Living As All of Me

[sanmagic7]

hannah1, it just sounds like a lot.  having all those kinds of things to look forward to would wear me out just thinking about it.  getting up enough energy to actually do them would be another thing entirely, especially after what you've been through.  and then there's frank.  hope he's better soon.

i hope you can keep taking care of you as best you can.  love and hugs

[zen_racer]

I'm not certain how recent the procedures were, but unless you've had a lot of experience with anesthesia, I wouldn't discount it as a possibility.  The first time I ever had anesthesia, they got it wrong and gave me too much.  When I should have been sent home after my emergency appendectomy, they kept me overnight because I just wasn't coming out of it well enough and was having other side effects.  From a surgery that should've had me up and walking around in a day or two, it took me a week to even begin walking around.

I'm sorry Frank is having issues as well.  I have a cat named Oliver, and he means the world to me.  He was a rescue, and then didn't get along with my ex friend's animals, so he gave him to me.  Oliver got separation anxiety after he was dropped off, and never trusted that friend again, and doesn't trust other people easily.  He's got trauma like I do.

The poetry reading sounds fun.  I used to write poetry a lot in my paper journals back when I used to write.  I had a few published.  It's something I gave up because of trauma, and have a fairly negative self view of because of that trauma.  I sometimes miss it, and feel like I lost a very valuable outlet for what's going on inside of me.  That part of my past made it very difficult to decide to start a journal here.  The way you wrote about doing the reading, and the travel, and wanting a studio ... it makes me nostalgic for when I used to accept that part of myself.

"How can All of Me know I am safe here now?"  I relate to that more than I'm comfortable with.  I haven't started thinking about parts of me formally yet, but the only way I view safety is physical therapy.  I think I'm coming to realize that I don't even know what safety means in a mental or emotional sense.

I hope you feel better soon.  Sending warm thoughts your way.

[Blueberry]

About how to find a good therapist, my post here might be interesting:
https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=17174.0

This might be useful, especially the info-video about Brainspotting in the link: https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=17004.msg161572#msg161572

It might also be totally uninteresting, it's hard for me to judge. I did note that Dr. Grand talks about brainspotting being a frame approach rather than a protocol approach  - so he used your word "protocol". He explained that when he is doing brainspotting with a client, he doesn't know where it's going to go so to speak. That comes from within the client. It might be helpful for you to watch, but do note the trigger warning I explain in that post for the brainspotting session applies! I understand that my OT and I are working with frame approach. Neither of us know what is going to come up when I do tasks with my hands which are emotionally difficult - this can include loading a dishwasher, frying potatoes, using my bike pump... Really basic stuff. I notice they are difficult tasks because they are exhausting, I put them off, I hold my breath when I do try to do them, I freeze doing them and can't move forwards etc etc. My OT is totally open to what comes and totally open to how I deal with it.

Some of this possibly interesting too including other people's comments: https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=16811.0

[HannahOne]

TW FOOD ISSUES, TRAUMA

Dollyvee, thank you for circling back, reading and commenting. I saw a NARM therapist briefly and am thinking I'd like to go back to it, I didnt' get very far. I'm so glad you found NARM helpful.

SanMagic7, thank you for the support!

NarkKiddo and ZenRacer, maybe it was still the anesthesia. I'm definitely getting better. It's a long weekend which isn't helpful, no structure. ZenRacer, if the idea of turning back to poetry or art rings any bells, consider the possibility of being open to it. I hope that if it's life-giving for you, it will find its way back to you in a way that feels boundaries and safe enough. And yes NK, guinea pigs, like rabbits, go into stasis!   Frank is still not back to normal, not normal poop, not eating enough, but he is eating. Maybe his labs will tell us what's going on. Most expensive rabbit ever.

Blueberry, thank you for reading and sharing. I checked out the links. A difficulty is I can be very skeptical. I grew up in a kind of cult and so anything that seems like a protocol or has a guru or makes promises is scary, anything that I'm unsure is scientific? Everything now is a training, a modality, a lifestyle. I just want an old fashioned shrink, I just want a therapeutic relationship with a psychologist. But I've heard about brainspotting and I checked out the links. I'm going to poke around, thank you for that. It's something I haven't tried, which is something!! It's very interesting to hear what works for people, and remembering I'm not the only one with these difficulties, we're all out there finding our way to what can make the next step a little easier.

