Miscellaneous ramblings of NarcKiddo

[Bach]

 

This is all a literal nightmare.  I'm proud of you for coping with it and doing your best to advocate for yourself. 

[Moondance]

Hi NC - so glad for the no cancer confirmation. The wait to hear that is difficult for sure.

Good for you for handling the physical part of your exam - that sounds unbearable to me.

  for repeat prescription.  Doctors (not all) can be such a pain about that.

 

 

[Blueberry]

 

[HannahOne]

This sounds so challenging NK. But you're putting in the time and work to care for yourself and that's something to cheer for 

SO GLAD to hear no cancer!

And that you can get the inhaler you need. Air is essential! 

[TheBigBlue]

So glad it's not the c-word!
But sound way too triggering. Proud of you!

[dollyvee]

Hurrah no cancer  but sorry you had to go through someone else's hoops when you knew what the likely outcome was going to be anyways. It's kind of like back being a child with an NPD parent with no say in how your world actually is and what if going on.

[NarcKiddo]

Thank you all for your care and support. 

It's kind of like back being a child with an NPD parent with no say in how your world actually is and what if going on.

YES! That is exactly what it feels like dealing with the medics. I used to deal with it by assuming they knew best and dissociating. As I started to understand about CPTSD and realised I was dissociating I also realised that my T was right - the old coping mechanism was doing me no favours. So I have been working on this, which has been much to my benefit when dealing with medics since my pneumonia hospitalisation and beyond. But of course the triggers are there. So now the temptation is to have a tantrum to assuage little NK who wanted to show how she felt about it all, but clearly I have to look like a functional and reasonable adult if I want medics to take me seriously. So little NK yet again has to squash her tantrum. Dolly, your comment has been so helpful! Now I need to reassure little NK that I will only make us endure medics when we need to, and that sometimes you just have to put up with things stuck up your nose even when you know it's stupid.

[sanmagic7]

even when you know it's stupid, indeed, NK.  sometimes we do just have to put up w/ certain things till they are over with and we can get out of there.  get in the car and let little NK have her tantrum - she deserves to let all that neg. energy out. 

too many of those helping personnel, medics, therapists,  the 'big kahunas', so to speak, too often seem to have to shove their weight around, show why they have those letters after their names.  the secondary assistants, like nurses, PA's, OT's, PT's, massage therapists, etc., have, in my experience, been much more willing to listen to a patient/client and take their opinions into consideration. 

so frustrating!  glad for the 'no cancer' diagnosis.  yay for that!!!      also glad you're done with this part.  love and hugs

[NarcKiddo]

I'm exhausted! Just got back from a trip away that I asked to go on because there was a school reunion taking place. We visited with friends over a couple of days and then on the reunion day H went to see his family who live locally.

I last went to one of these things 10 years ago. That was good in that one girl asked if she and some of her friend group had been mean to me at school. I said they had and she apologised. We've been in touch on the group chat and social media since and all is fine. However, I was not aware of CPTSD back then and I now realise I dissociated my way through most of the day.

I went to boarding school and it was not a happy time for me, to put it mildly. FOO was overseas. Travelling between home and school was like going from the frying pan to the fire, whichever way I was going. The only respite was the few short holidays when I could stay with my grandparents. I realised recently that one of the reasons I hate packing and unpacking is that I did so much of it as a child. And it was rarely to do nice things. I had 24 packing or unpacking episodes per year. 24! That's one every two weeks if they had been evenly spaced. and only six of those were in relation to something nice. Basically, packing puts me in an EF.

The trip was pretty good as trips go (I don't much like trips). The last full day of the trip was the reunion, so I was already a bit tired. I'm struggling with walking at the moment - I get wobbly and have to use walking poles. So I knew questions would be asked, and they were. Everyone was kind and accommodating but I still felt awkward, and when we were walking as a group I know I was dissociating so as to ignore the wobbliness and keep up with the group.

It felt strange being back in the school, where I spent so many years. We looked round the school and round my old boarding house. At least this time I was aware of the emotional difficulties and was able to keep teenage NK cared for to some extent. For various reasons I ended up chatting a lot to girls who had been in my year group but were not people I encountered day to day. What was striking, though, was how open everyone was being about how difficult their time had been. The experiences of a girl I sat next to at lunch mirrored mine in so many ways, and she had been dreadfully unhappy. It's had lasting effects. She eventually had to be medically retired from work due to depression. Talking to all these girls and hearing their adult perspectives on their childhood experiences was astonishing. I think it opened all of our eyes to just how brutal the environment was, emotionally, and how we all basically just got on with it as best we could. Of course not everyone had a terrible FOO to go back to, but many of them did not have joyful home environments either. It's all so terribly sad, and I have a lot to process with my T.

What was striking was what happened when I got back to our hotel and met up with H for dinner. I was mentally fried, which is no surprise given the content of the day. I was also dealing with the aftermath of having basically walked too far and too fast and just dissociated in order to do it plus talk to people at the same time. I could feel myself just staring like a rabbit in the headlights, but fortunately my H had a lot of news from the family so was happy to chatter away. And I was so COLD! The hotel was not cold. People were sitting there in strappy tops or T shirts quite happily. And there was I wearing two thermal vests and thermal leggings, plus lined trousers, plus warm jumper, plus warm hoodie. And still I was shivering. Hot food made no difference. Hot tea made no difference. It was quite bizarre.

