Nam's Mental Imagery

[Nam]

WARNING: If you plan on submitting your own mental imagery interview for assessment, DO NOT read the proceeding first, instead fill out your own interview first, then read these, so your current mental image is not skewed, resulting in a possible inaccurate emotional state being returned to you.

This is an imaginery journey down a road. Take in the sights, sounds and colours, just like a video camera recording all that lies surrounding you. Survey the scene, noticing whatis far off in the distance, the background surrounds, the weather, the season and a total image of what you view. Feel the ground beneath your feet. Try to visualize it as a picture on a canvas, but with movement, sound, colour and emotion. You are the surveyor on this journey. Draw your journey on paper if you desire, as it often shows clearer results, then attach your drawing via snapshot or scan to your post.

Q1. What colour is the road?
Red
Q2. What texture is the road?
smooth, shiny
Q3. How solid is the road?
very solid like painted concrete

You continue walking and come to a river that must be crossed. There before you is the river; the size and depth are up to you. You cannot go around it but must imagine a way to cross it. Whatever you need to cross the river is already within your mind, just imagine seeing yourself do it.

Q4. How do you cross the river?
Over a log
Q5. What does the water look like?
very turbulent
Q6. How fast is the water current?
very fast
Q7. Is there anything in the water? If so, what?
no, nothing in the water.

You have crossed the river and continue walking. You come to a house. Take a good look at the house. Notice the impression it makes on you.

Q8. What colour is the house?
White, with brown windows
Q9. What condition is the house in?
it's old but taken care of.
Q10. Does anyone live in the house? If so, who?
yes, not anyone that I know.

We continue forward in our minds journey and come to an open field. A cup is on the ground, and we stop to examine it. The cup can be of any size, shape, colour and description. Focus on it's look, condition and contents.

Q11. What colour is the cup?
Red
Q12. What condition is the cup in?
very good, and clean
Q13. Is there anything in the cup? If so, what?
cold coffee

You continue walking down the road and come to something blocking your path. It stops you in your tracks and prevents you from going forward. This is an obstacle.

Q14. What is the obstacle, and please describe it in detail?
An old gate. It's moldy and wet. It has a lot of water damage.
Q15. What do you see beyond the obstacle
a green field with white flowers and trees in bloom.

 

[Nam]

Now you have had a break, go back to every question and look at your response. Try and find what you feel that your mind presented the image it did. Explain colours you chose, textures, water, cup, solids, liquids, space, objects, people, anything and everything that you wrote from your projected image, try and find what you feel to why you have that image. Don't look hard at things, instead try and look for the easy answers, as they are often the correct one's. Don't attempt to find something that isn't present, just look at each aspect for its absolute simplicity.

This is not an absolute, but something you must do in order to try and self analyse yourself. This is important. Please answer what you can, and simply define if you cannot find an emotion to a response you gave.

1. I think I picked red because it is my favorite color. I do have a fascination with the way blood looks. I don't know why.

2. I picked smooth and shiny probably because of my fascination with blood. I like the way it's almost reflective on the surface.

3. The road is so hard that it hurts to walk on it, but yet, it's solid, and I know my footing.

4. I guess it seems easiest to me. I'm a former gymnast and it wouldn't be a big deal to walk across the river over a log. I forgot to mention that this log was mossy, but I think I watch too many movies and paint too many logs in my murals with moss on it.

5. Water is turbulent like white water. I can hear it roar. I saw this maybe as a challenge?

6. If the water is turbulent, the current is going to be fast.

7. ? Nothing in the water. Don't know why I think that.

8. White probably because my parent's house is white. The brown windows is natural wood. My parent's house didn't have brown windows though. The house I see has stucco or plaster surface.

9. I like houses that have character. I like to see them but I don't like to live in them. It's nice to see an old house being taken care of.

10. I imagined someone nice, and old, but not anyone that I knew or someone that I would meet.

11. Red cup once again, probably from my favorite color red.

12. This cup was one of those metal camping cups speckled with white. It was not rusted or anything. Maybe I thought this because I miss camping?

13. I do miss coffee. I'm down to drinking it once a day instead of two to four cups a day normally.

14. I didn't mention the gate was tall. And I am short. It's one of those privacy fences everyone here in Iowa has to separate their lawn from someone else's. I think it's tall to tell me it's large, but it's condition is bad, meaning I could knock it down. Maybe it's wet because I grew up on the farm and climbed many wooden fences while it was raining out.

15. A green field with white flowers means to me freedom. I think white is pure and trees in bloom means spring for me. A new beginning.

