Post-Traumatic Growth Journal

[Desert Flower]

Hey SO, congratulations on the lot even though it didn't feel like celebrating.
I'm very proud of you ploughing on like that, doing the work that needed to be done and keeping yourself together while at it. Well done.
And it reminds me of myself too, being stressed when it 'should' be a nice thing that's happening, forget it, plough on now and enjoy later ... maybe we can start to enjoy a little tiny bit now and plough on later ...
And the fawning too, boy did I do a lot of that at my work outing, meeting all these new people, it feels like a total fall back into old patterns. But not quite, because we are aware of what's going on. So that's something too.

Take care SO and a well deserved rest maybe?
 

[sanmagic7]

well done, SO!!!  way to push thru!  i do believe the time will come when you can appreciate all you accomplished with this, the planning, the doing, the pushing through, the readiness for new growth.  i find it exciting for you.  you deserve to rest after all that.  love and hugs

[NarcKiddo]

I'm glad you got your allotment and super happy to read that you have been able to get done what you needed to. Of course it would have been lovely if all the stars had aligned and you had found yourself really feeling the therapeutic value of what you have done while you were doing it. It's good that you are journaling how you feel about it and seeing all the good and the progress you have made. I really dislike doing anything related to gardening, personally, but I find slow, repetitive movements very therapeutic so I can see how your allotment could be really grounding (if you will please pardon the pun, which was not intentional!).

I also think that if one must have a CPTSD reaction, in this particular circumstance fawning is probably the best one to have. Since a big part of the allotment project is for the social aspect, CPTSD reactions such as fight or flight would be a lot less helpful to that goal.

This really does look like a win. 

[SenseOrgan]

Desert Flower
Thank you. It would be great to enjoy our success in the moment, wouldn't it? It was there, somewhere in the back of my mind. It was enjoyable in it's own right that trauma wasn't having the last say this time. It still feels good today. Over the years, the things I'm able to enjoy shifted quite significantly under the influence of ongoing trauma stuff. I think I'm an extreme case of what you described. So willing to sacrifice a quick fulfillment over bigger rewards in the future, that it has become difficult to enjoy something now. It has it's benefits. This level doesn't look like a sign of mental health to me though.

I've been taking it very easy after kicking off this project. It's great you get this kind of thing and appreciate the need to recover. One of the * things about work is that it often doesn't leave enough time for that. I do appreciate just how lucky I am in that regard.

sanmagic7
Thank you for your support. Part of me is simply curious to see how I'd be doing over there in a year or so. Thinking about that, it's actually quite a big shift. Especially when I consider a few seriously triggering encounters I already had there. I guess the fact that I can go and leave whenever I see fit plays a big role in it. It feels more like an experiment with a potential to turn into something nice, than a situation I need to survive somehow. All social encounters over there did result in a big fawn response thus far, so I obviously don't feel safe there. Yet. I do feel a lot more comfortable and free compared to the first time I walked in there. I kinda believe in my potential to ease into this. At least to a degree. Could be wishful thinking. Will find out. In general, gardeners are nice folk, I think. I already got a bunch of veg and seeds from people I met.

NarcKiddo
Thank you. Yes, grounding, lol  . It really is. I think it was February this year that I started to clean up my backyard. Not much thinking. Physical. Just starting because I felt the itch and finally had enough energy for it. Now I have a veg garden there and in my front yard, and this new one. I started with a couple of very simple, repetitive things my overwhelmed brain could still handle. It has helped me regain cognitive capacities that had been pushed very far away by chronic overwhelm. The "brain rot" I had was quite frightening. I can't say it's completely gone, but boy did that improve. I have gardening to thank. Exercise never got me there. If you don't mind me asking, what kind of movements help you to ground?

Yeah, it could have been a lot worse than the fawn response I get. I'm actually starting to tap into anger a little bit as a response to a very triggering woman I encountered there a few times. Thus far I've been totally fawning, but right after I started to get very frustrated and unhappy that I go along with her dumping so much frustration about other people on me. I'm already very close to not having that and find myself considering good ways to make that clear to her. I'm surprising myself, actually. This is deep end of the pool kind of stuff for me. I feel more wiggle room here than with issues like this in my direct environment at home. The latter feels a lot more dangerous, like there's more at stake. Interesting.

[SenseOrgan]

Time for a little victory lap. It had been a few days since I went to the allotment. Time to go see how the cover crops were doing. From where I park my bike, I have to walk a yard or 200 to get to my plot. There was a woman in front of me with a wheelbarrow. She stopped to let me pass. Before I knew it, I struck up a conversation. Organically, easily. I just felt like it.

