dollyvee's recovery journal

[dollyvee]

Huh, I had a bit written here yesterday and it's disappeared.

Thank you PC - it's kind of hard to share this stuff. I'm realizing on an intellectual level it's one thing to understand it but I feel like I've been dredging up stuff covered in emotions that I'm having to feel, like random objects from the bottom of a river covered in mud. I think perhaps it's similar that seeing this me version is difficult even though I didn't feel it at the time. I also have similar feelings towards kids who I know there is something going on. (And people too when they're hurt which gets me into trouble). I think maybe I was protecting myself from that because by blank, I didn't actually have a face but a TV screen with static. I remember being told at a young age not to sit too close to the TV screen, so maybe it's something from around this time, but I also took it as there was "nothing on."

My OCD is like I need to say things in the right way or being hyper focused on my movements, what I'm doing or how I'm perceived. I noticed lately that I've started saying things out loud when I've thought of something "cringe" (probably shameful) that I've done, like liking someone's story on Instagram that I don't know very well, or because I liked a couple of their stories and "put myself out there." It's almost like a reaction to ward off the criticism/bullying that happened. I'm sorry you had to go through that at school as well. One of the things I really like in the Schwartz book is that he gives space for how traumatizing and retraumatizing peer groups can be. I've always thought we go through one thing and then it's just confirmed by other kids at school for example, which doesn't mean that it was ever right.

Thank you PC I feel the energy in that hug and I believe our interactions have been a positive and helpful light in my healing too. I think it's great to have reciprocity and be able to share these things as well 

______

Realizing too just how difficult it is for me to hold space around interactions with that woman/ women like that (and then I will just generalize and keep a distance from all thinking this is what it's going to be like). My mini saga: I saw her at the gym yesterday and I feel like she was "worried" about me in the way that who am I texting on my phone etc. I was trying to put up boundaries (energetically I guess) and just say no, you can't interfere. Although, it does feel like something in the back of my mind isn't strong enough. I'm sharing this because I feel like it's too much for people, or it gets minimized when I do talk about it, that I'm over analyzing it etc, but emotionally this stuff feels so potent around relationships and I'm just beginning to process why. It's also hard to explain your intuition to people and yes, I've definitely thought things or took things personally when it wasn't (which t has helped a lot with). I guess I'm still working out what my intuition is telling me.

[Papa Coco]

Dolly,

I can relate to something you said about your OCD, about how you say things out loud now.

That's happening to me in some ways too. I spent my life keeping more secrets than speaking the truth. I was so sure I was an outcast that I just chose to keep my mouth shut. I was always scolded for having my own opinion, so I just learned to hide it. I didn't feel I had the right to speak. But as I heal, I become much more vocal. In fact, I also tend to laugh out loud when people act like jerks around me. I can't stop it. I worry I'll get myself into trouble someday by laughing at, or commenting on, someone who has a violent streak in them. People really are getting meaner in the US now. I'm picking a bad time to lose my filter. I talk about this with my therapist, and he just laughs and welcomes me to the world of healing. The more confident I feel that I have the right to be on the earth, the less of a filter I have. It's actually healthy. But still...this is a violent world and I really need to be cautious of where I let my words and laughs out.

That's kind of cool what you said about running into the other woman in the gym and noticing that she might be a bit intimidated by you. Did that feel kind of good to you? I would expect it would feel kind of empowering and validating that you can be a threat if you need to be.

[dollyvee]

I can't believe it's been over two weeks since I wrote in here. I've been busy with work and processing stuff.

Thank you Papa Coco  I also laugh at people who are bullies and I feel are trying to be petty or sly. I find that smiling at someone like that is the best way to disarm them. I don't know how to describe this OCD, it's like speaking in a certain voice, maybe more childlike, with apprehension when I have anxiety about something or being in a certain situation. My gf used to tell a story about how I was seperated from them as a child (maybe 2-4) at a sheep fair, and they saw me from a distance wringing my hands, upset, going I don't care, I don't care. My gf used to tell the story almost in a mocking way as a joke, but I can imagine the OCD voice and that little child voice are maybe somewhat similar.

Well, I wish I could see it as intimidating. Unfortunately, it seems like, and maybe this is just my old stuff coming up to an extent, it's escalating her behaviour to something more wrath inducing, and stepping up some sort of "competition" where there is a winner and loser. I felt like this a lot I think with my m, and just increases my level of anxiety because she will stop at nothing to "win" and show me "my place," and others will think that I'm competing or jealous of her because of her looks or whatever, but they don't actually see her behaviour towards me.

