Post-Traumatic Growth Journal

[sanmagic7]

well, SO, what, perchance, do you intend to grow?  flowers? veggies?  others?  i'm excited for you, especially that you have your spirit back to do this. 

and thanks, DF, for the description.  i'm gonna use it as well, i think.  so glad you both know about this stuff.  i guess i'm finally at a place where i can hear it and maybe give it a go.  i hope it helps you, SO.  i'm a very big fan of try everything cuz maybe something will stick.  love and hugs

[SenseOrgan]

sanmagic7
My focus is on Edibles. I must admit that I haven't planned this too much. Basically this gardening surge drove by and I decided to hop on. So my plans are developing as I go. A lot of what I used to know is gone and I'm taking a refresher course sprinkled throughout every day.

Both my front- and backyard are about 216 square feet, so quite tiny. The front yard is quite shady and the backyard a mix of sunny and shady. So I have plenty of variables to play around with. I'm planning to grow mostly tea in the longer run. Before I have enough seedlings and they're big enough to plant out, I'll grow a variety of stuff. Both perennial and annual plants. I don't know all the English names.

But to give you an impression of what I have in mind: lettuce, Asian leafy greens, broad beans, edible bamboo, various berries, runner beans, green beans, zucchini, bell pepper, aubergine, sunflower, lemon balm, mint, chives, leek, green onion, coriander, rosemary, potato, hazelnut, pear, peach, chestnut (yes this is nuts in such a small area, pun intended), Jerusalem artichoke, parsnips, turnip type crops, Indian cress. I'm sad that I have to terminate the oca, which has been doing surprisingly well in my backyard. I can't eat it due to the oxalate and my kidney stone risk (which rules out other things too, like spinach). There's a bunch more I don't know the English name of. I'm also sneaking some things in in places adjacent to my place, which I can harvest as plant nutrients, like comfrey. Think permaculture...

There's one thing I'd like to share about the relaxation practices. I go to bed early, and in this time of year it's still light when I start my winding down routine before I go to bed. I'd been using a sleep mask lately and decided to wear it while doing the PMR and subsequent meditation. This has definitively been beneficial for relaxation during PMR. I had not thought of this, but it's the same principle as we use in PSIP, where the mask helps to go inwards and stay with feelings and physical sensations instead of thought. During PMR, this helps me to stay with the feeling of relaxation I manage to start/pick up. A very nice surprise :-)

Tomorrow I'll start my 5th week of a six week PMR commitment. It looks like it took this long to start getting a bit of a hang of it. Now I'm starting to have a response dr Reitav mentioned in the putting trauma to sleep book. I get these waves of relaxation and a yawn response, followed by a bit of teary eyes. Nothing emotional. Apparently this is a sign of relaxation, which is also what it feels like. To add to DF's response, the breath is a very important part of it, and I'm only just starting to experience it the way it's often promoted for. For me, there's a specific way I breathe which helps me get there. I throw in a pinch of Ujjayi breath, which lands me between efforting to prolong the exhalation and enjoying the "laziness" of the exhale at the same time. It's a delicate balance. I hope this makes sense. 

[sanmagic7]

it does make sense, SO.  the idea of sticking with it for several weeks also makes sense.  i've done the breathing a few times, have been getting stuck on being anxious about whether i'm doing it right, stomach out instead of chest, and i get frustrated and stop.  i can mentally understand what needs to be done and why, but i've been having difficulty feeling relaxed about it.  sounds like this needs practice, and to just go with it for a while.  thank you for your extended explanation.  it really helped.  (I have to admit that when i first read 'my focus is on edibles' i thought you were raising pot!)

as for your garden - o my!  what a variety!  it all sounds delicious, nutritious, and the entire thing just sounds wonderful!  so very glad for you!  when i lived in our house as a family, and had my garden, i felt very good about giving my family healthy food for at least 3 months out of the year.  no chemicals.  i don't know if they appreciated it as much as i did, but i knew and felt great about it.

keep it up.  it all sounds great.  love and hugs

[Chart]

(I have to admit that when i first read 'my focus is on edibles' i thought you were raising pot!)

San, this gave me a good laugh! Imagine growing marijuana in Holland of all places!

