Hope's Journal: 2022

[Armee]

I'm so happy you can come here and write more of what you are feeling and going through, Hope.

[dollyvee]

Hi Hope,

You've been processing so much. Going back to a workbook that you once found overwhelming and being able to work through some of the exercises and deal with the things that come up is a big step. I don't think you're reading through it too fast, just at your own pace whether you realize it or not.

The talcum powder story you shared also made me go yuck, but feel for the child Hope that had to go through those things. Yuck in the way that I'm sorry she had to experience that. With reagrds to your mother, I would say to trust your gut. You were a child and felt those things for a reason even if she never explicitly acted in a certain way. I found that a lot of the difficult things I;ve processed, and had a lot of guilt over, were because I couldn't put my finger on something. You know, she said she loved me but then why did I feel like this? It took a lot of unpacking to see that just because someone tells you they love you doesn;t make up for the other ways in which they stifled your anger/voice/right to exist and how I was never allowed to examine those feelings of mistrust that I had or give voice to them; my family wouldn't listen or turn it around and make it about them. That was a bit long and maybe about me, but I hope it also resonated with you.

The vagus nerve is also responsible for your fight or flight, which also governs digestion. I'm wondering if stimulating your vagus nerve put you into fight (with the husband) and flight (that kind of hyper feeling) mode. Maybe it was just waking up residual feelings that hadn't been expressed or "coming back online."

Sending you support 
dolly

[Hope67]

22nd August 2022
Thank you so much to everyone who has written responses to me in my Journal.  I hope to come back more individually to you, but right at this moment, I know I'm experiencing some strong emotions, so just came here to write about them.

I have been doing some of the Vagus nerve stimulation exercises, and am so thankful to Bach for listing these out - I've not tried them all, but I have done some of them.

However, I have just been watching some u-tube videos about Child sexual abuse, and they were about helping families to know what to say to their children and to families about when a child talks about abuse.  But just seeing the situations portrayed, it's really caused me to feel a lot of body feelings - nausea and headache and overwhelm. 

I then read an article - started to read an article about incest, and I know that article is helpful, as it has some useful information in it, but I am feeling sick.  I want to cry too, but actually I'm not actually crying.  I had been watching a programme earlier about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and that caused me to cry earlier, as I find that upsetting.

So I know I've over-loaded myself with emotions at the moment, and so that's why I'm feeling like this.

But being able to finally watch and read some articles about CSA - it's something I've tried to do before, and not really felt things - now I'm beginning to realise the truth of my own situation.  That things happened.  That they've impacted on me in different ways.  That it wasn't right.  That's quite a big thing to be realising.  I felt like I couldn't really acknowledge the truth of that before.  Like it didn't really happen - although I knew it did happen. 

I have periods when I don't have memories of things, and I have tendencies to block things out and not remember.  This can happen with lots of things. 

Dollyvee, thank you for what you said about listening to the gut instinct - I think that's important.

I do feel physically sick just now, and I'm going to go and maybe drink some water.  I am breathing and telling myself that I'm ok.  That is helping.  I feel it's good to be writing here.  I wanted to put that article in the CSA area of this forum, because I want to find it again, and was scared to link to it at home and store it.  I will read it again when I feel calmer. 

I think I over-loaded myself today with watching emotive things and then exploring further. 

I'm ok - I feel a bit better now.  I don't feel quite so nauseous.  I am ok. 

Hope 

[CactusFlower]

Gentle hugs if you want them, Hope. I'm going to try to read that article. I resonated with what you said about knowing it happened and "Knowing". It's hard to not compartmentalize, to feel it rather than just think it. I'm there with you. Hope the water helps.

[sanmagic7]

 

[Armee]

Hope I'm so sorry this happened to you. I believe you. It's a major step to be able to come here and say this. 

[dollyvee]

Hi Hope,

Sending you gentle hugs if you want them and we're here for you.   

I started watching Children of the Underground on FX and I'm still trying to comprehend, on a body level I think, that this was how things were in the late 70s/80s and who knows how much later, that children were sent back to people that hurt them and the courts allowed this. I feel so much for the mom who was branded as hysterical for trying to protect her child and no one listened. I'm so sorry for what happened and I'm sure little Hope did everything she could to best protect herself.

dolly

[woodsgnome]

  ... as you find further relief. We're with you.

[Hope67]

Hi Cactusflower,
I managed to read more of that article, and I found it helpful.  I hope you will also find it helpful, when you read it.  Thank you so much for what you said, and sending you a hug 

Hi SanMagic,
Thank you so much 

Hi Armee,
Thank you 

Hi Dollyvee,
I looked up the series 'Children of the Underground' and I can see what you meant.  That series sounds really interesting.  Thanks also for the gentle hugs 

Hi Woodsgnome,
Thank you so much    I felt like you were all with me.  It helped a lot.

********
27th August 2022
Not sure what I'll write today, but wanted to mention some things that come to mind, after what I wrote last time here in my Journal.  I found that I had really evoked the presence of many/several other parts of myself - who were quite vocal and shared feelings of shame, anger, annoyance with me, and made me feel as if I shouldn't have written about things - but I realised that those parts were trying to protect me, and trying to get me to stay more silent about things - similar to how I'd been programmed to be in the past - i.e. not sharing anything, not talking about things, coping by myself.

