Strange Star

[Echo]

I've just been for a reflexology session. I still feel very panicked, but more centred. I don't think I was even in my body before. I'm just going to let it settle. Will send healing to you all, too. Echo xxx

 

[Hope4Now]

@Echo, yay that reflexology helped some.

I don't know @HelenB but if she's in this same place, my heart hurts for her.

I've just made an appointment for a cranial-sacral therapy session for 5 PM. I've only had the therapist twice before, but she is a calming presence. I'm hoping it works. The last c-s session I had, the therapist couldn't do much. She said either I was so dissociated, or so hyperaroused that she couldn't get a rhythm at all. I haven't been back to do any sort of bodywork for a month because I can't afford it. Was saving my last coupon for an emergency. I think this qualifies.

I am hoping the gentle touch will help center me a little and help me fend off this dread.
I am going to try to take a nap.

 

[Pietro]

I FEEL completely selfish and irresponsible that the only thing I seem to be able to do is keep writing, writing, writing. But, of course, not writing for work which I am supposed to be doing. Writing for processing all this chaos, and writing as a last ditch attempt to keep somewhat grounded in my adult present.

This is also my go-to, last resort coping mechanism. Don't tell anyone :sneaky:, but there have been some days at work, where I've been so emotionally unstable that all I did was type in my private journal attempting to keep my sanity. I always feel irresponsible doing this as well, but, realistically, if you're on the verge of melting-down, isn't it important to do what you can to prevent that? Are our employers going to be better-off if we are completely incapacitated? It also doesn't help that mental health is given such short shrift by our society, so those of us who have to deal with this need to do what we can. :)

I have so much to do. I haven't done the bills, the laundry, the errands. I haven't gotten to the doc to do bloodwork, or scheduled my mammogram. I have to do the low-income housing application for my mother...it's almost done and I just can't seem to finish it. I have to do my mother's taxes. I have to clean out my mother's condominium and put it on the market. I KNOW I have to do these things. I have always been able to handle stuff like this. But now I feel completely overwhelmed by all of them and more. When I get overwhelmed I don't even perceive that there are choices in my life. I just want to curl up and cry.

How did you get a hold of my task list?! :D Except for the mammogram, of course.

And my reaction to all of this has been 100%, absolutely the same as yours. I try to get organized, I start doing things, then start to feel overwhelmed, resentful, exhausted, depressed, and, finally, apathetic. So, I stop doing, and little to nothing gets done, until someone/something is pointing a figurative gun at my head. And, because of all this, it takes more time to do things, because of all the resistance -- it becomes a very negative cycle.

I haven't solved this one yet; it's one of my biggest issues and plagues me daily. But I have come to accept that I can't do everything -- even when I have to listen to my mother and others constantly tell me I should do this, or should do that. They can keep their "shoulds" to themselves. :)

 

[Hope4Now]

Don't tell anyone :sneaky:, but there have been some days at work, where I've been so emotionally unstable that all I did was type in my private journal attempting to keep my sanity.

Oh, yeah. A dirty secret of mine too these past months. Sometimes I'm at work, but just a body in a chair for all I accomplish.

I don't know if it would be healthier to just give up and let everything go to hell, or to just keep trying to keep things moving in some sort of positive direction (which right now feels overwhelming and impossible...even in baby steps). Maybe this is how people end up in the hospital. That, actually, seems sort of appealing to me right now, but also terrifying.

 

[Hope4Now]

Cranial Sacral session was good. If I could do this every day, maybe...I did manage, with the help of that gentle touch, to come down from my extreme state and reconnect with my body a bit more. This therapist has a very different way than the other one I've been going to. I think it works better for me. Sadly, I still couldn't walk without excruciating pain afterward, but one can't ask for everything.

I have realized today (and am saying to myself, well DUH!) that my physical pain is a stand-in for my emotions (which is really scary given how much pain I have been in and for so long). It is also preventing me from moving on in my life (literally and metaphorically) until I can deal with it. I mean I knew, in my thinking part, that this pain and all the body stuff is a form of dissociation. I guess I just never really fully connected that I'm dissociating from emotion as much as I am. I'm pretty numb.

I realized, with all the reading and research I have done about just about every aspect of PTSD and treatments, I have no clue how cranial sacral therapy works. That will be my next reading project.

A number of images came up (those ones you get behind your eyelids). Fragments. One made no sense, but the others did. I don't know how one knows if they are "real" in the sense of being connected to memory, or if they're just things generated from stuff I've been thinking and reading about. It's hard to know when there's no emotion attached.

 

[Pietro]

I don't know if it would be healthier to just give up and let everything go to hell, or to just keep trying to keep things moving in some sort of positive direction (which right now feels overwhelming and impossible...even in baby steps).

I keep wondering the same thing. I think even just a month off would do me wonders. But that's hard to do -- not just because of the need for income, but, even harder, trying to convince an employer to allow this. And possibly finding your job gone when you get back. ;)

 

[Hope4Now]

Much (not all) of yesterday just sucked.

I went, finally, to get the blood tests my doctor wants me to have before he will refer me to the pain clinic (Lyme's, Rheumatoid A., etc.). I have needle phobia, and it turned out they had to do three blood draws because my blood wasn't flowing enough. LOL! Maybe I really am frozen inside.

Then I had an intense therapy session which I hadn't wanted to go to in the first place because I think I knew it would be intense. I ended up processing with my inner 3 year old while I had my eyes closed, and my therapist was gently guiding with questions, etc. until at one point I put my hands out and said, "I can't go there." The session was fine. There's always a part of me that is aware of how weird it all is, but I seem to have been able to put that aside. What left me frightened and disoriented was that I actually allowed myself to do this with my therapist. I allowed myself to trust him and said more than I have before. THAT left me freaked.

