end, but hokey-smokes, the worry and anxiety I put myself through for weeks prior takes years off my life.

The topic is about hypnotherapy and what I learned during my time with my current hypnotherapist. What has me so worried is I want to be absolutely certain I represent Complex PTSD as well as I can. I get a half hour. I want to make sure that whoever hears my story gains a clear understanding of what CPTSD has done to ravage my life, and how the clinical help I've received over the past 40 years has been underwhelmingly benign. As I'm a people-pleaser, CBTs and clinical hypnotists have given only temporary relief. My people-pleasing works against me when I try to be what the clinician tells me I should be. I don't really get help. I only pretend to. I want to please the CBT and HypnoT so I force myself to believe that they help me. I leave knowing I've pleased them, which makes me feel great. For a little while. They never hear from me again, so, while I'm at home falling right back into my lifelong patterns, they're in their little bubbles assuming that their ineffective treatment worked, and they continue doing it for others.

I now have a trauma therapist, and a hypnotherapist who both add a spiritual component to the clinical healing. Not a religious component. I've tried religion too, and it didn't work any better than CBT. True spirituality is when two people both understand that we are all connected. That's what spirituality means to me. When the healer cares as much about me as they do about themselves, healing happens. That's why I always say that I believe empathy is the greatest healing power in our known world. Empathy is sharing the space with a client, not just sitting there regurgitating to a paying customer what they learned in psychology college.

What I believe I've learned is that a therapist who works from their heart is a healer. Those who only work from their heads are just talking textbooks.

That's what I want to convey in today's interview but without sounding like I'm pushing my own agenda. Blending clinical training with loving spiritual presence brings true healing.

When I walk into my T's office, and when I walk into my HT's office, in both cases I can feel their spirits filling the whole room. Both of them present geniune smiles when I walk into their offices. Like their faces light up. Like they are truly glad to see me. Of all the help I've sought in my lifetime, these two people are the only two who have moved me permanently forward in my healing. All CBTS before my current Trauma Therapist gave me temporary relief. My current T has changed me. It's like most therapists are doing their job, while these two are following a calling. That's the difference between a practioner and a healer.

I am worried I'll get confused during the interview and forget to say these things. I dissociate when I'm nervous. I have all these little notes taped to my computer so I can glance at them while I'm on camera without moving my eyes, so that it won't be obvious that I'm reading notes.

GADS! I make mountains out of molehills. This is a tiny little interview on a little-known podcast that most of the world will never see and I'm as nervous as if I had been asked to sing at the Superbowl. (Hint: I don't sing so good, so that's why I'm so nervous).

I'd rather have a dentist appointment today.

Heavy sigh. I always have to remind myself that I had the option to say no. I chose to do this interview. All I have to do is breathe and trust that the world will still be here when the interview ends. Maybe I'll be able to sleep like a baby tonight...Fingers crossed!

Hi PC,

I hope the podcast went well  :cheer: people talking about, and sharing their experiences with cptsd is great imo. So, kudos to you for doing it.

Perhaps maybe the most important thing is that you're doing it for yourself, and whether or not you "reach" anyone else is irrelevant, but that's me thinking about it. When I'm in the place of really thinking I need to do something for someone else (I guess when the people pleaser steps in) it's helpful for me to remember that she came from a very young place where saving others meant saving herself. Often this means too, that it's hard to step back from this because it's so young. I depended on caregivers who couldn't give me what I needed, and it was an environmental failure. So, these things actually trigger a sense of danger. In order to cope with that I was the one who felt they needed to take responsibility to make things right (covered in a sense of shame that there was something wrong about me because this happened). I'm reading parts of the Practical Guide to Healing Developmental Trauma, and he does a very good job of explaining this along side of PTSD and CPTSD.

So, I understand the heavy sigh in the way  (maybe not in the way you intended) that it is heavy because we carry a lot of weight for a long time about these things. Even if you do make a "mistake" (what I'm understanding from your entry if you "forget" something), it's ok. The adult PC is doing well.

Sending you support,
dolly

Hey, Papa C! I hope the interview went well. If you are happy with how it went do you think there might be a way we could listen? You always have such interesting and supportive things to say.

Also, I hope you got a good sleep once it was safely out of the way. I get very nervous about stuff like that too.

 :grouphug:

Ohhh, NarcKiddo, thanks for having the faith in me

But I am sorry to report that I came off sounding like a manic fool. I don't know if she can use my interview or not.  She's being very kind by telling me she can do something with it, but I have my doubts. I don't know if she'll be able to use any of it or not.

After the botched interview where I went into some manic, dissociated rant, I had to sit down and adjust my assessment of who I am and how I am handling this chaotic, unfriendly world I got sucked into by being born at all.

TRIGGER WARNING: DEPRESSION IS GRIPPING ME AND THE FOLLOWING IS DARK AND NOT FILLED WITH HOPE: Don't read it if you are trying to see the bright side of life right now. I've used white ink on white paper, so if you feel brave enough to read my dark words, just highlight the next paragraphs and they'll come into view.

I have been slowly accepting the fact that Complex PTSD has a physical component...and that, technically, it should be considered a mental illness in and of itself. According to a website called Endcan.org, "...the brain and body are still developing in childhood and are strongly affected by stressors like neglect or other abuse. C-PTSD often occurs before a child's cognitive abilities and sense of self have fully developed, affecting how the brain and communication systems will eventually develop."

For years I've been slowly, slowly moving toward using the term "mental illness," but loosely. Casually. But after I botched a simple interview after years of public speaking, I still couldn't pull this off, I felt myself ready to go from casually calling CPTSD a mental illness, to fully accepting the stark truth that I am dealing with a serious mental illness that is too big for me to handle.

I am mentally ill. I can't...CAN'T bring myself to argue with my own wife of 41 years because the second we disagree on anything I go into an uncontrolled dissociative trance. That's mental illness. After 40 years of therapy and medication and practice and learning... I can't get past it.  My favorite line in the movie about trauma, Manchester By The Sea, when Casey Affleck finally just says "I can't get past it" is where I am today. I'm in that scene. I've fought it, and struggled with this disorder for over 60 years. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars following every lead and taking every available treatment that comes up, and I can't get past it. Another example: I can't declutter my own home. I try and try and try, but every time I put on the gloves, I just get overwhelmed by the task, fall into a panic induced depression, and go take a nap. I can't get past it. I can't get past it. I make some progress, and I get past one or two aspects of the condition, but then something happens, and 40 years of help are erased as if they never happened. As suddenly as a car crash, I become a terrified little boy again.

I wake up in dread most mornings. Terrified of how life is working itself out. Filled with sorrow of the losses of people I've loved, and with worry of how my wife and loved ones will handle it if I die before them, or if I go broke and become a burden on them. This is my core wiring. I try and try, and sometimes succeed temporarily, but in reality, I just can't get past it.

I can't get past it.

I'm trying so hard to write less. But you've heard me say that before. Over and over I try to post shorter posts, but before long I'm writing novels on this forum again. It's mental illness. I don't know when to shut up. This insatiable need to figure out why I suffer internally so constantly is a treadmill that I just have to stop running on.

