Papa Coco's Recovery Journal

[SteveM]

PC,
I haven't been on the forum for sometime now. I came back briefly a few weeks ago to message another member. So when I decided to come on tonight I looked for a few people I knew just to see if they were still here and how they were getting on since I last connected.

I've just spent a bit of time going back a few months and caching up on your journey, I'm so glad you continue seeking and riding the waves of recovery from the horror of your childhood, quite an amazing story of recovery you've chronicled here and I'm very grateful that you continue to tell us your raw truth. I believe truth telling amongst truth tellers is a hallmark of a mature, kind, empathetic, well intentioned human. Please keep bringing your truth forward, we need it, the world needs it.

I too started using Chat about 6 months ago, it is a valuable addition to my spiritual toolbox but is not the dominant one, people connection is by far and away the biggest tool.
Glad you are here!
Steve M

[Papa Coco]

I've been off the forum for a month or more, dealing with lifelong, ever-increasing digestive issues that have recently gone into the stratosphere. Six months ago, my GI issues got real bad real fast. And since then, they've only gotten worse. I've devolved to the point where all I can eat now is plain, dry, unbuttered white rice and small doses of unsalted, unoiled chicken breast. I'm losing weight, (yay) but I'm in serious pain and frankly, I'm getting tired of dry chicken and rice for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. On Thursday I attempted to add a tiny bit of salt...just a light sprinkling, maybe and 1/8th teaspoon over an entire day's meals and woke up in gut wrenching pain and heart pounding panic at 1 am. So...no salt.

Today, I want to move past calling all this; digestive issues, or sadness, or anxiety, or depression, or emotional distress, or trauma, or CPTSD. Today I want to go right to the hot, burning core of what my body and brain can't stand suffering under any longer. Today I'm just calling it what it is. Shame.

Shame.

The toxin that's eating me up.

It hit me hard this morning as I was meditating under my heating pad on my left side, which is where the GI Gastric distress is most painful. As with all mornings now, I was reeling in the pain of both the digestive issues and the terror of losing myself in the economic collapse that is defining American culture. That's when I realized that I'm less afraid of war than I am of going broke and losing my home. Wars are fraught with fear. But losing my house is fear AND shame. If I get caught in some kind of a war that I had no part in creating, then that will be horrible. But if I lose my house, then all the shame of all my entire life will flood all over me. Fear is definitely uncomfortable, but shame is toxin that is killing me from the inside out.

I've many times talked of how my 4 siblings were allowed to make their own choices, go to college, pick their friends, date, marry, and have children. I wasn't allowed any of that. No college for me. No girlfriends allowed. I wasn't even allowed to think about girls. Coco and I married 43 years ago under the cover of secrecy. At age 22 I still wasn't allowed to date, so I did it in secret. Mom was really mad when she later found out that I'd not only dated a girl, but I'd married one. I wasn't allowed to ever, ever, ever talk about what I wanted to be when I grew up. On my 18th birthday, my father, who'd never allowed me to want a career or a future of any kind, stormed into my room and angrily shouted, "YOU'RE 18 NOW! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?"  He scoffed at my current job in restaurants and told me "you can't do that anymore! YOU NEED A REAL JOB!" My siblings could do what they wanted and work where they wanted and date and marry and have children, but I wasn't deserving of any self-guided decisions. I was always ashamed of being who I was. I realize now that I still am.

I carry in my gut all the scapegoating they did to me my whole life. Every memory I have of the many, many, many times they blamed me for making them make their own mistakes is still swirling around the drain, but it won't go away. I'm as strong as an ox but I behave like a terrified bunny in a cage with a sleeping snake.

I'd rather be killed in a war that I didn't start than go broke and lose my family and home because I feel too stupid to be enough for them. Today I recognize it as glaringly as the nose on my face: It's because of the shame.

