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Welcome to the Forum LadyBoar, I moved to another country, away from my family over twenty years ago. Have never regretted or looked back. Currently very low contact with my narcissistic mother. Recently had a call with her where she exploded and gaslit, outrageous and incoherent... after all these years, after all my learning and self-work, it really had hardly any impact on me. Every time she just more deeply reinforces what I already know: She is the one twisted and ill inside her being and to her core. I've found freedom from her toxicity and come to see and love myself in a whole new way.
Happy to make your acquaintance!

Chart

 

Trauma brings so many of our behaviors to a unhealthy level, be it eating, sleeping, exercise, almost everything. There is always a healthy balance to strike. Trauma skews this equilibrium, so that the great majority of our behaviors are "beneficial" to being "safe" but detrimental to nearly everything else.

Trauma healing (imo) is the slow and methodical unraveling of all these aspects of ourselves that came about through mistreatment and abuse, restructuring them as they "should" have been in the first place.

It is a long long road.

But what becomes clear through wise and unending search of understanding... it is not the destination, but the journey...

Stay true, stay open, never stop evolving.

Love and support
 

Ran, finding connection and understanding here on the forum was a game-changer. I believe this place has been the single most important element of the progress I've made over the last two years. I'm so very grateful. I think I understand exactly what you're also experiencing and I deeply deeply empathize.
It seems to me you are doing good honest work. I agree that this is the best path to change and ultimate healing. It's long, too long, and far far too hard. But I also believe we can do it. Having you and others around on this journey is helping beyond words.
Thank you for sharing. Sending hugs and positive thoughts!
 

Alliematt, Cptsd kicks my butt. I've basically done nothing all week. I've "rested". I too feel guilty. My daughter went off to school yesterday morning and I didn't even get out of bed. Trauma is an "energivore" it takes our little surplus energy and devours it like a ravenous monster. I've yet to find ANY short-term solution for this. For long-term healing work and energy related issues I believe in vagus nerve work. It's slow. But for me, it's having an effect. Just my two-cents. So sorry you're struggling. Sending support and hugs.
 

 

My ex was(is) solidly autistic. She'd own up to it herself, but boy I sure couldn't point it out to her... I've learned that any relationship with someone on the autistic spectrum is going to entail a certain amount of "drawbacks". Yet I also find a LOT of positives in autistic/asperger personality types. When I come to think about it, this goes for pretty much everyone, only autistic spectrum folks are easily categorized because of the commonality of their behaviors. But every relationship have elements that are easier or harder for me to deal with so I actually regret a lot of the things about my ex that I didn't adapt to with the time I had. Looking back, I think if I'd been aware of my trauma I might've been able to distinguish and adapt far better than I ended up doing. Sadly it was just an insanely intense learning experience. Such is life...

Hey Ran, take your time with the Forum. It is many things, but always striving towards healthy interactions and positive relationships, even when things are really really hard. I totally agree with TheBigBlue. Take your time here and everywhere. You are very brave. I'm trying to get away from expecting my life to begin when I finally reach a certain level of healing. I'm trying to realize that I am living my life right now. Sometimes that's depressing because I imagine that since it's always been this way, it's also likely to not change. But I know that's false. But pain is so dominating, but things are changing.
Sending support and hugs if that's ok, Chart.

Hey DF, you describe so very well the Cptsd experience. I can relate, it's like just when you manage to "survice" one stressful experience, WHAM! another comes right along right behind it. Hardly a beat to catch our breath.

Very cool you are anticipating circumstances that are difficult and stressful and letting others know what and how you are going to deal with the situation. I was recently 45 minutes late for a social services appointment (which as their fault because the "politicians" in France are always changing the names of the public services; The Employment Center is now called France Services...) When I finally arrived I was so extremely stressed that I was completely unable to keep my feelings and emotions internalized. I didn't go too far, but I definitely let them know that things were WAY beyond my capacity to deal with and that I was at my absolute maximum and that THEY were actually making things worse and not helping me in the slightest. I've also started getting up on the "high horse" especially with folks who SHOULD KNOW about Cptsd... Anyway, I'm ranting, sorry :-)
I sense good work getting done in what you relate in your journal. I hope you see and feel it too.
Sending support.

 

 

Happy to hear you had a nice Thanksgiving.
 

