Strange Star

[Hope4Now]

Thank you, @greenleaf! I've been off and on a few other things over the years with either no effect or bad effect (lexapro, zoloft, cymbalta). Didn't know I had PTSD then. The MD who's prescribing now is a hot-shot in the trauma treatment world who is very familiar with the type of psychotherapy I'm doing. I have high hopes that the meds can help me. We'll see. Have started on a micro-dose and am still early on so probably will not know the effects for a while. Glad you found something that worked for you. I hope I do not have to be on meds for the long-haul. But I suppose I'm willing if I must.

 

[Hope4Now]

I am glad it is the new year. Glad the days have begun to lengthen. Grateful that I've had a week plus of vacation. Glad that this weekend is not yet over. Glad that it is only 2:58 PM. Grateful that we have heat again in our house, and that I have warm clothes and a comfortable chair, and a computer. And that I ate food and enjoyed it without feeling nauseous. Grateful that for the second time in two weeks I slept through the whole night. Six hours straight.

Mostly, though, I'm grateful that through some conflation of somethings (perhaps the smudging ceremony we did on New Year's Eve, or the tiny little bit of Tai Chi I started), I've had all sorts of insights into myself, and I don't feel as afraid of what is happening to me as I used to. I suppose this could change, but I hope it doesn't. It's as if something has quieted in me. All the same symptoms are happening. All the same stuff is the same. But something shifted and it feels okay. I even know that it probably will not last. And I'm okay with that too.

And I'm feeling like maybe there is some possibility that I can transform as a person. That maybe I am transforming. Becoming the self I know I am somewhere under all the muck.

That maybe I can actually do some of the creative projects that zing around my head like ping-pong balls gone wild. That maybe I can actually have agency...and do them rather than just watching wistfully as they disappear from grasp. I wrote some of the ideas down. They don't seem either as glamorously creative and wonderful as they are when I picture them in my mind, nor as unachievable. Just creative projects I can do if I choose to.

As I'm writing this, I've realized what it is I'm feeling. It's an extremely unfamiliar feeling. Confidence. If this is a part, I'd like it to stay. But I think it's not. It's not the cocky, devil-may-care, daredevil part that showed up a while back. This feels more gentle and calm. I think maybe its me...the core self me peeping through the muck for a moment. Nice.

 

[Hope4Now]

The good bit is gone. Ugh. Hoped it might last longer than it did. I'm a bit messy tonight, but I managed to do a piece of creative work this afternoon. Printed 6 of my 115 photos as 8x10s. I can't believe why I was so freaked about doing this, why it makes me so nervous. Somehow when they're just on the computer in digital form, they don't seem real, like I took them and own them. Now that they're on paper, they're quite real. It's all very strange. Not sure what I thought would happen, but all but one came out really well. I was pretty excited for a bit. One of the first times in my life I've made something that I like looking at. Interesting. But now I feel rather sick and uncertain about it and everything else too. Am going to try to sleep.

 

[Hope4Now]

I'm not sure if it is the new meds, or the mindful movement, or that I am trending toward a little more sleep, or what. But something is shifting in my system. I don't know if it is good or not...oh, yeah, I'm not supposed to make value judgements...just to notice. Well, I'm noticing a hell of a lot, and it is scaring the s&*t out of the part of me that is deeply invested in being normal and flying under the radar. Have been very "messed up" for the past three days. I suppose it is dissociative stuff. It's like I decide to do one thing, then find myself doing something else. I'm kind of vaguely aware of the disjunction and it is deeply troubling. But it's as if my system gets tired of warring it out and just chooses one course of action. Then I find myself in that place (whatever it is...this week it was a) a sexual one, b) a big party for a neighbor, c) not going to work) and I'm saying to myself, "WTF?" how did I end up here. I ALWAYS feel like I should be somewhere else, doing something else. I NEVER feel like I belong right where I am. Yet some part is making the decisions. It is all very, very weird.

I want to be the kind of person who can know what I want and do it and feel good about it. Not have to be victimized by this sort of noisy war that never resolves anything. But I don't know what I want. I have all these bits of me that seem to want different things, and I am so tired from all of it.

I think I've been pretty disconnected from all of this stuff for my whole life. I kind of wish I could go back to that, even though it wasn't particularly nice. But at least then I thought I knew who I was. Or at least who I was supposed to be according to some vague notion I had constructed of what constituted an acceptable person. I worked at that my whole life. Now I'm just a jumbled up mess. I don't know who I am or what I want or how the hell I am meant to move forward from here.