Last night, Coco and I talked about me calling my doctor and asking for another worthless antidepressant to go on for a few months until I can gain some control over my moods again. I HATE the drugs, but they are there when I need them. The problem with them is that they work only while I'm taking them. The minute I go off them again, I'm right back where I started from. They're not a cure, they're only a temporary comfort. Why? Because this is mental illness. I have to stop thinking I can muscle through it. I have to stop thinking I have the cognitive power to erase this problem and become a real man who was able to put it all behind me.

I don't know what's worse, being in the grips of this mental rewiring that can't be undone, or the let-down I feel every time a hopeful cure comes up short...again.

In AA they taught that in order to quit drinking I had to give in and admit "I am powerless against addiction" and need to give myself over to my higher power. It works in AA. It helps millions. I think I need to adapt that to CPTSD.

I admit that I'm powerless against the rewiring of my brain at childhood. I'm powerless against this CPTSD as a full-blown mental illness that is too big for me to erase. I have to find a way to give myself over to a higher power, because, for now, I just can't keep pretending I can get past this on my own.

For those who felt brave enough to read what I wrote here, I apologize for being who I am today. I'm not feeling too strong right now.

Okay. Trigger warning lifted. Ink turned back to black on a white background.

I'm really sorry you are struggling right now, Papa C.

 :grouphug:

Thanks, NK.

Life is like a swirl. I ride the wave for a while and then I'm under the waves for a while. It's a schizophrenic world of churn.

 :grouphug:

edit: I don't know if this fits with your experience PC, but I read this this morning that made me think of what you wrote last night:

As our adult clients are strongly invested in shame-based identifications and pride-based counter-identifications, change does not come easy. Therapeutically, we see that strategies of disconnection, including shame, self-judgment, and self-criticism, emerge strongly for clients when they are moving into new territory within themselves. Often it is when clients are on the cusp of feeling something very significant, including possibilities for greater connection, expansion, and reorganization, that they will start attacking themselves and shutting down.

Heller, Laurence; Kammer, Brad J.. The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma (p. 78). North Atlantic Books. Kindle Edition.

I'm rooting for you that what happened was maybe not a confirmation of "mental illness" and failure, but the start of something new and hopeful within your system? I feel like I've been there before too. I also hope it's ok to venture that perhaps the public speaking you have done before was not on such a sensitive topic of your lived, traumatic experience where your brain might dip into "trauma brain" more easily as well as perhaps forming new ways to talk about/deal with how trauma has affected you in such a public way. Anyways, I hope you're doing better.

Thank you, Dolly,

I'm not going to lie, I'm in pretty bad shape today.

I won't write much because I just don't have any joy in me at all. My words won't make much sense. It's good that I quit drinking 10 years ago, or I'd be going into a bad binger right now.

I'm glad to have some friends here checking in with me. Thanks everyone.

Journal Entry: Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Very emotional right now. I just read a poem by another OOTS member. It sent shivers through me. I read it a second time and almost started crying. It hit home. I could feel the words, not just read them.

yesterday I was trying to write a journal entry. I brought up my sorrow in the death of my beautiful little sister and how she has come to me in my dreams three times now. I miss her so badly I can barely stand it. She was my closest ally all through childhood. No. She was my only ally through childhood. I have no memories of her ever saying a mean thing to, or about, me. The last time she came to me in a dream she told me she had finally found peace and was isolating her soul in a way so as to recover from the unhappy, unfriendly life she'd lived here on the earth. I had to stop and delete the journal entry because I was crying so hard, I worried a neighbor would hear me through the walls and call emergency services.

They say that when we die and go to the afterlife that we experience total love, but we no longer feel emotion. Many spiritual sources report that emotion is one of the things that makes us human. After seeing my beautiful little sister so happy in her afterlife isolation in my dream, I have only that one last hope left: That maybe when my human life ends, I'll be able to feel total love without the emotion of pain and sadness to muck it all up.

Today I had to push myself to talk a little more with my wife about our financial shortcomings. It put me back into my 12-year-old self when I had tried a few times to tell dear old mom and dad that I was being abused at church and at catholic school. They told me to stop bringing my little problems to them to deal with. When I was 25, I told them in more detail what the priests had done. They sat there saying, "Why didn't you ever tell us?"

If that isn't a clear example of Gaslighting, then I don't know if anything is.

Emotionally I'm just feeling like nothing has ever changed. I'm on my own. All of my family's needs are on my shoulders. And being overburdened and outmatched is not an excuse for failing.

Retirment isn't working for me. With no job to distract me, I'm alone with my lifelong demons all day long now. Also, with the prices of everything skyrocketing, I'm in need of a bigger income. I need to find a job--but I do not want to deal with the unbearable stress of the job I held at retirement. That job almost killed me. This morning, I heard about a book that is supposed to really help with finding a purpose in life. I ordered a copy and it's supposed to arrive via Amazon tomorrow morning. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life. The reviews are good. People say it helped them find purpose that fit their souls. I hope I'm not grasping at straws. I hope that I can find some peace from the demons of my past. I'm tired of being sad. I'm tired of feeling like I'm 100% responsible for all my family's problems and fears. I want to find meaningful work.

My therapist is 11 years older than I am. I'm 63. I tell him I'm afraid he'll one day retire. He tells me he has no intention of ever retiring. His work means everything to him, and it shows. He's effective. He's helpful. He is called upon to coach other therapists. I want what he has: A sense of purpose so personal that I never want to retire again.

He's mentioned that I would make a good therapist, and with two years at college, I could accomplish an Masters of Social Work which would open up a whole plethora of opportunities for me, but I can't get past my own triggers. I can't see myself helping other people without falling into the muck again myself. I don't think I'm strong enough to be a therapist on any level. So, again, maybe I'm grasping at straws, but I need to find my purpose and it needs to be a purpose that I can handle without becoming that ignored 12-year-old boy again.

I'm tired. I'm sad. I'm tired of being sad.

Papa Coco I'm sorry that poem triggered you. My heart goes out you right now. 

I will keep you in my thoughts. 

 :hug:

Ah Papa C.

I'm here with you. Whether you botched the interview or not, you are worthwhile. Loved. Very valuable. Just being your own traumatized self. I love you just as you are.

You likely did not botch the interview but were exactly as you are and should be. That is real. Honest. True. I know when I did the podcast interview for the SASS podcast I could not sleep for weeks even after the interview waiting for it to air. I thought for sure I sounded like a raving lunatic, messed everything up for the host. I couldn't breathe. Everything hurt. I was horrified. I felt so ashamed. It actually turned out good. Yes I sounded distressed. But that is real. And for whoever is out there listening someone needs to hear it like it is. Dissociated, manic, whatever it is. Someone needed to hear that.  :bighug:

And for the hopelessness...I'm going to put out there...you have some mighty big traumas there that haven't really had their chance to process and be healed. It's not fast or easy but there's work there that needs to be done, isn't there? Maybe hope is not gone and you are just working up the courage to face those very dark spots in your mind. Rightfully dark. Not because you are defective but because bad people did very bad painful damaging things to little you. I have hope for you. I really do.  :hug:

I hope you can get access to the private journals section from Kizzie and pop on over and say hi. Tomorrow I am going to post a very positive success and I'd love for you to read it.  :grouphug:

Sorry I am late PapaCoco, I read your text, and you already know this but I am team write it out. Write it allll the way out. There is catharsis in letting it go, even if others might not have the energy themselves to take it on. Writing it is letting it go.