I've had some thoughts spring up in my head about breathing. But first, SenseOrgan, thanks so much for sharing  your detailed experiences and analyses of panic attacks... I so identify with that feeling of "Oh god, not this, not now, not while I'm trying so hard to heal..." It just seems so horribly unfair. On top of all the crap we're already dealing with, along comes another layer out of the blue to just push us to our maximum... I just want to say how impressed I am that you are still doing what you need and want to do, despite these obstacles the Universe has decided to throw into your path. The Cosmos must think that you are up to the task, apparently. But that doesn't make it any less difficult. Would it be correct to call this "Nervous System Regulation Training"? NSRT? Have you invented a new modality? I'm actually only half-joking. It's almost like we are all professional athletes, on that cutting edge limit of what can be done, and what can't. Re-working our nervous systems, going back to square one, all the things that babies need in their environment, and that were absent from ours... Calm, safety, mirrored understanding... everything that builds the foundation blocks for a nervous system that will evolve into a working, functioning tool, helping us in times of stress, but not staying in that one mode, also capable of switching back to the mode of healing. Reading your posts I've realized all sorts of subtle elements about my own similar experiences. But I won't go into that too much here in your journal.

What I do want to say however touches on breathing. I recall awhile back discussing PMR with San and her mentioning just how triggering certain exercises were. This really puzzled me and I guess I've been reflecting on it (unconsciously?) because now it seems much clearer to me. I'm just theorizing and don't have any clear evidence or external references, but I believe that the Freeze response includes shutting down breathing. If this mode was the dominant manner to achieve safety for us, then even gentle regulated breathing could trigger us out of our default safety mode of Freeze. Flight requires intense breathing, Fight too. But Freeze requires we "stop" breathing, or reduces it greatly. Thus any focus on breathing directly, or breathing more intensely can trigger in us an unsafe situation, especially in our bodies. Considering just how sensitive Cptsd can make us, this might be a hair-fine trigger, meaning even the slightest manipulation of breathing can become a trigger.

These are just some thoughts (amongst many) that came up reading through your journal. Hope it helps, if not please feel free to ignore... or maybe I'm already stating something that is well-known.

So, your garden sounds like a paradise :-)
 

[SenseOrgan]

Well. A bit of a hiatus. It doesn't feel quite right to disappear. The past months I've been extremely busy. Life is different than it used to be.

For many years I was spending my days just meditating, exercising, hanging on to my fingertips. Endlessly searching online for ways to connect to people. Searching for one thing that would be a beginning of a path out of perpetual torture. All in solitude.

I just thought about a moment, somewhere in January or February of this year. I had a bit of energy and focus and decided to clean up just a tiny bit in my backyard. That got out of hand completely. That spark reignited a love for growing plants, that has been with me since I was a teen.

I went through * being able to do this in more than one way. And when I finally had a safe enough place with a bit of a garden, I was in such terrible shape that I couldn't garden anymore. It took two years for the spark to happen. I'm enjoying it on so many levels at once. Everything could fail and I'd still have gained so much by this. It's not about the outcome. I didn't even plan any of this.

Not planning comes at a pretty hefty price. I've been constantly playing catchup with the growing season, since I started a little late and I'm learning a lot while at it. No time for much else. My house is a workshop again.

The good part about all of this is that I keep going. I keep going. Very active and efficient one day, very slow and more chaotic the other. I keep ticking off boxes regardless. I have a drive and a bit of energy and focus. I had lost that combo a long time ago. This is a good antidote to overwhelm, despair, helplessness, which certainly still happen. I just don't stick around for long there anymore.

That never was as simple a choice as that may sound. It still isn't. The witness has taken up a significant chunk of my mental real estate, presumably due to meditation. This awareness provides a bit of a gearbox. Sometimes with a bit of a delay, but even extreme states don't linger nearly as long as they used to. It definitively helps that I have other stuff on my mind now too.

Garden stuff. I need to be in my front yard quite often. Yes, this is a trigger. I can be seen there. I still don't always feel comfortable. But I go anyway. I want to garden. And I chat with a neighbor here and there. Exposure. Several times a week. It helps. Not because I'm doing exposure therapy. But because I want to be there more than I am scared. That is the key. There's nothing artificial or forced about this.