Some bit of me insists that I am on the right path, finally. That as miserable and scary as this all is, maybe there is a way out of this prison I have constructed for myself that keeps me so lonely and scared all the time. I'm trying to listen to that bit. The intellectual part kind of agrees, given all it has read about what trauma does to people. But that part has no feeling...just thoughts...and it's the feelings that are the problem. The other part...the superpower part that has driven most of my life...insists that this is all a ridiculous overreaction...I'm making it all up...I've done this to myself...I have only myself to blame...I am weak, pathetic, shameful, horrible, worthless trash.

Sometimes I think I need to go away to some deeply therapeutic place for like a month so I can sort all this stuff out. I went to therapy appointment today all scrambled up. Part of me didn't want to go, but another part decided to go...told me that this is the whole reason I am in therapy anyway, so just go and let him know what's happening. So, I landed there. Had to stop several times on the drive over because so scrambled up, but I got there. Did movement stuff that helped settle all the physical shaking and movement down, but the second we stopped that, I started getting scrambled in my brain again. Didn't have to stay in the bathroom after for very long, but then ended up frozen in my car for half an hour. Was planning to go to work, but went home. Then was planning to do some writing, but landed in bed for a few minutes which turned into three hours. What a mess. Makes me hate myself that I can't seem to find a way to balance all this stuff.

So now, I've pulled myself together. We have a dinner party tonight. With people I actually really like. So part of me is looking forward to it, and part of me just wants to curl up under the blankets and disappear. And part of me is trying to think of interesting things to talk about so that I don't feel like a loser. So, I keep kind of moving on and doing stuff I'm supposed to...or not doing stuff I'm supposed to. I guess this is just life. I just wish it weren't so confusing all the time. I have to believe that there are some people who don't live like this. I want to be like them.

 

[Hope4Now]

I started to write something here around a dozen times in the past week or so, then deleted it. I have such a mixed relationship with this stupid diary. Maybe because it's so unclear whether it's a diary...which one doesn't really expect anyone to read...but also a post which means that one wishes people would read it and respond. I never know what I want.

I'm kind of coming unraveled. Has been happening for weeks. I think maybe it is a good thing, but it is also terrifying. My functional part(s)? which are mostly always in control at some level are very, very, very tired.

Things are starting to shift when I do meditation and/or mindful movement. There is still little emotion other than fear and shame, but my body has other things to say. Now, in addition to involuntary movements that have articulated into very specific defensive moves over the past year, there are facial expressions and noises and some words that come out unbidden. My awareness, which is pretty much outside my bodily experience, recognizes these as coming from exiled child parts that were traumatized. But I just don't seem to be able to connect up the experiences. I recognize the emotion, intellectually, but I just can't get there to let myself feel any of it.

Same with body awareness. I am trying so hard to "live" in my body. But it doesn't feel like mine. I feel like a disembodied consciousness. Which I know is impossible as consciousness is located in the brain. But that's what it feels like. Floats over and behind my right shoulder. I see most things from there. Body doesn't feel like it's mine. Feels like someone else is living my life. I don't know if I've written that here or not. I've been aware of this for a while now, and it freaks me out. Last night, I had just finished brushing my teeth and my husband came into the bathroom and stood behind me. I looked at us in the mirror, and was stunned to see that I am very much smaller than he is. It was the strangest experience. We've been married for 20 years, but I don't think I've ever looked at us together from this perspective. I "know" I'm smaller than he is, but I feel like I am enormous. So it was weird to have that kind of reality check. And even weirder that my perception and conception don't match up.

My therapist keeps saying I need to keep doing mindful breathing and movement. I know he's right. But it is hard to figure out what to be mindful about. Today he told me that my parts need to just keep seeing me "show up." I sort of know what this means, but I often cannot manage it. Am too scrambled up with parts to get to my core Self...

Oh, well. Am feeling pretty defeated tonight. Exhausted. Useless. Wishing for the feelings to pass. It's always so very difficult to figure out how much to just try to "be" with these feelings, and how much to push on and move into some other space. I know I need to feel my feelings. But my feelings often shut me down, so when I start to feel them, I have to shift into some other perspective so I can continue to function. After a year and a half of therapy, I still can't seem to move out of extremes...feel overwhelmed...feel nothing.

 

[Hope4Now]

Tonight, for the first time. I tried to explain to my husband what it is like to be me. With different parts. He listened sympathetically. He didn't understand at all. I don't know if I can ever explain this to anyone who doesn't experience it. Except some people here on the Forum who seem to have similar experiences. This is the only place where I feel like I am not completely out of my mind. It is so comforting to know that I am not the only person who experiences life this way. Thank you to @shimmerz, @Eleanor, @Chava, @greenleaf, @Kaia and all in the thread on Structural Dissociation that has helped me so much. I feel badly that I posted so much today. But also it was really helpful to me. Gave me courage to talk to my husband tonight. Maybe will be able to talk to my therapist about it when he gets back from his trip. I feel as if I have made a big step forward in healing in the past few days. At least it all seems like it is real to me now...have no clue how to proceed other than keep doing what I'm doing. But somehow things are really different now.