Shame is what makes me hide and retreat behind locked doors and alarm systems and surveillance cameras. Shame is what makes me build my fences as tall and strong as I can. Shame is what makes me not wash my own car in my own driveway because i don't want my neighbors to see me and laugh at how I walk or move or rinse the soap off.

Today, THIS VERY MORNING, I see shame as what's driving my diet down to just rice and chicken and I'm still doubled over in pain most of the day.

I'm not writing this journal entry to complain but to announce that I am changing my tack. I'm steering away from calling this fear and anxiety and depression and emotion and trauma. Today I'm aiming all my attention onto the hot, molten core of the volcano that has burned at me my entire life. Shame. Lifelong shame for being incompetent, even though I know I'm competent. My head sees life one way, my heart sees it another way, and shame is thee toxin that's driving the pain and suffering long past its natural expiration date. It's festering in me and I need it to finally release me from its grip.

Today I am going to begin the long, intense process of identifying, processing, and releasing as much shame as is humanly possible. I know that I'm not the origin of the shame. I'm not a shameful person, but I feel shame coming at me all day long. Shame happens TO me, not because I deserve it, but because it was craftily built into my core wiring by a family that didn't know how to raise 5 children in the same house. They needed a child like me who was strong enough and kind enough to accept their shame as they took it off themselves and gave it to me. I wish I could feel proud of that fact, but at this point in time, I'm still carrying the heavy bag of shame every second of the day. I may believe intellectually that I don't deserve the shame, but I don't feel it yet in my gut (both figuratively and literally). I still feel it pulling me into fear and depression and anxiety.

I gave my family what they wanted--a dumping ground for their own failings, And now they're all gone. Some are dead, others are just plain gone, and I don't know for sure how many of them are still alive. They were all older than me, so they could be gone already, but I don't care enough to ask anyone. They're gone from my life and now I want to wash the stains of their abuse off me so I can enjoy what time I have left by eating more than just dry chicken and rice every day.

I see this as a really positive change in tack. I need to scream "JIBE HO!", and turn my boat the other way. Let the sails flop and the boom swing as I swing my ship from one direction to the other. My volcano's core is shame. Every other problem I have is a symptom of that one, hot, boiling cauldren of goo that was poured into me by other people.  And I'm going to find the way to release it.

Or it'll kill me if I don't. 

This is a good day for me. I'm willing to take this on and even if it kills me, at least I'm going to go down fighting.

[NarcKiddo]

Good for you, Papa C. As my grandpa used to shout when he changed tack on his sailing dinghy "Ready about! GOING ABOUT!" Wishing you smooth sailing.

[HannahOne]

PapaCoco, so moved by what you wrote. Your words brought me to tears in a good way. JIBE HO! A profound turning and change of direction.

How brave of you to face the shame. Shame is so toxic. We are all in the goo with you. I know I am. It shows strength that you can be vulnerable and aware of the toxicity and abuse you were once subject to. And now as the subject of your life, steering your own ship.

There's a book "Unshame" that I've been working on reading. It may or may not be helpful to you.

I related to your digestive pain and diet. I lived on chicken and rice for three years and I still don't fully understand what it was. I got diagnosed with SIBO as part of all of that. But it was also not diagnosable, yet runaway inflammation, testing allergic to EVERYTHING, mast cells overreacting. Our guts know the reality in a way maybe our brain is slower to get.

You got the message. You deserve to walk your car in your driveway and feel safe doing it. You deserve to marry, choose your job, choose your direction and set your sails according to your own inner compass. My heart lifts when I feel your awareness and determination and self-care.

I can relate to the sense that it will kill you if you don't. A wise OOTS friend told me after my recent diagnosis that I need to seriously look into how my emotional suffering plays into my physical health. Gabor Mate has a book about this. Our bodies do keep the score and carry what our souls cannot. I am sensitive to victim blaming here, as I don't believe we cause our illness. But I've found this approach helpful too. So I offer the book as something you may want to consider, and reject if it doesn't fit.