I have had some quite realistic dreams too - for some reason involving a fair ground kind of situation - with big wheels and lots of buzz and colour.  Not sure why I'd be there, but I do wonder if it's because I've been stimulating my vagus nerve, and that has caused me to feel some nausea sometimes - and that feeling reminds me of what I think it would be like to be on a fast ride at a fairground - and I definitely prefer slow rides, like the ones that little children enjoy - rather than fast ones that teenagers and adults tend to like.  I think that my attendance at the fairground in my dream was a nice experience, but I didn't go near the fast rides.

I am embarrassed by where this has gone already - why am I talking about that.  I don't know.    I've agreed not to edit or change anything I'm writing here.  So it is as it is.

My partner has mentioned a couple of times today that he thinks I'm a bit flat today - maybe a bit depressed.  This is interesting because I don't feel like that at all, but maybe my exterior self looks that way to him.  It's making me wonder which part of myself is prominent today - and why he's noticed such a difference.  I did notice that there was a self-harming kind of part with me whilst I was cooking earlier, and I had to be extra careful with using knives to chop vegetables, because I was getting thoughts of self-harming with the knives.  I also nearly burned myself with some hot water, and again, it felt like I was deliberately hurting myself - although I didn't actually do that.  I purposefully don't hurt myself, but there are thoughts as if I might.  I think that's the presence of a part of myself - a self-harming kind of part, that wants me to hurt myself.  I am however grateful that other parts keep me safe and don't allow this to happen. 

I have experienced some uncertainty regarding whether I am doing the right things to be spending time looking into things like my trauma - like the CSA.  Because the constant ruminating that I used to have regarding my FOO, it now seems like I'm ruminating about loss, grief, and issues relating to the CSA and my experiences - all the secrecy and the effects of everything on aspects of how I've lived my life over the years.  I am beginning to piece together things in a more coherent way, and to process my feelings from past times more.  But it's a long and involved thing, and it takes time and energy, and sometimes I think I should try to be more present and in the 'now' rather than in the past and what happened.

I was trying to be more in the 'now' today - and yet my partner commented that he thinks I'm more depressed than normal, that I'm flat.  That's interesting.  I really don't think I'm low today.  But maybe I've been more authentic, and more in touch with my feelings than normal.  Maybe I am therefore more down looking.

I can't write anything more now, it's like all my thoughts have gone away.  So I'll just stop writing for now.

Hope 

[Armee]

Hi Hope...I relate to this all...outside affect both matching inside especially and that is really hard and frustrating and incongruent.
Also relate a lot to the self harm impulses and accidents in the kitchen.. the urges even though we wouldn't and the careless accidental burns.

I think there's a difficult balance that we strive for to deal with the trauma so we can be free without being bogged down by it. It's hard.

[Blueberry]

Also relate a lot to the self harm impulses and accidents in the kitchen.. the urges even though we wouldn't.

I think there's a difficult balance that we strive for to deal with the trauma so we can be free without being bogged down by it. It's hard.

I relate to those impulses in the kitchen too. Once again I am not alone with something, and nor are you two    I mean it's good to not be alone but sad we all have this problem. I think it's a difficult balance too, the way you say it Armee.

to both of you, Hope and Armee

When I read your long post Hope, I have the impression that you are doing a lot of healing work atm, alot of processing and progress

[Armee]

Thanks Blueberry. That touched my heart and I'm sorry you struggle with it too. For the most part the impulses have lightened the past 6 months or so from a peak. I'm thankful my T doesn't overreact to those things. But last week I was cutting avocados and didn't really think...if I believe I have parts I'm not sure I do...but just super impulsively I grabbed the knife up high and went to stab it super fast and carelessly into the pit like I was play stabbing something. But I wasn't thinking at all and the knife missed the pit and stabbed straight through the avocado and into my hand to the bone. Luckily I didn't do any damage other than a deep cut that bled for awhile but I didn't sever any tendons or nerves and didn't get an infection. Normally they are impulses I'm aware of. This one I don't even know what happened.

[dollyvee]

Hi Hope,

I'm glad you thought that series was interesting. It was/is eye opening to see how it was normalized and not talked about for so long, and how it's still really relevant today. It makes me so angry/shocked and I guess on some level we can feel that that is the culture as children that we are not listened to or protected (unless there's a good parent).

IMO I don't think we can really get away from these things and if we try to push them down they will just come up in other ways. It makes me think of the woman in the psychedelic documentary who had an abortion/miscarriage (?) while she was really young and developed cancer later on in life. She was a devout Roman Catholic but decided to try the treatment as a cancer patient and when she did, she went back and dealt with the grief she had buried over that.  I hope you find the way that works for you though.

dolly 

[sanmagic7]

hey, hope, i've found it interesting how past trauma/s can just bubble up at times and overtake us even when we don't want to be in that space w/ them.  many, many times i've been told to let the past go, be in the 'now', and have told it to myself as well, but it just hasn't worked very well.  our minds, i think, let these memories, etc., free because they need resolution - they won't simply be pushed aside.  and it's an ongoing struggle, messes w/ our lives and perhaps even the way we present ourselves to others.  you've been doing so much reading about this part of your life, it may be a good sign it's presenting itself to you because you're able to now deal w/ it and resolve it, grieve, know the feelings that you weren't able to before.  sending love and a hug filled w/ resolving the past.