I think I'm processing a lot right now about being with my own parts, and the idea of being there for my parts if someone were to abandon me. I read a passage in the book the other day that talked about the lengths people will go to to stop abandonment anxiety, and one of them was developing a symptom so you will keep people near. I thought of my gm and her way of dealing with her health and how her medical "crises" always felt like a way for her to get us to take care of her when she wouldn't take care of herself. I saw this, newly I guess, as abandonment anxiety and how/in what ways that was passed onto me. While at the gym the next day, I saw this guy and that girl who now seem to be dating together, and I spent time with my parts. I didn't really react even though I felt like she was being wrathful to me, but focused on my right to be there and being there for myself. The necklace that I've been wearing of my gm's since her death broke and maybe it was a physical reminder that I am breaking the abandonment anxiety present in my family. I have been feeling less "protected," that I am out in the world now without the protection of my family/people, but maybe this is the time that I need to turn to my parts and let them know that I will protect them and be there for them, which I'm trying to do. I just feel like I'm going through all this stuff/emotions that I had to at that age and maybe it feels scary again, but I'm trying to remind myself that I am an adult now and it is different.

[Papa Coco]

Dolly,

I can see some healing in your words. A decade ago, before the term C-PTSD was ever coined, and before any therapists knew how to help trauma patients, we would have been trapped by our own EFs, and our own confusion around the various parts in our heads. The tail used to wag the dog.

I had a thought as I read your words; "Unfortunately, it seems like, and maybe this is just my old stuff coming up to an extent, it's escalating her behaviour to something more wrath inducing, and stepping up some sort of "competition" where there is a winner and loser."  When I read those words I heard, in my own head, "Control."  I think we all fight for a sense of control over our own lives. Sarcasm, biting words, even your gm's use of her own health in order to keep family's attention on her, is a move for control. Control is not a bad thing. How we choose to gain and manage that control is a decision we can't make while we're still confused about our pasts and our C-PTSD. But as we learn about our C-PTSD, and our attachment disorders, we begin to rise above being controlled by our own control tricks.

When I first learned the words Narcissist, and Sociopath, I bought some books that helped me to really see what and why they exist. But as I read the books, I not only saw sociopaths all around me, but I saw the behaviors of the Narcissists and Sociopaths in myself.  I was raised in a Catholic family with at least two narcissists above me, my Dad and my elder sister. My mom wasn't a narcissist, but she was like a 13 year old mean girl who knew what she was doing when she used gossip, lies, tricks, spying, etc., to manipulate her family into doing and being what she wanted us to do and be. So I learned how to behave with a lot of her tricks and the tricks of my narcissistic elders.

I say it like this: Just because I shoot hoops in my driveway doesn't make me a professional basketball player. And just because I had been taught how to get what I want by using the tricks of the narcissist, it didn't make me a narcissist. The two best things I learned by studying narcissism and sociopathy are that I can now smell a narcissist from a mile away, and, I now can't allow myself to use any of their tricks to get what I want. Because I'm not a clinical narcissist, it was easy for me to stop using their tricks as soon as I recognized I was doing so.

Maybe your OCD is partly the result of your brain looking for moments to control the room. When I picture a little girl, lost at a sheep fair, wringing her hands and saying "I don't care. I don't care..." I see a little girl who is trying to gain some sense of control of a situation that was scaring her to the core. I use those words less and less often now. When I was more in the grips of my attachment disorder, I would disconnect from fear by saying those exact words: "I don't care". Those words were like a scissor that could cut the cord that was holding me to a painful situation I couldn't find any other way to control. I don't say it as often as I used to, but I still do say it from time to time. When I see the insanity growing on a global scale, I often just turn off the news and say it, "I don't care." I guess it's easier to Flee stressful situations when I tell myself I don't care about the outcome.

[dollyvee]

Papa Coco, I'm not sure what you mean? I'm trying to control the situation or she's trying to control me with her behaviour? One thing I didn't mention is that I don't see her being intimidated but insecure in herself enough to act that way.

[Papa Coco]

I apologize. I must have misinterpreted what I read.

I'm SO sorry.

