Milkandhoney's revovery journal

[Armee]

I'm so proud of you for seeking some help. That's a huge step. I didn't look for help until I was 40. Wish I started sooner. You really are doing remarkable. It's been a tough (well that's an understament) few weeks but you are still here fighting and mattering. Keep going!

[milkandhoney11]

Thank you so much, Master of my Sea and Armee. Your kind words mean a lot.
It's hard to be proud of myself for seeking help and reaching out for support from a T, when I have been raised to never show any signs of weakness and I had to endure so much emotional abuse when I used to ask my parents for their advice, but I know that you're right and I feel like it is the right step to make.
The T I contacted sounds very nice and she has a lot of experience helping people with trauma and complex PTSD so I hope it will go well. I'll try and update you after the appointment to let you know how it went. It's nerve-wrecking but I hope that it can really make a difference so I'm prepared to open myself up a little and show my vulnerability.

[sanmagic7]

hey, M&H, the problem is we were given incorrect information by the people in our pasts.  they abused us for asking for help, as if it were a bad thing, we were bad for doing so, and caused us to believe that reaching out for help and support was a sign of weakness, when, in fact, it's only the strong who do so.  i'm always amazed at how they were able to turn those tables for us so that even as adults we believe they were right and our own instincts were wrong.

i think you made the decision to ask for help from a T from a place of strength and determination.  i hope it goes well for you.  love and hugs

[Armee]

It is for that very reason...raised to be afraid to seek help...that you should be so proud that you are able to overcome those voices of the past enough to seek help. It's huge.

I'm wishing you so much luck. I found it incredibly difficult to be vulnerable in therapy for multiple reasons and it took years not weeks to be able to defeat those nerves enough to not be absolutely terrified each time I went . Whatever happens or doesn't happen when you go is normal. Just keep reaching out and grabbing onto help and eventually things shift. If this therapist ends up not being a good fit try others, but she sounds good if she has experience with complex ptsd and knows what that is and how it is different than single event PTSD.

[milkandhoney11]

Thank you so much for all your encouraging words, my friends.
I think my consultation session with the T went very well. She is very warm, very understanding, and knows a lot about complex trauma, so we decided that we would have a look at my childhood together and try and work through/ release all the traumatic events that happened.
So, I feel like things are finally starting to move a little and I hope that working with the T will help, but at the same time I am still scared of all the memories I might uncover. At the moment, I hardly remember any of my childhood, the majority of the memories seem to be buried somewhere deep inside of me and I am worried what might happen when I release them. I know it's something I need to do if I want to heal, but I am still afraid that all the suppressed memories and emotions might overwhelm me and send me over the edge.
My youngest years seem to be overshadowed by a lot of neglect, so literally all of my earliest memories show some kind of rejection. My mom was suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis and was often so weak that she couldn't even open the door of the fridge, let alone care for a toddler and new-born baby. As for my dad, he was just completely overwhelmed by the situation, so there was a lot of shouting, criticism, and later also violence.
Among all these really vague, strangely pale memories there is, however, one that always stands out.
I must have been around 2 or 3 years old when we were visiting my grandparents who were living on Tenerife. So, one morning I woke up quite early and everyone else was still asleep. There was nothing for me to do in the house and I knew I would get into deep trouble if I made any noise, so I went out into the garden to go for a swim. At first, I tried to put on the inflatable swimming arm bands that my parents had bought because I knew I couldn't swim without them, but at some point I gave up and dived in, anyway.
My parents later told me that I very nearly drowned but was saved by a neighbour in the last second, yet I don't have any memories of this and somehow this has always bothered me a lot, as if there was some crucial part that I was missing.
Now, when I read Pete Walker's book, I stumbled across this passage where he states that accidents and near death experiences like this are weirdly common among children who are suffering from parental neglect and rejection. Apparently, he thinks that these children are subconsciously trying to escape from their traumatic lives because they can't imagine a future without the pain and somehow feel that this is the only way to end their suffering. So, ever since I read this passage I have been wondering whether this is what happened to me. Could it be that I subconsciously tried to escape from my life without even being fully aware of all my trauma? I will probably never know, but I feel like it is a plausible explanation, even though it would mean that my childhood was even darker and more traumatic than I have been admitting to myself by now.
All I can say is that there has been so, so much pain in my past that I am now terribly scared to face it. It's clearly what I need to do to heal and move on, but I am also worried that I might become too vulnerable when I open myself up to my memories and start shedding away all the layers that have protected my hard so far.

