Eerie Anne's Journal

[Eireanne]

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[Eireanne]

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[Eireanne]

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[Eireanne]

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[Eireanne]

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[Armee]

I definitely relate to so much of what you are writing...memory issues, feeling shame about not remembering people so isolating, feeling the need to get it all out, etc.

It's a lot of stuff we have dealt with for so long and it all piled up and we want to deal with it all right now. Unfortunately our brains (and even the brains of our therapists) can only deal with one piece at a time.

I dont know what will work for you in your work in therapy. For me, I had to start with a small insignificant easy little chunk and put everything else on the back burner and slowly work through the low hanging fruit first. Trust me it was extremely frustrating to be talking about managing task related things like overwhelm during chores while there were these big bad traumas waiting  for attention. It felt so wrong.

For me it turned out to be the right approach because I built skills and tolerance for easier things first and little successes boosted my confidence and my trust in my therapist. And ultimately everything does link back to trauma anyway, so I was always working on trauma even when it felt like I wasn't.

I hope this doesn't come across as preachy or anything, I'm just intending to share what the early days of dealing with the traumas was like for me. And that I am happy with how it worked out in the end and feel good about the process we used. I wasn't ready for the hard stuff for several years. My window of tolerance was just a slit, and really insufficient for processing trauma. But this slow work built it up wide enough that now I can deal with the hardest stuff.

I was really happy to read that you came to some new insights during your last therapy session. Those little successes help me to keep going so I hope it also gives you a boost.

With regard to reading and responding to others' journals we all felt the same way coming in new to the forum so what you are feeling and wondering is very very normal. You are certainly welcome to go back to the very beginning of people's journals if you really want to, but that's a lot of work and time. I think it's OK to not respond to others journals or to just respond based on the latest entry and what they are dealing with right now, without knowing that person's backstory.

All to say, it's up to you. There is no pressure here to do anything aside from taking care of you and being respectful and kind to others, knowing we are all in the same boat managing triggers, overwhelm, and lifelong trauma.

[Eireanne]

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[Eireanne]

Armee, thank you so much, I will give you a more thought out response when I am not in the middle of processing other stuff, but your words mean a lot to me and are appreciated.


I decided to switch gears and focus on me, and the things I have wanted to get done.  Part of that is listening to videos, presentations and the like and try to better understand, but not just to passively listen, but to take notes.  And as we (my parts) all listen to these things, we have thoughts, and mostly recognize that we try to fit our lived experience into the scenarios suggested, but they don't quite fit, and that leads us to doubt our experiences...so I want to disregard what I'm hearing instead of listening and then reframing it so it DOES benefit me. Which means I wasted an hour that I was passively listening and not taking notes, because I already take too many notes and then copy/paste notes from one place to another, and then transcribe them to different journals and I feel like I'm just making busy work for myself instead of focusing on what's important?  So I'm on the fence.  But I'll give it another try...

[Eireanne]

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[Eireanne]

Armee

There's a sort of quiet comfort in knowing my thoughts are relatable to others. I appreciate you sharing what worked for you, there's comfort in that too - discovering what works. I'm glad you've experienced little successes as well   

Appreciate you giving me some suggestions for reading other's journals...it just feels so daunting, especially when I'm unsure how someone else will interpret my words...but I'll give it a try soon

Thank you 

[Eireanne]

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