I am, kind of, retarded

[mumstheword]

Now I have this question going on in my head. Is it f*cked up I feel so wiped out by all this? And that this has kicked off a cycle of self destructiveness? Or is the f*cked up part the ways I am reacting which is self harming and abusive? The old ways?

I can't work it out. I think anyone would not be coping really well with the shit I am processing: mother loss, loss of best friend, still processing loss of career and assault by trusted therapist/trainer and group betrayal, plus taking inventory of losses - career, relationships, family etc, through step six and seven. Yet I am starting to feel like deep upset is disproportionate. This is quite maddening

It takes me to the Pete Walker stuff where he talks about having difficult/painful feelings as a kid and being abandoned, getting the message that your reaction is not appropriate, or that feeling bad is unwanted, as a result you are some how faulty, not worth being around. All of this comes up

Anyway. Yes I need to stop binging on dried fruits and find another way to regulate

Yesterday I had two packets of pumpkin seeds. Which arent grest at high in Omega 6 so inflammatory. Bone Broth with some onions, beets, celery. This was me trying to regulate and nourish in a gentle way. Two baked plaintains. Unusual for me. It's the feeling of home plus the sweetness. Kept the figs down to six. Hoping none today. I can feel that my body is really craving sugar

Perhaps I will pick up some Rhodiola

It's not f*cked up, it's a natural reaction/response/consequence to what you are dealing with. You are nurturing and self soothing with food and you are judging yourself harshly and second guessing yourself. How could you not, if that is what you learnt to do? To treat yourself with disgust and condemnation when that is how you were raised? I have had the self same battles and it goes on and on and flares at stress and triggered times.

My practise and eating went to shit over christmas. An inordinate number of my children were hurt, quite badly, some of them and oldest son ended up in a psychiatric unit for the first time and my practise crumbled for about a month. How can we keep self care together when emotional flooding overwhelms the entire system?

Myself? I collapse into zombieland, dissociation and maladaptive trauma reenatment distraction, rumination and was drinking everyday and craving sugar and carbs and sleeping and exhausted.

So, you are not alone in this. Lately still craving sugar, and magnesium, so it is magnesium rich cocoa and been making my own chocolate and adding "inca berries"/golden berries, dried blueberries, raisins, des coconut, chia seeds and I am not going to be down on myself for that because my body is saying yes.

When my eating was at its worst I consoled myself with practise again because otherwise it's a cycle of self condemnation, self disgust and self sabotage. Still hate myself/disgusted at myself for, what I judge as maladaptive eating, but doing the prac soothes the damaged sense of self and does a lot to mollify that dismay that I feel for the lack.of self control/self discipline.

You still eat amazingly wholesome, you do know this, don't you, @NatBird?

I think you do really well, and that the harshness to self that activated, indicates the need for the changing of neural habit patterns/ self talk, that is a chipping away at a natural/logical consequence of what you learnt from young. The harshness is not your authentic self, it is conditioned, Pavlovian behaviour, and unlearning self judgement and self condemnation is a process that takes as long as it takes.

Please, is it ok to ask you to remind yourself that you eat more healthy than most people, with your choice of whole foods and that the body/primal mind/brain is just trying to protect you/keep you safe and nourished/nurtured?

You and I didn't get mothering. We got predated on and abused and terrorized and neglected by the person who was supposed to comfort, nurture and protect us.

Is it any wonder that we have developed a dependancy/control issues/ complex relationship with food, as a replacement for actual mothering?

And that we collapse/freeze/get overwhelmed/emotionally flooded/comfort with food when this wounded/neglected/starved of love child gets activated?

Also, our ASD is a condition of neural overfiring; and too much stimuli exhausts, just because of this physiological cocktail of nervous system/brain straining comorbidities.

So this is added on.top.
Is it any wonder we feel so zombied and overwhelmed and need extra rest and try to.get more energy/build.up our energy and sheild and mother ourselves with food?

I think it a very "normal" and relatively healthy way to try to cope and soothe the body.