[paul72]

hi milkandhoney

I just wanted to tell you that what you wrote in white is really interesting to me.....

I had a similar near-drowning at the neighbours and a near-abduction in a big city as well (that I was excited about tbh)... I'd have been maybe 5-8 for them
I hadnt considered that maybe it was my way to escape as a child.
Very interesting.. thank you for an interesting perspective to ponder.

As for being scared to uncover more... this I think we all probably understand too well....
There's so much pain to uncover, but the alternative isn't better.... more triggers, more regret, more anger, etc
I think the beauty of remembering is learning "your story". To me that's a crucial piece before acceptance can happen.
I could be wrong, but when I finally had my story, I had a period of calm.
Of course, learning more for me, meant my story was wrong (so gravely wrong), so now I'm back at it, excited to learn my real story.

Sorry for being long-winded...  your T sounds wonderful... I hope you can work through it all with her at a good comfortable pace for you.
There is no need for speed as they say, as much as it seems like thst would be best.. I'm not sure it is... our minds are ready when they're ready
Thanks for sharing, it's very helpful.

[Armee]

I'm glad your first appointment went well. For awhile when i started therapy my mind was trying to release stuff but I just had no story to go with the scary stuff that was showing up. I just bounced between either I'm really anxious and crazy and nothing happened, or something really bad happened. I didn't want either to be true. But there's been so much relief having the stories out in the open and knowing their truth. It is hard no doubt and there will be some suffering. But nothing compared to the suffering caused when that stuff is trapped and not recognized. 

Also I wasn't in trauma therapy so hopefully it will be a smoother path for you.

[Papa Coco]

Milkandhoney

I'm so very glad to hear you've found a compassionate, trauma therapist. It's been my experience that a good TT is the central hub of my healing. Without my TT, even my Ketamine treatments wouldn't make sense.

Trying to help myself without a qualified TT would be like me trying to learn karate by reading about it in a book. I read about IFS. I read about C-PTSD. Reading is good. It truly helps me understand my situation--conceptually. But for me, all the physical healing becomes a living, breathing part of me when my Trauma Therapist physically sits with me in person or on Zoom and goes into my traumas with me, loving me, caring for me, coaching me. He's my Trauma Sensei. It's like the difference between reading about a beautiful place on the earth inbooks versus physically visiting that place in person. A much, much richer experience that lasts much, much longer.

We are trained from childhood to not ask for help, and you've begun to chip away at that bad training. I think you've made one of the biggest strides forward by gathering the courage to get help. I'm so very happy for you.

Trust isn't something I came into quickly. My Therapist is considered to be one of the most compassionate and successful Trauma Therapists in my region, (He's 72 now, and most of his work today is teaching other therapists how to do what he does) and it still took me a lot of visits before I felt like I could truly trust him.

Thank goodness I stayed the course. Some of my earlier sessions were so frightening for me that I'd almost quit him a few times. My own ability to trust him took time. Thank goodness I let time keep me connected to him until I finally broke through my own inability to trust someone enough to let him see all the way into my inner world.

Again: Congratulations on finding a good, compassionate trauma therapist. Courage is not the absence of fear, courage is taking that step in the presence of fear. It took courage to take on your own fear of asking for help. I sincerely hope it pays off for you for the long haul.

[Master of my sea]

Milk and Honey, I am so glad that your consultation went well. I'm pleased that you feel like progress is being made, it is. I hope you can do great work with your T and she is a valuable asset to you as you work to uncover those hidden truths.
I completely understand your fear and worry about what might happen when they are released but now you have someone who can help you as this happens. And we here on OOTS will always be here with a helping hand a kind word, whenever you need us.

I think you are brave and strong for taking this step. It's scary and a whole journey on its own to build a trusting relationship with T but you have made that first move and I hope you are proud of yourself for it.

