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.