Messages

Eidolon, I have been in acute care. I hope you can get the support you need. 

Thank you! Things seem to be looking up- I get to see my therapist today after a triggering incident with my dad. Had a moment of intense shame yesterday but otherwise doing okay.

Thank you all for the warm feelings! It's strange- but not unhelpful, I finally have a therapist and there's levels to work through (setting goals, creating boundaries, working on self-forgiveness and forgiveness for other people) that seems to focus on C-PTSD so I'm honestly hopeful for the work being done. They also help with doctor's appointments and checkups to make sure that if you're at ground 0, you can work up with them. It's kind of nice but the groups can be a bit stressful sometimes. My life hasn't had direction and they're the ones pushing me to find what would make me happiest.

Lots of for everybody in this. Today's Sunday; we got to have french toast and sausages.

Update for today- I'm thawing out from my freeze response and the posts from earlier hit a lot harder. It feels like a shell coming off. I feel almost naked, like I'm not the old me; not as strong as I used to be. I feel the urge to cry a lot. Things feel like I'm a kid again. I know I have emotional parts and things are starting to make more sense. I feel more fluid.

I ended up in an acute care facility. I went to pick up some of my things today and I guess I'm just still adjusting to a new environment. I miss being able to take care of my physical appearance and I think I'll probably have to go on disability. Does anyone else have experience with being in an acute care environment? I've been volunteering around the facility and that helps with my confidence a little bit.  No idea where I'll go from here.  There's not a whole lot of direction so I'm just doing the best I can.

I picked some dandelions! I guess that was a bonus; I like weeding.

The adults in your life really failed you.

It took a while for it to hit me, but they really did. Thank you for that.  My mind kept screaming "it's not abuse, that's just how things work."
It isn't how things work at all. But I survived and I'm ready to heal, even if it hurts.

You never deserved any of it, I assure you! You're worth the world and you didn't deserve any of it at all, Deep Blue. Sending hugs if that's okay!

Thank you for sharing Eidolon. It reminds me of my mother and what it was like to be around her growing up. It makes me really angry that she did that to you and I feel for the little girl in the car. Anytime I asked for new things (like new underwear - pretty extreme I know, lol), my mother never had any money. She did have money to buy my two year old brother an expensive leather jacket that he would grow out of. Later on I found out she was claiming a government benefit check that should've gone to my grandmother who I was living with (at least $100/month). I was also often told I was a "mistake" and I guess absolved her in her mind of having to be responsible for me so she could do what ever she wanted, which wasn't true. Then there would be times that she would tell me she loved me and I was her little monkey. It really messes you up.

I ended up moving to another continent and that's what helped me in the end as well as EMDR. It's so hard if you're in the middle of it 

That's awful! I'm glad you're finding peace on another continent and through EMDR- I was in EMDR and my brain decided to throw up false memories instead of letting me deal with the old ones, so it wasn't as helpful to me as it could have been. I'm really proud of you for being able to work through it!  Thank you for being so supportive!

Awesome stuff, Violet Magenta! I just started doing qigong and tai chi by myself through videos, same kinds of responses you're having- lots of anger and crying, then a sense of relief. Thank you for this!

I'm sorry for your struggle, Eidolon! I can relate to the feeling of my inner critic speaking so loud that I feel so stuck and frustrated. My husband and I have been trying to get a business going, also in the category of art, and one of our biggest struggles has been with my inner critic saying that "we can't". I tend to feel afraid, angry, hopeless, and then shameful. And the cycle repeats itself. And it has caused so much pain and many delays. The struggle is real.

If this is helpful, and please dismiss this thought if it isn't, I'd love to see what you are drawing sometime. Rough drafts are fun to see, as well. As a newbie in the art world, I'd love to be an encouragement. But if that's too stressful, no worries at all.

Thank you for sharing your struggle. It's good to be reminded that I am not alone in mine.

I appreciate this a lot! Thank you for taking the time to respond! I'm glad that it's not just me. Often, I feel very alone in my struggles, but I like knowing I am not alone. I haven't been able to draw in some time because the USB ports in my computer no longer work, but maybe I will ask my dad to let me use his computer tomorrow (later today?) He's asleep right now, so I can't quite do it yet. But maybe soon! 

I need to finish a commission that I've had for almost a year. I said it would take a few weeks, maybe a few months, and I'm still not done with it. I haven't even started. I'm frustrated with myself because the reason I haven't done it is, "I don't know how."

That's not really an excuse. I just need to work harder to learn to draw asian features and samurai, but it feels like I won't ever learn. And that's not true! I just need to work harder, but it seems like I can't even get that right. Like I'll always be unable to draw it. Very frustrating.

My half-brother is autistic and several years older than me (I think around 7 years older?)

We would play these games where he would pick me up and throw me into a metal bed frame. He would dance around and laugh about it, marveling at my new bruises until I started doing it, too. There were times he threw me so hard into the bed frame that I could not breathe. I just wheezed on the floor. Nobody did anything to help. I could never tell anyone because he was the golden child, or when I did, there would be humiliation after.