What is "f*cked up" is being treated like you were, but your response is completely understandable and not even that maladaptive. More just natural and a consequence and response to overwhelming and emotionally hurtful conditions and abandonment and threats to survival and perceived threats to survival.

 

[NatBird]

@mumstheword THANK YOU so much for sharing your asana practice journey with me. It gently re connected me to holding myself in a way that helps me to feel like I can regulate and am not a total nutcase!

Right after reading your message I did maybe 45/50 mins of Yin combined with some Qi Gong practice. I feel a little more settled, smoother, closer to home. Sitting in the postures for long periods is good for me. I know it isn't for all folks because it goes quite deep into the myofascia where a lot of tensions/conflict/trauma live and the release can be quite intense but somehow sitting in the discomfort until it melts brings me some strength and reassurance, a sense, I can be with this. I'm not terrified of my body, in fact I like to be in my body. It's just that sonetimes it feels terrifying. It's just that this is a default and I am back in these defaults because I am processing a very big losss

Cheers Mums:)

 

[mumstheword]

@mumstheword THANK YOU so much for sharing your asana practice journey with me. It gently re connected me to holding myself in a way that helps me to feel like I can regulate and am not a total nutcase!

Right after reading your message I did maybe 45/50 mins of Yin combined with some Qi Gong practice. I feel a little more settled, smoother, closer to home. Sitting in the postures for long periods is good for me. I know it isn't for all folks because it goes quite deep into the myofascia where a lot of tensions/conflict/trauma live and the release can be quite intense but somehow sitting in the discomfort until it melts brings me some strength and reassurance, a sense, I can be with this. I'm not terrified of my body, in fact I like to be in my body. It's just that sonetimes it feels terrifying. It's just that this is a default and I am back in these defaults because I am processing a very big losss

Cheers Mums:)

Thank you for sharing your prac journey, with me, too :).
I just finished a routine. Day 15 of Yoga with Adriene - Home, 30 day program. :) a very satisfying routine of asanas, that got me sweaty, stretched and deepening beautifully.:).

I notice that I feel a little too pleased with myself for improvements and deep stretches and strong poses, but, I think that ok, as long as I stay very present, focused and not pushing myself but easing and flowing and being in a place of self listening/body listening/ feeling into and easing off instead of going hard.

I tend to push myself, hard, or I have had the tendency to, too much, in the past, and it's about changing that to centring in, instead of minding/egoing in and then, it strengthens me, instead of exhausting me and I get joy and softness as well as sweats, shaking and muscle fibre tearing intensity . The breath and being really present is so key.

I LOVE Yin and Restorative!
When I first got back into prac after the christmas crisis season with my kids, I fell asleep, twice! In restorative prac. Was the same asana too, both times, with hip opening, on a booster, on the tummy pose. I don't remember names, but, eventually, I would like to learn to teach and know theory and yoga language, especially restorative and Yin and "trauma sensitive" to other's like us, who are sufferers.

 

[NatBird]

My six year old went through a lot of abuse that would lead her to not want to be in the body. At the same time the thing she likes to do the most is to be in the body, to play, to be agile and flexible. There is a sense of control here which is important. It can be confusing and hard to manage what feels like a pull in opposite directions. The rope is what she wants to hold. The rope is control. She needs some sense of control

I have got very confused as to whether she wants the sweet stuff as many kids do. Whether this is a repeat of trauma, as my cousin gave me sweets before and after he groomed me. To some degree to sugar took it all away. Well it just put a feeling on top. Then whether it's me having a screaming kid who I want to stop crying and so I sit her in front of the TV with a packet of biscuits which numbs her out for a bit. I can never tell where it is coming from. I can keep observing

Also there is the thing you mentioned @ninja about calming the CNS. There is also the food being about 'taking mother in', wanting comfort and to take something inside to have a full-feel. It's been interesting that the last month I have been craving AfricanCarribean roots food - plantains, yams, green bannanas and soups. I have just had two relationships where that gave me some sense of who I am and belonging end

Anyway, I feel a bit clearer after asana

What has helped the last 24 hours?
Talking with friend/fellow who gets it. Has empathy and encourages
Allowing myself to eat things I wouldn't normally and regulating the sugar. It was good to let us have a few figs yesterday and not a packet!
Yin practice and Qi Gong
Inner Child conversations