At one point she told me she was busy with some hard and nasty work involving an old pond. I noticed the remnant of a reflex. For a long time in my life I would have offered to help her out, forgetting about my own plans and creating trouble for myself. Especially in a new social environment where people haven't formed their opinions about me (yes it's a form of manipulation). Now I noticed this show up in my mind and immediately it was referenced against how I actually felt about doing that. There was a split second of considering, followed by a clear no. I just didn't think is was a good idea, so I wasn't going to. No guilt or anxiety around it. Perfectly normal and okay.

I stored the idea to offer help as one of a gazillion options I can choose from at any given moment. Untethered to the way I've learned to survive. It could still be perfectly fine at some point. But only after I mindfully arrive at that decision. It wasn't a big thing. Which made it a big thing in a way. It was one of those sweet fruits that ripen on their own, when you just keep taking proper care of the tree.

She told me to drop by some time and we went our separate ways. The cover crops were doing much better than I had hoped. There were a lot more sunflowers than I thought the birds would have left. They had done so well that it was already difficult to liberate them from the netting. The hard work I did digging out the vines by hand is paying off. I only spotted one. I'm a bit apprehensive about the other weeds also geminating, but we'll see how much the cover crops crowd them out. I'm pleased with the way things are going. Just as planned, maintenance only took a short wile and I was off again. O, a mole made tunnels. Nearly perfectly along about 75% of the edges of the plot. Systematic! Another challenge is presenting itself. This is gardening too.

[NarcKiddo]

Well done for not allowing yourself to make the reflexive offer to help! As you say, the option will remain for a while should you feel it is right to do so at some other point. And also, I note, she still invited you to drop by some time, despite you not offering help. So her opinion of you is clearly not based around services you may or may not offer to perform.

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of movements help you to ground?

Although you have said exercise does not do it for you, it does do it for me. There are plenty of repetitive things that can be done there. I have also always found swimming to be quite grounding, so long as I can do laps at my own pace and have time to get into a flow. Otherwise it is art. My medium of choice if I really need to calm myself is coloured pencil because pictures take a long time, with many small marks and many layers of colour. I first found this out when I bought some colouring books with really intricate pictures.

[SenseOrgan]

NarcKiddo
Thank you for your support and adding that extra insight. It's very positive to experience that good things can come from not being overly nice. I wish heaps of that kind of dignity on every fawner, myself included.

It's great you get so much out of exercise and art. Thanks for sharing that. This is a fascinating topic. I'd be interested to know if it helps you with overwhelm, if that's something you deal with. I can see the overlap with gardening in that regard. Especially with the coloured pencil drawing. Thinking about what seems to work for me, it's a task which can be broken into tiny enough subtasks, that require just enough focus to absorb your mind into something other than what it's hijacked by. Simple and pressure free enough, such that it doesn't add more overwhelm via another entrance. It doesn't work as well with something I dislike, I think. Interesting. Food for thought.

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I remember discovering the term "neurodiversity" and instantly loving the concept. Very validating and inclusive. An important step in the right direction. Being on the spectrum never resonated as an explanation for what I have to deal with though. C-PTSD had been a bit of a revelation for me years before that. Finally the pieces fit. These labels aren't mutually exclusive, off course. But it has to make sense. At least to a high enough degree. This one doesn't.

So I was surprised by a response from a friend who was recently diagnosed with autism, suggesting my struggles may be due to being on the spectrum. Only good intentions, although not very subtly delivered. Triggered. I get that I have blind spots. But this suggestion questions pretty much all hard earned self-knowledge I've gathered. I've looked at it from nearly every possible angle and have been screened and treated ad nauseum. An intaker once told me he never met anyone with this level of self-knowledge. So after stumbling on C-PTSD, I'm pretty much done figuring things out in that department. What I struggle with is clear. To me, thinking in terms of mental health diagnoses is largely an obsolete approach anyway. We're all in categories of one. But that's a can of worms to open another day.

The problem with me is that I tend to make myself smaller than I am and give other people's view on me too much space and consideration. I feel obligated to let them know I'm taking it into consideration, and/or feel the pressure to properly substantiate my justification for my own position. A bit like being indicted for existing outside of anyone's framework of beliefs.

I'm starting to have enough of this tendency. I'm not a dumb or ignorant person, unwilling to challenge his beliefs. I may even do a bit too much of that, avoiding to stand up for what I believe, like many others do after far less soul searching. It's difficult for me to simply say thanks but no thanks and not have all sorts of anxiety taking over.

I wasn't allowed to have opinions contrary to my mom's. It would launch an avalanche of subtle and not so subtle dismissing, shaming, invalidating, disdain and ridicule. This is the charge that's often evoked when I'm around opinions. Especially strong ones with big emotions attached. It's even worse when they involve my person. Difficult to deal with.

