the next step

[TheBigBlue]

Hi San,
I think you're handling this with a lot of clarity and calm. The way you're observing your own reactions, listening to what the lessening of the internal struggle is telling you, and still giving your T room to figure things out - that takes a lot of awareness.

Reading your post reminded me of one of my sessions, my T merely mentioned that there are other therapy modalities (like psychodynamic) in case I ever felt I needed something beyond CBT. My system instantly went into a full preverbal freeze - a 5-year-old hiding under the table feeling abandoned. For almost the entire 1 hr session I couldn't come out of it. She must have said a dozen times "I'm not abandoning you. I'm here. We have twenty sessions scheduled." But my nervous system just couldn't hear it (yet).

So reading how thoughtfully you're navigating this with your T really struck me. It sounds like you're both trying to move carefully and not overwhelm the system - which in itself is a good sign.

I'm glad you're paying attention to what actually helps your system settle. That feels like important information.
💛

[NarcKiddo]

 

 

[sanmagic7]

TBB, thanks for your thoughtful post.  it's amazing, isn't it, how easily/quickly we can go to a place we didn't expect, but it can be so difficult to leave it.  as far as clarity and calm, i didn't recognize that, but thank you for doing so and mentioning it.  that kind of thing seems quite automatic to me - get into a tight spot, figure out what needs to be done to get out of it and what's needed not to get into it again.  i think i've had a lot of practice w/ that in my life, so i never recognized it as something to be recognized!  i appreciate you pointing that out.

thank you, as always, for your support, NK.  much appreciated.

seems that for several weeks now that 'shift' that i've felt has taken hold and is doing its thing in a good way.  i seem to have more energy, less exhaustion, and very much less feeling miserable.  don't know exactly why or how this has happened, but it seems like something that hasn't happened before, not since i began feeling sick-y most of the time.  this feels rare but good and i'm trying not to look at it as waiting for the other shoe to drop kind of thing, but just go with it as if it's simply my new now, rather than a tiny break from my old then.

therapy today.  i may talk to my T about this, see if she has any thoughts.  i know she's really scared of pushing me, so doesn't want to do too much.  i also want to talk to her about my yearning to be taken care of. 

[Marcine]

"New now"

Yes!

[sanmagic7]

thanks, marcine, you made me smile! 

well, therapy, i don't know.  i want to blame this on the T but thinking more about it, i believe my mind is simply ready to puke up feelings from the past when triggered.  i told her about an incident w/ my folks, she remarked something about how much pain and hurt i must've felt, and i denied that.  i felt the pain and hurt of the problem i went to my folks for help with, comfort or something (which didn't happen while i was crying an ocean in front of them - rather my F mocked me, humiliated me, my M stood like a cold stone) my T still isn't getting it that i haven't felt feelings/emotions like most people have.

at any rate, after i ate lunch, my gut got very sore - gut-punched came to mind right there, and maybe that's what it was - and i ended up feeling very sick the entire rest of the day, that night, couldn't sleep well, aches, chills, stress flu kind of stuff, but also this gut thing, which seemed new.  been thinking about that ever since.  a few weeks ago when i had an overwhelm, it was like a brick in my head.  maybe this was a brick in my gut.  maybe that's how these pent up feelings are now showing themselves.  bricks of dried emotions.

so, i'm feeling better today, but i think i want to do some FLash on myself, focus on that brick - i can still kinda feel it - see what happens.  maybe i need to cry.  but i do believe i didn't feel it back when it happened cuz i was already overflowing w/ feelings about being lonely, and i think having to feel pain and hurt because of how my parents acted toward me would've been too much.  i can already, right now as i'm writing about it, see myself falling to the ground, laying down cuz i can't stay upright under the weight of too much feelings.  yeah, a protective device there, working to keep me safe.  can't imagine what my F might've said if i'd collapsed under the weight of pain and hurt at that moment.

ok, so i've got my work cut out for me.  i'm seeing a pattern, tho - mention feelings that 'should' have been there but that i didn't feel, and my mind is ready to vomit them up, or the aftermath of them, a few hours later.  this is not a fun way to live.  my gut is roiling right now, tho, so there's something in this, i think.  it's ready to go.

