Strange Star

[Hope4Now]

PTSD has to be one of the most confusing things I've ever encountered. How can things be so different from moment to moment? Yesterday, I got up at 5, drove 2 hours to an all-day professional development for educators thing that I am collaborating on with two other groups, drove 1.5 hours home, took my mother out for dinner, did her grocery shopping, came home at 9 and watched Ken Burns's The Roosevelts and then went to sleep. I was basically fine all day...even the pain levels were down around a 2 or 3. I felt kind of "normal" whatever that means. But I also knew it wouldn't last because I was pushing myself too hard. I felt normal because this is what I always used to do...go go go... I was on hyperdrive. What stinks is that I know enough now about my system to know that I was not my "self." Argh.

Had a restless night and woke up this morning feeling really scrambled. Stayed scrambled most of the day. But I managed to get to work. I haven't missed a day yet, and this is week three in a very stressful situation. I am exquisitely relieved that it is Friday and I don't have anywhere to be or any obligations to fulfill (just drove my daughter's friend home, put the dog to bed, and said goodnight to kids...husband is in VT). So, here I am on The Forum.

Today in my therapy session we discussed (as planned) the idea of me going on some sort of medication. This has been an occasional topic since I consulted with a psychiatrist a few months back. On Monday, I decided I was ready to try something, as nervous as I am about it. I think that the intensity of my "stuff" is just too much for me at this point. I don't think I can live like this over the long-term, nor do I think most of my relationships are likely to survive if I try. It is just too overwhelming. And this complex trauma processing stuff seems to be long-term. Argh. My therapist and the psychiatrist thought that I needed to do some sessions to make sure all my "parts" were "willing" to try medication. So...we'll see...it may be a while before I actually start on anything. It did make me feel a bit better that my therapist said that most people with trauma of the complexity of mine do take meds to help.

I was intrigued when he talked about the complexity of my trauma/me. This is not the first time he has mentioned this. I suppose I am still getting used to the idea that I actually am traumatized. There are still parts of me that do not believe it. But it is starting to feel a bit more real to me. It's still like a nightmare that spills over into the day...I still have a hard time connecting the recovered fragmented memories and the actual memories to me now. In fact, that's one of the hardest things. I know, intellectually, that my memories are experiences I had as a child, but it is hard to connect them to who I am now. I think this is why I have such terrible flashbacks and get all mixed up with these hurt child parts of myself. It's like those child parts are insisting that I accept what happened by making me re-experience it. Again and again and again. And I have this sense, this dread, that there is still more to come. That I've only started.

It makes me hope that the idea of karma is true. That maybe my job is to sort out all this mess now so that the next life will be more peaceful. Catie Curtis has a great song called Galileo about this...it makes me laugh. There's a line that says something like, "But then again it's an inspiration to let the next life off the hook...look what I did in my last life...maybe I'll write a book." Except, I want to sort my stuff out in this life...in MY life...AND write a book. (Well, at least sort out my stuff).

I am getting very scrambled up again with some of my child parts so I must stop here lest I begin writing like my frightened 3-year old with whom I have spent a great deal of time recently. She is completely stuck in one particular memory that is on repeat.

I am going to try to go to sleep and be compassionate with myself/all these parts. I am, intellectually, a synthesizer and creator. It is what I do for work, and it is how I think. I hope this inclination serves me well as I continue in therapy...I hope I can synthesize all these parts into a less fragmented whole...glue myself back together as it were...and create myself anew. I'm not so sure I can, but I'm going to keep trying for a while longer. The dark, give-it-up part I call Hopeless is always there, but I'm not ready to stop trying yet.

 

[Hope4Now]

It's Sunday. I'm still really scrambled up inside. I'm not sure what is actually happening to me. I've gotten pretty good at identifying parts of myself by linking them with physical/emotional states. But yikes...it's like a whole bunch of parts are there all at once and none of my strategies are working very well.

It's not really that it's awful; it's just very confusing and exhausting. I start doing something, then I find I'm doing something else. Like I had the intention of going downstairs to get another cup of coffee this morning, but then ended up doing a half-dozen random things. It was an hour before I actually remembered I wanted coffee. Then I'm in a flashback. Then I'm doing something else. Very disorganized. Yesterday I went to bed for 2 hours to try to sleep and see if that helped. It didn't. I ended up in an intense flashback, then kind of shut down. Managed to drag myself out of it and go to a lecture/cocktail party last night and acted pretty normal (I think), but the whole time I was freaked out because I had this sense I was hugely obese and ugly and that people wanted to avoid me. Of course, they didn't. I know these people. I talked with them...made plans with some to get together...yet all the time it felt like alternate reality, like it was not true. It is so weird.