You're totally right, and it didn't read at all to me as dark. I haven't read anyone elses replies, just so you know, but I am constantly reminding myself that trying to control and dictate CPTSD does not work. It never works. It will never work. It drives me insane. (Not in a cute kind of ironic use of the word.) The more I try, the worse the outcomes are, and any bit of relief I feel through control causes a darker worse spiral after the fact.

I understand your feeling of letting people down, being a burden, but imagine you had any other illness that affected you to the same degree... If anyone blamed you for lack of gainful employment or your home being untidy, they would be acting shamefully, not you, and everyone would see it that way. It would be shocking and people would come to your defense. Sometimes I have to force myself to think of myself as someone who is sick, because I am. Invisible illnesses exist all around us, and in some ways taking back my feelings is like an act of rebellion. Here I am, and I am sick. Call me out then and demonstrate your character! This is just my pep-talk, I don't actually speak to people that way. Sometimes we have to focus on yourselves, because we just don't have the capacity to be everything everyone else wants. All you have is you, and of course us here too.

You're helpful, considerate, compassionate, kind, very good at peopling, and pretty great even when you are struggling in the ways that I know you are. I can't say that for everyone out there. Some people will not understand, but that's on them.

Little2Nothing, No need to apologize. I was complimenting the poem. My version of shivers is a good thing. Chills. Some sort of healing energy moved through me deeply, and I got shivers.  I'm honored to have been able to read it and reread it. Your poem didn't trigger me, it impressed me. I was moved by it. I have such strong emotions, and during these times of depression, those emotions need to be touched. Your poem didn't trigger me. It touched me. I like it. Your poem was beautiful in its ability to invoke feelings. I was not triggered. I was grateful to have read it and for how it moved me. When I'm in the depths of my  emotional flashbacks (EFs), I gravitate toward deep feelings. I watch movies about trauma (Like Manchester by the Sea, or The Perks of Being a Wallflower) because they sort of soothe me.  Whenever I get shivers, it's a sign of deep connection.

Armee, your story of how you felt after your Podcast interview sounds very much like what I'm going through right now. Thank you for sharing that bit of intel. It helps. Once again, I'm not the only person who punishes myself for being who I am. And yes, about the hopelessness. Being permanently healed from a lifelong trauma is actually pretty easy. I've done it hundreds of times. (That's a joke. Jokes help me deal with heavy situations). But the point is that I guess moving forward in our healing is like being pulled up the hill with a bungee that keeps bouncing us backward. Three steps forward Two steps back. Repeat.

Bermuda, Writing is something I'm compelled to do. I bring this quote up a lot. "I write to discover what I know" (Flannery O'Connor).  It is true for me. Writing organizes my thoughts and makes them work together to make a whole story. And I am currently working very hard at living the truth that this is illness. I have been calling it a mental illness, but that's kind of harsh. It's more like mental damage. A dent in the brain, rather than a chemical illness. But still, in my own mind I classify my inability to regulate moods a mental illness. I've said it for a decade, but I haven't lived it. I like what you say about being as open to this being an illness  as if it were a disease of the body, like cancer or a gimp leg.

I had a burst of energy last night when I had a sudden urge to go back on my earlier decision, and maybe enroll into a college program for a Masters of Social Work, MSW. Whenever I think about being an MSW, I first think it means I have to work one-on-one with patients, which I always worry will trigger my own problems. I once spent a few years as a Sexual Assault Victim's Advocate. It was the 1980s and 1990s, so there were no electronic methods of interaction. It was face to face. After a few years I found myself crying myself to sleep every night at the grotesque numbers of how many people are suffering so much. I had to quit the position to save myself. I worry that would happen if I became an actual accredited helper. But I am a thousand miles away from being as broken as I was then, AND when I look for jobs on the internet, I see a growing number of very diverse jobs, teaching positions, leadership roles, writers, course developers, etc, etc, etc that require an MSW. It would only take two years for me to accomplish the degree (if I can get enrolled). And I don't have to become a therapist. There are a myriad of other options that would open up before me with an MSW.

I'm only in the first few hours of having this thought swirling around in my head, so I don't know if by tonight or tomorrow or next summer I have stopped thinking about it.

I once googled "Why do I share too much?" I got a lot of hits. I pretty much share too much because that's what living a life of loneliness and trauma compels me to do. If I tell everyone every thought, then I'm not at risk of being found out later and laughed at or called a liar. My family always called me a liar. They seldom believed anything I said, so I learned to hide inside my head. My entire childhood became a box of secrets that I believed would kill me if they got out. I describe my younger life as having lived it locked inside a cage with a sleeping monster. My only hope of survival was not letting anyone wake that monster up while I was locked in the cage with it. From age 7 on up I believed my life depended on keeping quiet. Now that I feel like I'm out of the cage, anything I don't share with others feels like I'm back in that cage. I'm going to invoke Bermuda's suggestion and say, I share too much because I can't stop myself. It's my version of an illness that I have, whether the world accepts it or not. "I am what I am and that's all I am." (Popeye the Sailor Man)

Will I pursue this crazy notion of putting myself through the trauma of two more years of school? Only time will tell. I am many people inside this one body. I and my many parts overthink everything. We run scenarios in my head to try and predict every risk that might happen if we do anything. Sometimes that protects me, other times it holds me back. This may be a trick of my mind, going manic to get out of the depression. Or it might be something I owe it to myself to consider for real.

But what I noticed, is that the idea of having an MSW and being able to explore some of the jobs I see that require it, gives me an energy I don't normally feel. I'm old enough to make personal choices for what to do with my time and money, and young enough to still work for another 15-20 years if I'll keep myself healthy, eat right, exercise, and feel that I have a purpose. Finding a job to pay the bills makes me sad. Finding a career that gives me energy excites me. If I can't feel like I have a purpose, I don't see myself aging at all. Being retired is boring. I'm not taking care of myself. I'm putting myself at risk of an early departure. Being needed is energizing. Life-extending.

I can't predict if this is a real notion or a passing hair-brained idea to pull me up out of a depression. But for the duration of this one day, I'm at least in the mood to research schools and programs. It's either that or sit in front of the TV again today.

Thanks Papa Coco for letting me know the poem touched you. I know how much I suffer when I have been triggered and I felt bad thinking my poem had done that to you. I am very relieved that that is not the case. 

