the next step

[SenseOrgan]

i think this is the best i've felt in several decades

YES, YES ((((((((((  YES!  )))))))))) 
I'm so happy for you San! I'm delighted to hear you're taking your power back and you're feeling so much better. 

I'm just curious... Would your ex having a little spinach stuck between his teeth while he's tantruming further tip the balance in your favor? 

Much love

[sanmagic7]

SO, you made me laugh out loud!  unfortunately, he doesn't eat spinach, so i couldn't even come close to making that a 'look' for him.  he's so little, tho, that i could ping him w/ my forefinger and thumb and he'd go flying.  thank you so for your support! 

not feeling good today - don't know if i've overdone it or what, but it's a rest day for me.

[Blueberry]

  

Rest day for me too, tho I have to get up again soon and run an errand.

[HannahOne]

Me three, rest day! 

Yes to spinach in the ex's teeth! LOL

[sanmagic7]

so happy for your rest day, blueberry.  too bad you have to break it up w/ an errand, but hope you enjoy all of it anyway.  thanks for your support.

hannah1, i hope you enjoy your rest day - you've certainly earned it.  thank you for being here.

feeling better today.  i was in a lot of pain from one of my 'gas attacks' that seem to shred the insides of my body after several hours of pain that keeps me sitting very still until it finally fades away.  still not sure what causes it, but i did feel off earlier in the day, had problems driving - kept dissociating - and felt agitated while i ate, which i'm beginning to recognize brings on this pain.

yesterday it was still there, but instead of trying to 'rest' it away, i decided to confront it.  i'd talked before about this being one of my bricks, and since this pain is located near my heart, i'm thinking it's related to relationships of the heart as well.  so, i pushed back, imagined my ex, and forced myself to get angry.  feel the pain of his betrayal.  also did some Flash technique w/ my newfound 'grandma', and she helped - she said she didn't like him, that he was a bad man, while in real life my M loved him, thought the world of him, and i can remember once thinking - yeah, but you don't really know what he's like at home!  so, 'grandma' saw thru him - he was very, very good at projecting that kind of person that mothers love - and that was comforting.

leaning into the pain instead of simply enduring or frantically trying to relieve it was very different, but i reminded myself that i need to get into this pain or it's going to continue getting into me.  so by putting it in a place that made sense - such as the marriage w/ my ex - it helped relieve the pain that no amount of xanax has.  tough road, but it's gotta be done for my own health and well-being.  feeling that pain every week or so has been so disheartening, takes me to dark places again and again, saps my strength, energy, and spirit.

i don't know yet what the agitation was from earlier in the day, but it's something for me to watch for in the future.  maybe there's a connection there, i'm sure there is, but maybe i can discover/realize what the connection might be about, rather than generic 'anxiety'.  the hunt goes on.

[sanmagic7]

therapy on mon.  it still surprises me how much just talking to someone about events in my life, relationships, words, actions, non-actions, any part of it can still cause me to be upset.  or when she gets the meaning of what i'm saying wrong and i have to expend a lot of energy correcting, explaining, denying what she said, her perspective cuz it's not what i meant when i said it.  still fighting to be known, i guess. 

that usually doesn't happen here, tho, which is a lovely relief.

[Blueberry]

 

[TheBigBlue]

 

[NarcKiddo]

 

[HannahOne]

It would be a repetition to not be understood or to be invalidated. That's totally valid!!  

[sanmagic7]

thanks, everyone,

just gotta put this down here - already did this in my other journal, so i'll be briefer here.  just found out this morning that my mex. nephew is now part of one of the cartels.  my mex ex told me he talked to him, told him the bigwigs sit in luxury and make the young kids like our nephew do all the dirty work.  there was a big shootout in one of the valleys not far from where we lived, and he says he's injured.  my mex ex and the kid's father believe that the kid has already killed people, says he likes the life - money, cars, prestige of a sort, power, and he's gonna stay.  so, i spent  some 10 years waiting for the phone call about my D1'a death happening, now this, and probably sooner rather than later. 