I am so interested in how your OT works with trauma. A lot of my most difficult moments are doing basic daily tasks. It's something thirty years of in office psychotherapy hasn't really been able to touch. Some of my "Staying in bed" behavior is avoiding the emotions involved in cooking, cleaning, doing dishes. It's so strange because when I was being a mom, I rarely had difficulty. I loved seeing myself at the sink doing dishes, I felt good cooking, I felt like I was doing the right things, being a good mom. I was highly motivated to cook, clean, I enjoyed that motivated, virtuous feeling and I enjoyed the feeling of caring for my children. I made homemade pot pies that took hours. It felt right and easy.

Now that the kids are so grown I don't feel that way. They prefer to make their own meal, which is wonderful, Or they are often out at dinner, or need to eat in their room to study, they're their own people. All of that is fine and good, it's awesome--

But that means I'm cooking and cleaning for myself. And without doing it for the kids, I seem to feel like a kid again. When I was eight or so, I determined to have a cooked meal. I was tired of eating crunchy pasta right of of the box, with an apple for dinner. I opened the jar of sauce and put it in a pan, turned on the stove, scared to turn it on. After the sauce was warm, I poured the box of pasta into the sauce. Stirred. Waited. Stirred. I hadn't thought to read the instructions to boil the pasta in water. Of course, my cooking method didn't work. I was crushed, embarrassed, and tried to eat it anyway, it was disgusting but I was hungry. And angry at myself I guess. So I made myself eat it.

I was often as a kid quickly and silently cleaning up, hiding all evidence that HannahOne Wuz Here. I washed the pan so quietly. My mother was usually sleeping in her room, my father rarely there. Very quietly. In an altered state of panic, pretending I wasn't even there washing it. I didn't want her to come in screaming. Put it back exactly as it had been, handle turned at 36 degrees... so no one would ever know.

I often open the fridge, see only ingredients, feel horrific shame and sadness, and close it. I'm trying to eat three meals, and do meal prep to get around this. But even the prepared meal, I heat it, sit down to eat it, and feel horrific shame and sadness, feel like no one cares about me because I'm a horrible person, and this food is evidence of that. Then I can't eat, my mouth won't work or my throat feels tight, I can't chew.

And these are the modes I'm often in again the last year or so. No bueno.

It wasn't always this bad. When I Was working, food was just fuel, it was easy. When I was pregnant I LOVED eating. When I was raising kids, it was fine. The pandemic and initial difficulty getting food triggered the current problems. I'm not sure why it's gotten so bad the last year or two except ... that I"m not in "mom mode"? Or maybe I've been more in relationship with these younger parts of me, maybe it's another level of healing, LOL! Put a positive spin on it. I really don't know, but I guess it doesn't matter if it's a sign of regression or a sign of progress, it's something I'm confronting three times a day now, and more.

This is a messy post. I look crazy. Oh well. I don't know how to tie it up with a bow. But the idea of having an OT there to coach me through the steps, or help me be more present, is very interesting. I suppose in a sense I am looking for a mother figure, to teach me to cook properly. I never learned from anyone, I taught myself when I married. I suppose I would like to feel someone is supervising, I would like to feel safer in the kitchen. And I would like to feel calm doing dishes, not like I'm guiltily hiding evidence that I ate something. I would like to feel dishes are just dishes.

Bringing a clinical occupational therapist eye to it could really help. I did this with movement. When become too scared to move around, I hire a PT. Then movement becomes clinical, an exercise. When I'm too scared to be touched I hire a massage therapist and then touch becomes clinical, with a purpose. When I'm too triggered by cooking, maybe I need to apprentice with a chef. What an interesting idea. Or take a cooking class and learn how to properly use a knife.... when too triggered by doing dishes maybe I need to get a cleaning person to come and do it with me. I have a friend who actually is a cleaning lady. Maybe I need to overcome some pride and ask her to come do my tasks alongside me, and that would make it more clinical, more professional. I feel so much safer, bigger, stronger in the professional realm.