You sound so much like me right now. All of it. I don't know what's right or a whim or if a whim is even right, but if you do find an MSW course that strikes a cord, you have my support. When I first started sociology I was overwhelmed with how little people cared, and the discussions was whether wheelchair access was important... Soul crushing to be around such conversations. I think whether something is hard, or whether it is triggering, is not really a good reason not to pursue something though, and you have us. :)

I'm researching school programs. I'm tossing and turning in bed again. My schooling was so abusive that I tend to carry the ghosts of that abuse into adult college situations too. For me, deciding to go back to college is akin to deciding to go back to living in a cage with a sleeping monster who will kill me if anyone wakes it up. I LOVE learning. I LOVE psychology courses, but when I have to count on my teacher being qualified, (So many of them are not good teachers), I go into absolute agony. I got my bachelor's degree from a college that was partially online and partially in the classroom. I very much prefer classroom classes, but the convenience of online is worth dealing with also. But so many of the online courses I took were hosted by "learning facilitators" who were fickle, disorganized, and unable to answer simple questions. I got so f****g angry at those incompetent "learning facilitators" because it reminded me of the humiliation and helplessness I felt as a catholic school child. When I was in catholic school only my body was in the classroom. My brain was living in a chronic state of dissociated daydreaming and my heart was in prison just trying not to get "shanked" in the yard. I was a bunny in a cage filled with snakes. Nervous and terrified for my life all day long. When I would approach teachers to ask for help, they already decided I wasn't worth the effort, so they'd just blow me off and let me deal with my little problems on my own. My parents didn't give a darn about school. My report cards were one point above failing in every class, and my parents couldn't have cared less if they'd tried. Nobody helped me learn. When I'm in college today, if a teacher isn't a compassionate and aware person, I become that little boy again: Daydreaming instead of learning. Angry and terrified instead of embracing the knowledge.

This is why making this decision is so difficult for me.

I'm at a turning point I can't ignore. I have a premonition that I'm going to die before Christmas 2024. I come from a bloodline of people who die when they want to. My maternal grandfather, who never wanted to be cared for, died of natural causes on the very month that his life's savings ran dry. His daughter, my mother, vowed to not live to Mother's Day 2009 because she was so distraught at my little sister's death in June of 2008. My mother vowed and vowed, "I don't want to live to Mother's Day without her." Three weeks before Mother's Day, her kidneys began to fail. In those short three weeks, she went from healthy to hospice and died of natural causes MINUTES before midnight on the eve of Mother's Day. I feel certain that I have the same ability to will myself into dying of natural causes by not seeing a reason to live.

I have consulted with a couple of different professionals about this and have come to the conclusion that I've given up my desire to live in this evil, narcissistic world. All my hopes and dreams are gone. I have no future. I am retired and I'm bored and my money is draining faster than I thought it would. I'm going broke. I'm getting weaker physically.  The professionals have agreed that if I don't do something now, that I will do as my mother and her father did, and I'll create my own physical end. I'm told it will be my heart that fails if I don't find a reason to live.

Meanwhile I'm reading a book or two on how to age properly and how to live to be 100. The general rule of people who live healthier and longer is that they are most often people who feel like they have a purpose and they are actively working in that purpose.

When I look for jobs online, the only ones that excite me are the ones that are helping trauma survivors in various different capacities. In order to spend the next 20 years of my "golden years" working at something I love, I can't just go get a job driving a bus or working in a grocery store. I need something that makes me want to live through the night so I can get up in the morning and get back to work where I feel valued and potent.

I just wish I could get past the terror of going back to college so I can qualify for something other than unhappy jobs that "pay the bills".

 :bighug:

You'd be an excellent social worker.  :grouphug:

I hope you can find a program that feels supportive and not gaslighting.

Papa Coco, it is obvious that you have a heart for people. Pursue your education and do what would give you purpose. I am new here and you have been a great blessing to me and I thank you for that.

Papa Coco,

Ahhh, you have been through the wringer of late haven't you?  Sending you all the best.  IDK if this will be of help to you or not.  I hope it will.  For me and learning, I love to learn, I love the realizations, the epiphanies that come about as the new knowledge gets integrated, and yes there are many who pro-port themselves as "teachers" but they are not.  there is a spectrum I think of instruction, and the best teachers are the ones that have so thoroughly digested it that they can explain it to a 4 year old.  On the other hand, I'll be dam-ed if I will allow anyone to prevent me from learning.  Now with the internet it's sooooo easy to find "good" resources.  Whether the person putting out the info has a "degree" or not.  In my case I didn't have a "degree" in power-sports mechanics, had some training, had lots of experience, and that was sufficient for me to be an instructor, teaching others to be a mechanic, not just a parts changer.   There is a difference tween the 2. 

A lot of learning in my opinion comes down to the acceptance of the teachers opinion and perceived competence in a particular area of expertise. There is a whole lot of variables to that as well.  I've had the misfortune of having the experiences where the teach had 3rd party credentials out the yin-yang , yet was not competent at all.  I did learn in spite of the teach. 

I do believe that you and I are similar in that come he77 or high water we are going to learn.  finding the right sources is the critical part I figure.

PC sending you all the best in this.

I hope you can find a good course and teacher and pursue what matters to you. And please remember that you matter, too. There are many people who really value your contribution to their lives. I am one of them.

 :hug:

Gads, I just love you people.

Thank you for the responses.

Yesterday brought some peace to my panic. I have a hair trigger on the panic button. It would have killed me long ago if I didn't also have a quick tendency to seek help while I'm in panic mode. As a child I was alone with my terror. But after I turned about 21 or so, I learned to cry out for help. When I flounder, I cry out for help. When I cry out for help, I usually get it.

Yesterday I met with my finance counselor, AND the hypnotherapist who did good work with me in 2023. My finance guy helped me build a plan that will sustain us financially until I am ready to go out and get meaningful, (paying) work. The panic button on my finances is now set back to neutral. (It's never "off" but it can go into "sleep mode"). Shortly after that meeting, the hypnotherapist contacted me back and told me that she helps newly retired people a lot, with this very same issue. She believes she can help me to calm down and discover my true desires. I do believe I need to find meaningful work. I don't travel, or golf, or fish. So retirement is boooooooring. And boredom shortens a life. Being busy with activities that I enjoy extends life. She says she can help. I set up an appointment for next week.  After the two meetings with these two responders to my panic button, I felt energetic. I fixed the flat tire on my bike and rode it! I ACTUALLY RODE MY BIKE!  First time in close to 8 months. It felt amazing to have the panic button put back to sleep mode.

Yesterday, a cherished friend to me said that she can't create if there are no predetermined requirements. I nearly fell out of my seat. I'm exactly the same way. When I try to pick a career, I see too many choices. I ask for help all the time, because I feel like I need someone to point me into a direction. Once I know the requirements, I can create. I can write college papers if the topic is defined for me. But for me to write a book, I can't even get started if someone doesn't tell me what to write it about. 

I'm going to start learning about NARM and "agency". I suspect Agency is a sense of knowing who I am, what I stand for, what my actual limitations really are, (versus the trauma limitations that I mistakenly believe are real).

