Papa Coco's Recovery Journal

[sanmagic7]

that dear sweet child hiding under the blankets.  my heart goes out to him. sending extra love and a hug filled with feelings of safety just for him.  he's so worth it.

[Papa Coco]

San,
Your compassionate responses are always comforting to me. Thanks. I accept your hug and return it with interest:   

Journal Entry for Tuesday, April 16, 2024

I've been compelled to spend a lot of time on the forum lately. I always hope I haven't become a problem for people who get tired of seeing my inputs on too many of their posts, and I am always worried about my propensity to write too long of posts. Again, and again, I apologize for talking too much, only to be followed up by more of me talking too much. I can't fix it no matter how hard I try. I'm like an alcoholic promising to quit drinking today, every single day, but rather than alcohol, my addiction is to talking/writing too much. My wife and I share a kind-hearted joke that she tells out of love, which goes; "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The longest distance between two points is to ask my husband for directions."

My conundrum of the day is how I struggle with my own dysregulation. It mimics bi-polar behaviors, or maybe DID behaviors as I have been switching from mood to mood almost like I'm channel surfing with my conscious mind. I occasionally approach my therapist with the comment that I feel like I'm getting worse instead of better, to which he responds with resounding disagreement. He reminds me of what a mess I was when we began working one on one together in 2005. He reminds me of how I would blank out nearly completely during therapy and how my channel surfing was much slower, meaning I would go into anxiety for weeks at a time, and depression for weeks at a time. The fact that my mood swings are rapid now, by the hour, but not as debilitating is a sign that I'm actually gaining control, not losing it. It's just that it takes time to work this stuff out.  I guess it's like when a pendulum has a long arc, it swings slowly but far, far apart. As the balance begins to right itself, the arc shrinks but speeds up. HOPEFULLY, stopping in the center is still in my future.

I look back at my posts and I sometimes feel like someone else wrote some of them. My goal, as of today, is to stop posting when I'm in a fired-up mood. I am triggered by other people's pain. That's always been a problem for me. I guess that after having been raised by people who put their happiness on my shoulders, forced me to grow up feeling like every sad thing that's ever happened to anyone anywhere is my fault for not being smart enough or selfless enough to protect them. All of them. Every human on earth. I can't watch much news because I'm 1) so broken up about the cruelty people do to each other and 2) so terrified that things are only going to get worse and as hard as I try I can't stop it. I can't tell you how much it hurt every time my big, strong, manly father made me feel like all his misery was my fault. Mom did the same thing. "If you hadn't wanted [anything here] we wouldn't have [this problem] now."

They raised me by ignoring me when I had needs or when I was in pain or when I was embarrassing them by being a child who sometimes made mistakes. It was an act of aggression that, I suppose, could be considered passive-aggressive attacks??? Passive aggression is something I don't fully grasp the exact meaning of, but choosing to not look at a child until that child stops being a child seems like it might fit into the term. I don't know if that's why I talk too much now...the need to be heard has never left me. Being ignored feels like being attacked and my anxiety just soars into the stratosphere.

I don't know. I'm tired right now, of trying to diagnose absolutely everything about myself that embarrasses me about who I am or who I've always been.

I just know that today, April 16, is a day when I don't understand why the confusion and chaos in my consciousness won't calm down and let me be the same person from one day to the next.  Sometimes from one hour to the next.

[Little2Nothing]

PC, your comments are helpful and always welcome. 

[GoSlash27]

Papa Coco,
 Your responses and support have been incredibly helpful and supportive at I time I *reeeally* needed it. You are far more appreciated than you realize.

 Don't worry about the long replies. I swear I don't mind! 

Best,
-Slashy

[NarcKiddo]

I don't think you say too much. And I love seeing you round the forum. Although your wife's joke did make me chuckle. Please keep being you. Of course I want you to feel good, and stable, but I don't think that has to come at the expense of you being the Papa C we know and love.

[Armee]

  

[Chart]

I'm in agreement with everyone else, PapaCoco. I wish you could see yourself through our eyes. I find you are profound, insightful, sensitive and deeply caring. CPTSD makes our minds chaos because our neuronal wiring required this to survive.

[Papa Coco]

L2N, Slashy, NK, Armee, Chart,

At 3 am this morning I woke up in dread. I checked the forum to try and find some comfort. I saw your posts. I was overwhelmed by your support. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the supportive comments.

I have a chronically difficult time keeping my self-image above the waterline. I post this same fear from time to time, and always receive support from you all. I always think, "okay, this time it'll stick" but as my post says, I keep going in and out of these moods, sometimes so fast it makes my head spin. I expect that you all understand this next sentence:>> I can remember every bad thing that's ever happened in my life, but remembering good things is like holding water in a kitchen strainer.

I feel like I'm doing and saying good, and then all of a sudden, I feel this revisit to the terror that I'm annoying people. I suppose there's no need to explain, as many of us already know that the giving and then withdrawing of love was used as a weapon for many of us as children. I don't mean to sound needy, but if I'm going to be honest, then in a way, I guess I am a bit needy. The fragility of love from the people I needed in my early life still haunts me today.

Chart's comment "I wish you could see yourself through our eyes" actually made me cry for a moment.

I just watched a Tonight Show interview from Tuesday, April 16, between Stephen Colbert and George Takei, who had been imprisoned at age 5 with his family during WWII just for being Japanese in America after the Pearl Harbor attack. Mr. Takei brought a photo of a beautiful tree root that his father had dug up from the encampment and had turned into a sculpture to celebrate the resiliency of the family during the imprisonment. Mr. Takei's father had told him that survival was not so much about fighting and resisting but was more about finding and appreciating any beauty during adversity.  I didn't quote it perfectly here, but, as I heard this interview, I feel like I learned what Mr. Takei was teaching.