I realize ultimately I have to integrate all of this into All of Me and not escape into professional or role modes, mom mode.... but sometimes I need a bridge to get there. Right now there's no part of me that can do dishes calmly and without sobbing and hating myself.

I am also trying to strengthen the parts of me that want to live for me. Mom mode is cool, and, I'd like to just be a middle aged person who can calmly and happily make myself a quiche, without EFs of self hatred, humiliation, feeling unloved and uncared for, feeling rage that I have to do it. That is all old stuff. It's super sticky stuff though. I became someone who could hold full time jobs and commute and run things, but I've not been able to become someone who can calmly and happily make myself a quiche. It's so much harder in the domestic space, where the abuse and neglect happened, it's so much harder with the actual needs of my physical body, which was ground zero for the suffering.

It's also abundantly clear that avoidance won't work here. The consequences of not eating are all over my body now. I am going to look for a chef to apprentice with, a cooking class, a baking class for bored housewives, these exist, even the natural foods grocery store has a calendar of one-off cooking events. I've just never done it.

I have to say sometimes it feels so awkward to be living life in reverse, to feel so out of step with time, to feel so developmentally delayed, despite thirty years of trying to catch up. To be able to work a job and struggle to make a sandwich. To be able to make a marketing campaign and unable to wash a dish. It's like I have to play strange tricks on myself in order to exist, but those tricks no longer work and I no longer want to do them, the mental gymnastics is boring... and as I'm coming down to earth the last years, I have to learn how to do things without magic, without the gymnastics. Without the magic, I feel so young and vulnerable. AND, I'm middle aged, I have washed a million dishes by now, I can do this! It's the EFs that are getting in the way, but, as the Tao of Pooh would say, the EFs ARE the way. What I may need to do is spend some time with these younger parts so scared to clink a dish, so scared and hungry and not knowing how to cook. Not wanting to feel any of that, but, will start by considering the possibility of someday considering the possibility of doing so. LOL. I'm feeling it anyway in these constant EFs. Might as well feel it more directly with All of Me, so parts of me are not so alone with it. No technique, no modality, no protocol for this. Just an old fashioned relationship of myself to myself.

[zen_racer]

HannaOne, I'm sorry you're having such an issue with eating.  I feel guilty in a sense for finding inspiration to try and make sure I eat enough because you've mentioned it so much.  I can relate to what you said about looking in the fridge and only seeing ingredients.  I relate to that so much.  I remember when I was living in the Northeast that I'd sometimes go to the grocery store starving, but also not in the right mindset and with no motivation, and walking around the store and only seeing boxes, cans, and jars without any recognition of any kind of food.  Every time that happened, I'd leave the store empty handed and just go home and wouldn't eat again.

Sometimes it's so hard to understand or get past issues like that, at least for me.  I know this isn't a magic end to any of that, but I think you're the opposite of a horrible person.  I've already been uplifted here by your compassion and empathy more times than I can remember.  I have no medical background, and have so far only been to one initial visit with my T, so if this is a horrible idea, please ignore it or ask me to delete it.  You mentioned multiple times having issues with dishes clinking and trying to be super quiet in the past.  Is there any chance of trying to reframe that?  Maybe something like trying to play a song by tapping glasses filled with different amounts of water with a spoon or something?  Use paper plates because they make almost no sound?  I'm sorry if those are bad ideas.

As far as me turning back to poetry or art ... it's complicated.  There were several things I liked so much about it.  I think to me, it was ultimate freedom.  I didn't have to follow any rules, not even grammar or written english rules.  It was an excuse to stay connected with how I felt.  I think I'm normally very analytical, and poetry felt like my only link between logic based analytical thinking bridging to emotions and chaos to create art that had meaning in every world I existed in.  But I ... I guess I have a bunch of highly charged emotions about why I quit, and a LOT of toxic shame regarding everything about it.  I actually typed a lot of it in, and then realized I didn't want to sidetrack your journal.  If you're interested, or think it would be good for me to explore, I'd be happy to do so in my own journal.  But I am a little bit envious that you enjoy it.  I'd say good envy rather than negative.

I offer hugs if that's okay.