 

[Eleanor]

i m glad you felt confident enough to talk to your husband. And I hope the talk with the t goes well. When Pencil finally got me to look at SD and it just clicked for me and I talked to my husband... all the bits fell into an understandable order and it has been MUCH better since. It just.. makes sense. and makes it easier to be ourselves and be accepting of the oddnesses and discontinuities. It takes a lot of pressure off. I think he is now likely more integrated than I am . Ironic.

was stunned to see that I am very much smaller than he is

I had this experience with my mother once.. But she is the small one. I tought "God, I am as big as a horse!" It is still quite stunning the size difference. I have a very bad conception of my size I think. Strange.

 

[Hope4Now]

I had this experience with my mother once.. But she is the small one.

Size perception is a big (pun intended) issue for me. Most of the time, I perceive myself as enormous. I measured myself a while back one time and marked it on my closet. It is still very hard for me to believe I am the size I am.

On mothers and size perception, you might appreciate this from Jeannette Winterston's book, Why Be Happy if You Can Be Normal:

She is calling her mother, and she describes the experience: "She filled the phone box. She was out of scale, larger than life. She was like a fairy story where size is approximate and unstable. She loomed up. She expanded."

 

[Hope4Now]

I am really struggling with all this stuff. I think maybe it is progress, but my functional self is very freaked out in proportion with my emerging realizations of how really, really fragmented I am. That functional part is the one that torments me...or maybe that's a different part. I am trying to get back to that feeling of calm that I think was my discovery of my self energy earlier this week. I remember it but I can't get there. More parts are showing up more. My husband said he can see it happening now. I think maybe something has shifted in my system that my uber-self-control part has softened up somehow and is letting these other parts show themselves to me and to each other and...scary scary...to my husband.

I am very very lucky that we have had so many snow days. I would have missed a lot of work in the last two weeks because of all this stuff. That scares me. I'm not sure I will be able to continue working. I am utterly exhausted. And I am completely freaked out that parts are showing up when I'm not necessarily aware that it is happening. It happened last night at the pub. I had a wonderful night...walked to the pub through the snow with my family, met up with a bunch of friends there, saw a bunch of other neighbors and friends I hadn't expected to see, did lots of singing of Irish music. It was so warm and communal and celebratory...I have no idea if other people noticed how different I was, but I did not feel like myself at all. Said and did things that were fine, but not really like me.

Then later had really long intense conversation with my husband. This morning he talked about some of the things I'd said. I didn't remember saying them but then when he was explaining it, I had some foggy memory of it which has gradually resolved itself into clearer memory today. But I have been very shaky and feeling so odd all day. I'm sort of glad my therapy appointment was cancelled. I need to figure out a coherent way to explain to my therapist all that has happened over the past two weeks.

I don't know if I'm excited about all these changes, or terrified. Both/and I guess. I just don't know how to explain it to my therapist without getting all tangled up and incoherent.

 

[Eleanor]

Phobic, the articles all say. The ANP is phobic of the EP's in lots of cases. Not Freaking Out is very tiring indeed. Hurray for snow days!

I'm not teaching this semester - so I'm home all the time - which is lovely except if I'm not home By My Self ALONE, it seems very frustrating. Sigh.
Bouncing here and there and everywhere.

I think it is so amazing that you(s) went to the pub, and had a lovely time. And the not quite remembering all the things but then it clearing up a bit is very familiar to me. And from my H's experience I think it is a vital step in integrating, getting all the bits working together... So GOOD WORK!!!

 

[shimmerz]

But I have been very shaky and feeling so odd all day.

Yes. This. ^^^

 

[Hope4Now]

I'm home all the time - which is lovely except if I'm not home By My Self ALONE

:wacky: This made me laugh in great sympathy!

And the not quite remembering all the things but then it clearing up a bit is very familiar to me.

Really? That is somewhat comforting, I think. It freaks me out completely. Especially as I am one of those weird people with recovered memory of childhood abuse that I still find hard to believe. Makes me feel like I can't trust myself. I've lost my moorings. Funny I just wrote that, actually, about losing moorings because I realized that what I feel like today is what I feel like when I am sailing (which is not a pleasant experience for me but I drag myself along to do it every year).

And from my H's experience I think it is a vital step in integrating, getting all the bits working together... So GOOD WORK!!!

Thank you. This whole structural dissociation thing is still flipping me out.