More Concrete Steps, More Therapy Homework

[Deep Blue]

Blueberry,
I would be exhausted with the emotional baggage you unloaded too. 

Im appalled by people who say something negative just to hurt others.  Criticism of you being a translator seems like it was only intended to hurt you and I'm sorry for that. 

Hang in there friend, hope you feel more rested today

[Blueberry]

Deep Blue,
Thank you so much for posting  You're helping me realise and believe that my exhaustion is once again because of cptsd. Even just thinking about these emotional injuries from the past plus the seemingly small amount of FOO contact I had over past couple of days has wiped me out. So time to accept that for myself. It's normal to be this exhausted with that amount of emotional baggage. Thank you also for your validation. It means a lot. Yup, FOO thinks it's quite OK to go out of their way to hurt other people with things they say. Especially to hurt me. Because I do remember F and B1 telling M off for being rude and hurtful to sales assistants, secretaries and the like but I always got told I had to learn to put up with that kind of thing and/or they queried why I "couldn't take a joke". M actually enjoys hurting people, she has admitted that before.

A few minutes ago I watched a little pre-view clip on EFT where they differentiate between EFT to self-regulate and EFT to process trauma. Well, now I know why EFT exhausts me no end - I use it to process trauma. Often my arms feel so heavy and tired I can hardly lift them to tap my head, even lying down. Or I fall asleep in the middle of doing it. My T says that's good, because it means at least I'm relaxed enough to fall asleep.

I can't imagine how I used to function pre-lockdown, when I had all sorts of things to do that I don't now. Like choir practice and going up to the farm to work, but also an afternoon games group. I suppose some of that gave me energy and the will to keep going too.

[Blueberry]

I was able to allow myself to do what I wanted today, which was lie in bed dozing, reading and doing crossword puzzles till 1pm despite the sunshine outside. In the course of the afternoon and evening I did some beneficial activities like some overdue tidying, rearranging and cleaning. I also phoned a friend I've been intending to phone for a while and I threw out some papers.

Then just before coming on here I did some disinfecting in the stairwell and other shared parts of the building. I'm not doing it often enough, but I simply can't. Cleaning is so exhausting for me. I'm making it easier for myself though by using disposable disinfectant wipes. That rather goes against the grain because I try and live in an environmentally-conscious way. But Idk exactly what goes on when I clean - the cloth and the bucket both get dirty and then it feels as if my hands get infected somehow, as if I can't get rid of the dirt at all. I don't know how to describe it. Recently I even thought of Lady Macbeth who kept seeing blood on her hands and kept trying to clean them. I don't have blood on my hands and I'm not an obsessive cleaner, quite the reverse, but sometimes I feel as if I have ocd the way I react to the dirt on the cloth, in the water, in the bucket, whereever I toss the dirty water... Maybe I'll discuss that with my T on Thursday.

I've felt cold the past few days though in the daytime it's 20°C or hotter in the shade and I haven't felt very safe in the garden, especially not just sitting relaxing in the sun or warm shade. Doing a bit of work is easier. Not sure what's going on there but no doubt it will either pass or make itself clear.

[Blueberry]

Today I stayed in bed really late as well. tomorrow I have therapy again. I know my T will focus on the positives e.g. at least I contacted the two clients I haven't billed yet to see if they would be amenable to paying a little more for Skype  / phone lessons because they involved way more prep in early lockdown than normal face2face lessons.

They both are amenable. Now I 'only' have to do the actual invoicing. I know this is an additional step, another hurdle even. So step by step. Baby steps count. Maybe I'll even have the ability to do so after posting on here? Or at least send the homework witten for another client. Bit by bit. Baby steps.

[Hope67]

Hi Blueberry,
Baby steps definitely count, and  for the outcome with your clients. 

Hope 

[Not Alone]

Recently I read an article where they were talking about amygdala hijacking and words helping to bring the front of the brain back online. I thought of you and the crossword puzzles that you do.

It's what Judith Lewis Herman calls the "wordless terror" of trauma.

