Messages

Hi, nice to meet you.

I understand the nightmare effect that you describe; that is a good way to describe it.

I hope you begin to find some healing here.

Shameless bump of a very useful topic.

I'm grateful for my daughter, and my cat, and my home.

And my friends. And the summer.

Thank you guys. I've been having quite a meltdown. Last night I had some scary paranoid experiences and dissociation that scared me. I guess I let my anxiety get ahead of me. 45 minutes about, where I couldn't stop crying/screaming... I'm like surprised I didn't end up at the hospital. My boyfriend rubbing my back to calm me, a shower and anxiety meds got me to calm.

I'm still really sad today, but really appreciate your guy's input as I don't feel so grounded, rightfully so. And thank you for recognizing my hard work Kizzie. I think I may not have been in my right mind lately...but the reason I am here facing this pain is because I've been working my a** off.

I'll write about my experience in a separate thread when I feel more rested as I'm still exhausted from what happened last night. Thank you again for just  being there guys.

Well done for getting through all of that. What a star! 

I may try that. And if you don't hear laughing are you still connected? I don't laugh very often.

You don't have to laugh; just live in the moment and see what happens. And enjoy it.

I am not very tolerant of coffee; it makes me jittery, and I really don't need any help with that one. 

I usually brew a pot of green tea first thing in the morning; my favs are either green tea with lemon, or with coconut. Then I add a teaspoon of organic cider vinegar to the whole pot; not enough to taste, but enough to get the health benefits(I hope!). Then I drink that hot in the  morning, and cold in the afternoon. If there is any left I put it into a bottle and keep it in the fridge for the next day. I use a tea bag because it is easier to take from the pot when it is strong enough.

A couple of months ago I bought a lovely Laura Ashley teapot and matching cups, and I use them because - well - why not? This is the pattern, although I have mugs rather than cup and saucer.

http://blog.lauraashley.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Tea-Cup.jpg

Tonight was one of the harder nights in my life. I appreciate your insight VeryFoggie, Woodsgnome, Kizzie, Cuthberta.

I can't force this. I can hardly wrap my head around forgiveness.  The people who wronged me haven't even come forth about their wrongdoings, let alone practice anything less harmful than what they were doing before.

My grieving is raw, harsh.  I think my poor spirit would say anything to make this pain go away, even if it was momentarily "I forgive you. I forgive you"  Almost like I was being whipped with that belt by my father while I said it.

I will accept that my family took every ounce of my self worth, and I will accept, that I cannot receive validation from them. I accept that my healing has hardly begun and I accept that I am unaware of how much damage it has caused.

I will accept that I might not know what the f*** I am talking about when I say I completely "forgive" what has happened to me. I accept where i am at. I love myself for trying so hard to be peaceful in the midst of this pain. I accept help in this time. And I accept a motha fuckin back rub from my man tonight.

Thank you all for your words.  I needed to hear them. A lot.

I am sorry for your pain. 

You are being so strong and so honest; not everyone can manage that. Can we really blame them, when we know the cost of that honesty? Would we want to put them through it? I don't know the answer to that one.

But before I attempt to forgive other people for being who they are, I think I would need to learn to forgive myself first; for being too small, too weak, too unaware. For being there.

The Others can manage fine without me; I am the one who struggles. If I had not been there, none of it would have happened. Therefore, the fault is mine. Where is the forgiveness for that?

Find the answer to that one, and we have the answer to every question, I suspect.

[More than anything though I need to know that my mother was cruel.]

Morningdove, thank you. It really means the world to know I'm not alone. I feel like I'm going crazy a lot of the time, but when I see words like those I feel a bit saner. I can really start helping others now as well.

The only good thing my T did was stress the importance of feeling things in my body, like pinpointing where the fear would manifest. Well, the Pete Walker book did that anyway, so she just backed it up.

She always painted my mother in a positive light, any chance she got. More than anything though I need to know that my mother was cruel. Like I said, she would make me feel like it was all in my head. And then I'm so scared to ask questions and challenge someone, that I never asked her outright what her opinion was.

I made an appointment a couple of weeks ago to see a new T who does EMDR. I'm seeing her for the first time next week. Funny, I tried to convince myself that it wasn't that my old T was bad that made me search for a new T, rather I wanted a different appproach or to save money. It's absolute madness how far my ICr will go to make me believe that everything is always my own fault and not other people! I have to laugh at this otherwise I'd go completely mad.

Thank you again. 

Your mother WAS cruel. I have no doubt about that whatever; not the least bit.

