Miscellaneous ramblings of NarcKiddo

[Hope67]

Wow NarcKiddo, Your painting is really good.  Excellent that you were able to sell it, and it's lovely that you're having positive responses to your Christmas card too.  You are talented.  I remember when you posted your painting of the aeroplanes with the trail dust colours - that was also a great painting.  I really liked it.

[Armee]

Oh no I missed that one. I must go back and find the plane one!

[Chart]

Wow, love the Corvid!!! Family doesn't change, eh... Sorry to hear about the absence of validation. Seems you know the story well now. We get better and better at moving on. 

[Desert Flower]

I love him too! To me, He's like this fierce protector. Like a tough guardian angel. Stunning.

[NarcKiddo]

My Corvid story is going sour.

The art teacher said I should keep him until we have had a chance to talk about making prints, as suggested by her. Then we had the Christmas break. He was supposed to be her Christmas present to herself.

At the first lesson back in January she spoke to me about it first thing and said we should make a date to discuss. So I messaged her and we set a time. She was going to come to my house. I had started to feel a bit wary because this is a woman who has NEVER turned up to any class social activities even when she has said she will or has organised them herself. One girl had a birthday tea party at her home and the teacher simply did not turn up! No apology.

So on the appointed day I was not surprised to receive a message an hour beforehand saying something had come up and she could not make it. It was annoying because I had missed a gym session for it and she did not message me until just after my husband had left, so I could not tag along with him.

The lesson after that she again said I should message her to make a date.

What she did not know was that I am stopping her classes. Probably not for good but the last lesson of this block is tomorrow. The next block of 8 contains two classes I refuse to attend because of the fumes of the materials involved, 1 with new materials I am not prepared to purchase as I have no interest and 3 I know I don't much enjoy. So that leaves 2 I am actively interested in. I had been thinking about not doing that block anyway and this Corvid saga has swayed my decision. It nearly went the other way because I feared I was having a CPTSD cut and run reaction, but I have sound reasons for my decision. Since then I have discovered another art class I am going to try, so I may not actually go back to the current teacher for quite a while as the new course lasts until July.

So I messaged her as she requested to ask for dates she is free, but also to tell her I am missing out the next block of classes. So I said tomorrow is the last day I can conveniently bring Corvid to class and that I am not particularly bothered about making prints of him, although I would like to meet at some point and discuss the process in case I want to do so in future. Essentially I was inviting her to put her money where her mouth is.

So far there has been total radio silence. She appears not to have read my message, but who knows? If I do not hear from her I will not be taking Corvid to class and if she wants him it will be down to her to contact me and arrange her purchase.

As it happens, there is a local art sale in a few months time and since I have already entertained the possibility of selling I might frame him and put him up for sale there, along with a couple of other bits. The sale happens to be in the village where she lives so she could always buy him there, although he will cost more.

I don't really know what I think of all this yet so am just putting it all down here.

[Armee]

She sounds quite flaky! For whatever reason, not really having the money or having her own internal struggles but it sounds like she is not the home for your first sold painting! I hope corvid finds a wonderful owner at the art sale. Your decision to switch art classes does not sound at all like a function of cptsd but of listening to yourself and what you really want for your growth in art. Great job! It sounds like the right decision to me!

[Chart]

 
NarcKiddo, You're situation makes me think (once again) just how "sensitive" and "aware" and "second guessing" Cptsd often makes us. When I think it through and rationalize it it seems pretty extreme. Living in France for so long, one of the things that I find still fascinating, is the often "insensitive" standard-don't-care attitude of many French people. (The famous Parisien waiter who never comes over to your table to take your order, stereotypes like that...) Anyway, I think you are dealing with the situation extremely well. People who don't respond, show proper respect in communication and honoring appointments, need to be handled appropriately, kinda like inappropriate behavior in children... But you seem to be dealing with the situation splendidly (imo :-)
 

[NarcKiddo]

Gosh. I knew it had been a while since I posted here but had not realised quite how long.

The art teacher never bought my picture and I have been going to the new classes, which are nice enough. I am still in touch with the old class members on our WhatsApp group so I participate in social activities with them sometimes. Not sure if I will go back to the old classes again. The new classes are due to end forever this summer so if I want a class I will have to go back to the old teacher.

However, I have since found a very good substitute for classes. An artist (who does online teaching and I have tried some of his free offerings, though his paid classes are way out of my budget) has set up an online club with 24/7 zoom access. There are some planned sessions where a leader will make sure anyone who has questions or wants to speak can get a chance. But essentially it is just a virtual studio where you can log in while doing your own art, and just chat to whoever is there about art, or anything, really. I have been hanging around there quite a bit even though I have actually been unable to do much in the way of art because we are having renovations and I have had to pack most of my art stuff away. So it's been nice to keep in touch with the art and maybe learn a few new things even though I can't actually do it.

