stuck stuck stuck

[Hope67]

Hi SanMagic,
Sounds like you've given a lot of yourself in that relationship with your D's friend - and I'm glad you're laying low for the rest of the day to recuperate and I wanted to send you a big hug all for you 
Hope 

[Not Alone]

Glad you are listening to yourself and are going to cuddle up. Here's a hug while your resting. 

[sanmagic7]

thanks, hope - that hug was so precious.  i loved it!

notalone, thank you.  i did do a lot of laying back yesterday, didn't go out with my d and her friend at all, and i'm really glad i didn't.  loved the hug.

yesterday turned out to be quite a bad one for me.  i was anxious about expectations, what my d's friend would think (which i know is my own stuff - she's a wonderful person and would never be neg. toward me at all!) and just very, very lonely.  it turned out that her being here triggered my own loneliness and sadness about all the friends i don't have anymore. 

i used to have many, many friends, different groups at different times of my life, and they were all left behind when i went to mexico.  now, my supportive people are by email, only, and consist of 2, really.  all the rest have kind of fallen by the wayside.  so, having my d's best friend here - they've been friends since kindergarten - ended up being a terrible trigger for me.

i went thru a loneliness, no friends period, when i was in junior high, broke down in front of my folks about it, and their response was lacking any compassion, touch, soothing words, comfort - all that good stuff.  i flashed on that yesterday, how i'd never wanted to go thru that again, and here i am.  i know that i have my d, and she's wonderful, but it's not quite the same.

so, i did a funeral for friends, said good-bye to all of them who have come and gone.  very, very sad, lots of tears.  i was the giver in most of those relationships, and when i stopped giving, they either turned on me or disappeared.  so, i did nothing w/ my d and her friend during the day, which i'm glad of now.  they had a pretty energetic day, and it would've wiped me out.

feeling better today, and my t is coming in a few minutes.  that should help stabilize me, too.  thank god i'm getting to see her 2x/week for now.  it's really helping.

[sanmagic7]

just wrote in another journal about the possibility that i also have parts that may need attention.  it's an area i haven't gone into, and it briefly came up w/ my t yesterday.  i told her i was 'afraid', which almost came out by accident.  she perked up at that, so i don't doubt we'll go into it in more detail in the near future.

thinking about the fear factor, i think it's because i'm scared it's going to hurt.  i know the pain i've been feeling with the funerals, but this is a new area for me and i don't know what to expect.  scares me a lot, tho, and i'm also not used to being/feeling scared, so it's kind of a double whammy.  i don't know if it's an area i need to start going into right away, or wait till i'm a bit more stable.  we'll see.

i do know there are parts in there - one especially has come out several times that i call the 'gray lady'.  it's like all my personality leaves and there's merely a gray shell left behind, speaking in a monotone, not showing anything lifelike.  hard to explain, but i do know her.  i've felt various ages at times, but never tangible enough to call it a 'part' or 'little'.  a new frontier, i guess.

[Snowdrop]

I don't know if this helps, but I was really wary about working with parts at first as well. I felt almost threatened by the idea.

I think the key thing is that you have a good T on your side, and she has a plan for helping you. She's there for you, and we are too.

[Not Alone]

Here to support you. 

[Sceal]

Dear San,
I am soorry I haven't been around reading your journal to support you when you've given me such great support. Thank you for that. 

I relate to being the giver in relationships; be it friends or otherwise. It's hard part to be in, because it is an uneven power dynamic in friendships. It sounds like a good idea to have a funeral for those friendships! To let go of them. I have found that online friends are sometimes better to keep and can become much more solid and deeper than with any I've had in real life. Over time there's enough distance to give each other room to grow and get to know one another I think.

[sanmagic7]

thanks, snowdrop - it does help to know it's not just a crazy thing i'm thinking about the parts work.  thinking about it, it's like i want to keep all of them tucked in close, don't want to bring them out where they're vulnerable, just want to protect them - and i'm saying this without the slightest idea if it's true for me.  but the fear is real, so it must be true, and then i get scared all over again.

thanks for the support, notalone.  truly appreciated.

no apologies necessary, sceal.  we do what we can when we can.  you've been quite busy lately!  thanks for the thoughts on friends, tho.

off to see my t in a little bit.  no new funerals, but my d's friend just left yesterday, and my d and i had quite a lot of debriefing to get thru as it turned out.  the visit was not what either of us expected - her friend was not quite what we expected, and brought an uneasy energy into the house.  one of ways we knew that was true was because the cat yucked up every day while she was here.  we've had other visitors overnight, the cat never reacted like that with them.  so, we're sure that what we noticed was not just us - it was 'off' somehow.

just got back from therapy.  i told her a bit more about my parts, how scared i am to find out if there are any, how i feel like i have them all cuddled up, protecting them cuz they're too vulnerable to expose.  that's my first indication that there might be something to this for me.  she asked about shame, how i don't really feel shame about anything that's happened to me, but that since i do dissociate and depersonalize/derealize that there's usually shame attached somewhere.  i feel so out of it that i can't recognize this stuff as easily as others do.

i also told her how important it was that she's validated some of my experiences, especially since i've worked w/ professionals who literally mocked me or like that icky t i had first who was not concerned about my ex's problem when it came to me and my D1, but when he told her stuff that he considered a problem, she immediately sent him to a specialist.  when i told my t that story the other day(didn't want to get into details here - suffice it to say, it was horrible, as in she tried to blame me for his problem, stuff like that), my t quickly said 'that's insane'.

and, today, when i was telling her about my fear w/ my parts, she said she'd keep them safe.  i burst into tears - i've never had an adult say that to me about anything about myself.  to keep me safe - what a revelation!  so, she told me we didn't have to get into any of that yet, we can just keep getting to know each other.  she also thought that 2x/week would still be good for me thru april.  so, that was reassuring.

that's not to say that people here haven't told me that - i know you all keep me safe, want what's best for me.  this is the first time, tho, in over 30 yrs. of seeing t's, that one of them has actually treated me for trauma, has taken the time and energy to look out for me and what's best for me.  it hit me at my core.  such a new experience in a life so full of experience.

so, all in all, a good session.  i'm so thankful this is happening. 

