Zen_Racer's Recovery Journal

[TheBigBlue]

50! 
Happy (belated) birthday!
 

[sanmagic7]

hey ZR, i don't know about the not being young anymore just cuz you're 50 - but congratulations for making it this far!    maybe in years we're not 'young', but my spirit is still 27, so that's what i go by in my life. 

i did the hand on heart last nite in bed, but for some reason, and i tried with both hands, i could not feel my heart beating.  i had the other hand on my belly, could feel my breathing, which was nice, but no heart to anchor it.  it was strange, to say the least.  i was really looking forward to it, too.

and i find it fascinating in some ways why some people have chosen to go one route w/ how they treat others, and then there are the people here, who have had horrible traumas and are so kind, giving, and respectful.  i'm glad you made the choice you did.  keep up the good work!  and enjoy your 50's - there's still so much out there to experience.  love and hugs

[NarcKiddo]

I'm sorry you are having trouble with that person at work. It's worth, I think, trying to keep an open mind about people who seem to have it in for us. Of course they might, but our general experience of people is usually coloured by our FOO experiences. Keeping a wary eye to see if the pattern continues or if maybe they were just in a hard personal patch and acting out might be something to consider. In the meantime do whatever you need to do to feel safe and protected. I think your email strategy was brilliant - not singling anyone out but making it clear for all to see who had agreed to what and when the work had to be done by.

It's very unpleasant having to come to terms with realising we haven't a clue who we are, and it can feel clunky and uncomfortable trying to find out things that we might feel we ought to know. I can understand why you feel everything in your history is tainted by trauma and nothing has been really chosen by the real you. I think TBB is right to point out the likelihood that you made choices in spite of your trauma not because of it.


My experience with EFs is that I very slowly began to be able to realise they were happening once I knew what they were. Until then how could anyone identify an EF? It was a very long time before I could think much through in the moment or identify what may be bubbling up from the past. Later processing would help with that. In the moment, my first clue I could hold onto was when the strength of the emotion was way out of sync with the severity of the thing that provoked it. For example - my husband failed to put something away. I spilt some coffee while moving the thing because I was in a hurry and did not put down the coffee mug first. Cue a full on crying/rage fit. I spilt coffee, I am so stupid, I am so clumsy, I should have put the mug down, I would not have spilt coffee if I had not had to move the thing, I've asked H a hundred times not to leave the thing there, he is careless, that means he actually does not care, that means he doesn't love me, that means he hates me, I am a nagging wife, I hate myself, cry, cry, stamp, cry. Realising that a rational adult does not have this reaction to spilt coffee was the first stage of accepting I was in an EF and being gentle with myself until I could get out of it. Not sure it that helps at all. Everyone's experiences with EFs are entirely personal. I don't find trying to fight an EF to be at all helpful and the failure just gives me something else to beat myself with. Just seeing it is what seems to make it go quicker. Eventually I got better at spotting an EF earlier. So in my example I would have noticed the flash of irritation that H had left the thing there, and I would certainly have put the coffee down so as not to give the EF a chance to grow.

Happy birthday! Welcome to the second half century. May it be infinitely better than the first. Well done for blocking FOO. Sorry they snuck through a little.

[zen_racer]

Thank you everyone. I appreciate the help with understanding this all. After driving two hours away, I'm about to start a hike I've wanted to do and have never been to before. Cheers!

[zen_racer]

SanMagic, I was kidding about not being young anymore.  I know that age will eventually catch up with me, but for now I look like I'm in great shape, and if you don't pay attention to past injuries, I am in pretty good shape.  People at work were debating whether I looked more like late 30's or early 40's, but they were having a hard time believing my actual age.

I'm sorry that didn't work for you.  I was able to feel my heartbeat with my right hand over the left side of my chest just below my shoulder, and also feel my breath with my chest expanding with the same hand at the same time.  It didn't work as well yesterday, and because of the overnight texts from my M, I didn't even try this morning. 

NK, that person at work has been ... odd the entire time I've been there.  In my previous role, I was able to just largely ignore them and not interact with them.  In my current role, that person has put themselves at odds against me multiple times already.