May today be the first day in your new direction. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. It's incredibly helpful to read and relate, and be inspired, and to feel with you.

[Moondance]

 

Well said and well done changing tack!

I can so relate, agree and sit with you in this Papa Coco.

Wishing and hoping you feel better.

[Marcine]

Hi Papa Coco,
Glad to hear your update. I missed you!
Your anger, righteous.
Your determination, legendary.
Tally ho!

[sanmagic7]

my dear PC, it's so awful going thru what you've been going thru.  but i'm so glad for you that you've been able to recognize what's causing your digestive problems.  i've been working on that myself for a bit, and finding a lot of information i didn't know about just by exploring physical problems.  most of the time it has been my body 'keeping the score', so to speak, holding onto emotional stuff as best it can.  of course, that's extremely distressing for our bodies, cuz it's not what they were made for.  still, they've done the best they could until we are able to look around the symptoms and find the cause.

shame is so prevalent in our population.  so many people have been raised in shame-based families, religions, schools, peer groups, cultures, etc.  maybe it might be helpful, perhaps easier, for you to tackle one of those things at a time (if there's more than one).  i think the whole shame thing can be overwhelming and devastating if we try to do all of it at the same time.  just my thoughts here. 

in the meantime, i'm fervently hoping you will be able to make a dent in this for yourself.  it hurts my heart to know how much you are suffering because of it.  sending much love and a hug filled w/ anti-shame programs, which will seek out, recognize, process, and eventually eliminate pieces of shame until they're either gone, or reduced to a miniscule  size that can then be fully taken care of when you have the wherewithal, energy, and time.

[TheBigBlue]

Just sending support
 

[Papa Coco]

Hey everyone, thanks for the responses.

It's been two weeks now since the diet got down to chicken breasts only, and white rice only. Lucky for me, white rice comes in varieties of shapes, and all are so far working, as long as I don't salt or butter it.  And I'm learning that cooking chicken breasts is not as easy as cooking thighs. One minute too long in the oven and they're shoe leather. ChatGPT told me to take them out at 163 degrees and let them sit for 5 minutes before cutting and that's how I get the moist, flakey serving that tastes so good. But If I let it go to 165 it's all shoe leather. I'm going to be a very good chicken chef in a few weeks as I get this down.

I still wake up at midnight to 2 am or so with heart pounding dread almost every night. I keep thinking it's my diet, but the Ai tells me diets don't do this, but emotional duress does. I've been using the ChatGPT version of Ai and it gives me specific help to recenter myself and fall back asleep organically. By now, it knows my entire life's history, and its answers to my queries are more specific than ever, and they are extremely helpful. Normally, I'd grab a sleeping pill and watch TV until I fall back asleep, but I don't want to do that anymore. If I do what it recommends, I calm down and within an hour, I can usually fall back asleep.

My therapist has been working with patients for 50 years and says that he sees what I'm going through in lots of his patients as we start to really understand the sensitivity of all we've been through and are ready to change. Our bodies become so acutely sensitive that for a while, we reach this point. We literally have to retrain our nervous systems to trust that we aren't in danger anymore. As I'm starting to reach deeper into the core layers of the onion of my psyche, all the fluff is gone and only the true trauma remains. As I get more accepting of the traumas of my life, the dreams are coming back. Nightmares, I should say. I wake up from some of them crying, and others wake me up in terror or shame.

It's not just diet. All of a sudden, in just the last few days, I've lost my love for watching TV, and sitting on the computer looking at houses and cars I can't afford, and doing all sorts of things that I used to do to hide from my emotions. None of my addictive escapisms work anymore. I've watched 5 hours of TV a day for years, and now, suddenly it's like fingernails on a chalkboard. Taking sleeping aids to help me sleep doesn't appeal to me. I don't want to be medicated anymore. This is new. I normally LOVE being medicated. I don't want to do another Ketamine infusion, or lose myself in TV or surfing the web. I'm stuck with my emotions now. The weird part for me is that I'm not forcing myself to stay off my addictive patterns. I'm doing this by choice. I WANT to release the suffering and stop hiding from it. I actually, want this. So strange.

