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hello bee. welcome to the forum. i did my formal therapy before emdr coalesced, but that feeling of exhaustion accompanied every single one of my therapy breakthroughs, no exceptions. i took it as a positive sign that i was reaching the deepest wounds. i process far more deeply during sleep...

posilutely i experience this. still. i've been retired from tech since 1995 and i still experience the burnout from the grind of daily life. most recently i started my second parenting career with three orphans, ages 6, 3 and 8 months when the tragedy struck. seeking balance helps me through...

i don't believe there are absolutes to triggers. each one is a bit different and even repetitive triggers can lead different places in each go-round.

i choose not to cure it. i train it. i view it as as natural as breathing and highly beneficial when i use the natural gift well. in 2012 i attended an ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) workshop. "mindfulness" was a base tenant of this workshop. "reframing" was one of the suggested tools...

empathy, chrysalis. i had a heavily abused older brother who was exactly 4 years and one day older than i. not too many healthy, well-balanced 4 year boys want to share their birthdays with a brat baby sister. a heavily abused child acting out can have a younger sibling terrified of their...

i was gaslighted from birth, both literally and figuratively. the literal gaslighting was in child pornography. the term, "gaslighting" was coined in the theater arts in the day when stages were lit with gas lights. in the lighting technology of the 60's, when i did my child porn tour, there was...

back in the 70's, before "community service" became a court mandated penalty, community service was a critical piece of my recovery. it bolstered my self esteem and helped the world grow bigger than my own regrettable circumstances. most of my community service has been with foreign and...

long before the orphans, i have actually gone off grid and lived in the wilderness. alas, my humanity asserted itself, even there. i started accepting the facts of my dna around the time the animals started singing disney tunes. whatever my opinion of the facts, i is what i is and i ain't what i...

as much as i wish i was a grizzly, or whatever my cross-species fantasy of the hour is, it remains an obvious fact that i am human, like it or not. i still mostly hate that fact, but hate is like drinking poison and waiting for the fact to die. i've gotten as far as making my peace with that...

in my own case, it relates in the hyper vigilance and social anxiety which permeates my condition empathy, rose. i have undergone decades of psychotherapy and am still reluctant to take my place in the human genome. i would much rather be a grizzly bear. they get to sleep half the year and...

hello integra. welcome to the forum. u.s. veteran's day is next week. my foster daughter, 9, is badgering me to attend her elementary school's festivities to honor the veterans in their family. i am experiencing psychotic paralysis. the army quite literally saved me from the ravages of child...

welcome carson. it is nice to meet you. i hope you find stabilizing companionship here.

breathing with you, defau. one breath at a time. me. too, but ^it^ lives quite beyond words in my own case. breathing with you.

empathy, seeker. learning how to connect with others is no small feat after years of relying on isolation as a defense mechanism. learning about myself is one of the great bennies of inner work, but i trip myself every time i believe inner work teaches me about other people. learning about...

to my senses, one is cause, the other is effect. my ptsd causes hypervigilence, which causes anxiety and paranoia. just sensing. . . bigger fact is that this would be the first time i have pondered the distinction. i might think something different after i have thunkered the question a spell...

yes, therapy is hard, but for my psycho nickel, the gain of enjoying this glorious sunrise while the memories of long past trauma remain distant, unintrusive memories feels well worth the pain of undergoing the therapy. i, absotively, wished for an easier way during those early sessions. today...

empathy. i have paved far more roads to hell with my good intentions than i have solved problems. in hindsight, i believe this is another byproduct of my trying too hard. my good intentions seem far more effective when i stay humble and come from the heart with minimal effort.

in my world, knitted patchwork sounds like plenty to live for. knitting is an art i have never mastered, but the attempts at mastery heightened my appreciation for the art. my most developed craft is clothing design and it has gotten me through many a long and lost night where i was just too...

empathy, luna. perfectionism, with all its hideous band wagon, is one of the meanest curses in my own life. it holds me back far more than any other factor in my life and culture. the good news is that simple awareness allows me to manage that gnarly beast most days. i am learning how to risk...

welcome moose. may you find stabilizing companionship here.

hello chrysalis. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here but glad you are here. chrysalis has been one of my longest running meditations on my own recovery from child sex trafficking. the parable of the emperor moth is a particular fave. in the early meditations, i easily believed...

hello chocolate. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here but glad you are here. my regrettable herstory with this phenom is so long and pronounced that i call it, "normal for me." i hold it as good news that, at 71 years old, i no longer have the energy to make it to other...

as a child sex trafficking survivor, my perps were plural and cross-gender. my own experience was in the 60's, early 70's before all the sexual distinctions formalized, so man/woman covered the verbal bases of the day. the contemporary names had yet to coalesce, but i specialized in the "janes"...

wow, that's allot of opening up for one sitting. i feel like i am watching a flower bloom. empathy. with my own social anxiety, opening up always feel like more of a disaster than it ever truly is. even with breakthrough successes, my anxiety will still eat me alive and tell me what a disaster...

perfectionism remains one of my psycho bad girls. when my perfectionism ocd gets a hold on me, nothing in the world is perfect enough for me. i am the owner of all truth, so my definition of "perfect" is universal. there can be no peace on earth until all hail queen arfie's standards. sigh. . ...