[Blueberry]

san, I'm so sorry that your parents treated you so terribly! The mocking, the humiliation! Ugh. Ugh. No wonder you want to puke. I think maybe this is the first time I've read a post of yours about your parents and you as a child where I can feel viscerally the horribleness of it. I'm shaking my head and shuddering the way I was recently about my own stuff. I was mocked a lot in FOO too, humiliated as well, and it's just awful.

my gut is roiling right now, tho, so there's something in this, i think.  it's ready to go.

Sounds to me as if, yeah, that could well be the case. I can well imagine approaching with trepidation - who wants to go thru all that crapola again?? Altho you will go thru it differently now than back then, feeling more possibly - yikes. But that's probably no surprise to you, you know enough about these processes, I believe.

I'm sitting with you at the load of visceral reactions you've been getting today. I used to get a lot more of those too, tons and tons before I learnt to feel my emotions (again? had I ever felt them?)
If it helps in anyway, OT said to me yesterday that one can't do a deep dive the way I had done in my processing w/o any kind of effect/affect(??) on your physical and emotional body. And although you may not feel that you're processing yet, you're beginning to dip your toe in or maybe your whole foot idk and the same applies - you can't do that w/o noticing some effect. There being an effect means you're making progress and something will change in you - I believe this, it's connected to the Window of Tolerance. I wish it were pain-free and caused no exhaustion.

I'm sending you comfort blankets for you to rest and feel safe in, in between the roilings. 
 

[sanmagic7]

blueberry, your post warmed my heart in more ways than one.  thank you so much for saying all you said. the blankets were an extra gift, as well as that big hug.   

i won't write it all here, wrote lots in my other journal, but i'm now looking at some of my physical symptoms as psychosomatic manifestations of feelings/emotions that had never been released in the past.  so, i'm going to go about dealing w/ them in such a way that i think will help.

i'm afraid to write too much, afraid the glitching will catch up to me, but i do believe this 'brick' feeling i've had both in my head and now in my gut is a calcification of feelings/emotions that had never been released.  it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

[HannahOne]

SanMagic7, I am so sorry your parents couldn't value you in the way you deserved. Their behavior says everything about them, and nothing about you.

I do think that our emotional flashbacks can also be experienced physically. I know for myself that often my pains are a form of flashback. They are very real pains, and sometimes the pain is even seen on testing or imaging, whether muscle tension or lower blood flow, nerve over activation. I have found it helpful, no matter what caused the pain, to make conscious the flashback aspects of it. Whether a flashback caused my body to feel pain, or whether pain caused me to have a flashback, I can interrupt and intervene by becoming conscious of the flashback aspect, soothe myself, feel the pain. We deserve this consciousness and care now, that we didn't get then when our pain was humiliated or erased.

[sanmagic7]

We deserve this consciousness and care now, that we didn't get then when our pain was humiliated or erased

we do, indeed!  thank you, hannah1 for this validation.  much appreciated.

i'm just beginning to possibly link these physical manifestations to emotional blockages? build-ups? i can now see the brick in my head was all grief.  the brick in my gut was pain and hurt.  possibly the pain i feel from my mysterious gas attacks which i feel close to my heart are about relationships gone badly? pain from what happened inside/during them? at any rate, it seems i'm carrying a lot of pain inside.  hopefully, if i'm able to recognize what it's attached to, i can do what needs to be done to alleviate some of it.  that would certainly make my life feel more like it's worth living.

[Papa Coco]

San,

It feels like you are on the right road toward understanding what's going on in your gut. I absolutely agree with you that the brick in your head and the one at your heart most likely have emotional connections to the difficulties of living life on this planet.

The search for what this pain is attached to is a good search. If we don't seek, we don't find, and you are seeking. And I believe you are moving forward in your search. I see subtle hints in your posts that you are moving forward and your inquisitive search for joy. You are starting to see connections you didn't see before. That's the path of healing and I think you're on it. Your kindness toward others on this forum is being returned to you by the people here. In my own world, that's the greatest healing tool there is. Empathy. We feel each other's struggles, and we support each other and that fuels the healing.

You have a lot of good friends here on the forum. We are always rooting for each other. I hope the comfort they bring you helps you as you work through these physical bricks.