I'm completely on your side. I am sorry for misinterpreting your words. Please ignore what I wrote.

[dollyvee]

Hey PC, I thought there might be something else going on  I missed the question mark from above, which I added now. I didn't understand what you wanted to communicate and thought some clarity might be helpful around it, so I can digest what was said. Hope you're doing better.

***

also, thinking about the above in that I see her as "insecure in herself enough to act that way" and what is implied or feels implied, is that somehow I'm the cause of that, or I'm creating "this," and that's old stuff, BIG old stuff. To my m somehow it was my fault that I "abandoned" her and was her excuse to act out towards me in the way she did. That was me as an 8 year old feeling confident to stand up and say I didn't deserve to be treated like that in that house and move to my dad's. Here I am, trying to let the situation pass and be confident in myself again about my behaviour in the matter and feeling like I'm getting attacked again, and it's coming up again that it's somehow my fault (for what? for existing? For having confidence in myself? How dare I). I was feeling ok with the situation and moving on from it and yesterday I was just hit with emotion (rage for being treated a certain way but it's something else?). I think the above is probably why.

I also feel like it's compounded by the fact that what was ever going on between him and I seemed to accelerate her feelings/actions towards him. Yeah for me for bringing people together *sarcasm*, but again, somehow I'm the cause (problem). And I feel if I react then somehow it's me that's jealous, or the problem again. Maybe this is how I take this stuff on? I don't know.

Thank you too to Kizzie for fixing the certificate 

[Papa Coco]

Dolly,

I'm so sorry you are left feeling those things from your M. One thing I can't deal with from narcissists is how they twist logic to make sure that no matter what's happening, they make themselves out to be the victims while they twist reality to make the actual victims feel like we are the villains. To the degree that they have no conscience, we take up the slack and feel too much conscience.

It happened to you. It happened to me (about a million times) and I see it now happening to people all the time.

Narcissists have a very loose relationship with the truth. They seem to believe that they can control the truth. That whatever they say becomes the truth just because they said it. It's almost a God-Complex. And the part that frustrates me so greatly is that they get away with it far too often.

I'm so sorry it happened to you too.

It's been a month since you wrote this. I hope time has brought you to a better place for now. Either way, I support you in whatever place you are in today.

We CPTSD victims of narcissists seem to go through different things at different times. Some days I can't remember the past. Other days I can't forget it. It's not the same as bi-polar disorder, it's just trauma moving around in our brains lighting up whatever rooms it's in at the time.

[dollyvee]

Thanks Kizzie for sorting out the log in. I've been having some thoughts the past week and wanted to get them down.

Thank you Papa Coco - that's interesting about being the villan. I had a very vivid dream where I had brought this very bad  demon energy with me in relation to this person. I had to tell myself that I'm not a bad person, that I haven't done anything wrong, but the feeling is so overpowering.

I've been going through some things the past few months. I think sme sort of shift in awareness is happening but I don't think I can analyze it if that makes sense. I had something happen with someone at work where I felt like they saw me, and that is rare for me. Long story short about how I got there/here, but I saw a very young part of me when I reflected on it and came to wonder if the thing that keeps me away from people--this anxiety, I don't really know how to describe it, that sort of bubbles up when people get close-- is a form of dissociation that I didn't even know I had. I think there is a very real part of me that wants a relationship and wants to be close to someone, but when it comes close, it's like a part of my brain clicks off and I didn't even know it did that.

I'm realizing that there are probably preverbal parts active that are stored in the body. It makes sense to me that my mother's inability to relate to me didn't start after birth, it's probably been there all along. I also think there are things active that didn't start with me, but are legacy burdens that have come from before (that part makes me feel verry heavy and tired. I did an IFS on this and I think there's a part that wants to hold onto that. I would like to get to know that part better and show her who I am now. On the other side of the coin, I also feel I have a part/maybe another legacy burden who holds the crriticism I heard from my grandfather/family about all the decisions and choices I have made. So, it is hard to feel some satisfaction/pride/belief in who I am now and my abilities to accomplish/take care of myself. It's helpful to write this down because I'm seeing now that these parts are probably polarized). Where they come from and what they are I don't know.