I was not going to fawn. I owe it to myself to take up my rightful space in this world. This intellectual understanding needs to be put into practice. I'm still benefiting from some PSIP sessions, and give myself more permission to tap into healthy anger as a source of strength and assertiveness. I took a long time writing an elaborate and nuanced response. It was obvious to me that a lot of transference was going on. This is why I feel extra good about not letting shame around that stopping me from continuing anyway. I did what was right for me.

For as long as I can remember, a neurological, emotional, and intellectual tug of war has been going on inside me. Unpacking that is too much for now. What it boils down to is to be or not to be. To express or repress. It has to be the former, and the above is an example of what that means in daily life. Social interactions have been far less anxiety inducing since. It's not going to last, off course. But it proves my point and motivates me to keep going in this direction.

[sanmagic7]

i thought i wrote an entire response here, but it's now gone!  ugh!  hate that when it happens.

briefly, congrats on not helping someone else when it was simply an automatic response. our time and energy belong to us to do w/ as we please, helping or not.  nothing wrong/bad/right/good w/ either.

and, my best grounding device is gardening.  i hope it's helpful for you as well.  love and hugs

[SenseOrgan]

sanmagic7
Ah, too bad about the response you wrote. Thanks for putting in the effort anyway, and for your support.

our time and energy belong to us

Amen to that!
.......................................................

TW/religion & cults

I've had very little contact with my mother in the past couple of months. I had started to write down the things I could never voice, when an intense anger got triggered by some things she said. My emotions made it very clear to me that it's important to speak my mind to her about the way she has affected me. It doesn't feel right anymore that I never articulated just how hard my life is due to who she was/is. I feel like I'm betraying myself if I don't say this to her. Explicitly this time. Regardless of how she responds.

At the same time I don't want to just vent my anger. That doesn't feel right either. I want to be careful about what I say, and I want to mean every word of it. It started to dawn on me that this means I have to capture the depth of the trauma that affects every aspect of my life into words. That's not an easy thing to do, even though it went very well initially. The momentum faded, and I started being lost for words again.

Our relationship changed after a 5 year NC period. The kind of relationship we had the seven years since has been limited in depth. It was vastly different from previous years in a positive way. This isn't just nullified by recent events. It was also painful to only relate on such a superficial level, while so much has been left unspoken.

There's a difference between how my mom used to be and how she is now. The same goes for myself. And off course we haven't become two completely different people. All of it is part of us. My mom resorted back to her old ways a couple of times. She was her old, overly emotional, self centered self again when I visited her on her birthday a month ago (which I hesitated doing to begin with). I felt repulsion. A part of me wanted to walk away and never come back. It wasn't the right time to bring any of this up. Not on her birthday, not when I'm not clear on what I have to say, and not while she is in some sort of a crisis already. But I don't want to put myself in a position where I'm internally torn and I'm carrying this heavy burden that doesn't belong to me in the first place.

I don't need to hurt my mother. But my gloves need to come off in order for me to say what I need to. My silenced inner child isn't having the new status quo anymore. I'm going to honor him. I'm going to speak on his behalf. Finally. And I want to remain an adult while I do so. I did mention parentification and emotional abuse to my mother in the past. Years ago we had a therapy session together that I arranged, in which I was way too accommodating. I remember that the main thing I said was that her unfulfilled needs had landed on me. Even though she sort of apologized later on and she clearly isn't happy with my suffering, it's evident I didn't do myself justice there. The contrast between what I did say and living a miserable life is just too big. I can't not speak my mind before she passes. I owe it to me. I owe it to the little one who suffers in silence till this day.

When push came to shove, my mother always "chose" her coping mechanisms over my wellbeing. She chose fear over love, and wasn't willing or aware enough to face her shadow. The reason doesn't matter for the child that I was. The devastation is the same.

I don't think she will ever be able to hear me. What I have to say is an existential threat to what she holds on to for dear life. She's willing to sacrifice everything for a sense of certainty. Her belief system has been her God for as long as I can remember. I can see the same basic dynamic in religious fundamentalists. Their fanaticism is a measure of their insecurity. They can't bear other points of view, because they are not certain about their belief. They feel threatened by people who don't share their convictions. Therefore everybody else needs to believe the same or be silenced. It's a fundamentally aggressive, disrespectful, and arrogant attitude. This is what my mother's contempt and all that stems from that comes from. Whenever I hear cult survivors speak, I can relate just a little too well. Only my mother's cult doesn't have a name or other members. It's who she is to a great degree.