My N Mother, drunk as ever at one point, pulled me into her room with my half-brother crying on the bed. He was wailing about being sorry, how he didn't mean to do it. She said I had hepatitis B and he gave it to me somehow, the doctor's results had come back. But there never were doctor's results for me! Those were for him! I got tested when my dad received custody, I don't have hepatitis B. Never did.

I remember being under a blanket and him pressing himself against me when I was, I don't know, 10 years old. We'd play games like Super Smash Brothers Melee and pretend to "do it" on the game. Nobody said anything about that being strange. My mother was trying to teach me about "sexual chakras", so I believe she had something to do with that.

I want to know who taught him to do those things and I want to scream. I want to throw things. Who said that was okay? Why was playing like that okay? I messaged him a few months back to ask him if he was sorry. It wasn't much of an apology.

Why am I ashamed of being the one that was thrown around?    It's unfair.

Thank you both, Three Roses and notalone, for being so kind to me! I'm still learning how to be angry about it. Mostly I am just sad that she only enjoyed life when she was being cruel to other people. There's a lot more to life than being mean and I wish she would've known that. Part of me still wants to know how the heck she turned out the way she did, but I don't think I actually want to know. I'm just very grateful I'm not like her.

I came across the text below today, on  http://alovinghealingspace.blogspot.com
and found it só beautiful, deeply resonating.

Love will never give up on you

Early relational experiences are encoded in neural circuitry in the first 18 months of life. Stored as implicit memory, they are inaccessible by ordinary awareness, forming templates through which we engage the world. In a moment of activation, the templates come surging online. Before we realize it, previously sequestered material has flooded our perception.

Our expectations in relationship – whether we can count on others, are worthy of love, will allow another to matter or whether we can take the risk to lead with our vulnerability – are organized in a fragile little nervous system that yearns for connection. The neural pathways are tender and responsive, as we seek attuned, right-brain to right-brain resonance with those around us. We want to feel felt, have our experience held and mirrored, and for pure space in which we can explore unstructured states of being.

While this encoding is deeply embedded, it can be rewired. While it may feel entrenched, it is not as solid as it appears. Even if your early environment was one of empathic failure, developmental trauma, and insecure attachment, it is never too late. The wild realities of neuroplasticity and the courage of the human heart is unstoppable and an erupting force of creativity.

Through new relational experiences – with a lover, a friend, a therapist, a baby; a star, a mountain, the moon, an animal-guide from the other world – love is hidden inside the caverns of neural circuitry. It is the substance which forms the neurons and their synapses, lighting up heart-cells in a moment of connection. Each time you attune to another – or to the unmet inner "other" within you – a new world is born.

As long as breath is present, you can update the narrative, recraft your perception and re-envision a new story. You can make new meaning of your life, re-imagine your purpose, and renew your commitment to being here. Slowly, you can revise your circuitry with pathways of holding awareness, flooding it with empathic attunement, presence, and warmth.

No matter what is happening in your life, you can start right now, in this moment. The opportunity for reorganization is always here and wired deep within you. Don't give up. Love will never give up on you.

This is beautiful! There was something I read recently that called C-PTSD a generational curse to break. We're learning new things and forging our own paths, and we're healing. We're being our own heroes. I think there's something wonderful about that. It's like making art out of life itself. Art in motion, worthy of being admired and cherished, and delightful in our own ways. That's the most wonderful thing of all: we are our own artists and every bit of self care is like another brush-stroke on a painting. 

Same happens to me sometimes. I either don't remember the past few hours or they're just a foggy memory. I know I experience dissociation, but I do not think I have compartmentalized my parts (as in DID). It seems to me I just dissociate heavily at times. I hope you find this comforting. We all have parts, as you know, but it seemed to me you were worried you may have DID. Not necessarily the case even if you don't remember the last few hours.

That is reassuring, thank you. Sometimes it's hours but other times it's entire days. I went to sleep on a Thursday at one point, and when I "woke up" it was a Saturday. Apparently I had been awake and moving on Friday of that week, but I had no knowledge of it. I found a soup bowl at my desk and not much else. I haven't missed days since then to my knowledge. It probably helps that my dad isn't drinking anymore, because that used to trigger me a lot. That was when I was losing days. Hasn't happened since.

Hey RA-Survivor! I just saw this now. I'm very sorry you suffered like that.. it isn't fair. You deserved, and still deserve, much better. I don't think I understand everything you're going through, but I'm dealing with a lot of similar feelings.

I don't understand sex either. It's an obligation to me. It feels like taking orders and that's what I'm used to. Nobody ever taught me anything else. I don't know if I would call what I experienced programming, but it seems remarkably similar.

Here is one thing that helped me: beginning to set boundaries. Perpetrators repeatedly overstepped boundaries to humiliate me further. They wanted the same behavior for when they would do it the next time. In setting boundaries, you give yourself room to explore. It's the beginning steps to saying "I like this" or "I dislike this." Sometimes it's not always possible with abusers, but affirming boundaries (even if only I know I've set them for the time being) has started to remedy the childlike regression I experience when confronted with sex. Maybe it'll help you with your healing.