I've been reading Robert Falconer's The Others Within Us and there's quite a few things that make sense, or feel similar to me. I don't think I had Self from a very young age, maybe in the womb? I feel like my Self was pushed out very young and is why it has been hard to connect to Self energy. I feel like it can also be why energies feel so overwhelming at times, that I really have to steel myself, because there is no Self to keep things out. There is also doubt about what I'm connecting to, which is strange because other times I feel the connection quite strongly. I resonate with Falconer saying that sometimes we attach to UBs because they gave us power at a time in our lives when we were probably powerless and it was essentially a form of survival which can be why they are hard to let go of.

I've also been reading a book on Somatic IFS which is very hard to get through. I keep checking out reading it and there are very active parts that don't like reading it I think that judge everything she is talking about. I don't know if it's shifted something, or if there's other stuff going on, but it feels like my mind has been in limbo lately. I guess there's feelings and fears about my place in the world coming up, but it's also not like I'm reaching out to connect. I'm worried about taking care of myself. I guess it's related in a way to what I wrote above about only seeing the negative side of what I've done, that somehow I could have done things "better," which I hadn't thought about before. It's like I should "know," or have known what would happen etc.

I feel like there's also conflicts coming up with people right now and I'm not sure what to say about that yet. If this is a form of deep self-protection and keeping people "out," which is safe.

[Hope67]

Hi Dollyvee,
You've made quite a few realisations in what you wrote, and it's nice to see you back here again.   

Can I ask who wrote the book you're reading about Somatic IFS?

Hope 

[Armee]

Hi DollyVee,

I'm glad to see you back.

That makes sense to me that it is a form of dissociation that keeps you safe and apart from people. Some other part getting triggered and coming toward the front to manage the dangerous situation of someone getting closer while the rest of you, or the Self however you call it for yourself, takes a back seat and is not fully aware. That may not be what you mean so I apologize if I've misunderstood. But it does make sense to me, to call it a form of dissociation.

[dollyvee]

Hi Hope - thank you  the book I'm reading is by Susan McConnell and is just called Somatic IFS. I have it as an audio book as well because I found myself checking out while reading it. Somehow listening helps me process it a bit better.

Thank you Armee - Self is what everyone has in them and is the inherent "knowing" that can be present with compassion, curiosity, courage (the 7 c's). As I understand Self energy can be "pushed out" when it hasn't had a chance to develop at a young age. So, it can be hard to find that frame of reference, and the compassion, curiosity, groundedness, when dealing with other parts.

I think the challenging thing with these realizations is that I wasn't aware that I had a part that dissociates like that. Or, I noticed it on occasion when dating and I could feel myself checking out, but I guess I didn't realize it was that prevalent. So, to me, it means if I have I have a part like that underneath everything, what is going on? I posted an article a while ago about dealing with dissociation and psilocybin that made sense. I took about .5g over Christmas this year and sort of fell asleep, which, according to the article, can be a sign of dissociation at work. It's also such a challenge that I want to work on these things, but a part is holding back and it can be hard to contact that part, or bring it in focus.

I'm also reflecting a bit on what I wrote yesterday to Papa Coco and the dream I had, and feeling like a bad person. I think I carry that feeling around with me, that I'm a bad person, and look to other peoples' reaction as justification of that or validation that I'm not. I had another dream the day before, or a few days before that one. Both left a very strong effect on me. In the other dream, to summarize, I ended up in a corridor, sort of in a Jewish building, filled with offices. I turned around because the numbers were getting larger/smaller to find the right one. The doorways to the offices became like dark tunnels. There was a lit sign in one and a woman came out, turned it off, and said you can't read that. The end of the corridor was now a sort of hospital like room, with patients spaced out as if they were giving blood. I noticed a sign (?) that said incest ward. There was a little girl who seemed out of it there (perhaps dissociated?). I put my bike through a hole in the wall, there was no doorway, and can't remember if I climbed out or that was where the dream ended. (My brain got distracted after writing this and I checked out and had a scroll on my phone).

There's more bits and pieces to the dream, getting angry at my grandfather for not listening to me, trying to avoid this creepy man at a bus stop too. I think these two dreams really stand out. Although, I'm still not entirely sure what they mean. Was there incest? I always had a fascination with WWII history as a child and read a lot about Jews during the war and the holocaust. My family was there at the time and I wonder if there is a part of a legacy burden that is connected with that? I remember my gf saying things like, at the time the Jews did have a lot and a lot of people had nothing. Even if he didn't agree with the holocaust, it was like a complicity. My response as a child was to challenge his ideas about that, that you can't say those things about people, but it also felt like a part was taking it in. I felt like the world was a place where this stuff wasn't true and you could live without believing this or treating people a certain way. I was standing up for what I thought was "right," but that also seemed to create its own challenges. 