My fellow friend also recommended I read the Healing Child with Book again. I have read that book twice but think its necessary to revisit

J has come back again. I feel I want to talk about it but its too long and convoluted to write about now

Possible supportive and good things ahead?
- GP appointment. Will speak more with him about symptoms.
- GP and PTSD specialist appointment next week
- Counselling on Monday. Will ask her about CBT and Trauma Focused Approach
- Volunteer training at suicide respite place I stayed at two years ago. I was so pleased a few months back when they said they would like me to join the team. Yes I feel not my best and super dysregulated but the project is important to me, I have something to offer and I don't have to be perfect. I just need to show up

I won't go to ACA today. It feels like too much to get into the city. I might try and do a phone meeting online or with a fellow. I feel like I just need to be

I would like to tidy my room. I know six year old doesn't like the chaos. When I let it get this bad: cups, plates, some decomposing things, when it's on the way to this. It's a warning as I like things fairly clear and clean

I think doing the artists way is also activating the six year old as well. She really wants to come out and play. Yet she is afraid. It's up to me as an adult to manage these pulls in what seemsto be opposite directions

What we need, me and her. Is to know that someone is there, watching, cheering on, supporting. To know we will not be abandoned. That I will be there for her and when I am finding it hard to parent there isa figure there who can help me. Mothers need this. My last therapist was really good at this, supporting me to parent and encouraging me not to feel bad about needing help. We all need help when learning how to do something

Thank you for sharing your prac journey, with me, too :).
I just finished a routine. Day 15 of Yoga with Adriene - Home, 30 day program. :) a very satisfying routine of asanas, that got me sweaty, stretched and deepening beautifully.:).

I notice that I feel a little too pleased with myself for improvements and deep stretches and strong poses, but, I think that ok, as long as I stay very present, focused and not pushing myself but easing and flowing and being in a place of self listening/body listening/ feeling into and easing off instead of going hard.

I tend to push myself, hard, or I have had the tendency to, too much, in the past, and it's about changing that to centring in, instead of minding/egoing in and then, it strengthens me, instead of exhausting me and I get joy and softness as well as sweats, shaking and muscle fibre tearing intensity . The breath and being really present is so key.

Yes I noticed that a lot during practice this rising - the unhelpful ego voice that is judging and then the space where I am just feeling, sensing, connecting, being with. It was good to feel where my body has contracted in the last several weeks

I can lose flexibility so much when re experiencing. It amazes me how contracted I can get

Glad you had a good session. Thanks again:)

I LOVE Yin and Restorative!
When I first got back into prac after the christmas crisis season with my kids, I fell asleep, twice! In restorative prac. Was the same asana too, both times, with hip opening, on a booster, on the tummy pose. I don't remember names, but, eventually, I would like to learn to teach and know theory and yoga language, especially restorative and Yin and "trauma sensitive" to other's like us, who are sufferers.

There's an amazing book, Brigtening Our Inner Skies, Norman Blair. It's a Yin book with a lot on the intention of the practice, meditations, detailed pictures of postures, connections to meridians and sequences. I love the meridian stuff in particular as I am often needing to work on spleen, liver, gall bladder. I really appreciate it gives me the tools to help myself with some things

 

[mumstheword]

My six year old went through a lot of abuse that would lead her to not want to be in the body. At the same time the thing she likes to do the most is to be in the body, to play, to be agile and flexible. There is a sense of control here which is important. It can be confusing and hard to manage what feels like a pull in opposite directions. The rope is what she wants to hold. The rope is control. She needs some sense of control

I have got very confused as to whether she wants the sweet stuff as many kids do. Whether this is a repeat of trauma, as my cousin gave me sweets before and after he groomed me. To some degree to sugar took it all away. Well it just put a feeling on top. Then whether it's me having a screaming kid who I want to stop crying and so I sit her in front of the TV with a packet of biscuits which numbs her out for a bit. I can never tell where it is coming from. I can keep observing

