Bermuda's Memories - Overflow Journal 1

[Hope67]

Hi Bermuda,
I'm sorry that you've been experiencing some flashbacks again at night.  You have such a lot going on. 
 
Hope 

[Bermuda]

I don't know what I would do without you guys. I have read over it now, and besides the CPTSD thing, I do realise that my behaviour was not unusual or wrong per say. It's just I hold myself to a high standard, and especially when I know that I have greater consequences for things that are normal to other people. It's hard, especially lately. There have been a lot of social things I have cancelled and avoided because I know I'm not in the right frame of mind to "get away" with things that are basic to other people... Like be in a loud space, or for example I cancelled an escape room "spy" mission with some friends. It feels hard to walk the fine line between taking it easy, avoidance of triggers to an extent which actually creates more fear in a way, and then going in the opposite direction and being "all in". Like my need to hop back on my bike, which did not work out for me. It's not that what I did was socially odd, it's the thing that I can't control, and trying to control it... Endlessly.

I want to be a normal person. I don't want to be a burden. Now that I sleep in my son's room, when I do strange things in the night there's no one to stop me. When I was in panic, it was quiet and alone. That's hard. It's concerning. But it feels better than asking for help or expressing my concern.


I actually talked about getting a therapist on Valentine's Day, but I have no idea where to start. My last search left me empty handed. I may be entitled to a therapist in Denmark too, so I could extend my search outside of Sweden. Otherwise, maybe it's money well spent, or maybe not.

[Armee]

Can I ask in what way you came up empty handed on your last search? I believe it especially if you are limited by government providers, but just curious if there's a chance cptsd is making things seem more hopeless...known to happen. 😀

I wonder if this lady would have connections with someone well-trained in Sweden...she's in the Netherlands but has been involved in the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation.

http://www.suzetteboon.com/en/contact-en/

[Bermuda]

Well, I went through my search using the official Swedish medical route, and that was quite a difficult thing for me to do. Not in a real sort of way, but an in my head sort of way. I had to make phone calls, and speak to someone, and be forwarded to a service and have them give me referral links, and then I had to individually contact people... and I didn't get a single reply. The service contacted me for follow up to see if I found someone, and I didn't reply. CPTSD. That's how that works. They had only found one qualified person, but they did give me a link to other potential people, and think Kizzie also gave me a link, and I ... I messaged a couple people... but looking at faces kind of freaks me out. Like when the face was added to this homepage it also freaked me out. It's fine now. So, you are definitely right and there is a huge avoidance, fear, sleeping dragons and what not. Blah blah blah.

I might contact that person. I had a rough night with nightmares again, and I'm not feeling so courageous at the moment.

[Armee]

I get it. The hardest thing I had to do was call looking for help when my 10 yr old was suicidal. It was awful to call and have to tell your story only to hear "we can't help with that" or "we can't help with someone so young" or to just never hear back at all. The only thing that made that pain possible to get thru was it being for my son. For myself I couldn't have done it. Then I just sort of fell into working with his therapist when he was done. I gave up trying to get reimbursement for costs because it was too difficult talking to the insurance reps and justifying it. It's hard.

It'll be hard to start therapy too. But you are one of the strongest people around. The good thing is you've written your story so if you wanted someone to have a history without having to talk about anything yet, you have that. And you can go very very slow which is better than trying to go fast which back fires.

I just hate that I waited until I was 40. I feel so much better now 5 years later and wish I could have felt this much better years ago.

[Bermuda]

I contacted some people, and someone has replied. I will write you in private. I hope that's okay. 

[Blueberry]

I'm sorry there's so much going on internally for you Bermuda, sorry it's so hard. ime it's a sign of healing, a sign of progress but really difficult to feel and know when I'm in the situation.   

I wish I could help too sort of the way Armee did but I think you will find your T person in your own country, I mean that contacts I have wouldn't be helpful for a number of reasons.

[NarcKiddo]

 

[Bermuda]

I feel so bad for posting again, especially now that I am out of the deep hole I was in. Now I am in overdrive to compensate for the time I missed, and I feel like I am being the most annoying person imaginable and that I am overwhelming everyone around me, especially here, as I am still socially isolating in the face-to-face world.

I know that I do this. I always do this. I don't want to upset everyone by being too much, all at once. Inconsistent. I can only disappoint or overachieve at the wrong things. I am not looking for sympathy or a pat on the back, and I also always feel like that's what it sounds like, like I am seeking praise. I just want everyone to know, that I realise I am annoying and difficult to put up with. 

[Armee]

You were never ever too much. It's human to lean on people for support. You weren't allowed to be human, back then in the past. You are not too much. Your contributions are amazing. I'm glad you are feeling a bit better.