I seem to be making good progress right now. My therapist has said that she thinks I am ready to reduce the frequency of sessions, if I feel comfortable to do so. I agree with her but don't want to do that quite yet because my mother is having a big party next month which is likely to be very trying.  So I'll get through the party and then see how I feel.

My therapist has pointed out that I am finding a lot of the answers to problems by myself and then reporting back to her, rather than working things through with her. Hence why I may not need her input so often. That is true, but it's early days. And although sessions sometimes feel like me being a kid reporting all these good things in the hopes of a star on my chart, actually that is not how it is. Sometimes I will have the "right" reaction in the moment, which is great when it happens, but it is not until afterwards that I realise I did. And then talking it over with my T, and cementing why it was a good way of dealing with the situation, is helpful. My T is in no way pushing me away, so I feel comfortable as we are. But I am glad she mentioned the subject because I had been feeling that way, too, but had not yet got the stage of mentioning it myself. Possibly I feared her saying "oh, no, you're nowhere near that stage yet" and then I would have felt very silly. Although she never would phrase something in that way, anyway. It's amazing, sometimes, what little NK fears, even though adult NK knows it will never happen.

[Chart]

It's amazing, sometimes, what little NK fears, even though adult NK knows it will never happen.

Isn't it just how that always seems to work?
 

[sanmagic7]

hi, NK, seems like it's been a while. 

sounds like you are doing quite well both with your art and your recovery.  the idea of being able to talk things over w/ your T after the fact sounds like a wonderful step forward, and i'm glad your T brought it up.  i remember it happening similarly with me at times, but it took a while for me to feel ready to move to the next step of not seeing my T so often.  (actually, i never really got there cuz i suddenly had to move!). i'm glad you're going at your own pace.  and i agree, our littles often continue to rule the roost, but even being able to recognize that seems like a big step forward.

keep up the good work, and sounds like your art is really moving along.  i'm very happy for you!  love and hugs

[Desert Flower]

I'm very happy for you you are doing better NK! And I can understand part of you would be a little afraid of moving on and that's okay. 

[NarcKiddo]

Well. There was me thinking I was ready to cut frequency of therapy. At which point miscellaneous child parts have been kicking off like anything. I don't know if they are scared of being abandoned, or what, but they've given me plenty to talk about every week so I'm not going to cut down just yet.

I had a horrible EF day earlier this week. I'd ordered a TV for a bedroom and there was a delivery delay. Such is life - you'd think. I won't go on about the full sequence of events. It was all really, really minor triggers but each exquisitely designed to poke at sore spots. Essentially I was dumped into a position of uncertainty and was not prepared to tolerate it. So I spent the whole entire day trying to get some control over the situation. Which was impossible because, in a nutshell, the delivery driver was incapable of reading his sat nav and could not find my house in the delivery time slot. So he gave up because spending any longer would have meant every other delivery that day was late. However, instead of reporting back to base he kept the item on board and tried again at the end of the day, at which point he found me. All's well that ends well. But in the meantime...

I could not get any delivery updates from the courier company. The seller's telephone system was automated and kept re-routing me to the courier company. Eventually I spent a full HOUR on the seller's web chat. I got a human rather than a bot, because I have got quite skilled at overcoming bots. Of course the human could not help because the delivery driver had gone out of protocol. But the human pretended they could help and asked me endless questions. The human also took a full four minutes minimum to respond to any input from me. And then tried to cut me off because I took too long replying (I took a maximum of 30 seconds each time - I have the transcript). I nearly lost the plot completely at that point. I wasted the day stressing about this delivery, feeling worse and worse with every failed effort to get certainty. All I wanted was for someone to say "Sorry, it can't come today. We will be in contact to reschedule" Or, of course "Yes the driver still has it and will try again later today". This seemed like quite a small ask to me, and indeed it would have been if only the delivery driver had marked it as a failed delivery on his computer when he could not initially find my house.

I've just talked it through with my T. We know where the emotions were coming from. Basically I had to endure uncertainty as a child and could do nothing about it. M was volatile and unpredictable. Rules were rules until they weren't. Permitted things were allowed until they weren't. Retribution came unexpectedly or unreliably. I was not prepared to tolerate this uncertainty. Even though adult me knew fine well such problems can occur and would resolve by the next day. The selling company and courier company are reputable and I have done business with them before. I had no fear that someone had taken my money and would not produce the goods eventually.