Also there is the thing you mentioned @ninja about calming the CNS. There is also the food being about 'taking mother in', wanting comfort and to take something inside to have a full-feel. It's been interesting that the last month I have been craving AfricanCarribean roots food - plantains, yams, green bannanas and soups. I have just had two relationships where that gave me some sense of who I am and belonging end

Anyway, I feel a bit clearer after asana

What has helped the last 24 hours?
Talking with friend/fellow who gets it. Has empathy and encourages
Allowing myself to eat things I wouldn't normally and regulating the sugar. It was good to let us have a few figs yesterday and not a packet!
Yin practice and Qi Gong
Inner Child conversations

My fellow friend also recommended I read the Healing Child with Book again. I have read that book twice but think its necessary to revisit

J has come back again. I feel I want to talk about it but its too long and convoluted to write about now

Possible supportive and good things ahead?
- GP appointment. Will speak more with him about symptoms.
- GP and PTSD specialist appointment next week
- Counselling on Monday. Will ask her about CBT and Trauma Focused Approach
- Volunteer training at suicide respite place I stayed at two years ago. I was so pleased a few months back when they said they would like me to join the team. Yes I feel not my best and super dysregulated but the project is important to me, I have something to offer and I don't have to be perfect. I just need to show up

I won't go to ACA today. It feels like too much to get into the city. I might try and do a phone meeting online or with a fellow. I feel like I just need to be

I would like to tidy my room. I know six year old doesn't like the chaos. When I let it get this bad: cups, plates, some decomposing things, when it's on the way to this. It's a warning as I like things fairly clear and clean

I think doing the artists way is also activating the six year old as well. She really wants to come out and play. Yet she is afraid. It's up to me as an adult to manage these pulls in what seemsto be opposite directions

What we need, me and her. Is to know that someone is there, watching, cheering on, supporting. To know we will not be abandoned. That I will be there for her and when I am finding it hard to parent there isa figure there who can help me. Mothers need this. My last therapist was really good at this, supporting me to parent and encouraging me not to feel bad about needing help. We all need help when learning how to do something

The loss of relationships and mother grief is big, big, hard, painful and dysregulating for me, too. I'm feeling for you, for these giant and painful losses and states and emotions.

I'm glad you are starting to return to some more gentleness and some wisemind insight into what helps, why you flared with the symptoms. Truly it sounds like we share these common reactions and it is just the nature of this beast of CPTSD and ASD and, to be honest? I think you a truly amazing, brilliant, awesome human being, who I share some difficulties, with, in some ways.

I think you, and I, for that matter, make some really intelligent and wise choices, regardless of the suffering, flooding, overwhelming child state that needs what she needs.

I hope me being honest and sharing my regard for you isn't too confronting. I know it can be raw and opening and painful to receive what we have needed for so long and didn't get. Sometimes I cry when people say kind, and admiring words to me, but that it gets easier to receive the more it happens.

I just needed to let you know.

 

[NatBird]

The loss of relationships and mother grief is big, big, hard, painful and dysregulating for me, too. I'm feeling for you, for these giant and painful losses and states and emotions.

I'm glad you are starting to return to some more gentleness and some wisemind insight into what helps, why you flared with the symptoms. Truly it sounds like we share these common reactions and it is just the nature of this beast of CPTSD and ASD and, to be honest? I think you a truly amazing, brilliant, awesome human being, who I share some difficulties, with, in some ways.

I think you, and I, for that matter, make some really intelligent and wise choices, regardless of the suffering, flooding, overwhelming child state that needs what she needs.

I hope me being honest and sharing my regard for you isn't too confronting. I know it can be raw and opening and painful to receive what we have needed for so long and didn't get. Sometimes I cry when people say kind, and admiring words to me, but that it gets easier to receive the more it happens.

I just needed to let you know.