Today I'm going to research NARM and Agency. I see my Therapist on Tuesday so we can discuss my career confusion, and then I'll see the hypnotherapist on Thursday for the same reason.

Even though I'm quick to panic, I'm also quick to cry out for help. If I am left to my own thoughts, I can't see anything good in this world at all. I NEED the people around me to remind me that there is always hope and that I am not in as much danger as I always think I am.

Dam that hypervigilance. Dam that Hyper Arousal. Dam that quick-to-panic button that keeps getting pushed. Dam this struggle with a lack of agency. Dam, dam, DAM!

But also: Blessed are those who respond when I cry out for help. That includes you all on this forum, and my therapist, and my hypnotherapist, and my financial advisor. You are critical in helping me shut off the panic switch every time I push it. Left to flail in my own panic, I head for the ledge. When people step in to help with just a few rational words, they are always able to talk me off the ledge.

I freaking LOVE you people.

Thanks for responding to my panic button. This is no small thing. I mean it. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

 :bighug:

Hi PC,

I think it's so great that adult PC has come in and found resources to address your concerns, and not just address, but successfully manage your life. You took the the steps in getting things done where you never had that help as a child. There are people, and resources, to help now.  :cheer: I don't mean to sound condescending, but you did that.

I'm just catching up on your journal and your ideas about school/education made me reflect on my own experiences. I wonder if your experience of education would be different this time because it's for something you really want? If not, you also have the option to leave, or switch institutions (as well as maybe visiting/sitting in on some classes to see if it's a good fit) if it doesn't feel right. It's also doesn't mean it's a failure, just that it might take some time to find the thing that works. I guess too, that going through it might help confront those past experiences in a new way, with new tools to handle them now. Sometimes too, I think it's about the steps to get somewhere and not just the destination.

I also hear you about the burden of responsibility (or connection) in working with people in that capacity, but I guess the line becomes what is helping others, and what is still trying to fix all that you couldn't fix in your family growing up? I think it's great that you found something you feel passionate about, and why not explore it? Adult PC has already managed finances, why not see about the thing that interests you?

NARM has some interesting facets and I'm beginning to see how it can be useful after reading some of the Practical Guide to Healing Developmental Trauma. It's a different way of engaging clients where they focus on their intentions at the beginning of each session through a contracting process. I feel like already the dynamics shift and it's about the client finding their own resources around completing (don't know if it's the right word) their intention, with the therapist helping to facilitate and explore what might be getting in their way (in terms of what's going on in their internal world). It's not goal-oriented (ie the therapist helping me complete a project), or behavioural (ie I don't want to feel anxiety, or I want to be less anxious), but about the internal dynamics behind why I might not be completing that project, or why I might be feelings anxious. I need to read more and see how it develops, but I feel like this shift might be helpful.

Sending you support,
dolly

 ;)

Journal Entry: Wednesday, February 28, 2024

As I meet more people who are like us, family members bonded by the same struggle, I see survivors of a war.

We struggle, not because we're broken, but because we are wise enough to see that peace is possible but difficult to find. We're not broken, we're frustrated. We're peaceful souls living in a war zone. We are not the ones who are wrong. We're the ones who are struggling to make sense of how those who have the power are corrupted by it. Our parents and relatives and churches and schools had power over us when we were children, and they perverted that power into abuse.

We are the awakened souls who have lived through someone else's chaos, and still chose the path of compassion. Not everyone makes that choice. Some of our siblings and friends chose to continue the abuse onto others. They've chosen to recycle the karmic treadmill of generational abuse. They joined the wrong side of this struggle. They became part of the continuation of the problem.

We have chosen to break the karmic cycle. To painstakingly step off the abuser>victim>abuser>victim treadmill.

I know that veteran soldiers who once fought for peace have a tendency to bond with each other in ways I can only imagine. But I think I can at least understand how it feels to bond with fellow soldiers as I bond with the people on this forum and any friends I have that have lived with trauma triggers for their entire lives.

In a book I wrote, I devoted an entire chapter to a conversation between my abused character who had CPTSD and a war veteran with PTSD. The older war veteran worked to convince the young abuse victim that their wars may have been different, but they were each led to the same bizarre conversation in a truck in a rainstorm. Both trying to survive what they couldn't accept. Both struggling in the same confusion. Both suffering the same symptoms. The youngster felt it wasn't right to compare his problems with a war veteran's problems, but the war veteran wouldn't let him get away with it. Different war > Same results > Same need for support and healing.

I respect war veterans whose violent past didn't turn them into violent haters, but burrowed into their minds and hearts as some indigestible energy that haunts them because they are good people who are still trying to come to terms with violence that they just couldn't accept. If I can respect war veterans who try to find peace, how can I not carry that same respect over to the beautiful souls on this forum, and out in the world, who suffer, not because they're bad people, but because they're good people who need the same healing?

I hold fast to my opinion that we are the salt of the earth. If world peace is possible, it will be because of the grassroots efforts that we, the CPTSD struggling homeland war veterans who sill can't accept the violence and narcissism of this world, are bringing out into the open. As we grow in numbers and hold fast to our hope of bringing peace back into our lives and into the lives of our brethren, we are the force that is fighting for the peace that we know is possible.

I have great respect for my peers on this forum, and this is the reason why. We're the good that's just now learning how to stand up and be counted.

I believe all life is connected. So, as we heal ourselves and those closest to us, we are bringing healing into the collective consciousness of all human life. We're the medication that's being introduced into a violent world. We don't have to do anything that we aren't capable of. All we have to do is accept that we are not wrong. Accept any healing that comes our way. When we heal ourselves, we heal the world.

Wow! Well said, Papa Coco. Thank you for sharing that.

We are so connected.

I was thinking today about my military experience that I never dare mention, and rarely let myself think about, when I thought about people who were discharged with a "Failure to Adapt", and what it is that they failed to adapt to. I smiled a bit at the thought.

Failure to adapt.

It sounds so fitting for my whole life and I mean that in the most positive sense. I failed to adapt to my primary abusers whims and I failed to adapt every step thereafter. I didn't receive the dreaded "failure to adapt" but seems apt. I remember one particular person who faked insanity because he wanted to see his newborn son. Failure to adapt.

Sometimes being peaceful or doing what is right, feels like a dishonourable discharge, a failure, but it takes a lot of strength and courage to change, doesn't it?

The trauma-demon is whispering in my ear again, reminding me that I'm not acceptable to the world. That people either hate me, or, at best, tolerate me.

I talk too much. I write too much. I reach out for help too much. I annoy people.

I annoy my wife. I annoy my friends. I annoy my readers. This is partly trauma, and partly true. I struggle to find the line between trauma reactions and rational thought. I do think I annoy people by my trying too hard to be helpful or begging too often for help. I do believe that I can be "a bit much."

I have made many attempts at writing less. Shorter. Less often. I get off to a good start, but pretty soon I'm back to writing too much again. Annoying people. In the past, my workplace peers have called me a die-hard. I thought it was a compliment until a coworker explained it was an insult. That I kick a dead horse. I can't let go. GAWD I WISH I COULD LET GO! I just can't. I believe I've let go, and then POW! The past circles around and comes back for another offensive attack.