For three days now, instead of watching TV, I've taken to doing household chores. Steaming the floors. Scrubbing bathrooms. Cleaning out drawers and throwing things out that I should have thrown out years ago. This is good. And I'm losing weight at the rate of a pound a day.

That doesn't make any of this what I would call "comfortable", but it does have rewards that I'm grateful for.

With this limited diet, I am having to push myself to eat more of the chick/rice medley though. I'm not hungry anymore, so I just eat a 2 oz slice of chicken with a half-cup of rice each morning. Again at lunch. Then about 6 oz of chicken and a full cup of rice for dinner. I haven't calculated it, but I'll bet I eat less than 1000 calories a day now. At least that's what it feels like. Now I'm getting dizzy and having bouts where adrenalin is coming in to give me the energy I'm not getting from eating enough food. So now, I have to force feed myself more chick/rice than I really want. 

I'm being reassured by Ai AND my therapist that this is a temporary situation while my body adjusts to the new sensitivities. Their calling this a reset. HannaOne, I hope I don't have to go 3 years on this diet...Wow. That was a long time. And like with you, my medical doctors are dumbfounded. My therapist and Ai know more than my medical doctors so...

It's not just food. I'm quicker to bursts of anger when I drive or watch the news. The fact that I'm calmer at my baseline makes my occasional frustrations feel more volatile, but that's because I'm used to always being at a level 6 in anxiety, and anger brings me to level 9. But as of late, I've sort of given up on being anxious, so I'm at a constant level 1 or 2, but the anger outbursts are still a 9, so the contrast is greater. Again, I'm being promised that this is temporary as I become more used to my new level of lower anxiety overall. I'm not totally clear on why I've given up. But I've just sort of...given up. NOT on life. Life is suddenly becoming richer and I feel more alive and more present. I'm giving up on the traumas. They still trigger me and apparently are very active when I sleep, but during the day, I'm just done with them. I've just sort of accepted them...If that makes any sense to you, great. But it is still baffling me.

My compassion is also greatly increased in sensitivity. I cry quickly now. I feel like I'm always at the moist-eye level. I feel my love for people far, far more intently than ever. I contact my son more and I tell him how much I love and admire him more. I go deeper. I hug my loved ones longer and say "I love you" far more often than normal. I pray harder for everyone, even people who hurt me. I even pray for my mean sister who took my inheritance and tried to get me to kill myself. All I can think of is how miserable it must be to live encased in darkness and dealing with that cold, dark heart in her chest. I pray that somehow, some light gets through and she starts to see she has a choice to choose love instead of hating everyone on earth. Even her own children hate her.  I've NEVER wished this much compassion on her before. I'm the one who has 5 different versions of "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" cued up in my iPhone so I can play it all day loud if she ever dies before me. I'm starting to think I won't play it, but I'll mourn the miserable life she led, and all the people she hurt everywhere she ever went. I feel compassion in places I've never felt it before. I kind of like it.

I've said many times that hatred feels like poison in my blood stream, and I'm suddenly too sensitive now to handle even an ounce of hatred. I'm becoming selfless but for selfish reasons. I don't want to feel the ugliness of hate or anger in my blood anymore. I don't want to play that song for anyone anymore.

I don't know how this report will sit with others, I just know that something happened to me and I'm not sure what it was. I feel weaker than ever, but I think I'm getting stronger... Does that even make sense?

I've always been quick to tell people that I love them. I have pretty much always been lucky that after someone I really love dies unexpectedly, that I know for a fact that my last words to them were "I love you." That brings me a lot of peace. But right now, I'm feeling that 100 times stronger.

