More Concrete Steps, More Therapy Homework

[Blueberry]

Thank you Hope and 3R  So that's what they're called - allies? I've seen that word on here and wasn't really sure what it meant. Now I know.

I'm continuing to feel good, with energy bubbling up. Sometimes it feels a bit too much and I don't know what to do with it for a moment or two but usually I can then feel what to do next. It's mostly just keeping going with this and that, no huge plans. Yesterday evening I was quite tired and ate a bunch of cheese, which was not the best plan. But today I don't have any cravings - so far. Learning from yesterday would tell me not to continue doing stuff in the late evening if I'm feeling tired. Really - take a break. Now I'm going to turn off the computer and go into the garden.

[Tee]

  enjoy your garden blueberry, in glad your making steps forward.

[Blueberry]

Thank you Tee! I do enjoy my garden
___________________

Today a new student came and I was pleasantly surprised because I know she's traumatised (though now removed from the situation and the abuser) and has bouts of SH but she looked much different from what I was imagining! My imagined picture of her undoubtedly based on myself at that age: small-seeming, shrinking into the wall, tense, sad, visibly lacking in self-confidence, maybe even grumpy/scowling (hiding the pain)... But she isn't like that at least on what I presume is a good day. I feel some relief both for me and her. She looks like a normal girl in her mid-teens.

In a way that brings back to me how desperately unhappy I was through most of my childhood and teens into my early 20's. I almost always looked stressed, unhappy, nervous. Even in years where I lived in a country other than the country where things were particularly bad. I have been told that children/teens often show via their behaviour rather than their looks and general air that something's amiss. With adults I think you can often see in their eyes. Well, when I was a child and especially a teen anybody who wanted to see it, could see it. Even FOO saw it but they couldn't? / didn't want to? see it for what it was. Potential employers (for student summer jobs) could see it - they knew something was wrong. Made getting jobs almost impossible. On the upside, it helps me believe that, yes, my childhood including teen years really was that bad! Even on better days, I looked in a shockingly bad state. I remember once momentarily catching a glimpse of myself reflected in a train window on what I thought was a good day. I looked haunted.

[Tee]

  I'm glad the student is doing better than you thought.
I'm sorry no one was there for you the way you are there for your  student. You are changing lives both here and in person that is amazing how you can use your hurt to help others. I know there are times it is hard to continue moving forward but I think you are amazing blueberry I'm here giving you a big hug of understanding and encouragement

[Snowdrop]

 

[Blueberry]

Thank you Tee and Snowdrop so much! It's been hard for me to read your posts, but in a good way. I even dissociate ever so slightly to re-read my own post above. Thank you Tee for so much encouragement and understanding. You're right, I do help others, I've been helping students for years, helping them like the subject again or at least not be afraid of it, helping them find new ways to learn, helping them with self-confidence.

When I first read your post, Tee, I wanted to write that there were people there for me, occasionally at least. But then that made me think what kind of terrible state I would have ended up in if absolutely nobody had been there for me. My thought that there were in fact people there for me is an automatic downplaying thought, like "oh, it wasn't that bad". The kind of idea FOO fed me for years.

It's hard to believe I might appear amazing to some people, but at least my ICr is no longer so rampantly against anybody saying that. M was very against anybody saying anything good about me, but a further step going on in my healing since last T appointment is that I'm not listening so much to her voice any more. Her voice has got quieter too.

Tee, your post also helped me to think back to the little girl I was, and then the teenager and young adult and look at her with more empathy and understanding, at least for a moment. It's often hard for me to look back at myself the way I was without my ICr getting going and/or without me slightly dissociating. 

[Tee]

  big steps blueberry thank you for sharing.

[Blueberry]

Starting a new post. One piece of progress today is to notice that I'm slipping downwards slightly and I'm thinking more of other people than of myself. That happens when I'm not well grounded.
Slipping downwards: doing various fairly small tasks feels strenuous, especially professional work. Also I did intend to go up to the farm today and do some work in the vegetable plot but the distance from my house to the farm seems unmanageably far. I remember that's often the case when I'm not well grounded and/or when a younger Blueberry has taken over. It seems very difficult to phone or email the farm and say I'm not coming after all. It seems like I'm letting them down, whereas as a matter of fact I'm looking after me as a priority.