Sometimes I isolate to protect myself from the world. Other times I isolate to protect the world from being annoyed by me.

I'll honor this next attempt at scaling back by ending here.

Dear Papa Coco,
I wanted to say that I think that what you write - at the time you write it - it seems the 'right' amount to me - you always convey yourself really well and say things that are authentic and meaningful, and I've always appreciated each and every thing you've said. 

Anyway, I hope that you can see how much your presence is valued by the responses you get from the people here, because what I can see, is that they do value you.  I value you.  I hope you can see it.  Although I know that today you're feeling some difficult stuff.

Take care  :hug:
Hope  :)

You know who the annoying die-hard is? That trauma-demon. I wish, for your sake, that it would just shut the  :whistling: up. You don't deserve for it to harangue you like it does. You're not at all annoying in sharing this, I hasten to add. Everyone here gets it.

:grouphug:

Quote from: Papa Coco on March 04, 2024, 03:20:56 PMThe trauma-demon is whispering in my ear again, reminding me that I'm not acceptable to the world. That people either hate me, or, at best, tolerate me.

That trauma-demon can go and hide under a rock and whisper dark things to itself!

I have a similar one tbh but I know what FOO mbr it's speaking for, which sometimes helps me discount it.

PC, you're certainly acceptable to the good folks on OOTS - I see that in posts responding to you. 

Wishing you a day of better self-acceptance :)

Hope, Narc, BB,

This means a lot. I cried out for help with my feelings, and you answered.

Psychology talks about us having a "reptilian brain" when they talk about how we are born with reptilian knowledge of how to breathe, how to cry, and how to suckle. But right after breathing and eating, our wiring to cry for help is the next most important survival method we are born with. I don't like thinking about us as reptilian because I've never seen reptiles help each other. I see bees, elephants, dolphins, dogs and cats rush to the aid of their peers. I see elephants coming to the call of one another when one steps into quicksand. I see dogs fight to the death to protect their humans. I've read stories of cats doing amazing things when their human or their friends are in trouble. Our human wiring is more like the elephant than the lizard. We cry out for help, and our peers come to help. That's how herd mentality works. That's what the great design is. It's the benefit of being social-based creatures. Herd creatures.

Yes, I know who the demon is that whispers in my ear: I was ignored when I didn't please my FOO. They wouldn't talk to me, or even look at me if I didn't behave how THEY wanted me to. That's what strikes at me on days like today when I'm feeling ashamed of talking too much. Writing too much. Annoying my peers. Will they ignore me now? Intellectually I know they won't, but my heart still remembers that if I talk too much, I'll be ignored until I shut the H*** up. That's the past taking up space in the present moment.

Thank you all for the quick responses. I like your voices better than the voice of that old demon that keeps coming back around just to taunt me.

:hug:  :hug:  :hug:  :hug:

Oh PapaCoco, you are the most gentle non-abrasive person. Your words mean so much to me, and probably so many others, so keep speaking. I had also written about this, as you know, and now after reading your text facing the same thing, it makes me think about this week when my kids have interrupted and said, "MAMA MAMA!" and I have to finish my thought before I can address them, that I am also thrown into this feeling of my childhood in which I spent so much time constantly trying to say, "MAMAAAA MAAAA!" and if I wasn't silenced and punished I was ignored for hours on end. This is not my reality now. This is not their reality. We can speak.

I am only thinking about this now, and making this connection because of your words. Just existing as you are helps me so much. I felt the feeling, but I didn't notice it. I guess the best we can do is try to hear this in ourselves, and I will try to hear it in you too, and be the voices we need. "You seemed really excited to tell me something, what is it?" And genuinely mean that. I am excited to know what you are excited about, and I want to feel that way about myself too. "Did you need help with anything?" "Are you hurt?" and even just responding to ourselves with, "I'm here now."

I'm here now. We can talk. (Typing that made me feel all icky and teary.)

Bermuda and all,

Okay. I'm feeling a tad bit better already. Thanks for "talking me off the ledge" (again).

I often jokingly call my mood swings "my ride on the CPTSD bi-polar coaster."  Gads, these mood swings. They are so all consuming. I KNOW they are mood swings, but I still can't rise out of them just because I know what they are.

I know we all get it. This coaster-ride is exhausting and relentless. We support each other and that's what keeps us going.

Thanks for all your support today. I hope to feel better soon. There's something about this time of year that is filled with regret and fear of abandonment. Actually, I know how it happened: When I was 10, my entire religious school turned on me. I was mob bullied for the rest of my childhood. Those monsters, including the teachers, taught me that even God hated me. I lived with what they'd taught me for most of my life. It all started at Spring Break 1970 when my then-best-friend wanted to have a sexual relationship with me, but I wasn't gay, so I declined his offer. He was, I know now, a sociopath in the making. He convinced all those loving little religious kids that I was the one who was gay, and they ostracized me and humiliated me every single day for the rest of my malleable childhood. They told me God hated me. They hated me. The teachers hated me. Everyone hated me. I begged dear old mom to let me go to public schools with my neighborhood friends, but she absolutely forbid it, saying "I don't care what they're doing to you there, and any other school is only going to be WORSE!" Talk about feeling hopeless against mob-bullying. As hard as I try, I can't escape the annual belief that I'm about to be ostracized again for something I said or didn't say or didn't understand. It's body memory. Year over year I don't seem able to escape it.

This year is no different.

The continued support of good people who don't see me as disgusting keeps my head above water. And I appreciate it.

My son almost died of cancer a few years ago. We now have "Cancer Sucks" stickers on all our cars. I think I should see if I can get some "Trauma Sucks" stickers to put right next to them.

Papa Coco,

bro I feel you.  Adopted you know?  There were occasions that align with what you have stated.  Times that I talked to much, was not taken seriously, was ignored, so on and so forth.

I don't know if this will be of help to you.  For me I know that not all of my thoughts are true.  I think it comes down to perception vs perspective.  Which takes some time to get used to.  Add in that many times the thinking meat creates a story around physical / emotions that may or may not be true.  I know that this is a lot of Zen concepts.

What has helped me is to remember that I can be incorrect in my perceptions.  Then the critical thinking has to come into play.  It does get tiring at times.  I then have to tell myself that I am here, NOW.  This moment that I have never experienced before.  True that this moment may have similar flavors to moments that have come before yet this moment is different than the moments that have come before.  If that makes sense?   

 Sending you all the best.

StartingHealing,

NICE WORDS! I like everything you said. Never be shy about bringing Zen concepts into the mix with me. I know that psychology used to be the study of the soul. And that Jung and Freud, and their peers removed soul from it in the late 1800s and that a few therapists are reviving it now. For me, the ONLY therapies that have worked, (and I've earnestly tried most of them) are the therapies that include a spiritual component. Zen is my safe place. Anything you know about it, is welcome information on my journal.