I'm gonna need to wrap up this entry. What I wanted to say is that I haven't spoken to my mother since her birthday and very little a couple of months before that. Because I'm still not clear on what I want to say exactly, and I don't feel okay to interact with her like we used to before I have spoken my mind on this matter. She does not know what I've been processing. She only knows that I needed more space after some issues in the family happened a few moths ago. It weighs on me to be in limbo, but I can't force this process. She just texted me. As soon as I read it, she'll know I've seen it. I'm stressed. This puts me on the spot. I'm not sure how to respond. I probably need to say I basically need space at the moment and not explain anything. If I tell her I'm working on something I want to say that creates a lot of anxiety and pressure.

[SenseOrgan]

I let my mom know I need distance at the moment, and it doesn't feel right for me to come and help (which she asked me to). It's now obvious something's up, and the seven year period of mostly relating to each other in a kind, yet superficial way is over. Looking back, I think it's been a helpful period of relative normalcy that followed five years of no contact and everything before that. My mom has helped me a great deal in recent years, and has been caring and respectful towards me. Who she is hasn't fundamentally changed. How this permeates our relationship has. I think she has been holding back a lot in order not to lose me. Guilt may be a factor too.

I noticed it's a big deal for me to break the modus operandi we have developed. It's the kind of bond a lot of parents and adult children would be happy to have. It most likely is the best possible way to still connect for us too. So in a sense we have already arrived at the end point. I do not necessarily want to change this. Speaking my mind is more important to me though. It for sure is going to disrupt how we relate. What I'm about to do is going to have a lot more impact than setting a simple boundary like I just did.

At least I now have created the space for myself to pick my moment to communicate what I want to. I can prepare for this moment and we'll see what'll happen after I've said my piece. My mom's crisis is related to what she asked my help for. It tells me that is now most likely over. I feel okay to go ahead whenever I've determined what it is exactly that I want to say. I'm scared. But this is the right thing to do.

[sanmagic7]

SO, sending you all kinds of support and strength for what lies ahead for you with your mom.  confronting someone, telling them what's really on your mind, how things have been affecting you - whatever it is that is personal and important for you to say to them is freakin' scary and difficult, and i give you so many kudos for getting to the point where you're ready to do so.  i hope it goes smoothly and that afterwards you feel just the way you hoped you would feel.  standing with you on this.  love and hugs

[SenseOrgan]

sanmagic7
Thanks big time! Your support and understanding of the importance of doing this means a lot to me. And I want to add that the thing with the card that recently happened to you has been helpful to me too. love and hugs to you too   

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

The cover crops have taken off. Even quite a lot of the sunflowers that I thought had all been eaten. I've been weeding a couple of hours per week, to give the cover crops an advantage crowding out the rest. I know this is a crazy way of gardening. Not efficient at all. Yet now I have to be somewhere every week to do something. That means getting out of the house, and being physically active in a place where I could encounter others. Whenever I'm weeding the whole place with my bare hands, I'm a little scared about what people think of me. I've also doubted whether doing it this way is such a good idea. But nah, it's a good thing for me to be there and to do that. Even to keep doing something unconventional where I could me seen. It has become a bit of a meditation for me. The whole thing at once is too much. So I go two times per week now. I like that I'm contributing to this plot getting a little bit better over time and that it's a slow process. The amount of effort each week is just right. It sure beats hanging around in nothingness at home.

When I was almost home, I encountered a neighbor. She's incredibly needy and can be quite exhausting. I always meet her with kindness and compassion, which I think she lacks a lot of in her life. So this is dangerous terrain for a fawner. Because of this I've done my best to keep a bit of a distance and usually try to keep it short. I'm glad I never visited or invited her. So when we met I was wondering if I'm capable at all to meet with such a person and not lose myself and get exhausted in not time. I mostly remain mindful of what's happening, but the losing applies to providing what she needs anyway. I think there is a way that outwardly looks very similar, but is different for me internally. So right after this had crossed my mind and I came up with no solution whatsoever, I noticed it wasn't happening during the encounter. I more or less was the same way I always am with her, but it felt more like a chat I'd have when I'm just kind and compassionate without spilling it over into fawning. It's a fine line. I haven't fully digested what happened. It was nice to notice. Something with taking up space and allowing space...

I walked 20k today. I thought it would be a nice way to listen to Ingrid Clayton being interviewed and get some exercise. I'm serial listening her now, since Narc Kiddo made me aware of her. There's a lot of overlap. It's helping me to find the words to write to my mother. Walking and taking a note whenever something significant comes up works well. The walk went well. I feel ready again to walk to my friend sometimes, which is about 30k. I have the idea to ask him if he'd appreciate it if I do that once a month or so throughout the year. My friend just turned 80, and the thought of losing him one day kills me. Maybe a weird tradition like this is a good excuse for both of us to see each other just a little more often.