 

[anthony]

Highly emotional with spirituality towards life and commitment. You feel life is progressing well. You are sexually preoccupied, and approach intimacy with impulsiveness. You are aware of past deception, often with loss of control or under control off others within intimacy. You are in denial of past support and commitment, with which you feel an innocent idealism towards support systems, and have been possibly unappreciated or depreciated by those support that matter most. You are aware your support has not been ideal. You show commitment towards someone or something, other than your spouse, though this commitment is cooling. You feel severely victimized from your past.

 

[Nam]

Well, I'm definitely highly emotional. Especially lately! It seems I have a reason to cry everyday and about such silly stuff. A sappy song, because I have too much laundry (like always...) Hubs looked at me the wrong way...yeah, you get the idea. Everything in the mental imagery assessment is pretty much right on. I had to think for a while what my commitment was toward someone or something...and I think it's this forum. I have been thinking that I wanted to take on more responsibility to the forum and then I started to second guess myself. Then I decided I needed a break from the forum. Basically I'm unsure. Not about the forum itself but my ability to consistently take responsibility.

Thanks for the assessment Anthony.

 

[anthony]

Nam, before your old gate, there is another obstacle, what is it and please describe it in detail?

 

[Nam]

Backtracking is hard Anthony! First I imagined myself only about twenty feet from the gate. It doesn't make any sense, but the first thing I thought of was a rock. There was many other thoughts right after that, but that is the first one. It is a gray rock, smooth. It's jutting into the road from the left side. It's only maybe a foot high. I don't see how I could see this as an obstacle. It should be considered a skipping stone. It would have made a great seat to rest on. It wasn't obstructing my path. I could see myself go around it, still staying on my path.

What was strange was the thoughts right after I dismissed the rock as being the answer. I tried to recreate the situation in my mind. Instead of looking toward the gate, this time I was at the gate and turned around. The rock still there but not my focus I tried to see what was my obstacle. I can see the white house on the hill, so I knew that it was too far. So I looked between there and where I stood. I saw nothing. But I felt fear. Like being trapped. I was then put in the exact spot on the path where this fear took place. I looked back, too afraid to go back. I looked forward and afraid. I felt like I had to stay right where I was. It was like a panic attack with a little bit of paranoia thrown in. The feeling that I was being watched. I'm doubting myself the whole time I was thinking this since I couldn't actually touch my obstacle so tried to think of a new one. I thought of myself in a cage. It was a wooden one. No bottom though. I was still on my path. It was maybe four feet tall, so I had to squat. The wood of the cage was like a mesh, they were not just vertical like bars in jail. Pretty much the same feeling as before, trapped, afraid, paranoid, etc. but now from a wooden cage. I'm not sure if this was valid mental imagery since it came after I dismissed the rock. I also note that this imagery took quite a bit more effort than the original one. Backtracking was difficult.

Let's see if I can explain how I feel about my imagery....I don't know anything about the rock. I don't know why that came up. I was talking with hubs the other night and I asked him what was his obstacle and he said a rock, but his was a huge menacing boulder. This was no boulder. My two year old could have jumped over it.

The fear and trapped feeling as being the obstacle...well, that could be. Maybe the obstacle is myself and the way I think? I'm not sure.

The cage could represent several things for me. First of all, I have said many times that I feel trapped in this slow moving ptsd journey. That I will probably never remember all the memories buried and that I will have short snipits of memory coming through for the rest of my life. Another could be because I felt powerless while in the orphanage and during the first year or so after being adopted. I was the middle child not quite good enough student like my older sister and definitely not the favorite like the younger brother.

Another reason is my recent pregnancy. This will be the first child born after the PTSD diagnosis. I'm already dreading the hospital which is a major trigger for me. I'm afraid that the pain of labor itself will be a trigger for me. I feel powerless to make my own decisions in this hospital and being a VBAC, I have limited possibilities as to what I would prefer to happen at the birth. I've considered having a baby at home with a midwife but it is technically illegal for the midwife to be paid for the services. She can be there, but only as a support. Besides, I'm having trouble even finding one since you have to go "underground" to find one. So, even though I'm very early in this pregnancy, I already feel the clock ticking as to what I can find and what my options are for the birth.

Well, I hope that explains some.

 

[anthony]

A rock symbolises a recent significant problem within your life Nam, which I think you just found yourself, just knowing of your pregnancy and the fear associated of having to go towards a place that triggers you. You mind doesn't lie Nam, and the first image is the correct image, because that first image is the representation of a problem, a very real problem.

Nam, before that rock, their is another obstacle, what is it and please describe it?