Then I came home and was in excruciating pain. Trying to fight off more flashbacks, trying to be present to my husband who had some important things he wanted to share with me. So I fought the flashbacks but they came out anyway in my body and the pain. So I could talk to him and listen to him but at the same time my body was shaking and moving. And of course it didn't help at all that what he wanted to talk about was very hard for me...an issue we have been dealing with in our relationship for a long time and that I am really conflicted about and don't quite know how to deal with.

Had another bizarre anxiety and shame dream last night. About pizza (LOL!) Left me feeling more confused than ever. Today I'm scrambled. Took Ativan this AM to see if I could fend off the extremes I've been having and that started to hit the moment I woke up. So far it has quelled the extremes, but I'm just all mixed up...cognitively, emotionally, even physically (I keep walking into things, tripping, dropping things).

 

[Pietro]

Ideally, we could avoid the medications; but doing so means that the lows of trauma processing can get very low, as you well know. The medication allows the ability to function a little better in the world, while still working-on trauma processing. It does seem to be a very long-term process, so the easier we can make it, the better. :)

 

[Hope4Now]

Ok...am feeling very selfish because I'm fried by all the stuff going on in my external life. Both kids are on crutches. I'm in the waiting room while my daughter is getting a boot. Nothing serious for either kid...sprained MCL and Achilles tendenitis...but after 2 docs and 2 specialists...and lots of PT appointments upcoming, I'm tired already and behind at work. Last night I found out my mother-in-law is having a hip replaced in two weeks, and my step-mother-in-law is having heart surgery next week. I also discovered that my niece who has aspergers never actually earned her high school diploma even though she "graduated" and everyone is looking to us to figure out what to do about her.

I don't even have the energy to scream "stop!" I just want to crawl into a dark hole and disappear.

I had a sucky appointment with my therapist today. A waste of time for both of us. I am so scrambled up we couldn't do any work. He kept asking questions and I kept saying "I don't know." I really don't know. The despairing part is threatening to take over.

I don't understand why I cannot seem to make any progress in trying to process even one memory. Every time, some other part comes up and gets in the way. So I'm just stuck in this endless miserable loop of
Hideous flashback followed by exhaustion and shutdown followed by self-excoriation for being unable to manage any of this in a way that let's me move forward.

Ok enough ranting I guess. It didn't ale me feel better.

 

[Eleanor]

I don't understand why I cannot seem to make any progress in trying to process even one memory

Both kids are on crutches.... lots of PT appointments upcoming, I'm tired ... and behind at work. my mother-in-law is having a hip replaced in two weeks, and my step-mother-in-law is having heart surgery next week. my niece who has aspergers never actually earned her high school diploma even though she "graduated" and everyone is looking to us to figure out what to do about her.

Um, Hope? Might the former have something to do with the latter?

Perhaps some bit of yourself has dug in her heels and said "Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof!" Sensible, I'd say.

Wish the bit that kept throwing up the memories would take a break tho.:blackeye::nailbiting::sour:

 

[Hope4Now]

Thanks, Eleanor. It is nice to have a response. And you're right...the external stress leaves me fewer reserves to deal with the internal stuff...and vice versa too. I am so incredibly out of balance.

Wish the bit that kept throwing up the memories would take a break

Yes, I do too. The flashbacks (or whatever one calls them) of this particular bit come regularly and leave me feeling both re-traumatized and profoundly needy, but also ridiculous because I know it happened in the past. I'm just fried from being stuck in this loop that's been going on since the beginning of August. And I feel so terrible that I'm so exhausted and self-involved that there's not much left over of me to be present to other people in my life who need me.

Today, my enneathought of the day (from this nice little service the Enneagram offers that is eerily attuned to my life), said:
As you become more balanced and grounded in your body, let your impressions of others and of the world around you affect you—let the world in. You will not lose yourself; you will gain the world. (Wisdom of the Enneagram, 228).
Sigh. My problem actually is that when I let others and the world in, I DO lose myself. I get overwhelmed.