The whole thing happens spontaneously. The incident with the Police has woken up a deep sense of guilt/shame. AND the indignation and fury I felt and expressed in the subsequent PSIP session. It still ripples through my system. It has woken up the tiger. This is about what has been done to me as an innocent child. The rage is not different than my love for that little boy. For me. I deserve to be free of this fear/shame/guilt. I deserve to be who I am. It's my birthright. Anxiety keeps me in prison. Parts of me that could be judged and rejected are locked up when I interact with certain people. Conflict of interest. Internal friction. I want these parts to be free. I want my love for them to be bigger than my fear to be ridiculed, rejected, belittled, shamed. This shouldn't be a struggle. There's a tipping point to this and I sometimes go over it. I don't believe in revolution. I'm an evolution kind of guy. Dedication over hurry. I'm slowly working my way up to the point where I stop caring what other people think of me. I want to be unapologetically me. I want that plant to blossom.

I keep taking on tasks. Also outside of gardening. Getting rid of stuff that's been in the way for years and such. And a massive project came along. Way too much. But I'm still going. Still standing. Literally working my way through it while trying to find a new balance in all of this. Still shifting gears, still sleep disordered and C-PTSD'ed. So what? What is, is. On some level I'm happy. Happy that I'm active, meeting more people, showing up more authentic and vulnerable, better boundaried, and so on. So I'm kinda busy. Just wanted to say hi. I'll be back.

Much love to you all. 

[sanmagic7]

hey,  SO, so glad to hear from you!  i've missed you.  very happy to hear your gardening is going and going and going, even if late or stops and starts.  sounds very much like you're finding your way at your pace, and i don't think we can ask much more than that.  keep it up, ok?  love and hugs

[Hope67]

Hi SenseOrgan,
Sending much love to you too     Good to hear your update and your garden sounds really good.

[Desert Flower]

I'm slowly working my way up to the point where I stop caring what other people think of me. I want to be unapologetically me.

Good one.

I'm very happy for your developments and so proud of you.  And you'll definitely get 'there'. It sure helps to have activities you like. Take care.

[Chart]

SO, we have the right to live. We have the right to grow. We can change and pull the terror up by the roots. No matter the field is rampant with weeds. We'll get at them one at a time. And with no illusions about what we're attempting. But we can be happy... sometimes. It's possible. It happens. I have a theory that nothing can comprehend complexity greater than itself, for once that understanding is reached, the mechanisms behind that understanding have evolved to another level of complexity. Thus we are consciously always one step behind. But this does not limit us from climbing the staircase. It actually defines the ascension itself. It's movement. I believe the way out of Cptsd is movement. Your post was absolutely lovely. It sounds like you're moving... hands in the dirt and helping things to push up towards the sun. Absolutely lovely. I'm so very happy for you. I share in your change and evolution. Me too... today I was rained on... multiple times... and I didn't mind nearly so much as I might... and tonight I feel good about me. All that is pretty new. It's feels good. I'm gonna garden with my daughter this weekend. Thanks for inspiring me.
  

[SenseOrgan]

Hi sanmagic7, I missed you too! Love and hugs right back at ya 

Hi Hope67, you're back :-) Nice to see you again. 

Hi Desert Flower, thanks so much for your support. I'm happy to see you again. 

Hi Chart, Nice to see you again too! It's wonderful you feel good about you. Imagine that being your natural state... Yes, movement. In some states/situations it matters less what the step is going to be exactly, than taking a step in the first place. Being open to not knowing where you'll end up next is more like living and less like surviving. So yeah, I think also part of outgrowing CPTSD. It's about moving anyway. Without certainty, despite fear, right? Mindfully, but moving nonetheless. Being overly attached to the outcome is a way of not moving. Am I willing to dance to life's melody, whether it's in minor or major key? Can I let life dance me? Happy gardening with your daughter 

********************************************************************************************************

Phew, I gradually ended up in an EF. It's a stark contrast with what I wrote the other day. My mom shared some info about my cousin's whereabouts. Many years ago my controlling sister forbid me to see him unless I vowed not to share any info with her son's father. She went full on parental alienation syndrome, enabled by my mother and everybody else around. Except for me. No civilized, mature communication, only decrees, slander, and ignoring appeals to reason. My cousin lost his father and me, his uncle. I'd been close with my cousin since his birth. I lost my whole family over this and some more traumatic stuff.