Hey @mumstheword thanks for the love and upliftment. It's not confronting. I can recieve goodness, especially from those who I know, feels-it-knows-it!:)

Yes I think that we do a lot that is wise and skillful in the middle of storms, especially without proper foundations

I was writing yesterday that creativity and healing have a lot in common. One thing is getting better doesn't always look or feel good, it's often excruciating in some way and messy

Yea would be good to talk more about the ASD and CPTSD stuff if you are open to it? I came to it late it was a friend who is an activist and has a ASD kept telling me she thought I was on the spectrum. The I started looking into it. Had tests etc. To be honest I am still in denial. In part because I sense they are really just the same thing! That the ASD is the result of developmental challenges, for me at least. I say this because of the components that I have the most challenges with. I know for other folks its different. It's like having a little tool in my pocket, looks useful and like I might need it but I don't know what to do with it. Oh well, shrug, I'll keep it in my pocket. That's pretty much my relationship to it right now. I sense I am also avoiding looking at more loss

Thanks mums:)

 

[LaPetiteGen]

I know it's not a PC word, but, I'm not much for being hung up on PCness.
It's just that I always have this sense that I'm not really a "real" grown up. That I'm missing too much about being one. That other grown ups will, straight away, be able to tell, that, while I might look like one, I'm not. I'm an imposter, looks-like-an-adult-(even has children)-but-isn't-really-one. I'm even, actually, middle aged, but, not on the inside. I'm stunted, retarded, developmentally delayed, ridiculously immature and childlike.

Oh love, please don't believe the lies that you aren't good enough- adult- enough or mature-enough. The "enough's" keep you in a place of negativity and defeat. Instead, focus on what is pure, right and lovely about you and your life. Sounds like you are an amazing mum and that is so very important. We ALL have struggles and weaknesses in which we feel inadequate. The catch is to recognize that your very weakness can also be your greatest strength. For me I'm sensitive to a fault- yet my sensitivity can also be a strength because it is the very thing that makes we able to love, empathize and understand when others are hurting. Look to your strengths and believe that you have so much to offer in this world. I'll bet your little ones see you in a whole different light!

 

[GrayOwl]

Society loves to attach cruel labels and definitions to whom or what "we" are "supposed" to think we are. Every single one of us has our own level, our own value, our own being. One person's gift may be kindness. Or insight. Or being a great "Mum" or Grandmum. But in our world today value is attached to quantifiable items like net worth or bank accounts or job titles by people that feel the need to flaunt their egos. The important values and good things are more and more thrown by the wayside. And accusing somebody of being "slow" or "retarded" is a bullies' malicious way of causing harm and trying to disarm and strip away those good qualities that make you a truly wonderful person and someone truly of worth.
There is a short video that means everything to me. It is of seven autistic children running a footrace around a track during a Special Olympics event. As they round the final turn and run toward the finish line, one of them collapses motionless before the finish line. The other six, in unison, without so much as even a seed of doubt, all stop in their tracks, turn around, and return to their fallen companion. All six of them struggle to help him to his feet, and then move as one being, 14 gawky arms and 14 gawky legs all wrapped together to cross the finish line as one. No concept of labels. No winner. No loser. 7 happy, sweaty, satisfied, spent kids. It makes me cry.
As I gaze around "our" world - - - at the road rage, the backstabbing, the greed and petty squabbling - - - I often think that perhaps they are the lucky ones. If I had the choice, which would I consider what really is "normal" and which is "retarded"? And which role do I really aspire to in life???
So. Please. Don't do labels. I see beauty in the good people. Those who have raised good children. Those who have struggled under cruel bullies. Those who seek to understand their hurt. And get beyond it.
I haven't read through the entire thread but I wanted to offer thoughts...…. I'll finish reading when my disjointed attention span allows. Many would say this makes me "dumb" or "A.D.D." or would choose to cruelly attach some form of "label" to me. So that they could feel better. Or important. Or superior.
The ROAR of those voices today is "white noise" that I so rarely hear or feel anymore. Thousands of repetitions: "I'm just me. I'm just me...… I am fine, I am fine...…."
And I am. I am.
I hope you will be too. I hope you will be too.... I hope.... I hope..... (becomes I am....I am....)
May you find healing and peace of mind that you deserve.

 

[mumstheword]

Mums - Remember, You don't know what someone else is going thru!