[Hope67]

Hi Armee, Blueberry, Dollyvee and SanMagic, Thank you all so much for what you wrote. 

Armee and Blueberry - I appreciated you sharing that you relate to the impulses/thoughts of self-harm - and it made me feel less alone with that, and also understood.  That's a nice feeling.  Armee - your experience with the avocado cutting, that's an 'ouch' moment, and I am so glad you're ok! 

Dollyvee and SanMagic - thank you for what you said about the impossibility to try to push down thoughts and feelings, and how they want to be expressed in the end, and indeed will be. 

Actually, I was reading in the Breaking Free workbook these words yesterday, which I wanted to make a note of in here, as they are very grounding and helpful to me:

"As a child you were treated as though your feelings did not matter.  The sexual abuse was to satisfy the desires of the abuser; how you felt was not important to him or her.  You are important and it does matter how you feel.  It is important that you take care of yourself whilst you do these exercises, that you move through them at your own pace and that you feel in control of what you are going through."

************
6th September 2022
As I write things today, I am feeling calmer in myself.  I am pleased with how the past few days have been - because I know that they were very emotional at times, and I felt like I was going through ups and downs, and sometimes not knowing how I'd cope, but actually managing 'to' cope.  So that was something that I feel good about - that I managed.

I have been dreaming a lot over past nights, and the content of the dreams has been surprising.  More themes of doing things that I might not necessarily do in my 'real' life. 

I still feel terror at night - those feelings of dread and angst and terror, but I am able to experience it at the time and actually feel aware of it, and allow it to be.  I am able to think that it's a part of me that feels that way, and there's another part of me that can process it too, but in an empathic kind of way.  I really don't think I can explain this easily - but what I do feel is that it's not so frightening or terrorizing as it used to be, and I don't end up flinging myself about or falling out of bed or any of those previous things - I haven't screamed out (according to my partner) in quite some time.  I think this is good, and especially as I've been doing more active reading about CSA and other issues that have been concerning me.

I think I must be pacing myself reasonably well - I am glad about that.

I have however experienced some body feelings that have been painful.  I've had what feels like a migraine kind of pain - the top left hand part of my head has really hurt, I thought I was going to die one night with the pain.  Or have a stroke or something.  But thankfully I was ok.  I thought maybe it was dehydration.  My eyesight was blurry quite a bit too - although I have had a new prescription in recent months.  But literally it was difficult to see properly. 

I noticed that PapaCoco had experienced something involving his eyesight, and then I thought - we read the same article - and he mentioned dissociating after reading it, and I had remembered dissociating whilst reading it too - and then the eyesight and migraine type issues - I think the timing was similar to having read it.  Wow.  That has made me wonder whether it was related to dissocation and having read something that I couldn't process easily.  Interesting to consider this.  But it does make me feel less worried or concerned about the physical pain.   Also, I am feeling quite a bit better today, and don't have any blurry stuff going on.

I have been continuing to use the vagal nerve stimulation exercises that Bach kindly listed, and I have even managed to sort of cope with a bit of a cold shower - our shower takes a while to heat up, and so there's time to have a 'cold' one whilst waiting for it to warm up - and I feel that getting in it whilst it's cold will satisfy the need to stimulate the vagus nerve, but also conserve water from being wasted - but I think it's really hard to do!  Bach, I empathise with you..   I kind of just splash the cold water on me, before judging when it's 'about' to change to warmer, and then launch myself in there.  It makes me laugh though, and that lightens my mood first thing - so really it's a very positive thing!

I have also found a series on Netflix which is called 'Headspace' and it's a guy who was a monk in the Himalayas called 'Andy' and he has done some medications, and I've been doing them each day - trying them out and now trying to do them daily.  I found it challenging that he chooses to also ask people to consider someone with whom there's an altercation or difficult emotion and then channel positive sunny thoughts onto them - but I did do it, and interestingly my M came into my head, and so I tried to channel some positive sunshine towards her.  Somehow it has resulted in me not feeling quite so scared by the thought of her.  Although I do not want to have contact with her.  No.

I have been journalling in a book and trying to do the exercises in the Breaking Free work book.  I realise I've not read the actual 'Breaking Free' normal book - only the shorter 'workbook' - so I wonder if I should try to get hold of it, to read it.  But honestly, the workbook is good, and I feel like I can just re-read it and keep writing things as and when they come up in my journalling.  I didn't normally write things down much at home, as I feared people finding them and reading them.  I even feared that I might die the other night, and a thought was 'Oh no, they'll read my journal and then they'll know.'  But I've told myself, so what if someone did know that you've been abused, it happens to people.  You're not the bad one.  (This has really upset part of me - I feel her wailing inside my head and the emotion whooshes up).

Going to have a cup of tea now.

Hope