I feel like I'm rambling a bit but I also think articulating the "fight" I had against the ideas in my family is quite pertinent, and comes down to maybe a part of me that still feels safe with them and holds onto the idea of family, and the part that tried to separate, and was shut down and not heard. Maybe the memory of what that was like is unfolding. I think there's so much of it, just the repeated sense of saying something, not being heard, and/or fighting against the idea of feeling like a bad person (around people) etc.

[dollyvee]

Another thing that is starting to surface is the fact that I could have bought a house, or I could buy a house. I don't know if this is some barometer of a happy family, or stability, but there is something in my mind that never deemed it possible to have that. That it was always somehow about survival or somewhere deep inside a belief that nothing would ever be good enough. I don't know how to describe it, it was like always living with this idea of insecurity and that's what it would always be like. I guess stepping back, I can see that I was replaying/repeating the insecurity and instability I experienced in childhood. I also felt too, that I needed someone to have those things, like I felt like I needed a parent. I guess I thought that security and stability had to come from a partner, but am seeing that it's coming from me.

It doesn't feel like a yeah, go you girl boss (hate that phrase) moment in my mind either, like I'm proud of myself for these things, but rather alienating. I guess that's a clue that some part of me is tying this back to my family. Ie I can suceed, but no one can love me. Or maybe, success comes at the expense of my family. I feel like there is something in me that has rejected moving forward/doing well (whatever that means) because it means that I will eclispse my family. I think probably this is tied to my gm saying something to me like, one day you won't need me any more, and never wanting me to leave/have my own life. I think this is one side of the polarization, that there is a part that doesn't want to let that go. The other side is the critical voice (of my gf/family) that says nothing I do is good enough, or I could have done it better, that I can't survive on my own without them, and maybe shuts down before I make a mistake. Maybe also where this sort of fantasy idea about life lives? I can't commit because there could be this other life/possibility? So, I sort of stay trapped again.

Interesting, that I really feel this behind my right ear where I hold a lot of tension on that side. My right shoulder is slightly raised. I felt it the other day in regards to men who are threatening/aggressive/passive-aggressive that it's like it collects all those tensions/fighting feelings there. Maybe like a freeze?

It's good to put the polarization down here because I feel like it's something that's hard to get my head around. I don't even think it's polarization, but maybe two legacy burdens vs me (living my own life on the other side? I don't even know what is there fully). 

[dollyvee]

I didn't think it was so long since I wrote in here.

Came to a realization this week with t that the dissociation/feeling that is going on is probably positive, and a deeper level of relational (?) stuff coming up. So, I dealt with that guy in the past, but now this is the residue, the body sensations, preverbal feelings etc of misguided (right word?) attachment. Or, what I felt in the past when my attachment needs weren't met, which isn't a predictor of the future, but feels like one haha.

T said something as well - I can't remember the exact quote though she has said it before - that it is better to be a sinner in the world of the devil than to be the only one right. I'm not sure about the last part, but for the first time I was able to feel what it must have been like to feel all that bad stuff about me that I believed growing up. Going back to the dream that I had with that demon thing in it, it was like this is how I feel about myself (around people/doing something "bad" etc). Somewhere in my internal world, I am trying so hard overcome this thing, or not be it?

I've had a couple other negative/"bad" people/things show up in my dreams recently. I think somehow the proximity to people, or showing myself etc has been bringing this out, but I don't know. I feel like I'm taking care of things in my life right now too, but there is also a larger impending sense of doom if there is an obstacle or surprise. I have this surprise anxiety that shows up, or maybe it's been there but I'm just feeling it in a different way right now.

[Hope67]

Hi Dollyvee,
I just wanted to say that I read the last couple of entries here in your journal, and think you're really addressing quite a few things, and I also wanted to say it's great that you're able to buy a house, if you choose to do so.  It gives you some choice and also a true sense of independence - at least I think so.

I thought it was interesting that you hold/notice tension in your right ear area - I find I get tension held in my left temple area.  I am left-handed though.  I wonder if that is relevant.  I don't know.

I wanted to send you a hug too 
Hope