Last night I had a terrible moment. My husband made some comment about the plane that disappeared. I said, "What plane?" He stared at me disbelievingly, then took my hands in his, and with his eyes closed said, "Wow. This is a reality check for me." Then he was quiet for a long while. I knew he was just realizing how completely messed up I've been lately. It made me terribly anxious, as if I just revealed to him the depths of how screwed up I am (I did, in a way, because for someone like me to not know what happened is very very revealing of where my head is right now. Then he said, "I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're you. And you're still you even though all this stuff is going on. I love you." That was nice--I know it was nice. But it didn't feel nice. I felt exposed. I told him, "Well, now you know, I guess. I've been outed." I think all along he's been thinking I'm okay, going through a hard time, but fundamentally functional. Which, in our world, includes being aware of and able to talk about the news, staying up on the schedules and kids' stuff, paying bills, going to work, and showing up for things.

Then, he invited me to talk a little about what was going on with me. He had refused to talk about his day much, other than to say it was intense. So, I fell in--I knew I shouldn't talk (it was late and we were in bed), but I did. I talked for around 5 or 7 minutes before I realized he was sound asleep. He does this often. I know he's tired, and I know I shouldn't talk to him then, but like like a little kid I feel abandoned anyway.

I am pretty much "out of fight." I don't really know what this means, or what the implications are. I feel like I can't keep up with life anymore--especially the external responsibilities. I can do a little bit, but not much. I get through each day doing these little bits, trying not to berate and abuse myself for my pathetic efforts. Fully aware that I'm screwing things up badly by not doing more.

I am going to run away--metaphorically--this weekend. I have a place on the beach in Maine available to me. I'm going alone. I'm not even taking the dog. There will be very few people around, if any. No TV. No Internet. I am going to sleep and sit on the beach. I'm going to write. And I am going to bring paints and canvasses and see if anything happens.

Ironically, the last time I did this very thing was about 20 years ago. I went because I was in a miserable transition in my life. I had finished grad school for the first time but was unable to secure a teaching job I wanted. I had quit my job at a hospital. I had been living with my boyfriend (now husband) for several years, but wasn't sure what I wanted or what he wanted. So, I went to Maine with my art supplies and journals. I think back then I was trying to get up the courage to find a way to "live" as an artist/writer.

18 hours into my retreat, I got a job offer from a school in England. My boyfriend drove up to discuss the offer with me. He thought it would be a great adventure for me (it was, actually, but not due to the job). I ended up accepting it, and that's what drove my career in education. I should have had the courage to turn it down, stay in Maine and write and paint, and give my middle finger to the expectations that I do something practical for my life.

Maybe this weekend...if I can make myself do it instead of doing what I am really supposed to do--a pressing and important project--maybe I will get a clearer sense of the path I'm meant to follow now.

 

[Hope4Now]

I just came home from dinner with my mother. I am finding it very very hard to believe what my gut and my fragments of memory are telling me. Completely surreal. I feel like I am a character in the show "once upon a time". I feel like I must be a completely delusional and twisted person.

 

[Pietro]

OK, so I'm not the only one. ;) I've had experiences like that as well.

 

[Hope4Now]

No, you're not the only one. What you wrote in your diary resonated with me.
It's like there's some shadow of something in my consciousness that just doesn't line up with what I know about my reality. And because I don't KNOW for sure, I feel like I must have some sick imagination. And yet, some of the clues about my behavior and feelings as a young kid seem to match up. I don't know. My parents messed so with my sense of what was real and true at any given time that who knows. I'm trying really hard to just let it all be and let the pieces come together in their own time, but they keep battering me. I don't actually know if I really want to know. But at the same time, I can't stand this persistent stuff that won't let me be.

 

[Pietro]

It's like there's some shadow of something in my consciousness that just doesn't line up with what I know about my reality. And because I don't KNOW for sure, I feel like I must have some sick imagination.

Yes, "shadow" is a good word. I'm far enough along now, though, to know that this is not some fantasy or made-up pipe-dream. I don't know what happened, but something happened.

My parents messed so with my sense of what was real and true at any given time that who knows.

That's terribly sad. One of the worst things a parent can do. I don't know if my parents did that; haven't thought much about it. I guess they did though, because of the way they acted towards me, and given my behavior as an adult.

I'm trying really hard to just let it all be and let the pieces come together in their own time, but they keep battering me.

For me, that's what all the haunting has been. I'm just constantly barraged with "pieces".

I don't actually know if I really want to know.

Sometimes I think that as well. I laugh, now, when I think about when I first started with this stuff, and tried to convince my therapists to "dig it out", whatever it was -- it couldn't be that bad, right? I mean, nothing bad happened to me. ;) I've seen the silhouette of the monster within and it has frightened me into reconsideration of this pursuit, at times. But not for long.

I'm trying really hard to just let it all be and let the pieces come together in their own time, but they keep battering me.

 

[Hope4Now]

I laugh, now, when I think about when I first started with this stuff, and tried to convince my therapists to "dig it out", whatever it was -- it couldn't be that bad, right? I

Yeah, I said to my therapist the other day, "I mean, geez, why am I blocking stuff out. It was a long time ago. They're just memories." And I meant it. Or at least part of me did. To his credit, he didn't smile. He reminded me that it's the emotional part of memories that is so powerful. Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. The horrible nauseous feeling in my belly, the vertiginous sense that I'm falling into a black hole, the screaming pain in my side and pelvis and legs...are going to transform into their emotional equivalents? Wow, I have that to look forward to. Thanks a lot mom and dad.

Actually, at this point, I think I would welcome a bit more emotion. I just can't cry. My inner children can't either. I know I would feel better if I could.