I am having another terrible day. The usual duality of inner and outer life. I seem to be able to perform the motions of outer life semi-okay, pushing through to get done what needs to get done. But the internal stuff is in outrageously chaotic mode. The internal spills into the external through all my weird physical stuff...pain, skin rashes, itching, shaking, involuntary body movements. This has all been going on for the past 2 1/2 hours. I actually cried in the car all the way to work, and I'm still shaking. That rarely happens and tells me I'm in particulary crisis-y mode today. Hoping I can manage to contain it all through the five meetings I have scheduled and just get through the afternoon PT appointment and the birthday dinner for my mother-in-law.

I wish someone could wave a magic wand over me so that the pall of hopelessness and sadness and fear might clear away and allow me to experience the joy and energy and love I know surrounds me. I wish I could break out of this inner prison. But it doesn't seem that's going to happen. I guess I need to decide whether I can actually live in this state for the long term because nothing I do does much to relieve it.

Ugh. Sorry such a dark post. I am dark and confused today. Feeling completely powerless. A failure. Defeated. Useless even to myself.

 

[Hope4Now]

Still scrambled mostly. Feel like I'm back to where I was a year ago with all sorts of intrusions and pain and involuntary movement and voices in my head. At least I know what it is all about now. I just don't know how to fix it. I suppose that is some sort of "progress," but it actually makes me even more miserable. I'm so bored with contemplating my self/selves.

I had a clearish moment this morning. Stayed home late to write in my journal a bit and try to sort some things out before I go back to my therapist tomorrow. I wasted the last appointment just saying, "I don't know..." and feeling very alienated and despairing and disgusted at being so self-involved when there are so many other people in the world (and in my family too) suffering far more than I am.

I did come to some little bit of clarity while I was writing, however. I wrote a lot about an experience I had many years ago when attempting my first and grossly over-challenging attempt at rock climbing in the Peak District in England. It was a terrifying experience that is a perfect trope in so many ways for what I'm experiencing emotionally now. I was with a group. I was harnessed. I made it 2/3rds of the way up the cliff face, then froze, shaking and absolutely terrified to move. I could not reach out with either hand for another hold, nor could I give in and let my fellow adventurers lower me. I was irrationally terrified that I would die either way. Terrified that there would be nobody there to catch me when I fell. Even though I knew, rationally, there was.

It's the same now. I live in a state of perpetual, if subtle and semi-conscious, terror. Forever on guard against impending disaster, harm, and death. Terrified that if I let go, there will be nobody there to catch me in my emotional free-fall. In order to escape, I need to "let go" in one way or another. Either give up and choose to die, or find the courage to let go and reach for the next hand or foothold that is out there somewhere out of my awareness. Terrified of the fall. All because somewhere along the progression of my life I developed the belief that I am incapable of catching myself. That I do not belong in this world. That I am wrong as a person. That I am not only unloveable, but revolting. Too much for anyone including myself to handle.

For almost a year now I have been mustering up the courage to reach out for the next hand or foothold, but every single time is a major crisis of fear. I can't see where I'm going, and I can't see or believe there's any safety net out there. All irrational, but all very, very real at the same time. And the fear is not just emotional...it is a real, physical experience of a sort of bracing frozen-ness.

If it weren't so miserable to be stuck in this scrambled up place where I am, I would find it all quite fascinating...how our psyches create apparent realities that are mismatched to our actual physical existence in the world. It's an ontological nightmare.

 

[Eleanor]

((((((((((Hope)))))))))

I'm sorry it is just a rough road for you. Wish I had something to help. Sending calming energy....

 

[Hope4Now]

Thank you (belatedly) @Eleanor for your calming energy.

I continue to be pretty scrambled up. Still managing to get to work, but things have decompensated some this week, and it scares me that I'm going down the same road as last year when I continually "gave in" to the emotional overwhelm and missed a tremendous amount of work time.

I am trying very, very hard to stay focused on what I need to do on the "outside" without disconnecting from the inside stuff. It is difficult. So hard that I actually took the leap and called my therapist yesterday. Yesterday I was cycling between intense memory stuff (not quite flashback but close) and dealing with various people who needed my guidance at work. It was a bizarre experience. One moment, I am three years old and stuck in a horrifying situation, then the next moment I am helping a colleague design a graduate course...or running a meeting...or writing a proposal...the cycle must have happened twenty times. I did it, but was constantly afraid I couldn't do it. When I described this cycling (which has been going on for weeks), my therapist sounded surprised. Which made me realize what a tiny little bit of my day-to-day experiences I actually share with him.