That's a helpful thing to remember ! :-)
@Deanna ,Thanks.

 

[mumstheword]

Hey @mumstheword thanks for the love and upliftment. It's not confronting. I can recieve goodness, especially from those who I know, feels-it-knows-it!:)

Yes I think that we do a lot that is wise and skillful in the middle of storms, especially without proper foundations

I was writing yesterday that creativity and healing have a lot in common. One thing is getting better doesn't always look or feel good, it's often excruciating in some way and messy

Yea would be good to talk more about the ASD and CPTSD stuff if you are open to it? I came to it late it was a friend who is an activist and has a ASD kept telling me she thought I was on the spectrum. The I started looking into it. Had tests etc. To be honest I am still in denial. In part because I sense they are really just the same thing! That the ASD is the result of developmental challenges, for me at least. I say this because of the components that I have the most challenges with. I know for other folks its different. It's like having a little tool in my pocket, looks useful and like I might need it but I don't know what to do with it. Oh well, shrug, I'll keep it in my pocket. That's pretty much my relationship to it right now. I sense I am also avoiding looking at more loss

Thanks mums:)

The ASD stuff...hmmmm a big and unweildy topic, and I too, don't know how to separate the CPTSD, developmental trauma, from the spectrumy oddness and sensitivities.

However, I have delved into the science and anecdotals, somewhat, to try to gleam some informed perspective.

My father and one son, in particulary, alerted me to my possible on-the-Spectrumness, and now I see it everywhere in my family ... No many are diagnosed though. Only one sister's children and one of mine.

My Dad is very Aspergers though. Rather typically, or stereotypically, as in he talked very late - some time between three and four, but spoke in complete sentences when he did. He is a "absentminded professor type" painfully socially awkward and very childlike in significant ways and academically specialist and highly skilled in other's.
I am, very, my father's daughter.

It is said, from a scientific perspective, that our autistic brains "overfire" via synaptic firing, connecting, noticabley more rapidly (and chaotically, perhaps?) that neurorypical brains.

It is said that we experience the world in a heightened sensitivity way; "intense world" theory is an interesting one to look at.
And that our brains don't produce oxytocin like "normal" people, it is, in effect, a condition of oxytocin deficiency.

As to what is born.of trauma and what is simply genetics ... I have no idea.

My psychiatrist doubted me, when I suggested I believe ASD is part of my symptomology and challenges. She said I present "too warmly".
Well, it's taken a lot of years of watching, learning, awakening, "arting" (sooooo much singing, in particular, which, incidentally, increases the body's production of oxytocin) reading (soooooo much research and hiding in a book) and feeling highly ailienated, to develop the ability to, sometimes, express warmth, in a social setting.

I will, happily, exchange more, on this topic, but, for now, I'll leave it at that.

 

[mumstheword]

I wrote a lot more, expanding on the above post, but, alas, I timed-out and.lost some great stuff.
Frustrating.
Now my brain is too tired to try to rewrite, but, I had lots more on the benefits, I've discovered, from taking into account the neuro specificities of having an ASD affected brain.
Anyways, tired brain, I got cranky at losing the writing and that's worn me out, too.
I will elaborate though, when my noggin refreshes.

 

[mumstheword]

Oh love, please don't believe the lies that you aren't good enough- adult- enough or mature-enough. The "enough's" keep you in a place of negativity and defeat. Instead, focus on what is pure, right and lovely about you and your life. Sounds like you are an amazing mum and that is so very important. We ALL have struggles and weaknesses in which we feel inadequate. The catch is to recognize that your very weakness can also be your greatest strength. For me I'm sensitive to a fault- yet my sensitivity can also be a strength because it is the very thing that makes we able to love, empathize and understand when others are hurting. Look to your strengths and believe that you have so much to offer in this world. I'll bet your little ones see you in a whole different light!

Every word you wrote here sounds like truth, to me @LaPetiteGen. Thank you.

I'm sorry it's taken me this long to reply. I wanted you to know, I really, really appreciate the reminders, and the wise perspective and hello, its, lovely to "meet" you.:-).