[Bach]

NK, I've had that happen to me with being cold and not being able to get warm.  That happened to me the night I got back to my house after a six-hour-each-way road trip and five days of intense family stress around a death in the family.  I was lying in my bed and I was cold.  I couldn't warm up no matter what I did.  I piled on blankets and put on layers of clothing and I was just cold, cold, cold.  I remember that after a while I couldn't move and couldn't think and just lay there freezing.  I guess it must be some kind of physiological response to having made it through an intense social/relational situation.  I wonder what it is.  Am also curious if you remember when or how you warmed up.

[HannahOne]

NK, revisiting  a place from your past can be integrating and give perspective. I know for me it can also be activating and cause more symptoms. I wonder if being cold is one symptom. Under stress, blood can go to the inner organs and away from the skin, cold is a symptom of mild shock. Overall it sounds like it was positive and you were able to take care of teenage NK, but it also sounds like there was a lot of sadness and seeing how painful it was back then, you definitely may need some time to recover/process and get grounded. Hoping that you can take care of yourself.

[NarcKiddo]

Am also curious if you remember when or how you warmed up.

I turned the heat up in my room and went to bed. Although I felt cold I got to sleep quite quickly as I was so exhausted. And then woke up in the early hours utterly boiling because I'd turned the heat too high! 

According to AI, anxiety chills are a thing, so I guess it was a stress response. I've noticed feeling cold before, quite often, but not to the point where a hot meal or hot drink did not sort me out pretty fast.

[sanmagic7]

hey, NK, it sounds awful to have gone thru all that.  the first thing that came to my mind about being so cold was the drop in adrenaline you might have had after the ordeal was over.  that's happened to me a few times as well, where i can see adrenaline getting me thru some sort of incident, keeping me alert and alive, then plummets when the ordeal is over.  don't know if that makes sense to you, if not please ignore.

i'm just glad you made it thru, glad you got an apology at least, altho sorry that it was necessary.  being humiliated/put down/whatever is never a good time.  dissociation probably helped you make it thru.  our protector.  love and hugs

[NarcKiddo]

I feel so tired! My lungs played up dreadfully last night and I ended up taking my emergency inhaler. I don't get those attacks you see where people are in dire straits and then they take the inhaler and a couple of minutes later they can breathe. AI has been helping me a lot in understanding my lung disease, and my problem is principally with lung and chest physiology. The emergency inhaler will never give instant results because my problem is not my airways suddenly closing up due to a trigger. All it can do is open everything up as much as possible and wait for me to do my bit. I've got better at sitting with the discomfort when my lungs play up, doing the right thing and waiting for relief to come. Rather like learning to sit with an unpleasant emotion until it goes away. No fun, but it does work. Usually I can control the lungs with a particular breathing method alone but it requires me to be awake and last night I would drift off to sleep before the lungs were fully OK. Then I'd stack air, wake, do the breathing, rinse, repeat. Doing the breathing is the main plank of my treatment. My inhalers (emergency and otherwise) help the lungs to respond, but in order to clear the stacked air I need back pressure which is achieved by the breathing mechanics. I got very triggered the other day when someone told me breathing cannot treat disease. It can't cure me right enough. Nothing can, not even the drugs. The comment made me feel I was talking to M who always tells people how they should treat their ailments without any background understanding of the issue. My reaction is of course on me, not them, but the way I took their words really stung and I considered several angry replies before thinking better of it and walking away.

A good thing that has come of my AI research is that I now understand what went on in the hospital when I had pneumonia and they gave me more and more oxygen with no response. It's because they didn't know my lung mechanics and were doing what would normally work. It wasn't until they gave me a super high flow that things started turning around, and the reason they turned around is because the super high flow provides enough pressure to force the small airways open to release the trapped air on an exhale. Thankfully they tried that option instead of bunging me straight on a full ventilator which is what they were threatening. I have to face up to the fact that it's likely I will get pneumonia again at some point but at least I will be able to explain my mechanics to them and request a suitable oxygen delivery system if I'm in such a bad way again. Always assuming I can speak and they will listen...[hollow laugh].

I've realised over the last couple of sessions with my T that I need to address issues with Teenage NK. That's going to be tough. She keeps away from me unless she is pushing me to dissociate. That's her safety valve and she is adept at using it. I would really like her to cut it out. Once I got past the overwhelm of inner children and the responsibility of looking after Little NK I have been quite successful with her. It took a while, of course, but she seems pretty comfortable with me and I am getting fewer of the huge fear reactions that stem from her. Currently I struggle with Teenage NK. I have a lot of shame wrapped up around my teenage and young adult years and it is excruciatingly unpleasant to face up to it. Teenage NK did what she had to do, and I think quite a bit of the dissociation she employs now is to protect Little NK as well as herself, so she has a lot on her plate. I know logically she was just a naive and vulnerable kid doing her best to navigate FOO and an adult world she was not prepared for. I'm finding it hard to feel maternal towards her, though. Looking after Little NK felt more natural.

[Marcine]

Hi NK,
I sense such patience and kindness that you offer to your self(selves).

Gaining more understanding about what happened at the hospital and the workings of your own body, awareness of your reactions to particular comments, choosing to act on your behalf whether advocate or walk away— this is the stuff of being a stalwart ally and best friend to yourself(selves).

It is inspiring to behold.
I hope you feel some ease and comfort today.