I'm falling back into deep paranoia again and I don't know what to do. I'm so sorry that I've been unable to give other people here support. I now realise why I couldn't do that, it's because I was in the midst of a trauma reenactment at the hands of my therapist.

Aiui, it is only paranoia if it is irrational and you have no grounds for feeling as you do.

In this case you do have grounds, it is rational and therefore it may be hypervigilance, but I personally would not call it paranoia.

For a while I knew that it wasn't working with my T, but I wouldn't accept it. I searched for every reason as to why it was me at fault and not really her. Two sessions ago I was 10 minutes late and went into a complete meltdown. She'd taken on the role of my mother and I couldn't bear to let her down by being late. I came into that session in a * of a state, but she never said anything to make me feel better that I wasn't a completely worthless individual for being late.

That is not unusual; a therapist may want you to work through your own feelings, rather than giving you an easy path out; but she could have explored why you felt so bad. She could have reassured you that you are safe.

Aside from that kind of thing she would never admit the abuse actually took place. She would say things like, 'oh your mother must have cared about you deeply'. I told her that that was complete rubbbish and that my mother never gave a damn about me.

This is your therapist bringing her own pain to therapy. I would put money on it that she is talking about her own emotionally distant mother.

Before I'd started seeing her my memories from childhood were coming back, but as soon as I started seeing her, they stopped. It was like everyhing was arrested in my recovery.

That is really good news; your subconscious/inner children are sharper than you are. This means you have an absolutely solid way of finding out whether future therapy is on track or not; when you are ready you can try again, and stay tuned to those memories. When they stop you have a clear red flag. Clever you! 

Last night I worked out that I'd met her a few years before and she'd met my mother. I'd met her quite a few times in fact and on every occasion my mother was there. I now realise why she wouldn't admit that the abuse ever took place. It was because she'd met my mother and thought she was great and the abuse was all in my head. Such is the power of the narcissist to make everyone believe they're a fantastic person.Obviously, I subconsciously remembered her name and was drawn to her when I was first seeking a therapist. That is scary.

If she knows your mother she ought not to be your therapist. It is possible she forgot; if she remembered then imo she is behaving unethically.

What I'm wondering is, shouldn't she have told me we'd met before? I'm incredulous that she didn't. Surely it was unethical of her to treat me? I mean, she was unfairly biased.

The whole thing has shot me to pieces anyway and I don't want to look for another T in case the same thing happens again. I'm also becoming highly paranoid again and am now thinking that maybe my T was coluding and in contact with my mother. This is awful.

No, not paranoid; hypervigilant. A place that ought to have been safe turns out to be infested instead. Who wouldn't be afraid to try again?

Give yourself time to recover, and give those inner children an ice cream a day for a month; they are certainly on your side, and protecting you. That is the silver lining to this particular unpleasant cloud. When you are ready to try again, you know that you have them helping you, and protecting you. Well done, everyone!   

Yes, confidentiality is non negotiable. Any sign that this is compromised, and that is a sign to find another therapist.

I have a friend who is a Minister, and he had another person working with him with a view to becoming a Minister himself. This other person was in church one day, counselling a lady. He came back into the house where I was sitting watching telly, and he told me what this lady had said; I can't repeat it even here but he told me many details of their conversation; what she had told him, what he said to her, what she replied. I didn't encourage him; I just listened while he talked. It was highly personal stuff.

I told the Minister; not to be nasty but because the poor lady deserved better. I assume he had a quiet word.

(My friend used to confide in me at times, but he had known me for years. This second person followed suit, but he didn't know me; I could have been anyone as far as he knew.)

Afraid.

Family event today; I am taking Nmum along, which adds to the strain, but my daughter will be there as well, so that will help.

This too will pass.

I've heard many talk about the inner child and inner critic. Does everyone have these? How did you know you did, if you have one?

Yes, I think so.

In the case of my Nmum, she is her own inner child, pretty well all the time. Sadly not in a good way for the rest of us.

To find or connect with your inner child eat chocolate cake for breakfast, fly a kite, sit on the floor and play with toys, watch Winnie the Pooh films, release some helium balloons and watch them fly away; anything along those lines that you can think of. When you hear laughter, that is the child laughing. If you feel too silly doing these on your own, do them with an actual child; it is better with children.