But the flipside is that if we can get ourselves talking, or focusing on words such as through puzzles like wordsearches or crosswords, or by reading or journaling, we will be coaxing our brain to restore its bloodflow back to Broca's area again. And by doing that, it will start to turn on the front brain as a whole again.

https://www.carolynspring.com/blog/managing-triggers-part-one-why-triggers-are-nothing-to-be-ashamed-of/

Yes, baby steps make a difference.

[owl25]

Sounds like progress, and with practice, it will get easier 

[Blueberry]

Thank you all for having confidence in me. I don't feel it myself but I suppose the forum is carrying it for me, or something. I just think I should be over all this stuff by now, I've been in healing for so long, have so much therapy etc. But 'should' is never good for me.

I am the only one who can drag me back out of this despondency, depression or whatever it is exactly.

[Three Roses]

I just had a long, lovely response to you and my internet went down right at the end! I don't have the mental capacity atm to rethink it all.  Oh well, hang in there is basically what it said.

[Blueberry]

Thank you 3R!

I think it's this idea that it's OK / Or is it OK? to do nothing. I think it was more a question from my T about whether I need to harangue myself about it rather than necessarily a suggestion that I do nothing.

Partly I'm doing more or less nothing because of things I'm putting off like showering and washing hair, which I've been putting off for a long time now. It's just as well I live alone in this pandemic.

There are also those bills I haven't written, the little furries who need some more care other than just being fed, something I need to be able to figure out how to do on my computer. Oh and yes, I desperately need to clean and tidy.  It all feels completely unmanageable atm. I wish somebody else would just come and take over. There isn't anybody though. Just something I need to start doing again myself.

[Hope67]

   to you Blueberry.
Hope 

[Jazzy]

Hope you feel better soon Blueberry. Maybe you can start easy, just do 1 thing, then try to feel good about that accomplishment.

[Blueberry]

Thank you so much for your support, Hope and Jazzy! Very good idea Jazzy. You know, I hadn't even thought of giving myself some praise for getting one thing on that list done Instead I was pushing myself on to do more and more and more.

Undoubtedly it's an EF. Probably partly brought on by what we were looking at in T last week and partly by contact to FOO before that. We were working on that in T last week too.

I've been back in old behaviour patterns of, well, denying myself things. I hear M's voice saying: if you don't do xy, then you can't do or have z. Although I think that's a fairly normal punishment/reward system when you're bringing up children, it must have been misused in some way for me to be having such strong reactions to it. I do remember though that I'd often relinquish z without even trying xy. That fit well with disappearing and depression and not doing anything which were my go-to modes of surviving. The misuse I suppose was that often M didn't want me to have or do z, so the xy was often a very high hurdle, e.g. if you don't stop crying / if you don't stop reacting to B1 (annoying me, punching me, taking my things uninvited etc.). I suppose doing without z and telling myself it didn't matter anyway (depression is a good shield there) was a way to not feel the pain of being deserted by my parents and left to whatever B1 chose to do with me. So it seems that's part of what I've been back in this week.

What have I done in past 24 hours or so: decided I didn't want to watch any of the AVAIYA sessions I signed up for (self-care not to be pushing myself through them); cleaned out little furries' spacious living quarters, which is important because it's not their fault I was feeling so down and they can't do it themselves; did drink and eat off and on; showered and washed my hair ; went out into garden briefly and moved a tiny herb from the lawn to one of my beds; also picked some grass etc for my pets, albeit slowly and not in any kind of rational manner; dropped by on some other pets I'm looking after for a couple of days, threw out some papers, emptied my paper bin into the communal one (having an empty bin in my apartment is helpful for throwing more things out), sorted out some clothing for the wash (will make doing laundry easier tomorrow). Compared to some other day months ago when the only thing I managed to do was amalgamate all my remnants of toothpaste tubes into one glass jar, I'm not doing too badly.

[Jazzy]

That's way more than one thing! Good job!

[Blueberry]

Thank you, Jazzy! Your comment helps me see it all as more of an accomplishment.