Intellectually, I know that the past is not real. The future is not real. And the present is the only moment that is real. Sadly, I'm not so good at following this knowledge. I do let the past drag me down and I do fear the future. Even though neither is real.

This dovetails nicely with what you say about perception. It seems to me that perception is our reality--whether it's accurate or inaccurate--, and perception can be altered by such things as believing (or telling) lies, how we perceive our daily experiences, and by reaching total acceptance of things that we can't change, or of acquiring new information and seeing what we hadn't noticed before. Intellectual memories are unreliable. Body memories are reliable but subject to perception. 

I wish I could live in Zen states for longer than a few minutes a day. I'm working on it. I'm up to maybe 10 minutes a day now.

Quote from: Papa Coco on March 05, 2024, 05:15:10 PMStartingHealing,

NICE WORDS!   I like everything you said. Never be shy about bringing Zen concepts into the mix with me. I know that psychology used to be the study of the soul. And that Jung and Freud, and their peers removed soul from it in the late 1800s and that a few therapists are reviving it now.   For me, the ONLY therapies that have worked, (and I've earnestly tried most of them) are the therapies that include a spiritual component. Zen is my safe place. Anything you know about it, is welcome information on my journal.

Intellectually, I know that the past is not real. The future is not real. And the present is the only moment that is real. Sadly, I'm not so good at following this knowledge. I do let the past drag me down and I do fear the future. Even though neither is real.

This dovetails nicely with what you say about perception. It seems to me that perception is our reality--whether it's accurate or inaccurate--, and perception can be altered by such things as believing (or telling) lies, how we perceive our daily experiences, and by reaching total acceptance of things that we can't change, or of acquiring new information and seeing what we hadn't noticed before. Intellectual memories are unreliable. Body memories are reliable but subject to perception.

I wish I could live in Zen states for longer than a few minutes a day. I'm working on it. I'm up to maybe 10 minutes a day now.

PC, Thank you.  I've listened to a lot of Alan Watts and I kinda have my own understanding of what Zen is.  I'm a practical dude so that is where my perspective is. How do I apply it?  How does it help me?  How does anything spiritual help me?    I've ran across some info about Freud that is not good at all and based on his warped outlook (there are indications that he was groomed as a child) and having friends that were pedo's, yeah.   I think that is why Jung went his own way.   Course Jung was not disabused of sexual relations with gals not his wife.  yeah.  I find both very sus if you know what I mean.   I do savvy that at the time the psychotherapy was trying to become more "scientific" however, you have to start thinking about assumptions you know? How much were they influenced by the science of the the day?  Obviously the removal of "spirit" from things was a major mistake.  On the flip side the typical beliefs of the 3 major religions that come out of the middle east has their issues as well.  To me there are serious issues with the dogma of the big three.  Personal opinion.  I know that certain people require that framework in order for them to have the structure they require for a decent life.   

Have you checked out sacred-texts.com?  Great resource ;)

Time. That MF-ing thing!!!  Here something to consider.  Our sense of time could be based only on how our senses work.  There is also the concept that all events in time all exist in the present moment but we cannot access all points because we are here to learn certain things spiritually.  Then that brings in the idea of soul development and possible soul contracts and all that stuff which to me is a cool thought experiment.   us humans are story creating machines PC.  It's what we do.  I have a devil of a time with feeling a feeling and NOT attaching a "story" to that feeling.  But then that brings into question what are emotions? 

Indeed.  I have spent many a hour puzzling over all this stuff. 

I too had the past being a weight on me.  when I realized that the past is a story that I have created around the events / emotions that I have went through.  That is why reframing is so powerful.  I repeated the new story that I was a survivor not a victim to my circumstances. As an example:

By the Gods! I am here now and I have not only survived events that have driven others into psychopathy, I have also survived physical events that have killed others!  So blessed am I.  So blessed am I. 

since I have went through what I have, that has helped shape me into the kick-a55 person that I am today.  And I'm still not done :) 

Neither are you PapaCoco. You are not done.  We are all damaged in some manner. The concept of the wounded healer comes to mind.  I'm not responsible for certain events that I've went through, yet somehow I'm responsible for the healing from them.

Take a look into the current thoughts concerning quantum theory.  Typically the our understanding is past -> present -> future but now the future influences the present and the past.  Spooky action at distance.  Welcome to quantum weirdness.  However, when placed into a spiritual aspect then it makes total sense.  Not to mention that consciousness is a quantum state as it's a non local.   I'll leave that for your consideration. 

Meditation is a means to commune with Spirit, but meditation is also focused attention so when are you in flow?  Isn't flow a Zen state?  Isn't being in awe of a sunrise a Zen state?  What I have found is that for me, seeking the state of pure awareness is great but I can get into a similar state when I get into flow, or I am struck by beauty and fall into awe.

True but our perceptions can be changed and that is to me key.  If our perception is only this 3d realm that leads to certain conclusions while knowing that we don't know all the circumstances around events that we have gone through allows the possibility that our perception could be mistaken.   

Wishing you all the best PC
Blessings be unto you good sir

TRIGGER WARNING: I do NOT tell anyone what to believe, but in the following responses I come clean and explain what I do personally believe. If spirituality is a difficult topic for you, you might want to forgo reading my responses in Blue/Bold.

StartingHealing: My problem is that when I get started on any "beyond-the-physical" conversation, I can start to sound real crazy real fast. In order to stay within the rules of how we talk spirituality on the forum, I need to address these ideas without breaking the rules of political correctness. Like I said, I can sound real crazy real fast. I've experienced some miracles that cannot be explained by any other method than that there is a force that bonds us all together, and that force is far, far, far bigger than any religion can even reach.

QuotePC, Thank you.  I've listened to a lot of Alan Watts and I kinda have my own understanding of what Zen is.  I'm a practical dude so that is where my perspective is. How do I apply it?  How does it help me?  How does anything spiritual help me?    I've ran across some info about Freud that is not good at all and based on his warped outlook (there are indications that he was groomed as a child) and having friends that were pedo's, yeah.  I think that is why Jung went his own way.  Course Jung was not disabused of sexual relations with gals not his wife.  yeah.  I find both very sus if you know what I mean.  I do savvy that at the time the psychotherapy was trying to become more "scientific" however, you have to start thinking about assumptions you know? How much were they influenced by the science of the the day?  Obviously the removal of "spirit" from things was a major mistake.  On the flip side the typical beliefs of the 3 major religions that come out of the middle east has their issues as well.  To me there are serious issues with the dogma of the big three.  Personal opinion.  I know that certain people require that framework in order for them to have the structure they require for a decent life. I was raised Catholic for 20 years. Then I spent 20 more looking for the "right" dogma. I've spent the last 23 years no longer identifying as Christian or attached to any dogma. I have had far too many miracles happen to believe there isn't some sort of unseen force bonding us all together, but I no longer feel the need to have a church intervene between myself and spirit.  

Have you checked out sacred-texts.com?  Great resource ;) No. I'll check it out though. Right now I'm still absorbing the amazing philosophies I got out of the 2014 movie Lucy with Scarlette Johnason and Morgan Freeman. VERY enlightening.

