Dalloway´s Recovery Journal

[Desert Flower]

Hey Dalloway, just wanted to say I'm with you and I can feel your sadness too. No we did not choose or make this road did we. Just this week, I was feeling like it might be pointless myself. It's a part of me that thinks that. But I read something today in BlueSky's journal: It's okay if we don't believe right now it will get better. That's okay.

That brought me some acceptance and relief somehow. Maybe it will help you too. If not, please disregard.

Just wanted to wish you well.
 

[Chart]

Hey Dalloway... yeah, I feel your sadness. It's such an integral part of Cptsd. The hopelessness had me firmly in its grasp this week. It's ebbed a little, but once more the reminder just how much this sucks. I loved your image of lilies... please know it's ok to float. There is no hollywood muscled hero who beats back Cptsd. The best most of the world can do is deny and dissociate. You're not doing that. The sadness is recognition, what the child needs to crawl out from beneath the bed. Do whatever you need now, Dalloway. Take the emptiness and make it sympathy for the one you were who faced that infinite injustice. You can't change the past, but you are no longer alone, here, now, in the present. I see you and validate your feelings. Dive as deep as you need, but know: love awaits you at the surface when you re-emerge, love in the form of beautiful lilies floating on all that sadness.
 

[HannahOne]

Dalloway, I am sorry to hear the struggle you are in. It is a long winding road and we didn't choose it. What choices remain to us? I am with you in the struggle.

While so much doesn't make sense, your feelings do. Hopelessness makes sense. It can be part of letting go of what could have been. The numbness makes sense, it comes and goes as protection.

I see you in your questions, not hiding from the raw truth. Taking account of what happened in your life. Taking delivery of it. With courage and strength.

[SenseOrgan]

I'm sorry Dalloway. The heaviness in your heart is palpable. I'm intimately acquainted with a similar state of being [as far as I can know, off course]. No obvious path ahead, while still ending up in the same spot with every turn taken. And knowing there must be more to the story somewhere, somehow.

One way of framing this, is that the system requires attention to something that's vitally important. It's contained in the very challenging feelings themselves. I've struggled with deep "depression" for decades. I've believed many things about it throughout the years. Most rhymed with "wrong with me" and "beyond repair". I was right. But not in the way I thought. Not even close.

In the saga of me, there is a path. With this kind of matter, I've found, it leads deeper inward. Deeper into the pain itself. There's no wiser, more loving teacher out there. She's making herself known in the places that hurt. It's all you.

Rumi said it better than I ever could in The Guest House.

Much love

[Dalloway]

Today my philosophy teacher complimented me on a seminar paper I wrote about the importance of social work in modern world. I hated the text I sent him. I didn´t think it was good enough, I didn´t even think it was enough to pass the exam. But then he told me that this was a brilliant work and he liked it very much. At first, I was shocked and relieved that I passed the exam, and honestly, I couldn´t believe my ears. My strongest belief was that everything I do is at best average. I was happy for a moment, I could feel the joy spreading in my body, it made me smile. But then the bad stuff hit in.

The disbelief that it can be true was massive. There´s no way he´s right. There needs to be an explanation other than I really deserved the praise. He´s wrong. He´s exaggerating. The other works were so bad that mine looked better in that light. He doesn´t know what he´s talking about. I refused to let in the idea of simply being sufficient and good enough. I believe that every single person in this world is wrong about me when they attribute me some positive qualities. I´m an impostor and soon they´ll know that. And then I´ll be shamed and punished cause that´s what liars like me deserve. Or what´s even worse than punishment, I won´t live up to their expectations, and I´ll have to face the terrible fact that I let down everyone. Because I´m a disappointment, that´s what I am.

I took the train home and as I settled, tears welled up in my eyes. That´t when I understood that I was grieving for that little girl who never once got positive attention in her life, who was never told how precious she was and was always gaslit into believing that she´s a damaged good. I was uncomfortable hearing the compliments because I never got one from my own mother. And I felt heartbreak hearing this random teacher say those kind words to me because my mom never even got close to be this kind to me. I was crying for the child that was lied to about her not being good enough that led to her adult self questioning even the smallest things she does.

At this point, I´m equally heartbroken and helpless. It´s a lot to take in. It´s hard to comprehend how can someone destroy their own child´s self-esteem at the very core. And it´s even harder to understand how huge of an impact it had on my life. It´s literally everywhere. My very core was injured, the part that was supposed to make me a whole person with a clear sense of self. How could I function as a whole and healthy person when I was betrayed this bad? My whole world fell apart once upon a time when I was a little kid. Now the adult found those pieces but doesn´t know what to do with them.

[Chart]

Dalloway... Your post has brought tears to my eyes. I so very much understand that broken child. You ask what to do with the pieces? Pick them up. Put them together, no matter how broken, and hold them in your arms. Love those pieces. Love that little girl who never had a mother. She's alive and well and needs love. No one else can give it to her now, except you.

I've found my prefrontal cortex, rational and conscious, is good for very little, but does excel at one thing in particular. It's capable of stopping the voice of my past, my mother, my uselessness, my existence... I say NO to all that. It feels false, wrong, dumb, totally against what I am feeling. But I've learned... on this ONE thing, my prefrontal conscious mind is actually right.

Dalloway, your philosophy teacher is not wrong. Take that information and force it on yourself. That is the beginning. It takes a Loooooooooooong time to believe the message, the message that goes to the depths of our souls. But the New Word is that we are okay, we are good, we are lovable. We just never got what EVERY child deserves...

I go to playground and watch the children. The younger the better for me. I watch kids fall and see their mothers run to them and pick them up and talk to them and sooth them. I watch other kids hug each other. Sometimes they push, sometimes they laugh, but they are all beautiful and I rejoice in their joy at being. I watch how it was "supposed" to be for me, and often I cry like a madman. Like now. It hurts so much. It goes so deep. I make sense of it all through my tears. And slowly, ever so slowly I feel put back together, I feel more an more whole. I've still a long way to go. I'm still terrified. But day after day, week upon week, it gets easier. I start to believe what was inconceivable two years ago: I am loved. Now by many, and especially by me.

Love yourself Dalloway. You absolutely deserve it.
Sending love, lots of love, Chart