I seriously have thought everyday about what Cuthberta said and have been developing a script and a plan for how I am going to act this out. I even talked to my acting teacher about it (who I am close with and knows what happened)

Today I checked in on my Facebook which is mostly deactivated, but I check in occasionally and activate it to check on certain family members/friends.  I saw on my Film Teacher's Facebook wall, that there was some big film they travelled to Indiana (from here in California) to film, and the guy, that I was talking about, did the film's preview. He was the star.

Oh god this sent me for a loop. I cried and cried, and said I wasn't going to go back to school.  I started trying to rationalize that school wasn't a safe place if he were going to be there, and I just lost it. 

I'm starting to recognize emotional flashbacks, and I often am having flashbacks to feeling left out of my family. Ganged up on and such. So part of this hysteria is emotional flashback.

I called up my friend (the editor), who has also suffered a lot of trauma, is very emotionally aware, and wanted to warn me not to get into this project with the guy in the first place, but he didn't feel it was his place.  Anyway, he's always been my friend that validated everything for me, told me I  was not crazy and such (though he is able to work with the guy who was hurtful to me for some reason)

So anyway, I lost it. But my friend said that the guy wasn't doing THAT film that he was in a preview for, the whole movie he wrote was executed (the one that he isolated me from and asked everyone to audition for), but I guess its a terrible movie...and my friend knows, because he and I are both very good writers, and aware human beings.

I guess the reason the hurtful guy didn't do this other film was for, "family problems". I'm glad he took a break. He needs to look at some stuff for sure, but its not my problem anymore.  All I know is, i am in a ton of pain, and he made that pain a lot worse by crossing paths with me, and all the best to him, but I am moving on and NO ONE is stopping me from going to school and finishing my degree.

And now I have a new philosophy and approach that benefit and protect me in case I do run into the a******. And I atleast have one or 2 people that understand where I am coming from in the community.

Anyway I have been crying for hours today from this.  I am excited for more healing to occur in my life and to continue moving on and leaving things behind me.

Thanks for all of your support you guys.

I am sorry for all that sorrow, but it is much better expressed than denied. Well done for being honest about your own feelings; that is very positive.

And now that it is a new day, stay strong; remember every single plot, every film script? Act one; everything falls apart for our heroine and she thinks the sky is falling in. She falls to bits for a while, but we all know that act 2 (misunderstandings everywhere|) and then act 3 (success!!!!) are on the way.

We cannot compare ourselves with anyone else, whoever they are. There will always be someone who will be more successful than we are, as well as people who are not. The former will need you not to change towards them if you are your friends. The latter will need you to be kind and encouraging, whether with homework or anything else. That will gain you more genuine friendship than winning parts, or even being in film previews. If you have a choice of people to work with, look for those who do not immediately appear charismatic, or who are usually not chosen first; there will be hidden gems there, and you may well find them if you look a little deeper.

Your former colleague has not made it; he has not achieved stardom. If you told us his name here we would all of us say, 'Nope, never heard of him, but we have heard of KayFly.' If you could imagine coming here with his name and everyone responding with requests for his autograph, then he has made it. But even then, he is not in competition with you; you are only in competition with you of yesterday and the day before. You don't need to worry about what anyone else does; they are not on your path, they are not in competition with you. They are on their own path.

So, crying out of the way in private, as it should be; head up, be proud of who you are; be proud of your integrity. Channel Lady Catherine de Burgh, and carry on towards your own future. Nobody else can ever take your place, because you own it entirely/

And about that autograph ... might as well ask you now rather than when you get swamped with requests.

I like his attitude. I had not heard of spartan life coach before; thanks for posting this, Lifecrafting. 

Don't think it should trigger-no words or discription/ A Memory that I had been holding in my body came up at Therapy. I remembered this event maybe 10 yrs ago, happened in 1969/70?. Anyway- interesting how things have come up - all split apart. #CPTSD 1-memory - no feelings with it, #2 Feelings- out of blue don't know why #Nightmares - not clear.. Today I was doing relaxation breathing and wow..it kind of all came together..but only from one side of my body.. Has anyone else had that?? I'm thinking now that I'm in the wrong thread.. I'm kinda stuck in my focus and couldn't write an introduction yet. I Do Have good PDoc & Good TrTherapist.. Mods - Could you pls move this if it is inappropriate here ?? Thx - I'll come back. So tired now xo

I think I would say, don't worry about how this is happening; there seems to be healing of a kind, so let it happen and don't worry.

I am glad you have a good therapist; try to trust them to bring you through this safely.

I think we plant a seed of forgiveness when we attempt to find therapy, or at least awareness of who we are, and what happened to us. But we can't force that seed to grow; it has to happen in its own time.