I'm getting bored with my retired life. Just devoting myself to chores and repairs on the house and the cabin are not fulfilling me. I need to start looking for something meaningful to devote my compassion to. I don't know what that is, but I'm putting it out there in the aether to see if God, or the Universe, or intuition, or fate, will hear me asking for advice, and will find a place that suits me enough that I can feel fulfilled more than just for cleaning a bathroom or making a perfect chicken breast.

I love this forum. I have made some lifelong friends here and I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't joined so many years ago.

I'm sending a round of hugs to anyone who wants one: They're free today. Take two if you want.

                              

[dollyvee]

Hey PC,

I don't want to minimize any trauma you might be experiencing, but did you ever get the mold looked at in your beach house? The symptoms you are describing --anhedonia, issues with sleeping, "mold rage," dietary problems-- all align with mold sickness/CIRS/mycotoxins. You can do a search on r/toxicmoldexosure for people who have similar symptoms. Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker and Neil Nathan are also good resources.

I hope you find some relief in however you choose to handle it.

Sending you support,
dolly

[HannahOne]

PapaCoco, Thank you so much for sharing your experience here. I relate so much to the easy tears, the feeling compassion, feeling weaker and stronger at the same time. I am wondering if it has to do with the lowering of defenses, allowing us to feel more, and feel more vulnerable at the same time. Lowering defenses can also actually be stronger, because we are more aware, and awareness is where strength actually comes from. I also relate to a change in interests. I too used to watch hours of TV a day. And like you, I'm not TRYING to stop. I'm just...not watching. Not scrolling. Maybe because we don't need it as a defense now?


I also relate to being bored with retired life, and the desire to find a way to exercise your compassion. I'm not retirement age but haven't worked in five years now and I recently started volunteering at a wildlife rehab. I'm shocked that it's safe and fulfilling. I can do it. It's important for you to find what makes you feel fulfilled, and is safe and when you put that desire out into the universe, the universe will respond, so keep your eyes out for what is flowing your way. You have a lot to offer to the right place that will appreciate you.

I can't relate to acceptance I am just thrilled to read about that in your post. Being "over" the trauma in more ways than one, like my teen says, "I"m so over it!"  That sounds like liberation! Yeah! 

A note on the diet, take what you like and leave th rest: I read about your adrenaline surges, and when I see 1,000 calories a day, it makes me wonder about talking to the doctor. 1000 calories a day is usually not enough, and your body can release adrenaline to try to create the energy you lack. When I was on that diet, I had to eat A LOT of fat, tablespoons of olive oil and coconut oil in my rice. That may not be appropriate or possible for you, I have no idea. I just know that on 1,000 calories a day on that diet, I did enter ketosis, have more awareness, fog lifted, and I also had rapid weight loss, adrenaline dumps, the shakes, weakness, and I had to be medically monitored. For me, some of the shakes etc was biome die off. Who needs ketamine when you have 100 billion microorganisms releasing chemicals in your gut?! I also ate a lot of homemade chicken broth, bone broth (If broth is allowed to you, that's the secret: poach the chicken breast in water and it won't be dry!, then drink the broth, if you are allowed. To make bone broth you have to simmer bones for hours). The protein and collagen of bone broth helped with calories and to "seal the gut" so they say, so the toxins in my gut didn't leak from my gut and go to to my brain, and cause inflammation and bring fog. We are complex embodied mind-body creatures, so take this with a grain of salt---if you're allowed salt?   I'm just sharing as a fellow chicken-and-ricer Truly we are like ascetics in the desert, subsisting on locusts and honey! Enlightenment must be just around the corner...