Five years later I reconnected with my mother and my other sister. Six years later I went no contact again with that sister. That may very well be forever. Another cousin is involved whom I don't see anymore as a result. All this time my mother didn't share any info about my cousin with me. Because it was presumed I was still in touch with his father. So the other day my mother shared some vague info about my cousin's whereabouts with me. Later she got scared and asked me not to share it with his father (whom I'm not in contact with, which she knows).

This was the incident that slowly started spiraling me out. I told my mother that I make my own decisions and I'm sick and tired of this controlling behavior. Again it was about her fear and placing the responsibility for making that go away on my shoulders. It triggered the trauma of the load I had to carry as a kid. Forced upon me in so many ways. How this abuse determines so much of my life till this day. I wanted to tell her she doesn't have a beginning of an understanding what she's done to me. That she destroyed me to the bone. This entire family drama stems from her not dealing with difficult emotions like an adult and passing it on. It has already scarred the next generation for life too.

She is not that person anymore. And I know it didn't start with her. And at the same time my inner child is still being tortured by how he has been treated. I'm not going to downplay any of that. The last couple of days the abandonment melange took over. I do not want to be dragged under by this and I fully acknowledge the reality of this at the same time. I don't want to do anything stupid, so I've taken some time to let the wave pass. Even though I was invalidated at my last attempt, I do need to give voice to the little one who has been treated so badly by his own mother. I imploded as a response as a kid. So many years and so much effort later, a significant part of me is still stuck there. It's infuriating and devastating. I'm sick and tired of being dragged into this drama over and over. Enough!

[dollyvee]

Hi SO,

Good for you for saying something and setting a boundary with your m, and I hope she responded well?

Sending you support,
dolly

[sanmagic7]

ah, yes, SO, the constant over and over again of the c-ptsd beast.  relentless until we are able to get to a point of figuring out what we actually need now.  that you're seeing what your little one inside didn't get, and who he didn't get it from is a major step.  is there grieving attached to that realization?  if so, you may need to go thru that process before you can get to the acceptance part of it all, and be more at peace with it.  i think for a lot of us, the depression and anger stages can take a lot of time and work to get thru before we make it to the other side.

i hope you can be patient and care-full with yourself as you go thru this.  those triggers can definitely knock us sideways, and it sometimes takes a little while before we can right ourselves and take another step.  i think you're doing good work, really.  love and hugs

[SenseOrgan]

Hi dollyvee, good to see you again! Thanks for your support. Yes, my mom did respond well. She apologized for disclosing the info. I didn't discuss the content of the cascade that followed for me. Yet. Not a good moment for it. That's a conversation that needs to happen later, which will be a lot more challenging.

sanmagic7
Thanks for your encouragement. Your question is deeper than I can possibly answer here. I remember feeling like my mother had killed me when I was a suicidal teen while I cried every day for years on end. I couldn't pinpoint it, but my heart knew and I grieved endlessly. Basically for decades. I gradually figured out what happened while drowning in heavy emotions. What came up recently isn't really new. Over the years, it seems to edge closer to the pure version of what I have felt as a kid. During triggers like these, I'm suddenly flooded with things I wanted to say as a kid but couldn't because I fawned, imploded, and didn't know what was being done to me. I still have a hard time verbalizing it, especially when I'm not in touch with the raw fury. So the trigger temporarily lifts the dissociation and I get a peek under the hood again.

Years ago I made a little drawing with a sad face with arrows pointing towards him, and a smiling face with arrows pointing away from him. The theme of expressing myself rather than only responding to stuff bombarding me is old and incredibly difficult for me to manifest. This is also about the neurological reality of C-PTSD. Overwhelm is a big factor in my life. It only got worse over the years. There's sensitivities I probably inherited, maximally exacerbated up by the circumstances I started life in. The ramifications are devastating. I grieved all of that and eventually found a lot of peace in being with what is after a complete collapse and some experiences with psychedelics.