What was kind of weird was that these are feelings I must have had as a child but did not feel, if you know what I mean. When my T asked me if this felt the same as in childhood I said no. When she asked what uncertainty did feel like in childhood I did not know. All I know is that what I felt this week, as an adult, was somehow awful and maybe familiar and I did not EVER want to feel it again. Hence the lengths I went to in an effort to find out where this ruddy TV was. But as a child I could not display any distress or righteous anger or do anything to alleviate the feelings. So I am pretty sure I just stuffed them down. With the result that they feel horribly familiar and yet not familiar at all. So if I look back on my childhood I know some things were bad but I don't remember the feelings until they hi-jack me by way of an EF and make me feel them now. I guess that is why it is possible to assume that a childhood was fine or normal when it wasn't.

My T thinks it is good that I am able to feel the feelings now, and that I need to validate them and process them. Unpleasant though it is, she says it's better than simply squashing them away, because once they've been felt and processed they can go away. I suppose she's right. And anyway I had no chance what.so.ever of pushing this EF away or squashing it. Those feelings were jolly well going to be felt! Urgh. CPTSD sucks.

[Armee]

Oh man isnt that all the truth! Not having any access or knowledge of the feelings till some present moment thing triggers the past and bam! I've found that what they call "corrective experiences" when these triggers set off really help resolve the feelings as your T was saying. I understand we are supposed to be able to create these corrective feelings ourselves by having our adult take care of our littles. I'm not sure I've ever had luck with that approach fully yet, but when they have been intuitively offered by others in the present it has been extremely effective, and if that trigger is met with the same reaction as the past it really digs in as an EF for months. Just rambling. Sorry about that.

Please do not feel "bad" about needing to stay in therapy longer. CPTSD takes a long time. We could mostly manage as we did before on our own and appear fine but it's not really fine and this processing is something that is challenging to impossible to do alone if you are at the level of injury common with CPTSD. I've been 7.5 yrs straight no less than 1.5 hrs per week often with additional time or sessions or adjunct therapies. We could ignore the symptoms and let them rule us but you are choosing to dig in and attempt to change or feel better. That's really cool.

Art...I dont blame you for not wanting to return after your teacher flaked/ghosted on you. At the same time if it really was something you loved doing and there isn't a satisfying alternate and you dont mind going back it would be reasonable to try again and see how you feel being there.

But I wonder if there are other local artists you can gather with and trade techniques too. Either way you DO have a gift and I hope you keep posting your pieces here as I love seeing them.

[dollyvee]

Hi NK,

I agree that there are sometimes things which come up in our lives that reveal, or break, the illusion of control that I have to function with in my life. Or, what I have always grown up with, managed, that has given me a sense of safety in the face of the unpredictability of my family, as you pinpointed. It's true that like you said, I had no idea they were there, or what they even were until it happened. For me, the big one is/was driving. I've broken it down over the years and have gotten better on my 0-60 anger over the carelessness of other drivers. It took me a while to work out though that the anger, and big emotional reactions, were a result of feeling like my life was somehow threatened by the negligence of others. Something which, writing this out, I can see was a situation I often had to deal with FOO. My m going out at night to the bar and leaving me home as six/seven year old while I was "asleep" was something I had to deal with. Waking up in the middle of the night while she was out was also something I had to deal with, and if anything happened during that time, that was up to me too.

So, I think for me, driving was the one thing where I couldn't avoid being put in potentially harmful situations (and at the mercy of other people) where it brought up all those feelings from before, and the resulting anger at being put in that situation in the first place. Like your t said, I think it has been helpful to bring these feelings up and acknowledge them. Well, maybe not just feel the feelings (as I think in the past I have got lost in that and not really known what to do with them or what the next step was), but to just be more aware of my internal world and when I was noticing shifts in what was happening if that makes sense. Like just saying, oh that's a different reaction what is that? This is where I think NARM has been so helpful for me. I am also realizing lately that there are things happening "under the surface" that I am not really conscious of that is taking work to bring out into the light. So, yeah CPTSD does suck, but it also gets better bit by bit sometimes.

I hope you are finding some space to process all this 
dolly

[sanmagic7]

hey, NK, i truly relate to not having feelings about things that happened in childhood, and having to cope with them now as they begin coming up.  i'm right there with you - c-ptsd sucks!  i've often found it overwhelming, too, to have these feelings pop up and don't always know what to do with them.  from my experience, as i kept going w/ them, they became easier in time to cope with.

i'm glad you realized that therapy can still be helpful.  c-ptsd has such a stunning array of ways to get to us, and i've found having help and support extremely important as i kept finding more.  best to you!  love and hugs