[sanmagic7]

PC, it sounds like you're going thru a major MAJOR transition on so many fronts - physical, emotional, mental.  with transition comes change, and that can take all shapes and sizes to manifest itself.  the idea of letting go is huge. 

i echo hannah1's concerns about the amount of calories.  when my D stopped eating for anxiety reasons, one of the first things she noticed was hair loss - probably nearly half of her hair just fell out.  hopefully, that won't happen to you, but i've seen that also w/ people who have been using those insulin meds for weight loss.  it's an indication you're not getting enough calories/nutrients, so just to be watchful.

also, a thought on stress here.  the anxiety you've carried for so long has had to be stressful, and your body adapted to that as best it could.  perhaps it has reached its limit w/ stress, which is why it might have acted out in such a horrible way.  then again, change is stressful, too, and you're undergoing a lot of change.  i'm not trying to scare you, just a caution.  and, please, if any of this bothers you, or doesn't sit well, just ignore.  my own thoughts and opinions only.  you are the only one who can tell which pace and actions are best for you. 

you are a good man, PC, and deserve some relief from all you've carried over the years.  i hope these changes bring some of that for you.  sending love and a hug filled with wonder and acceptance as you grow and change.   

[Papa Coco]

I am grateful to you all for the advice.

Dolly, I just ordered a mold detection kit from Amazon. I won't be at the beach again for a couple of weeks, but I'm bringing this kit with me to check the air quality in all the rooms. The smell that I live with there comes mostly from the canal. I'm on 60 feet of waterfront canal in the back yard. The house is only 25 feet from the canal, and the canal smells like the grass that grows there. It's the same odor that I smell when I wander around in places like Folley Beach South Carolina or other older beachside communities, and the smell in my house is only present when the canal odor is on the rise. Usually when it rains. The house is old and not airtight, so it absorbs that odor. The test kit should identify all the different molds that exist in the house itself and will give me a good start to knowing if any of it is toxic. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I think this is a good thing to check on.

As far as teh 1,000 calory diet, I do recognize this as a problem but was so focused on the pain I wasn't focusing on the caloric intake. Less food meant less pain.

Here in Seattle, we have one of the world's top medical colleges, University of Washington, but so help me, finding a decent doctor is darn near impossible. Doctors here are prone to run a few generic tests and then report that no matter what hurts, it's a mystery. I'm always the only patient they've ever had to have my problems. I feel like there should be a whole slough of disorders named after me. My knee pain baffles them. My gut pain baffles them. My GI behaviors baffle them. They have these standardized tests and if the tests don't check the right boxes on their diagnostic charts, they're stumped. I know that most of what they do is told to them by medical insurance companies, so if they want to get paid at their jobs they have to do what the insurance companies tell them to do, and that's a sort of a backwards way to do business, but you know how it works. The US is run by money first, all else second. Compassion for patients is not on the top of the list. And as our population grows here in Seattle, we are overwhelming the medical system that can't keep up with the growth.

So, A BIG HUGE THANKS to San, Hannah, and Dolly for the suggestions that are making me think about the medical possibilities here with mold and calory deficits.

I know I need the fats. But the fats are not absorbing in me right now, so if I eat so much as a teaspoon of peanut butter or any other fat, I get sick within minutes. Research online is telling me that this is likely temporary due to inflammation that just needs to settle down. Doctors are unavailable and disinterested in talking with me about it, so for now, thank goodness I have research while I wait for doctors to get an opening to see me. (When I turned 65 last summer, I was legally required to go off my medical insurance and go onto Medicare. ALMOST NO doctors here in my county are accepting new Medicare patients. MY own insurance has made me lose most of my doctors and is making me start over in a system that's unable to support me as needed. I'm more on my own to learn how to be my own doctor now that Medicare is "taking care of me").

I will spend all day at the race track on Sunday, 12 hours without any way to escape if I don't feel good, so I'm going to keep eating only the chick/rice, (But I'll count the calories this time and make sure I get up to 1800 or more) and then on Monday, I'll start trying to add something that has iron and vitamins in it to see if my system is settled enough to handle it. I'll be near my bed and my bathroom in case my experiments tell me I'm not quite ready yet.

Sent with Love to everyone,
PapaCoco

[TheBigBlue]

 

[HannahOne]

Wishing you the best in your adventures in health.