What I focus on is my reality. In this thread, I've been focusing on all the times I was cast aside for talking too much. All the while I could have been focusing on how my friends today are still my friends even though I talk a bit more than most. Survival comes through the latter.

Not everyone survives what most of us have been through. At least two of the boys I went to Catholic school with ended their own lives as they were trying to enter adulthood. Even my own little sister didn't survive the world we were both brought into. But I did. And all who are reading this post did. You all are my tribe. My clan. My people. My cohorts. Your kindness is the beauty that came from the adversity of our youths.

I just want to point out right now, that the love and comradery I feel with the people here, and with all the survivors of the rampant narcissism on earth right now, is the beauty I see. The care we have for each other continually and repeatedly saves me and furthers my own survival.

The people I share healing with are my statue and are the beauty that I cling to. We struggle still, but we have each other's support. And that's what keeps me going.

[Chart]

PapaCoco, It is with your kind and heartfelt post that I go into sleep. Much love to you and everyone.

[Armee]

 

I'm so grateful you survived. I wish the others did too. 

Holding the positive might be like a strainer in the kitchen sink, but this forum can be like the beautifully imperfect ceramic bowl you put under the strainer to catch the good stuff.

[GoSlash27]

Papa Coco,
 "I expect that you all understand this next sentence:>> I can remember every bad thing that's ever happened in my life, but remembering good things is like holding water in a kitchen strainer."

 Sadly, I must admit that I cannot relate to this statement. "Sadly" is definitely not the right word. While I remember many bad things in my life, there are many *more* bad things that I do not remember at the moment. But I clung to all the happy memories (or at least interesting/ funny) like a drowning man to a life preserver.
 Having said that, I *do* understand it and my heart goes out to you. My GF suffers the same way. All of her negative memories stick but she cannot hold on to the positive ones, even fairly recent ones we have made together over the years.

 I'm glad that you find some strength in the heartfelt reassurances that we and your loved ones offer you; how truly fortunate and grateful *we* are to have *you* supporting *us*. But I also remember from my *own* darkest days that these reassurances will never be enough on their own to do anything more than sustain you right now.
 I sincerely hope that you will find that path that leads you out of your darkness into the light; where you come to recognize in yourself the value all of the rest of us see in you.

Stay safe!
-Slashy
 

[Little2Nothing]

PC, I understand completely about remembering the bad. I can't remember my own wedding day. The photos seem foreign to me, I have looked at them a lot of times and they have become a memory. 

[Papa Coco]

Journal Entry for Sunday, April 21, 2024

Some big changes happening. I hope they stick. Yesterday I had some energy work done. I may have mentioned here that about a month ago I decided that the physical world wasn't working out for me, so I made a radical decision to allow myself to believe in ANYTHING. I say, "If you tell me a spaceship landed in your backyard" I'll believe it. If you tell me you have a Sasquatch living in your basement, I'll believe it. Nothing is off the table anymore. So I called my massage therapist, who I know to be learning all kinds of woo-woo stuff and asked if she wanted to practice on me. She did. Yesterday she did something she called Quantum Alignment. She worked on me for 90 minutes, doing some very light massage on my sore knees, and a bunch of woo-woo work with my chakras. Before last month I'd have just giggled and called it fun playing, but now that I've decided to give it a real chance, HOLY MOLY did it every make some changes in me. It's only been 24 hours since the session, but yesterday, my body felt stronger. My heart was racing during the afternoon, sort of like I'd drank a gallon of Espresso, but I hadn't done anything different at all. The heart racing subsided by bed time and I slept like a baby last night.

Tomorrow I'm going to meet a new therapist who was recommended to me by my current therapist, as someone who can do VERY intense IFS work. She has studied with Robert Falconer, who wrote The Others Within Us and she told me on the phone that our first session(s) will be to work with the part in me who is, what I call, my inner bouncer. I have an inner bouncer who, for my entire life, has tried to keep other people out of my head. Anytime I've ever tried to meditate or be hypnotized, this part pops up and distracts me. He sends me messages like, "This is stupid. Don't fall for it."  Meanwhile, I PAID a hypnotherapist to help me quit smoking or quit eating too much or to help me find my inner peace, and this bouncer keeps throwing them out of my head. I'm intrigued. I'm so glad she said that was where we'll start, so that as we work in later sessions to find more parts, he won't throw her out of my head.

As always, I'll update my journal with stories of whether this worked or not, and how it might change me.

Today, I'm going to drive up to the mountains where my son and his family live to wish one grandson a happy 13th birthday and let the younger grandson show me his new go-cart. I'm as excited to see them all as they are to see me. Today is a good day after a long bout with difficult days.

I'm very hopeful that the energy work my massage therapist did yesterday continues to help me feel the energy of flow in my body.

It sounds crazy, and it looked crazy while she was doing it, but...wow. Something in me has really opened up. I feel more energetic than I've felt in months.

[Chart]

I am truly so very happy for you PapaCoco. What a lovely change in my day to read such optimism and progress. You inspire. Thank you and I hope you have a wonderful time with your family of love.

[StartingHealing]

PapaCoco,

How freaking cool is that !?!?!  It gladdens me pea pickin' heart to hear that things are moving forward for you.