Zen_Racer's Recovery Journal

[zen_racer]

Trigger Warning - describing a mindset that's triggering for me

I am starting to feel an immense sense of dread regarding the next therapy session on Wednesday.  It's nothing about the idea of therapy, or the new therapist.  This is 100% the result of realizing how much we're still going to have to go over in creating the timeline she wants to have to base the therapy plan on.  I was going to do a massive trigger warning and use a post here to organize a list for that timeline, and quickly realized that's not a good idea for multiple reasons.  Things like not having personally identifying information on here, and not subjecting anyone that would read it despite the massive warning to a list like that.  I started typing it up in a note taking app.  From where we had left off, I thought it would be a small list to get to the really big things.  Instead, when I try to remember what from my past could be considered traumatic, it's a list that never ends.  I started recognizing the patterns when I learned about cptsd, but I never realized it was so comprehensive.

I have quit this endeavor.  I don't need to be prepared.  I can wing it, and update the timeline later if needed.  I know she wants this timeline, but she has also made sure I know we can stop and talk about anything else if I need/want to.  Maybe I do need to pace myself.  I find myself starting to think about things the same way I would back then.  The current adult me thinking about taking care of myself and slowing down the pace, but the self compassion is still awkward if not uncomfortable, so now there's this younger mindset thinking that it would be weak to slow down, that I can always handle more, that I have such a capacity for suffering that this won't seem bad.  Except I know it would be bad.

I'm beginning to recognize that particular mindset as how I learned to treat myself as bad as my abusers did.  That's not how it started though.  It was telling myself that I could withstand anything.  That I was stronger than anyone could ever imagine, and that it all came from sheer willpower.  But I guess that's just what I had to tell myself, because I had no choice and couldn't get away from the abuse.