I have a headache and I've gone back to bed a couple of times so far today. I probably really do / did need my sleep. These are often signs of something coming up.

At least I have had a think about next easiest beneficial activity and did some before, e.g. wandering about in my own garden doing a bit of weeding or cutting back here and there. Also fed and then sat and watched my Little Furries.

I also massaged my head and did a little tapping without thinking or saying anything. I yawned like crazy anyway.

I'm also considering that my prices are possibly too low for the teaching work I do, especially teaching adults. Particularly the one young woman who is still on a school student rate though she no longer goes to school. I could up her price a bit in August or September.

[Blueberry]

Thank you Tee 

[Tee]

  take care of you blueberry enjoy your day 

[Blueberry]

Thank you for the reminder to take care of me and enjoy my day, Tee. I have at least been taking care of me by not going to the farm. I've also done some Little Furry care and I enjoy my time with them. That reminds me: yesterday I was cleaning out their living-quarters. I've been trying them out on cloths instead of the more typical newspaper and shavings. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. So anyway yesterday for the second time I noticed a good, almost loving feeling when I was tucking part of an old cloth under itself and smoothing it down. It was almost as if it flashed me back but in a good way to smoothing sheets and blankets on my own bed or maybe somebody else's bed probably when I was little and somebody - maybe a grandmother - was showing me how to make a bed properly. My own bed is almost always a rat's nest. I mostly feel too exhausted to make it properly. There will be something behind that.

I got my 2018 tax stuff back from the accountant. Both my turnover and my profit went down from 2017, not by much. But I had been hoping they'd gone up a little. I have to be careful here and not use 'should' or anything like that, but I'm thinking the time has come to spend a little more time and effort on business matters and less on freetime stuff like singing in the choir. I'm not doing any of the latter atm anyway because of Covid. Our choir has started up again, with only 4 members singing and very far apart but I've declined to go so far because I'm worried about catching the virus. When you sing, the droplets fly much further... Also I like to sing but I can't really so as one of only four singers I would feel emotionally very vulnerable to all sorts of ICr voices (B1 and M for a start) but also to possible criticisers in the present.

There are things I've done in my freetime to keep me psychologically afloat more or less. Time to reduce some of these, especially the ones that are more 'work' than anything else because some of them are also about showing that  I'm pulling my weight, to mitigate what FOO said I wasn't doing enough of. Some things I have already reduced massively, partly because I realised the other people were stressing me e.g. by making passive-aggressive remarks. I still see or phone some of them, but individually. The passive-aggressiveness has stopped.

Even things like cycling advocacy which I've been doing on and off for years - even that. In some ways it gives me energy but it's an old thing I think. Fighting for a cause other than for myself and my wellbeing was quite OK for FOO. Oftentimes it's kind of like fighting a losing battle though. Or at least too much energy expended for too little result. Indirectly it helps my wellbeing. But that's not enough for me to be putting energy and even creativity into it because I need both for me in my private life and for my business. I'm reminding myself now that it is great that more energy is opening up and that I feel more capability to expend that on myself and on my paying clients.

[Blueberry]

P.S. I felt a little guilty and sad while writing parts of the above because I, no actually my ICr, was thinking "I should've realised all this earlier". But no, ICr! That is wrong!! I realise this kind of thing as I take a step forward in healing and am able to handle this kind of truth emotionally and as I am beginning to be able to go through with it.

[Blueberry]

I feel as if I've come to a full stop again. Though I read James' post earlier and wanted to respond with something like 'our steps go forward and sometimes go backwards, but then they go forwards again'. So that will be the same with me.

I'm having difficulty carrying through with things today. Thinking I 'should' be putting more energy in my business doesn't seem to be working. Instead it's making me feel under pressure so I then do nothing much - personal or business. This morning I mowed a big part of the lawn. Left the remains for somebody else though. I did get changed out of my gardening clothes into something a bit more colourful and respectable but haven't gone further than that. It is a step though. 

[Not Alone]

steps matter.  for each step.

[Blueberry]

Thank you for the reminder notalone. It's like: Baby steps count.