i know, let go and let god, but it's too soon.  my mind is just now reeling from this news this morning.  don't have the feelings yet except dread and horror.  and last month i found out my bro's kid has been beating his women, from his first wife and the rest of his women since.  my bro is disgusted, disowns him - what a bunch of families i've fallen in with.  and i have some resentment toward my ex right now - he's in a senior residence, lots of friendly people around him, our favorite card game every week, taken care of, looked after, all the amenities, and our rent just went up over 3x what it went up last year, and we're still frickin' scraping by every month as it is. 

and i keep hearing about how well he's doing, how nice the place is, how he can afford it, gets this, that, and the other, plenty of socializing  . . .  and last week my T asked me if i bring stress into my life.  no, it just kinda keeps falling into my lap.  frick a frack.

[sanmagic7]

just got back from the midwest comic-con, we did real good but i'm spent.

[sanmagic7]

therapy yesterday.  i'm thinking she might not be the right fit for me after all.  the kicker was, i've already told her that i'm like a full glass of water when it comes to stress, cuz all those feelings i've never felt have filled by system to the brim, and i need to dig into the past in order to get at those feelings/emotions that have stayed inside and get them out.  and so as not to be overwhelmed, Flash technique has worked best for me.

so, this has all been explained, including the idea that that full glass of water needs only one more drop of stress before it overflows.  she'd asked me the other week if i brought stress on myself, i told her that stress comes and falls into my lap.  this week i gave the examples of finding out about my 2 nephews a month apart, that our rent had gone up more that triple what it had gone up last year, and that we had this 4 days of rushing, driving in chicago traffic w/ my D's anxiety, and wondering if we were going to make enough money so we could come back next year (we did, but it's quite tense and hectic the whole time).

so i told her i was wiped out, all this stuff got to me in one way or another, and she responded w/ - well, life is like that, it's stressful.  i can see now that some eye movements could've been helpful to calm all that down, to whittle it down to something tolerable or for my mind to figure out what to do about it instead of just sit w/ it and have some platitude tossed to me. 

i can say all this now, but i didn't think of it at the time, and after all, that's what i'm paying her to think of.  a while later, my D and i ordered some of our favorite food, and i ended up w/ a gas attack.  so, i sat there in pain, my celebration kind of ruined, and we called it a day, went back to our rooms by 8.  while sitting here, i remembered about leaning into the pain - after several hours of it, of course - and i did some eye movements, and sure enough, anger.  and i cussed her out soundly and roundly and within minutes the pain had mostly dissipated and by the time i went to bed it was gone.

the body has been keeping my score forever, i think.  i just have to learn how to read the chart and fix the numbers.

[HannahOne]

It's so frustrating when you know what works for you and the therapist doesn't turn to that technique!

[sanmagic7]

you're absolutely right, hannah1.  thanks for that validation.

my D talked to her T about my situation with my T.  she said she thinks both my D and i are beyond the basic pep talk and platitudes therapeutic situation.  altho my T seemed to be what i needed in the beginning, somehow she isn't advancing on what we've already accomplished - such as the work i did w/ Flash technique w/ her.  she saw the results, recognized how efficient it was, how i was able to resolve a problem in 20 min. the next session she simply resorted to asking mundane questions (at least that's how they felt to me), and even this past mon. she just wanted to chat about the stress i've experienced w/ my nephews and this whole past weekend, and my relationship w/ my bro.

i can understand she'd like to get to know me better, but it all seems very random to me, and i don't know how one thing is connected to another, like i'm the older sister and he'll talk to me, calm down, get another viewpoint, yeah, but she didn't ask how often that happened, which i would think is important.  happens a lot?  heavy stressor.  happens every few months?  not so much of a problem.  that kind of thing.  like we're on different wavelengths, which maybe we are.

i also am not sure if she understands c-ptsd and all its underpinnings, which would explain a lot.  looks like i'm going to have to do my own deep diving w/ here, see exactly where she's at w/ me.  i know a lot of my problem is the storage over all these years of emotions/feelings that have stayed stuck and need to come out.  i did more raging last nite cuz i could feel it in my gut again, and it helped a lot.  maybe that's what i need to do more of - well, i'm sure it is.  i'm just soo tired of having to figure myself out by myself.