Desert Flower's Recovery Journal

[SenseOrgan]

I just want to say I think the direction you're taking this in is actual strength. As opposed to our survival self, which is so often perceived as strong by others who aren't in the know about CPTSD. Your awareness of your vulnerabilities and potential pitfalls, and your compassionate commitment to your long term health are very positive in my book. It honstely makes me want to cheer for you!

I'm wondering if you're allowed to take someone with you to the chat with the company doctor. That could perhaps help you to say what you actually want to say because it provides more safety. I agree with you that it would be problematic if the doc only talks to your keep-on-going part without knowing what's going on. There are a couple of angles you can work this from. It partially depends on your official diagnosis, I guess. If you have a PTSD diagnosis, that would help. If not, perhaps you could clarify what you deal with by drawing a parallel with the buildup to a burnout. This is language the doc should understand. You could explain that what happened recently has been building for decades, and that it's trauma related. And that you had to learn to hide it even if you're not doing well at all. That it culminated in a crisis, and that it's not sustainable to continue as you did after you have recovered again. That you have this vulnerability and it needs to be taken into account. Not only for a short period of time, but always. Sustainable is the key word. It's in nobody's interest to have you in a crisis again. The risk for that needs to land with the doc, if you ask me.

You're navigating difficult terrain. I think you're doing great Desert Flower! 

[Papa Coco]

Desert Flower,

I like what you said about how the times when you felt safe were the times when you felt connected to your Self. That's a powerful realization. And it is very true for me too. Authenticity is something we with CPTSD often missed out on. We became what we thought we had to so we could feel safe, rather than grow and nurture and celebrate who we actually were born to be.

I watched a documentary on the making of the TV series Stranger Things. The Duffer brothers, who wrote, produced and filmed the series, and are now in their 40s were given a camera for their 9th birthdays by parents who wanted to support their true desires. It's rare to find people who's parents supported their authentic selves, and when we find them, we recognize that they are solid, authentic, creative people today.

Whenever I watch documentaries on successful people, the one common denominator is that they had someone, somewhere, supporting their authenticity when they were very young. One thing I like about IFS therapy is it lets me be the adult who starts to support the inner children in me who are still waiting for permission to be validated and authentically themselves. It's a process, and it works. And as each little IFS part finds their own authentic selves, my overall authenticity gets just a tiny bit clearer to me.

As you've pointed out, with authenticity comes a feeling of satisfaction and safety and power.

We here are headed in the right direction. We support each other. And it feels goooooood.

[Desert Flower]

These past couple of days have been quite the roller coaster. I'm almost gasping for air. I expect to be calming down again in the next couple of hours. Thank 'some benign force in the universe' for yoga this evening!

I had been desperately trying to enlist the proper mental health care for myself and I finally did. WOW.

In my country, waiting times for publicly funded psychotherapy are terrible, they range from a (theoretical) two weeks up to six months or beyond. That is, for the specialised mental health care that I need. It is an incomprehensible labyrinth too. And it made me quite desperate these last couple of days. I began to lose hope.

The health insurance company had come back with a so called answer to my question (I asked for their permission for a longer term trajectory) that wasn't an answer to that question at all! They said they now found the practitioner in my region that had the shortest waiting time, which amounted to 10 - 12 weeks. And I looked her up and I didn't like her photo (which is silly I know). But the institution I was referred to before by the GP had said they had a two weeks waiting time, for the short trajectory that is. Only they said my insurance didn't cover the longer. So then, I didn't know what to do anymore, and I made an appointment to talk this over with the GP (that's tomorrow - and then the company doctor on Friday, it's a LOT). But that's six weeks after I crashed and landed in her office already! Bloody H***!!! This was going nowhere.

So these past couple of days, I did a frantic search of any reasonable specialised mental health available in any reasonable time frame in my region. And finally I got myself enlisted with an actual psychiatrist today! This is monumental to me really. I needed this to happen. It's been so long in the making. I hope to finally get an official diagnosis now too. Well, 30 years ago, I got a diagnosis that said PTSD, Identity Problems and 'Life Phase Problems' (whatever that last bit was, I've been having problems in every phase of life, I can safely say now). And the psychologist I was with last year wrote down I have 'complex trauma', so that's fair enough too. But still. Oh Recognition, it is so important to me.

This seems to be an old fashioned psychiatrist. He doesn't have a fancy website and I find that comforting somehow. And he is an independent psychiatrist, not working from one of the big health care organisations that we have, and I like that too (although it could be a risk, another part of me says). And he has 30 plus years of experience. And although he says he does't treat PTSD (hmm), he does treat fear and anxiety and developmental disorders (which should include attachment disorders), and this means we will be addressing the fearful part of me (even if I'm the only one who knows that) and that's fair enough to me at this point. He asked me what my biggest problem was at the moment and I said Fear and that got me in. He sounded kind enough and his picture looks it too. And my intake will be in two weeks! I spoke to him (not some telephone person or secretary or what have you) and made the actual appointment. It is scheduled! I almost cannot believe it.

I will have to wait and see whether this will work out at all of course. But that goes for the big health care institutions just as well, you never know where you will end up (possibly group therapy AARGH) until you get there and talk to them for real. But at least this will be (reasonably) fast now and that's really important to me because waiting around does not improve my symptoms, quite the contrary!

Now that this actual help is on the way, I think I'll wait with the parts therapy that was gonna start in February or thereabouts. See what this does first and not do too many different things at a time. Also, parts therapy is not considered 'regular care' in my country and was gonna have to be funded by me privately. If this doesn't work out, I can always try parts therapy later.

The thing is, it doesn't even matter so much to me whether it will be care that fits perfectly (could it ever?), what matters most to me at this point, is that I don't want to be doing this all by myself anymore, I want to have some human support. (That's actually why this Forum is invaluable to me too!) I don't even need these complaints to go away completely maybe, and I did all the psycho education myself already anyway, as long as I can share the burden somehow. I know everybody is struggling, I know this is what life is, I might be able to accept this, when I know I'm not alone. (Even if that sounds strange having a h and kids, but they have their own lives too). To have some support for (the Assembly of) ME. And I want some help NOW please.

I am wiped though. Maybe take a little nap this afternoon.

(Long story, apologies. Needed to get this off my chest.)

[SenseOrgan]

Congratulations Desert Flower! It's very impressive how you're advocating for yourself. That crisis isn't going to waste. 

[NarcKiddo]

I hope the appointment goes well. I am really proud of you and happy that you persisted with your search and I hope you will be rewarded. I think it is also valuable that you recognise that perfect help might be hard to come by, but good enough help could be achievable.

As for rejecting a T on the basis of their picture - I am so with you on that. I chose my current T in no small part because I liked her picture. Liking it was not so important but was very important was that I did not DISLIKE it. I picked my gallbladder surgeon based on his photo. The choice was only between 2 and they both had very similar qualifications. However the guy I picked looked like someone I could trust and when I met him in person I felt I had made the right decision.

[TheBigBlue]

That sounds very encouraging, DF, and I hope the appointment goes well.

... perfect help might be hard to come by, but good enough help could be achievable.

   to NK, Donald Winnicott's "good-enough parent" and Peter Walker's "good-enough therapist" (paraphrasing latter: healing does not require a perfect therapist, what matters is basic reliability, emotional attunement, and non-abandonment).