I do agree with a lot of what TBB said, and maybe there was more of me in those decisions than I can see now looking back in light of the trauma.  But some of those choices, some of those qualities I "decided" on mimic the people pleasing that I was trained and raised to do.  Is doing it the way I said out of choice and empathy better than doing them out of fear and shame?  I don't know.  And how much I stuck to those ideals did harm me later in life.  Regardless of that though, I did have any sense of self squashed and smothered by my FOO so much that I still can't say what a favorite anything of mine is.  My first car, that was me.  I like hiking and motorcycles, that's me.  I'm great at pattern recognition and because of that anything technical, but that probably is the result of the trauma.  I think that's where TBB's explanation makes sense.  Just because it was caused by the trauma doesn't mean I didn't make it my own.  It's still just rough realizing that everything I lack is likely because of the trauma.  A lot of what I am is because of the trauma.  At least right now, I have no idea which parts I was still trying to control behind the adaptations as armor .vs me just being buried and not actually playing a part.

Thank you for sharing your experience with EF's.  The insight is greatly appreciated, and I hope I start to make some kind of progress soon.  But I think I need to learn more about cptsd and the trauma in general, and learn a lot more about where I currently am so I can meet myself where I'm at.
 

Today has felt heavy, burdened, and tainted from my NM.  The texts were simple enough.  I had to renew my driver's license today, and because I had to upgrade to a higher standard of ID, I had to do so at the facility to show more forms of identification.  Nothing in that was in question, there was nothing I didn't understand about it.  My M had heard that I had to go in, and decided to text me that if I just understood that they had a website, I wouldn't have to go in and provided a link.  But that's exactly what she does about every single thing she ever hears me say or that I'm doing.  She comes up with this fantasy in her head about how I'm incapable of understanding the most basic things, how I'm too stupid to do anything in life and need to be told things.  It doesn't matter that she's been wrong 99.9% of the time.  It doesn't matter that often what she's trying to tell me that I don't know is actually stuff I've had to teach her.  She refuses to see me as an adult, as competent, let alone far better than average at many things.  And since I had moved back in full normal PTSD from a specific incident of harassment at the last place I worked before leaving the state due to that harassment, I was more susceptible to her making me question myself.  What makes it worse is that I've kept telling her that what she does is insulting and belittling, that it's toxic, and that I need it to stop.  The last time I brought it up just a few months ago, she directly told me that it's just the way she is, and she's never going to change.  So there it is.  But I DO GET TO CHANGE.  I don't need to control how she acts, but I do need to eliminate the toxicity from my life so I can detox.  I don't need permission that would never come for me to begin healing.

Edited to add: I do not ever sleep well anymore.  At least part of that is my cat.  He's not being mean, he just always seems to end up in the middle of the bed, and then there's not enough room on either side.  I've decided that this was the next thing I should address to hopefully allow me to do everything better if I can sleep better.  My bed is a memory foam mattress with a 10 year life span, that's about 14 years old and sagging.  Tomorrow, I should get the last piece to be able to assemble a brand new larger bed. 

[Marcine]

"I DO GET TO CHANGE.  I don't need to control how she acts, but I do need to eliminate the toxicity from my life so I can detox.  I don't need permission that would never come for me to begin healing."

Yes, ZR!

And, for your consideration, a definition of distortion:

the act of twisting, deforming, or misrepresenting something so that it moves away from its original shape, true meaning, or reality.

I hope you can lay your burdens down tonight ZR and get some good rest. I hope that for all of us.

[TheBigBlue]

But I DO GET TO CHANGE. I don't need to control how she acts, but I do need to eliminate the toxicity from my life so I can detox.

That feels important.

Not because it's easy. Not because you've suddenly solved everything.

But because it sounds like you're starting to place the responsibility where it belongs.

Not on changing your M. Not on getting permission. Not on finally finding the perfect words that will make her understand.

Just on deciding what YOU need.

That sounds less like giving up and more like choosing yourself.

And I think that's a pretty big step. 💛

[It's funny how much easier it is to see this for other people than for ourselves.]

P.S.: I too am really good at pattern recognition. It's been very helpful professionally as a scientist. 😁