[sanmagic7]

PC, thank you so much for your kind words.  they warmed my heart.   

well, something pos. (physically) is happening because of this lightness i've been feeling, the energy i've been having lately.  my doc told me to lose weight cuz i have a fatty liver, and i've actually been doing that.  it's not so much what i've been eating (altho i do overload on fruits and veggies at times) but that i've been able to do more physical things, like walking and lifting weights.  my life had gotten extremely sedentary from feeling so sick-y most of the time and it's been feeling good to be able to do some of the things i've done and loved in the past.  kinda weird, tho, and i don't fully trust it, but i'll keep going with it anyway.

therapy today.  i erupted in pain after last week's session, the brick in my gut, all that.  i want to talk to her about that, about how we can maybe begin processing some of the pain i'm sure i'm still holding.  when i think about it, there's been so much pain in my life that i simply had to swallow because i had to figure out what to do next.  i had 3 marriages, 3 husbands, other long-term relationships, engaged once, nearly so another time, and not ever did i cry after those fell apart, no matter what the reason. 

that in itself has got to mean a lot of pain inside that's never gotten to see the light of day.  i'm not looking forward to it, but if i want to keep going w/ this 'lightness of being' kind of feeling, i'm gonna have to take a deep breath, and just push thru.  i do not look forward to it, but maybe by Flashing it it might be more manageable.  we'll see.

[sanmagic7]

therapy went really well.  first time this T did Flash Technique, but it worked out really well.  i wanted to stop intrusive thoughts, the kind that barge into my mind after i wake up during the night and prevent me from going back to sleep.  one of my major contributors to this has been my ex, so i told my T i wanted to find a way to keep him from invading my mind.  and off we went.

each set brought one more step resolved.  i was able to picture him walking around my mind, which i was already picturing as if it were encased in some sort of impenetrable pink hard plastic. he kept trying to get in, but couldn't, and began raging, swearing, yelling - all the stuff he's done in the past that would scare people into letting him rant and rave, throw a tantrum, basically, just like a little kid.  but this time he wasn't getting his way, and the more frustrated he got, the angrier, more rageful (it was beyond anger) he got.

so he kept walking around, frustrated over and over until he finally gave up, gave into the fact that he was thwarted in his attempts to further bully me, and when he realized he wasn't going to get his way, he grudgingly said 'i'm sorry.' that surprised me so much!  but, honestly, i've been feeling the want of an apology from him, which isn't going to happen.  there was one attempt at amends a few years back, but it was a royal mess, including he had kind of laid it out like it was part of a spreadsheet - it felt very non-human, which is often how he felt to me.  very self-righteous, very much believing he was above us mere mortals in things like checking his math over for mistakes - he was an accountant! - and it never felt like it was coming from his heart.  but it turned into a chance to tell him off, all the things i've wanted to say over the years, and after he got that, he backed out of trying again.

so much for that.  anyway, this felt so unexpected, but real, and it's in me now, and that's a good thing.  i did a few eye movements the next morning and altho i could still see him walking around trying to get inside my mind, he was still being kept out but he also got much smaller.  so now there's an image of this tiny frustrated man walking around in my head, but he can't do what he wants to me anymore.  and that feels good.

so, i'm still sitting w/ that image, and i like it.  and i've been being able to continue exercising, lifting, chair exercises, just feeling better, more alive, actually.  i think this is the best i've felt in several decades, and the first time since i began therapy in my late 30's where right now i can finally say this year i feel better.  haven't been able to say that since i first began therapy/recovery.  every year i'd feel at least as bad as the previous year, or worse, so this is something very new, but i'm liking it.

[TheBigBlue]

And I feel better just readjng that     

[HannahOne]

Oh yeah, for boundaries! The tiny frustrated man walking around, cannot get in. 

It continues to amaze me how powerful the imagination is, how powerful our will, to create the change we need, to redo, if not undo. To do it our way, have it our way, get what we need, give ourselves what we need.

[sanmagic7]

TBB, i loveloveloved your enthusiasm!  thanks so much for all of it.  i took it right in and i'm smiling big right now.   

hannah1, i agree.  our minds and brains have worked so hard so that we've been able to survive our pasts.  and with this last therapy session, i'm happy to say mine are alive and well.  the tapping helped seal everything in place, too, so it all worked together.   

when i look at my mind, it's the same image.  my mind is hard plastic and my little ex just walks around it, mumbling to himself.  it's a good, strong feeling for me.  yay!