I also realized that a big part of this "work" on myself I'm doing is learning how to just "be" with the horribleness of it all without freaking out about it. I hope that as I begin to process some of this stuff--especially this one bit that part of me seems to be stuck in--it will release some of the intensity. I still don't quite get what "processing" it means. We've only done a little in therapy sessions...have to go so slowly. But I'm trying to sustain my hope and not give in to the hopeless parts of me.

 

[Eleanor]

That sounds well and truly exhausting. I feel tired just reading it. And I am terribly terribly impressed that you can pull of that trick of cycling in and out. Yowza.

What processing has been for me (and it is of a seriously lesser degree of severity - but for what it might be worth) is being willing to feel and stick with whatever is up, and at the same time staying present enough that I maintain awareness of the now. My T said this week that for most everyone a big emotion takes 2-22 minutes of focused concerted feeling to shift the energy. Whatever that means.

I hope your T can help you stay grounded and get totally present again after doing some processing of this old stuff. The little Hopes need nurturing too that the adult you can give. It works. Strangely enough in my opinion, but it works.

 

[Hope4Now]

I am terribly terribly impressed that you can pull of that trick of cycling in and out. Yowza.

I have always been quite skilled at this--it was a survival skill even as a young child. Better put on a happy face and be helpful and obedient because if you don't, there's no telling what the consequences might be...pretty random...very confusing. Probably would have been easier if my parents' responses had been more predictable! (Well, I guess that depends on which responses...). Anyway, what flipped me out most about last year was my seeming inability to shift when I needed to. I seem to have recovered some of that.

Thank you for describing the processing. I just cannot wrap my head around it. I think I will be doing some of it in about an hour. What you describe is what we have been working on in little bits...we go really slowly because it is very difficult for me to stay present AND feel the feelings. I do feel bits of energy shift sometimes--it's an actual physical sensation I get--very predictable, and I've grown to like what it feels like. I think it's me actually feeling my brain rewiring itself! I just wish it could move a little faster, and that I had a lot more support of people around me when I'm trying to feel the feelings...so hard to do alone. Wish I had a posse of gentle safe people to travel around with me and hold me here when I start falling into the black hole. But I suppose I'm the one that has to learn how to do that for myself. It is such lonely work.

The little Hopes need nurturing too that the adult you can give. It works. Strangely enough in my opinion, but it works.

This is the part I'm totally stuck on. The little Hopes need nurturing desperately, but they don't seem to want it from me. Or I don't know how to give it (You'd think this would be a no-brainer...I am an incredibly nurturing mother to my children...I love babies and children...my sister-in-law calls me the "baby whisperer" because I can calm down distraught babies and kids.) Why I can't do this for my own inner children is truly a mystery to me. Do you have any tricks you use?

 

[Hope4Now]

So...I have an idea for a new career path for trauma therapy for the future...someone who is both a massage therapist and a trauma therapist. I sit with my psychotherapist trying to deal with things and feel the desperate need for physical contact (hello attachment issues) but can't have it because it's still so fraught with so many things that therapists worry about it. I go to get a massage, and all kinds of traumatic experiences bubble to the surface (neck=3 year old experience; foot=7 year old experience; etc.) but I can't talk about them and if I did, the therapist would have little training to know how to respond in a way that would help me process the traumatic stuff that comes up. It's like a catch-22...I can't feel safe and grounded with my trauma t without the touch; and I can't feel safe and grounded with the massage t without the ability to talk about the memories and feelings that are coming up. I need the touch to help me stay grounded; I need the talk to help me process. Wish I could meld these two processes into one person to help me!

All that said, I had a "good" session with my therapist today. All about my very fearful part that is slowing things down so much with trying to process childhood stuff. My weekend work: teach this part to see me as I am now, and to recognize my courage, and that I have not been annihilated by experiencing things that have terrified me in my adult life. That I am strong enough and courageous enough to process the stuff that happened to me when I was very young. Hmmm. I managed to do some of this in the office with him today. Not sure I can do it on my own. We'll see.