The journey begins ... or continues ... articulating the rollercoaster that is my life

[mumstheword]

Above was my first, it's called "Rainforest".
This one is "Coral and tangling"

 

[mumstheword]

This is my third. No name yet, but my 12 year old calls it "the peacock

one".

 

[ladee]

Isn't it good therapy.... so relaxing,,, and so many different patterns.... Hope you are feeling better today.... it gets better, we get better... and anniversarys are hard... so hang in here... you can do this....

 

[mumstheword]

Isn't it good therapy.... so relaxing,,, and so many different patterns.... Hope you are feeling better t...

I'm believing this. I have hope. This too will pass.

 

[mumstheword]

I saw my oldest daughter and had lunch with my 19 year old son yesterday. It was good. I felt better for it. I even saw their dad down at the cafe and my body didn't freak out. He didn't see me, so that helped.

I went back to his house and went inside because I knew he wasn't there. My daughter was pleased to see me and made me a cup of peppermint tea.

I stayed for a while. 4 people turned up. I had forgotten what a drop-in house it was. I stayed until my nerves got the better of me and I got the adrenal shakes. It was nice hanging out with my kids for that time.

Oh and another victory, when i went to meet my son at the cafe I walked through town, instead of avoiding town by detouring through the behind-town car park (our town is a one street town, small). That was progress for me.

 

[mumstheword]

I know I have to motivate myself to get out of this funk. I used to be such a driven person, I don't know where my drive has gone. It's under layers of other stuff I guess. I think my drive counted on me putting a lot of emotional stuff on the psyche shelf and now the shelf has gotten so cluttered stuff is falling off the shelf. I'm catching some of it and having a look at what falls down. And what I'm looking at is overwhelming me. So overwhelmed by my feeling-states I'm getting a sense of what it's like to be catatonic. I've lost interest in just about everything. I really have no motivation. Everything is a struggle that I don't even have the strength to battle through, for the most part.

I do have lots of therapy scheduled for this week though. I'm seeing my trauma counsellor tomorrow. Then on Wednesday I'm seeing my brand new mental-health-plan psychologist and my early sexual abuse councellor. So I'm confident that I'll make headway and get out the other side.

Already feeling a bit better than yesterday. I was conscious of applying self compassion even in my sleep and have awoken a bit less damaged today.

I keep checking my mail for word of admission, nothing yet. No matter, I'm ok. Not having s.i. but I think my partner and I are both going through some depressive symptoms of this disorder. It's not bad like we've both had in the past when there was serious s.i., but it's still filled with feelings of stuckness, helplessness, grief and apathy.

Our place is a nightmare and we aren't addressing it. Yes it's demoralizing and shameful but look at what we've survived! And we found each other! We aren't fighting. We are in it for the long haul. That's gotta count as progress, doesn't it?

Sure I hate that I'm living like this, but at least I'm being honest about it and addressing what I can.
I drew another picture too, it's filled with bright colours and spirals.

 

[mumstheword]

I'm feeling buried
Submerged
Where am I under all these layers?
I feel so much grace and gratitude and lightness and then that layer is torn off and underneath is despair, trapped, a little child so forlorn, no where to turn,
My child-self needs to be acknowledged like she never was before
She wasn't seen, she screams,
Now she wants all this attention
How do I do this?
I'm a grown up, a mother, I don't have time for this sad lonely child, I have children of my own
She won't let me alone, she's ruining my life, she's taken me over
She insists I care for her, love her, be her mother
But I survived by ignoring her needs, just like everyone else, I proclaim,
So why must I allow her this reign?
Like she's important?
She was taught to be a servant
She learnt her only worth is in serving others so why should I bother?
I couldn't rely on my own mother or father
I want to abandon her, this child-who-is-me
but she won't let me be
Can't you see, I wasn't taught to care for me?

 

[mumstheword]

Can't sleep
Been crying a lot
I guess that's good
Lots of shame, pain and overwhelm
Wondering, why did they want to hurt me?
Abuse and use, exploit and trash me?
How and when will I get over it all?
How does one get past it?
I love God, Yeshua, my husband (in the eyes of God coz we love each other) my children, humanity, this earth, so why do I suffer so?
I want to know, when do I get a break?
When do I get the let up from horridness long enough to recover from it all? Am I in that now? Is that why I'm having such a horrible time inside? Because my outside is finally safe enough for my inside to start purging instead of repressing excess stress? I hope so, I just want to recover and have an actual life.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I want to know, when do I get a break?