Time. That MF-ing thing!!!  Here something to consider.  Our sense of time could be based only on how our senses work.  There is also the concept that all events in time all exist in the present moment but we cannot access all points because we are here to learn certain things spiritually.  Then that brings in the idea of soul development and possible soul contracts and all that stuff which to me is a cool thought experiment.  us humans are story creating machines PC.  It's what we do.  I have a devil of a time with feeling a feeling and NOT attaching a "story" to that feeling.  But then that brings into question what are emotions?  Time is a human anchor. Without it we cease to exist in our present physical state. We use Time to believe we have control over our physical reality. Same with numbers. Imagine knowing that even numbers themselves don't exist in the greater universe. That they only have one physical purpose, and that is to give us physical measures. With time and numbers, we can continue to be physical beings. When we leave these two forces, we become one with everything, everywhere, all at once. We lose all unique identity and, with that, all physical control and are reabsorbed back into a universe that we can only accept but cannot control. That's why we struggle to not think about an existence void of time and numbers. This eeks us toward our greatest human fear: Annihilation. (My opinion).  A very powerful meditation is one where we explore giving up everything we know about existence and allowing the Universe to show us the shapeless, formless energy that isn't controllable through time or measures. (See what I mean? I can sound kind of crazy when I really start opening up). 

Indeed.  I have spent many a hour puzzling over all this stuff. Me as well. Most of my meditations are me trying to let go of my personal identity and feel my formless, shapeless existence in the greater universe. I describe my life as a 63 year and counting existential crisis. My earliest cognitive memory is being 2 years-eleven months old, and meeting my little sister on the day she was born. I asked why her name was Angela, and was told by my FOO, "Because, look at her, she looks like an angel." I've been searching for God ever since. Even my given name, James, means "he who searches for God" or "He who walks at the heels of God."

I too had the past being a weight on me.  when I realized that the past is a story that I have created around the events / emotions that I have went through.  That is why reframing is so powerful.  I repeated the new story that I was a survivor not a victim to my circumstances. As an example:

By the Gods! I am here now and I have not only survived events that have driven others into psychopathy, I have also survived physical events that have killed others!  So blessed am I.  So blessed am I.  I've been working on reframing my past also. I am who I am today because of my past. And, even through all the pain, I still like being who I am. I used to say my FOO did this stuff TO me. I now thank them for their service in creating a life that would lead me to where I am now. I now say my FOO did this stuff FOR me. Like we had a contract to lead me to be who I am right now, and they faithfully behaved in ways that drove me to be who I am.  My therapist reports that in his experience, people with Trauma disorders from childhood are the most spiritual of all his patients. That makes sense to me. People who think they're happy in meaningless, pain-free lives, have no reason to search for happiness beyond the hedonistic treadmill that has lulled them to sleep. We were not given an easy ride, so we didn't settle into being happy about the world we live in, so we have devoted our lives to searching for true happiness beyond the world of money and fluff and candy and gum. We weren't numbed by having a lot of fun on the hedonistic treadmill that the lucky people get to coast on.

since I have went through what I have, that has helped shape me into the kick-a55 person that I am today.  And I'm still not done :)  I feel the same way!

Neither are you PapaCoco. You are not done.  We are all damaged in some manner. The concept of the wounded healer comes to mind.  I'm not responsible for certain events that I've went through, yet somehow I'm responsible for the healing from them. Our nervous systems are based on a differential engine. We can only know happiness because we also know pain. Where some believe that people who suffer can find happiness, others believe that ONLY people who have suffered can find true happiness. We have a differential: We have experienced suffering so therefore we can recognize and appreciate the absence of suffering. This sort of helps us to understand when a super-lucky, famous, wealthy, goodlooking person ends their own life, or falls deep into crushing addiction. Because life isn't any easier for the coddled people than it is for the struggling people.

Take a look into the current thoughts concerning quantum theory.  Typically the our understanding is past -> present -> future but now the future influences the present and the past.  Spooky action at distance.  Welcome to quantum weirdness.  However, when placed into a spiritual aspect then it makes total sense.  Not to mention that consciousness is a quantum state as it's a non local.  I'll leave that for your consideration. I can take this weirdness even further. The speed of light is our speed limit. 188,000 feet per second. It's very fast, but it's a limit. If I'm in a room with you, sitting across the table, I can only see you as you were a split second ago, because my eyes have to wait for your light to travel to me. Albeit it feels instantaneous, but it's not. Being with you is caught in an immeasurably short, physical time delay. So, while we are in human form, we cannot completely share the present moment with each other. We have to wait for the speed of sound to deliver words, so that we can hear each other and for the speed of light to bring us our visual so that we can see each other. I believe that "God" is found in the present moment, which is where past meets future, but that because we still adhere to time and speed and numbers of measure, we can't quite enter that present moment. We can get very, very close. But for us to finally slip into the crack between human past and human future, we literally have to completely shed our bodies, and our belief in time and numbers and measures. We have to be willing to give up our unique identity in order to join the shapeless expanse of unified space.  Okay...Have I convinced you that I can sound real crazy once I dig into this stuff?

Meditation is a means to commune with Spirit, but meditation is also focused attention so when are you in flow?  Isn't flow a Zen state?  Isn't being in awe of a sunrise a Zen state?  What I have found is that for me, seeking the state of pure awareness is great but I can get into a similar state when I get into flow, or I am struck by beauty and fall into awe. I don't believe that sin is a punishable action. I think sin is anything that doesn't move us toward God. I also don't believe in a judgmental universe. So if we want to just live out this life memorizing sports scores, drinking beer, fishing, and ignoring climate change, then that's just fine. But I've personally grown bored with the meaningless life of living on the hedonistic treadmill. I judge no one. I personally prefer to continue owning up to my namesake, James, and my endless search for meaning, and for moving through this contract that I must have made somewhere with someone. I don't judge others for their beliefs. My own beliefs change from time to time. Here's a personal list of what I believe today: I believe in spirit guides. I believe in life after death. I believe in contracts. I believe that our consciousness does not die with our bodies, but that it recycles on one form or another. I believe in Karma. I believe Karma is erased once we understand that we are not bound to it. I believe in miracles. I believe in aliens. I believe the bible has massive wisdom in it, but that wisdom is mixed in with a lot of foolishness. I don't believe the bible is the word of god. I believe we are the word of god. Even the bible says that in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god. We were in the beginning with God. By his word, we were created. Even though I just said "he", in reality I believe God is more of a force than it is a man. I believe God is the creative bonding force of consciousness across all of creation. I hope this isn't pushing the boundary of how we are discouraged from talking about religion. I'm not judging. I'm not trying to make anyone believe what I believe. I just want to be open and transparent as to who I am and where I come frome when I write.

True but our perceptions can be changed and that is to me key.  If our perception is only this 3d realm that leads to certain conclusions while knowing that we don't know all the circumstances around events that we have gone through allows the possibility that our perception could be mistaken. Agreed   

Wishing you all the best PC
Blessings be unto you good sir
And unto you as well