For lack of a better word, eventually an encounter with the absolute made it easier to embrace the messy humanness of this existence more fully. I've welcomed horrific experiences, even on the brink of insanity. And I think expressing anger is even more difficult for me. I've worked with anger off and on for a long time, but never as close to what my inner child could never express as recently. Looking back, I think what's deepening is the aspect of not abandoning my inner child myself. So my my care for him becomes stronger than my fawning tendency in the moment I can allow myself to be furious. It's still very fragile, but all things considered this a very good sign. I've been out of the EF today and I feel good about me. 

[sanmagic7]

i feel good about you feeling good about you, SO.  it's a lot of rough work you're describing.  no pressure - as always, it's best when we go at our own pace, and it sounds like that's just what you're doing.  keep it up, ok?  so glad you're out of your EF.  those places are horrible.

expressing anger has always been tough for me as well.  i hear you.  love and hugs

[SenseOrgan]

Thank you for being here sanmagic7 

********************************************************************************************************

The incident has triggered the whole gamma of emotions that are tied to the abuse. I have felt more indirect layers of it throughout my life. Depression and anxiety are so abstract, that they themselves function as an obscuration of the devastating reality they hint at. How it really feels to be abused by your own parent(s) as an innocent child is more raw. I'm more in touch with that boy than I ever was. I'm more on his side than I ever was. I'm more clear on what has been done to him than I ever was.

And it's fragile. His experience was effectively denied, his truth effectively invalidated, his voice effectively silenced. Little is needed to switch back to that default. Put on the spot, I can't communicate the actual horror. Not even a watered down version of it. It's stored in me as something that is not allowed to exist. Let alone be voiced. I don't even need people to have a fawn response. My experience was pushed back so aggressively and systematically, that existing as a sovereign individual itself is hard. I'm trained to respond to the needs and opinions of others first and foremost. My own come second at best. The world barges in and I respond.

This isn't strictly a psychological issue, which could be fixed with enough willpower and awareness. More like the polyvagal kind of thing. Safety overrules all else. Voicing my own experience and advocating for myself are tied to danger. Not that I can't and won't, but it takes a lot of effort. The more overwhelm I experienced over the years, the more effort that took. And the closer I get to the raw experience of the little boy, the harder it gets to find the words to express what he feels.

I can take the time for it, and write down pages of what I've been through, and be reduced to nothing by just one invalidation if I'd literally voice it to my mother. This is why I used to perfect my story to the most effective and concise message if I needed to get something across. Engaging long enough with the material beforehand, gave me just enough focus to not be obliterated before I made my point.

I feel like I need to speak my mind. In detail. To validate the little boy and to do him justice. I've started listening to Pete Walker's book again to help me find my voice [which is easy with all that resonates so clearly]. It's really hard to listen to, just like last time. There's a real risk of it plunging me into an EF. So I need to dose that too. Besides you guys, I have no friend who really gets C-PTSD. I feel vulnerable because of that. I do not want to have to explain C-PTSD to anyone. Especially not while struggling so hard to speak my mind already. Because having to explain such a complex affliction also evokes the above response. The same goes for the intelligence gap between me and my mother. She used to ridicule me for my intellect and I am still burdened with the task of dumbing down how I think in order to be understood. There are layers of obstacles in place to get heard. Or rather, to be able to stick with the little boy and voice his experience. That should be my main objective here, I think.

I'm supposed to help my mother move stuff out of her house in a month. Right now I'm flooded with emotions, which are pretty * far from wanting to help her out. Things are not black and white though. In recent years my mother has been doing her best to treat me respectfully and she has helped me a lot. I see that and appreciate that. It's the reason we are still in touch. Even though discussing the elephant in the room has not been possible. I feel torn. On a bigger scale by the whole family that has fallen apart. At the core, the biggest driver for that was my mother not facing her own shadow. There can not be any conversation about any of the family issues without addressing that. And there's a big, narcissistic defense around that too.

My mom texted me and I only vaguely saw it was about moving the stuff out of the house. I didn't read it. I don't know how to respond. Tomorrow I'll see my shrink. I'm at least going to speak to him first.