It is hard to take, and I understand this process. It takes time to work through everything and I empathize with you in your remembering.

I want to encourage you to not lose heart. It does start to get better once you have been able to work through a lot of your process. Just keep breathing and going forwards anyway and you will need all of you to get through all of this. It took a really long time for you to be able to escape the abuse and it takes time to get through the process in your recovery.

I remember when I was where you are at and I still have some very bad days which is part of dealing with the great aftermath left behind. Please be kind to yourself and do some self care things for yourself and try to provide so much comfort for yourself along the way.

I too am in a process where I think it is taking too long to get past the feelings of pain and grief.

The good days will come and it is just part of the rollercoaster ride you are now on. Hang in there because it will get better again for you.:hug::hug::hug:

 

[mumstheword]

@Thank you for that reminder and comfort and seeing me and supporting me @Rain.:)

Yesterday was a better day.. I saw my trauma T, my old one. I caught the bus in and saw her in a cafe. Too tired to write more yet but thank you. I hope things have lifted more and more for you too.

 

[mumstheword]

I finally have my hospital admission date! I am going in on the 11 of febuary! So psyched!
Saw the mental health plan T yesterday and she had me choose who I will be treated by when I get out because I have too many T's now. I didn't mean for it to be that way! It just happened, late last year I was up at the women's resource centre and they offered me a free T pretty much straight away. Whereas I had to wait months to get in to see the mental health plan one. I love my women's resource centre T. So I'm sticking with her and ditching the mental health plan one.
I didn't enjoy my session with her yesterday anyway. I shared something that had me ripped open and I didn't feel like she handled it in a caring way for me. I left there feeling a bit violated. But maybe she did me a favour, helping me get in touch with that sensation.

I saw my other new T, the one I'm sticking with too, it was a really great session and I left there feeling very buoyant. We discussed my fears about going into the hospital and came up with a worse-case-scenario action plan, which I don't think I'll need but I feel better for doing it.

The hospital admission lady rang between T sessions, on our way into my uni swimming pool, we were, me, my boy and my guy. She sounds so nice. Asked me a few questions in her New Zealandish accent. I felt very comfortable with her straight away.

We had a fun time swimming and lunching and then I got dropped off for my next T appointment. I read my Sikh spiritual science of numerology book while I waited. Absolutely brilliant stuff. It stirs my soul. I was open and feeling and moved by the time my T was ready for me.

She was impressed at how I had moved to get myself into the hospital so quickly.

Desperation is a good motivator. 45 years of living in the shadow of narcissistic types is an emotionally-robbing, crazy-making existence.

I didn't even know I had been gaslit until I met my sweet man friend. He is an exceptional person. A very shining, loving friend who sees and cares and knows and helps.
By contrast, I was thrust into feeling connection and care and honesty and integrity coming into me and enveloping my being and melting my put-on-ice heart. My heart is a good one, it gives me so much scope to feel and care and heal and know and grow.

Now I am safe enough, supported enough and allowed to think about me! Care about me! Tend to my own needs!
My new, supported and empowered chapter is starting.

 

[mumstheword]

One of the main things I want to tend to, and my reason for paying for a private psych hospital admission, is this extremely exhausted, burnt-out, stomped-on state that I feel a lot of the time now.
It's like I've been knocked down so many times I hardly know who I am, how to function, how to care for my life and family, where I'm headed and what I'm doing anymore.
It feels like repeated brain damage. My life has been so extreme in its stress making that I'm an adrenally-depleated mess-of-a-person. I'm too exhausted to make fusses. No dramas for me. I want peace, space, quiet, minimal stimulation (of the wrong kind) and ideally, to be helped, nurtured and assisted to learn how to live a "normal" and healthy kind of life.
I can't afford to make my own life any harder than it's already been.
What is it like to have options?
To be able to go where one wants to go?
Feel like obtaining work is a possibility and a likelihood? I don't know anymore. Maybe I never really did.
I want to though.
To have the energy to manage one's life adequately? I forgot, maybe I never knew that either.
To feel able?
To feel like a validated citizen? Not sure I've properly had a sense of that in my entire life.
Not without trying, but somehow, my childhood set me up for a propensity to be undervalued, exploited, disregarded and ignored. I am not happy with that and won't put up with it anymore.