[milkandhoney11]

Thank you so much for all your kind replies Phil, Armee, Papa Coco, Master of my Sea. They honestly mean so much to me.
I'm sorry I haven't been writing or answering much these past few days but I am afraid I have been quite dissociative and buried myself in a lot of unnecessary work rather than focusing on the things that are most important right now. It's something I need to work on and yet I feel like I really needed this dissociative phase to protect me from all the pain and fear I had been experiencing before.
I'm still finding it hard to come to terms with all the events that happened within the past few weeks and I am especially struggling with how alone and isolated I am at the moment. There were several people who offered to help me with my work situation and general mental health but unfortunately they all seem to have "vanished" now, so I am left behind all by myself with very little contact to the outside world.
I don't know, I guess I should not have expected much from these persons because the same thing happened a lot of times before when I sought help and received empty promises that were never fulfilled, but somehow this has brought up a lot of feelings and memories of abandonment in me, which I am struggling to cope with.
The truth is that I can't remember a time when I didn't feel lonely, it's always been such a huge part of my life since most of my family didn't want anything to do with me, I was bullied in school, and I didn't really have any friends at all until my final year at uni. I remember that for the entire two years I studied at Frankfurt university I didn't manage to speak to anyone at all because my social anxiety was so incredibly crippling at that time.
Since then I feel that I have much improved but it is still heavily on my mind every single day. If I dare say so, I was quite popular at all the schools I have worked at so far, however it seems like people really only liked me superficially because I was always kind to them- turns out, they didn't really like me personally and abandoned me without a word as soon as I let my guard down a bit and started to show a little bit of my most vulnerable self.
So, now I'm back to being my old lonely self (well, to be honest I think that I am more isolated than ever since I don't have any friends at the moment and the only people I talk to are you guys and my parents). And, you know, I am finding this really quite frustrating at the moment. I know that this is just my inner critic speaking, but sometimes I can't help but wonder what must be wrong with me if nobody actually likes me or wants to spend any time with me. Of course, I understand theoretically that I am worthy and that I am not a bad person, but when I am feeling so low it's hard to neglect all the years of evidence that seem to proof that there must be something negative about me that drives other people away.

I'm not sure how to unravel all these thoughts and feelings (it seems to be such a huge and entangled mess that I have no idea where to start) but I can't keep going like this and know that I really need to change something.

So far, these feelings of abandonment have been so incredibly overwhelming that I just gave in to them and never managed to process any of it, but this community has given me the courage to do finally do so and I am really grateful for your support and understanding with everything I am going through...

[rainydiary]

Thinking of you Milkandhoney as you navigate these feelings.

[Master of my sea]

Hey M&H,
I'm sorry to hear you are feeling this way at the moment. I wish I could say more but I'm in a pretty triggered state myself. Just know you are not alone.
Sending you support and care M&H

[milkandhoney11]

I'm afraid I have been rather quiet on here during the past few days because I have been focusing on feeling a little bit better. I think it went quite well up until today and I even managed to leave the house a bit more often and do some chores, but tonight I received two letters with further details about the investigations/ accusations against me and I just crumbled as I opened them.

I am so terribly scared that it makes me feel sick. So far I've managed quite well to stay in control of my fear and just focus on different things but receiving those two letters today was such an awful, traumatic experience.... I'm not sure whether I'll ever be able to forget this moment, it was just too much to bear.
Even though these letters did not really contain any new information that I didn't already know, seeing everything written out in front of me and holding the paper in my hand made it suddenly feel so incredibly real and I just don't know how to cope with this.
I'm trying not to panic but it's hard to stay calm when my entire future is at stake and I have absolutely no idea what is going to become of me. And even though I am trying not to take this too personally I cannot help but feel like this is a terrible judgment of who I am as a person.
Part of me is still managing to hold onto the belief that I have a good heart and only ever have the best intentions for everyone, but the way people have treated me during the past few weeks just makes me feel incredibly ashamed about myself. There have been so many nasty accusations, so many people questioning me and my motives, that it is getting harder and harder to keep seeing myself as a good person.
So, I am just torn between a vast range of different emotions right now. There's shame, guilt, anger, hopelessness, sadness, desperation, and a big load of fear that feels like a boulder right in the middle of my heart. It's too much to bear and I don't know where to start when trying to unpick these things, so I'm just sitting here feeling completely overwhelmed

---

I don't know, I've tried to write a little more but my emotions are running away with me and I can't really focus enough to come up with comprehensible thoughts, so I'll stop for a while and maybe come back letter when I am not feeling quite as raw and wounded anymore....

[rainydiary]

I'm sorry the stress you are experiencing and hoping for smooth resolution.

[milkandhoney11]

Thank you, Rainy. It means a lot to not be completely alone in this situation