[NarcKiddo]

You are not annoying, or difficult to put up with. Armee is right - you were not allowed to be human. You were not ever given guidance or help or praise or encouragement from those who should have done that. And it seems like now you are doubting yourself and your reactions and behaviour. That is no surprise, given your history, but there is no reason to doubt yourself. Your instincts are working just fine. There is nothing at all wrong with your behaviour. You are a very valuable member of this community. And if I am being annoying and difficult to put up with by praising you when you are not seeking praise - well, hard luck! I've done it anyway. And in your journal, too. 

 

[Papa Coco]

Bermuda,

I personally see you as an amazing and wise person. No matter what mood you are in when you post, I see you for who you really are. And that is a person of high intelligence, excellent communication skills, and easy to share with. I know it's easy to beat ourselves up. I do it too. To show how alike we are, lately I've been horrifically embarrassed by my own posts, and my traumatic self-destructive issues around how I believe the world sees me. All too often I see myself through the eyes of my FOO and my past abusers. They were wrong when they treated me like I was unlikeable, and your abusers were wrong when they treated you that way as well. It's difficult to not occasionally see ourselves through their eyes. I hope you (and I both) can see ourselves through the untainted eyes of those who respect us for being the kind and intelligent people we truly are. I suspect you and I are kindred in that respect.

[Bermuda]

TW: Talking about food again.

I just grabbed a tortilla and dabbed some Valentina's in there and rolled it up and took a bite as I was in the middle of things.. That bite just teleported me back in time, fry bread and Tapatio. My friend looking at me saying, "You're the only vegetarian I know who doesn't eat vegetables." I don't know how I replied in that moment, or if I did my usual over-explaining, but I don't think I did. I think she knew it wasn't that I didn't eat vegetables. That wasn't a priority. When I could go shopping, polenta, masa harina, beans, potatoes, tomatillas, salsa, usually the kind that comes in the tin. Tapatio would have been a splurge. When I would go shopping I was looking for the food that would make me the most full for the lowest price, and vegetables didn't make the cut. I shared a watermelon story at some point. That watermelon was sacred. I risked my life to bring it back. One bite and I have all these memories.

I eat vegetables. I ate a huge breakfast with vegetable quinoa chili and a rye sandwich with hummus and beets, but just a bite of tortilla and the taste of salty salsa makes me feel like I have to explain myself. Like I have nothing else. Like it will go bad in the sun if I don't eat it now. It won't.

[NarcKiddo]

Food. So evocative. I guess it triggers all 5 senses, so there are multiple memory pathways there. Plus of course we are taking the food into ourselves and making it part of us. That in itself may be welcome or may not be, depending on what the food is and who has prepared it, and what company we may have while eating it, but will add to memories and feelings when we eat similar food again.

I do rather wish I could get my hands on a rye sandwich with hummus and beets right about now. That sounds delicious.

[Bermuda]

NK, you are right. It can be very direct. The smell of roses will always make me think of the little decorative soaps in the dish in my grandmother's bathrooms that were not to be touched. I am fond of that particular smell, of rose soap, and her hair sprayed roller set, the faint burning smell of an old hair dryer... but mostly pungent rose oil. It only makes sense that with positive memories there must also be intrusive triggering ones. I guess the difficulty is in resetting myself back to what is truely happening, instead of justifying or avoiding what isn't even real.

I think I have been a bit triggered since yesterday. It's nothing bad. It's so minor that I tell myself that it's not real, and that I don't have CPTSD, and that I am just being a teenager... I realise logically I am most certainly not a teenager, and that those thoughts sound a lot like CPTSD. The push and pull is very real right now, but I think I have it under control.

I spent the morning trying to explain to someone how to pronounce a Germanic trilled 'r' as it relates to Afrikaans. It was so fun thinking about how to explain this 'r' sound to someone who is only familiar with a Latin American Spanish sound and mouth shape:

Ek roer rooi groente.
Ik roer rode groenten.
Ich rühre rotes Gemüse. (Alternatively 'Grünzeug' in the most unusual use-case of chard or whole rhubarb for the sake of continuity...)
Jag rör om röda grönsaker.

Thinking about the subtle differences in these sentences and how the 'r's are spoken just makes me so excited. I'm excited that I can explain it with examples of different 'r' placement, as an outsider. I am really passionate about languages. I love going out and listening to people speak and understanding what they are talking about even when I don't speak that language. It helps me be invisible too, to camoflage, to control my trauma and my triggers, to feel safe. No one knows where I am from, and neither do I, but I have an invisible upperhand.

Should I study Afrikaans? Do I need another Germanic language? It could be a good thing, if I speak Afrikaans, that will seem like it makes sense to other people. They will have a slot to peg me in, and I don't have to explain. Clearly, I am Namibian.

See, clearly I am triggered. That is such a triggered thing to say. 

Trying to trace this trigger back to the source and I think it came from an article that popped up somewhere yesterday that I did not seek out, that showed new data on the negative affects of repeated moves on childhood development. I did open the article, and glanced and skimmed, but dismissed it as obvious rather than checking sources and studies... Even though I thought I cached it from my mind, I guess I probably didn't, and that is likely the cause of my dysfunction since.