PC, I just realized it's thanksgiving. My Dad told me when he responded to my text asking how he was doing. I quickly went out and bought a roasted chicken that I'll eat with my daughter tonight. Pure happiness. I'm not only slowly slowly feeling change in me, I'm more and more becoming a friend with my youngest child. She engages me more and more like a growing up young woman. We laugh and joke and our trust deepens. (I actually showed her today where I keep a small stock of feminin hygiene products for the day coming soon that she might need them. The subject came up naturally cause she was talking about a fiend of hers who just got her period. So the whole thing passed smoothly and naturally without any uncomfortableness... phew! It's so hard to find the right approach to these subjects with our kids... I want them to know the door is open, but zero pressure to come to me unless they feel okay about it and need to. But I think I'm managing and I sure as heck trust her and she fills me with immense happiness...) Me too I'm rambling! But apparently you love it, so... :-)
Happy Thanksgiving, to friends and loved-ones wherever on this beautiful globe they might be (and especially Seattle! :-)
  

I've got my fingers crossed for you too, San. Good luck tonight. I know what you mean about being afraid that it might not stick. It's like tolerance to a drug, the more we get used to a technique, if it's just treating symptoms, the core pathology can ramp-up it's intensity in order to bypass the temporary relief. This sucks in the short-term, but I believe in the mid to long-term the work is getting done, somewhere in there the electrician is hopping about putting things back where they "should" have been from the beginning. I recently watched a documentary about the biggest recorded tornado in US history, it was over a mile wide. Post analysis of radar of the tornado revealed at one point three distinct sub-tornados in the larger whole. I immediately thought of Cptsd. I think that is why "healing" is so frustrating. In my case I have really no idea what the "whole" of my trauma consists of. For this reason I could be experiencing the totality of my trauma and suddenly butt up against a powerful sub-storm that I never saw or knew existed. Such is the manner of the beast with which we battle. But I believe too that all this "fighting" (be it accepting, resisting, working with, breathing, everything...) is all sending messages to the inner workings, and the pain is the discomfort of getting that stuff up front and ready to realignment... readjustment. The blind stone-mason chipping away at the block. San, I believe you are far far more powerful than you feel. I'm sending big hugs too and wishing you sweet dreams. May that brick become a foundation, solid and supporting you in all your determined endeavors.
 

I am so tired. I'm on the verge of tears. I don't know how to keep this up at the moment. I'm hair triggered. I feel depleted. I really just wanna hybernate. I've been looking into why this is, because last summer, I was doing a lot better. But looking back at my schedule of the past months revealed that I have been working very very very hard indeed to get everything done 'the way it should' and doing it then instead of later because 'I had to'. Lots of extra training sessions at work, lots of unexpected stuff I 've had to take care of relating to my mothers estate, an extra guinea pig that needed night feeding and surgery, having a very scary hospital appointment myself, all of which caused EF's that I've had not enough time to recover from. And too little time to do all of my meditations or yoga or time alone to reset the nervous system like I need.

Oh boy, DF, do I relate to your last post. Today is Thursday, I've been at home since last Friday doing ZERO work (zero work that brings in money). I'm worried, stressed with upcoming Christmas... BUT REFUSING TO JUDGE MYSELF.
It's not easy... at all, to put it mildly...

Here's my theory: The organism as a "budget". The brain manages this budget. It's about resources and energy. Every 24-hour cycle decisions have to be made about "where" energy/work is going to be channeled. There are the fixed functions like breathing, heart-beating, functions that keep me alive. These are non-conditional. But just like a businesses profit margin, there remains after all the necessaries a quantity of energy that is "left-over" for "other things". For two years now, my conscious brain has been working on improving my Cptsd symptoms. And me too, I am actually feeling ever so slightly better. But I think my brain is putting a huge amount of work into neural re-organisation. And I'm pretty confident this is a BIG energy drain. Carl Jung talks about this a little too, he suggests that if you are exhausted, sleeping all the time, can't be bothered to do things that for years, decades, you were dedicated, he says that this is a very good sign. It's indicative of change in the mind, body and spirit. It rides often on the deeply sub-conscious level, and thus is hard to identify rationally. But if we read the signs of our exhaustion as evolution and the effort that is being done by the brain, then it's all good. Change is happening. My last EF put me in bed for a week, literally flat. Since I've been respecting my need for rest as much as humanly possible. Certain things I HAVE to do, but otherwise, if I can rest, I listen to my soul/body. I maintain certain habits, and apply "light" pressure to aspects of my life that I know are conducive to change. But I absolutely am FORCING myself to rest and NOT feel guilt about it. I rather see it as a situation where the Universe is giving me a period of time of preparation for what is coming. I've noticed that about one day out of every two weeks, I'll be "filled" with energy. I always stop and take stock of that feeling, knowing full well it won't last, but appreciating to it's very maximum being given (if only briefly) a feeling of what it does feel like to be "normal". In the past I was always fooled into thinking it was permanent and I was "cured". But now I know better. It's just the template to which I am striving. The my brain can do, but not too frequently. But I don't care... I KNOW it's possible. So I keep at the work I'm doing. When I hate myself again, feel crushed, smashed... depression... I observe, I aknowledge, I allow myself to feel the Cptsd... and I breathe, knowing it's not ALWAYS like this, and it WILL get less and less with the passage of time and my continued work. I'm gonna fight Cptsd up to my last frickin' breath. I don't believe I'll ever get rid of it 100%, but I WILL become it's master before the end. (I'm setting myself up for a really fantastic re-incarnation :-)