 

[Nam]

A cat. A tabby that's orange striped. It's skinny and walking from the left to the right. It is full grown and weary of me, but not threatening.

I like cats and wished that I could have one. During my childhood, they were my comfort on the farm. I would fall asleep in the barn with more than a dozen cats sleeping next to me during the colder months. During the spring, I would go on kitten hunting expeditions. I would eventually find the hole in the hay where they were born and count them and relish the fact that only I knew where the mother kept them.

 

[anthony]

Ok, we are getting somewhere now, as you have found something that is highly emotional (still in the theme of your image), and a desire to return to a childhood moment, a happier moment in your mind.

Nam, before the cat, there is another obstacle, what is it and please describe it?

 

[Nam]

A tree. A Pin Oak tree. Fairly big and growing right through the middle of the path. It doesn't have any leaves but looks like it's trying to grow some. That's weird because on the farm, we had plenty of Pin Oak trees but they rarely lost ALL of their leaves during the fall. The trunk is large around but small enough that I could get my arms around it. the trunk is large at the bottom but narrows considerably toward the top and many small branches stem from it.

Pin Oak trees is a fun memory for me but bittersweet. I was a climber and would love to climb up the tree by hugging it and moving my bare feet. I would then climb to the nearest branches, and use them as ladder rungs to climb higher. At first it was to get cats down that were chased up there by the dogs. But then I realized how much of a safe haven it was for me. No one could get me up there. Pretty soon, I had my favorite trees that I liked to climb. One of them had three branches that went out from the trunk in a fashion that I could recline among them. The bottom branch was the part I sat on and the arms were the other two branches. I slept up there many times listening to the sound of the leaves. My mother found out about me climbing the trees and claimed that I could ruin the trees growth if I kept climbing them. I actually believed her. I know better now that they would have grown either way.

There were many places that I "hid" on the farm to just be myself and to be accepted as myself. Many of the places that I found became off limits for some reason or another. To lay in the barn with the cats because she said I'd get lice. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I realized that it's not that common for a human to get cat lice. Same thing with the trees. Somehow I'd ruin the tree. I searched for places that I felt that I belonged. On the farm it was cats, trees, and cows.

 

[anthony]

Nam, you feel a person within your life is towering over you, controlling you as such, through power or position. Who is that person Nam, who is very much alive, that you feel controlled by, towered over?

 

[Nam]

There was not one answer that came right out. I had to really think about this. I read your response over and over and I realize now that I have a conflict from how I feel to what is actually happening. I think the person could be my hubs, Ben. I think that maybe I feel like I'm being controlled by him, but he's not a controlling person. It's by happen chance. He makes almost 100% of income. He takes jobs as he pleases. I have to ask even for little expenses, less than twenty dollars, if I can buy and which card to put it on. It severely limits me on what I think I should be allowed to spend.

In the past, a year ago, he moved me and the family to LA against my will. I really didn't want to go, but he insisted that life would be better for all of us. He now realizes he was pretty much only thinking of himself and his motives without taking in account the sacrifices the rest of the family had to make for his preferences. That was the past and it's not happening now, so I don't understand how it's come up now.

He is in the process of looking for another job but he's looking into telecommuting instead of actually moving, so I don't see how this affects me now as a towering, controlling person.

The other person I thought of was my mother, but she is not controlling in my life. She is controlling when I enter her turf, but it is her house. "You're under my roof, you obey my rules." Those rules are not out of line however. They are general rules that have been in the family as long as I remember. Don't talk about anything too serious or sad. Don't make anyone upset. Don't rock the boat. Mind your manners. But in my own house, I am myself.

My new midwife is going to be a problem since she is under so many rules with policy of VBAC's that her hands are tied, and so are mine. I feel as if I don't have many choices. I live in a small enough community that I only have three groups to choose from and all are very progressive in interventions during labor and all of them frown upon birthing at home (none of them allow it). If I'm in my own house, I have control of the labor. If I'm in the hospital, I'm under the rules of the hospital and their lawyers and become a litigation risk. My right to birth how I want to is very much in the fore front of my mind and I wonder if that is my "tree".

So, basically, I'm clueless as to what that person is. I even thought maybe it's me. All of my own thinking of who I should be and what I should become is controlling how I feel about myself. This is total self esteem issue that I have. I still feel that if I'm not back to what I was originally doing before PTSD, that I'm still short. Still not perfect, still not right, not up to par, etc. The word failure comes to mind, but I know that I'm not a failure, but it feels the same none of the less. I guess I'm not satisfied at what my accomplishments have been so far. It's no one's fault but my own.