[Not Alone]

I'm so glad you are feeling cared for, understood, and protected by your T. That is really big.

[sanmagic7]

thanks, notalone.

well, i found a shame piece - i'm ashamed when i'm not perfect.  when i make a mistake, write too much here, or the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, don't do the right thing (i know, right and wrong are subjective - you understand what i mean).  this is my shame and it's now 4:30 a.m. and i haven't fallen asleep yet because it's been so disturbing to realize it.  hopefully, i'll go to bed now, but i feel just awful.

coming down piece by piece off my pedestal of perfection is so painful, and always leaves me feeling like a failure.  i couldn't make the 'perfect' thing work, and i'm ashamed i couldn't.  honestly, i thought if anyone could, i could.  as i told my d, this was my protection against feeling anything neg. about myself, having an ICr to contend with, or getting down on myself in any way, shape, or form.  and i'm ashamed to admit it cuz of all the arrogance i've dragged around behind it.  too much.

[Not Alone]

What an enormous, impossible burden you carry----maybe that has been placed upon you? The weight of that seems crushing. I know there is no easy "fix" for that awful shame. I wish I could take some of it off your shoulders and throw it far, far away.

[sanmagic7]

notalone, your validation was so needed.  i can't thank you enough.  i never knew it was impossible, it never felt enormous, but looking at it with clearer eyes, it's like  .  still, it's so difficult to get out from under it, it scares me to death.  and, i have no doubt that was placed on me from my F from before i could crawl.  pre-verbal crapola ends up being core belief, which, in my experience, is the most difficult to change or even to challenge.  so, your recognition of its impossibility and enormity speaks wonders to my feeling of vulnerability right now.

i find my mind wrestling with this, wanting to give it up at the same time wanting it to stay.  it was so much of the protective piece i'd encircled myself with and it's terribly frightening to let it go.  i will probably have to do a funeral for it, but not yet.  just this realization is heavy enough for one day.

when i was talking to my d about some of this, she told me that altho i had all these accomplishments in my life, they were kind of just what i did, one after another, almost automatic.  there was a time when she wrote about 3 adult women in her life who she admired, and i wasn't one of them.  that really hurt.  she brought that up last nite, told me it was because i didn't seem human, so i wasn't someone she looked up to.  that makes me want to cry.

she says that now, since i've been living w/ her, i'm so very different than i was then.  she's seeing the changes, sees that i'm not as sick as i used to be, that when i get 'stress sick' i recover more quickly, and that i'm showing/expressing more emotions.  i feel like an absolute mess so much of the time, and it's nearly impossible to wrap my head around the idea that she likes me better this way!  she said that being on a pedestal was a way to stay distant from people.  well, yeah - i was supposed to lead the way!  show everyone how to do it!  how could i do that and be 'one of the gang'?

so, very confusing to me.  i'm still pretty raw, feeling paper thin. my brain is whirling.  feeling fuzzy - all that good stuff.  dang, i hate this stuff!

[sanmagic7]

altho i'm super concerned about the health stuff, i've been canceling going anywhere that other people may be at, which is really sad to me, but i've discovered that the whole thing has really been stressing me out, so it's been helpful that way to cancel cancel cancel.  i'm feeling a little bit more at ease w/ the isolation, but we've got a lot of canned goods (we canceled our monthly trip to the food pantry tomorrow, which definitely puts a strain on our finances) and rice and beans that lets us know we won't starve.  i'm going to miss fresh fruits and veggies, tho.   still, better than putting myself at risk.

i know i've gotten stressed cuz i've had 2 dreams in the past few nights about traveling to mexico - that was always my go-to dream when i was stressed.  it showed me that i wasn't happy where i was, wanted to get away.  they weren't bad dreams, tho, which was good.  just being on the road, meeting and interacting w/ people.  yeah, all about that.

so, i'm depending on xanax now to keep that stress level down, which does help.  and, i am feeling better mentally and emotionally, so i know the therapy is helping as well.  that's a relief.  my d and i are binge-watching buffy in the evenings, so i'm getting a lot of tears out that had to do with relationships and other factors in my life i never cried about.  a nice up curve for right now, which feels pretty nice.  however, i've noticed that i don't have any emotional tolerance in the midst of this worry/stress for being able to read what other people are writing.  i'm still supporting you all, but i just have to take a break from reading for right now. 

i hate that i have to do that.  love and hugs to everyone.

[Snowdrop]

I sometimes binge-watch Buffy too, Angel as well.

Don't worry about not reading what other people write. You have to do whatever is best for you and take care of yourself. Love and hugs back.

[sanmagic7]

yeah, snowdrop, we're doing a back and forth w/ buffy and angel right now.  we do a lot of crying, but i don't think it's a bad thing for either of us.

thanks for the support.  i love the love and hugs!