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Messages - phoenix.rising

#1
Also sending a hug  :hug:

Some days are overwhelming. It's so hard to feel it, but it's ok to feel it. Then, we let it go. Then, we feel it again and let it go again. The cycle continues until that particular layer is felt, and then we can start on another layer.  After all the feeling and talking and working through is peace and healing.....and lots of need for lots of really good hugs.  :hug:
#2
Books & Articles / Re: Books
May 18, 2017, 06:50:19 PM
Alice Miller's books are extremely helpful for healing from CPTSD. I have read three of hers.
The Body Never Lies
The Drama of the Gifted Child
Thou Shalt not Be Aware
#3
Healing from CPTSD is a long, hard and rewarding road. I have used a combination of books, therapy and working through it with friends who are also healing. I can give you a list of books that I have read, but what I have found the most helpful right now are the works of Alice Miller. Reading her would also help you find a therapist that is going to be sensitive to what you are trying to heal from. I just read "The Body Never Lies" and "The Drama of the Gifted Child" and I have just started reading "Thou Shalt not Be Aware". They are specifically about the effects of childhood abuse on adult children and how to heal. She talks about finding an "enlightened witness" that will acknowledge and show protection toward the inner child that had been abused and neglected. I too struggle with using alcohol and other numbing. This is normal, but it doesn't have to be normal forever. Every time I work on another layer of how my parents and siblings' abuse and neglect affected me, I drink more, I can't move, I isolate, I don't want to be in my body, then I get sick of it, and I start to let it bubble up. It hurts like *. And then I reach out to friends, and I cry and cry and cry huge soul-wracking sobs. I start to have memories, and I start to understand why I'm feeling all I'm feeling, and I look at my relationships and realize how I am perpetuating the cycle by choosing people who treat me/I relate to the way my family did things, and I learn to cut those people out of my life. Then I start to change my behavior and I find a deep reservoir of peace and love that I can give to myself and others. Then a few months later something triggers another layer and the process starts again, but now the reservoir of peace doesn't diminish. It keeps getting added to.

It is essential to have support through this. Alice Miller talks about having done it alone, and that she knows it would have taken her far less time had she had support. In my own case, I have a friend that has about 10 more years of therapy than I have, and our relationship has been so healing for me.   :hug:
#4
RE - Re-experiencing Trauma / Re: Paralysed
May 18, 2017, 01:59:16 PM
Yes. I get this. Sometimes, I can't move off the couch except to go to work. All I want to do is numb with alcohol and tv. I've learned it happens when some issue has been triggered, and it is time to work on it, but diving into that mess is so big and scary and foggy and painful. Then, I don't want to be in my body. If I don't move, I don't have to deal with it. But then I'm paralyzed and stuck in it, and I don't want to be in it. I want peace and freedom. I want to connect with others on a deep level and give and receive love. So, I start to move through it. For me it feels like it bubbles up. Like a volcano. There is more and more pressure. More of a feeling that I don't want to be in my body. I get restless. Then I cry. Deep, huge soul wracking sobs of old and deep pain. I talk to my therapist. I talk to my friends. I isolate myself. Then I do more crying. Then I start to get memories. Small, unclear, fleeting ones. This all repeats until I finally get clear feelings and some clear memories and then more crying and then peace and relief and a sense of strength and deep love for myself and those around me. This process has happened again and again as the layers have been peeled back. So many layers. Each time feels like the first time, but each time also comes with the experience of the previous times. It's amazing how when I get to the end of a cycle and go "why did I not remember this part of the process?" The part I do remember, and it gets me through every time, is that when this stuff bubbles up and out, it is gone, and is replaced with peace and love and strength. I am coming through on the other side of a really big one right now. I still feel raw, but today is the first day that I want to move, and I don't feel like I'm falling apart.