Sufferer Fragile today and new. childhood trauma, csa, dv.

[mumstheword]

I had a great night with my beautiful friends. All of which have been struggling lately, to greater and lesser degrees. We are learning to be authentic, vulnerable, honest and FUN together, so all in all, very soul-making.

Unfortunately Macy Gray missed her plane so the music part didn't happen but we walked on the beach and got our feet wet in the ocean.

I had a major realization too, earlier that evening, when I missed my bus and had to hitchhike to meet up with them. It's complex and profound so I'll need to go into it when I've gathered myself and right now, i need to sleep. But it was a major breakthrough and certainly, quite facilitated by stuff I've been reading on this site.
Thank you!
i had fun!
I'm sorry I didn't even acknowledge what you had shared with me about your daughter, before. That sounds incredibly heart-wrenching and impossibly painful, but also very soul-making. Our children have the deepest effect on us, certainly in my own experience. To lose a child though wooooh, man that's tough!
I have a disabled son and that has been one of life's biggest challenges and stresses. I nearly lost him as a baby but he has hung in there and although he has need of constant care and has cognitive impairment, he is living a pretty good fulfilling life.

I've lost relationship with my children and that was incredibly painful enough, i can't imagine the pain of out living a child and to lose them as a child . But I can imagine it would be excruciating.

My miscarriages were certainly very emotionally painful and physically depleting, but in some ways I am relieved, because I'm not sure our situation is the best for a child right now. We are both struggling and impaired in many ways but there is still much love and hope for better days.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

@mumstheword :hug:
SO GLAD to hear that you had a good time with friends... And to walk on the beach getting to have the water washing over your feet... To me that would be very healing.

It's kind of a metaphor for grief as well... The way the water flows in and out... Washing off the sand and rolling back out again. Thank you for your kind words about my daughter. I like your words, "soul-making." You really described how my experiences with her deeply changed my soul and made me who I am today!

I was very blessed to have my 2 biggest prayers answered when she passed. We knew at her birth, that she would not live a long life. I had prayed that when she died, she would be in my arms, and that it would happen quickly. Those were pretty big requests under the circumstances, but those things enabled me to heal...Not exactly easier, but with more surity that I did the best I could.

Having a disabled child changes one's perspective in a way like no other. It's sounds like you have handled it as well as possible.

You have a remarkably obvious zest for love and life... Which may seem like it is lagging right now, but you have an enlightened soul and that is a saving grace! In spite of what life has thrown you...You still have hope in love and life!

Keep up the good work! I would LOVE to hear about your breakthrough! (I think being at the ocean is a magnificent experience!) How could one NOT find peace and solace in that beautiful place?

(I live in the middle of the USA and beaches are far, far away... But I have been there a few times. Walking on the edge of the ocean is one of my favorite things to do!)

(((Hugs))) and Blessings to you!

 

[mumstheword]

Thank you for the kind words and thoughts @AngelkeeperJ/AKJ :-) i left my phone at another friend's place on Saturday after an amazing time dancing and debriefing on our respective DV and multiple traumas and recovery and I just got it back.
So much is happening on a deep inner level for me, real completion and acute symptoms all at the same time.
My time without a phone and any way to distract myself with technology was interesting. I wrote a couple of poems and a song. A song I plan to launch my new musical career/persona/project with and it's a bluesy gospel number or a gospelly bluesy number called My Baby's Gone.
So my healing and movement out of this contracted "crazy lady in the attic" place is happening!
In reference to the "crazy lady in the attic" I don't know if you've read Jane Eyre but I'm reading the prequel to that book by another author, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys for uni and it's very triggery. Basically it's about how Mr Rochester, Jane Eyre's romantic interest, comes to have a "crazy lady in the attic" his Creole wife. It describes his gaslighting and cold withholding of love towards her and it's like the writer has met my ex.
So I'm calling that part of me that is a PTSD mess by that name and while I am still living in the same town as my ex, for my children, i feel I am still confined to the attic and I know I need to change that dynamic

. I need to try call my sweetheart again because I still haven't gotten through yet, since I got my phone back, so I'll stop now and come back and maybe try describe my "breakthrough" realizations and respond more.

 

[mumstheword]

So I will try to encapsulate what went through my mind with the breakthrough and it might not sound like much, but given how utter crap I was feeling at the time, and how such a realization shifted that, it felt pretty huge to me.
I realized firstly that i was carrying such a lot of shame and sense of unworthiness and utterly low self worth, that it was causing me to want to be hidden, because I wasn't worthy to be seen. I realized I pin a lot of self worth on achievements and my last year and a half had been marked by failures to achieve my goals.

I had a miscarriage, I got triggered in my community work, my mental health peer support volunteer work and i bailed on that. I got pregnant again, i barely passed a welfare unit at uni and got really triggered by that ( I have become accustomed to credits and distictions, these are much higher grades than a barely passed).

I got pregnant again and lost the baby at 4 months gestation, but it turned out it died at 3 months but I had a horrible time trying to get help in finding out what was wrong, so I carried a dead baby around for a month.

I lost the next at 3 months and between that I was starting to lose the plot and got so unwell I couldn't study or really function.

So my year has been marked by many failures and loss of functionality and i realized I pin all my worth on doing things for others and being outwardly successful and this year being such an unsuccessful year in multiple ways had me feeling like I was nothing and nobody and unworthy to even be seen.

Realizing I hadn't been attributing intrinsic worth to myself made me aware that I was applying my trauma-induced cognitive distortion lens to my sense of self worth and that I needed to value myself regardless of my functionality or worldly successes or ability to serve others. I, and everyone, has intrinsic value and worth and although I could recognize others are intrinsically valuable, I had failed to give that same validation to myself. So once I could see that clearly, it was like I owned it and could place it where I wanted to, rather than that distorted view of myself controlling and running me, if you know what I.mean. Does that make sense?

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

Wow!!! You have made some AWESOME progress!!! It is SO AWESOME that you are able to channel your feelings in poetry and songs!!!

 

[mumstheword]

Wow!!! You have made some AWESOME progress!!! It is SO AWESOME that you are able to channel your feelings in poetry and songs!!!

You are so lovely to me @AngelkeeperJ/AKJ I tried to reply on the profile thread but I'm still clunky and unsure of how it works and so I'm back here. In regards to poetry and song, that has been my go-to coping mechanism for so long now. I got into uni because of my history as a musical performer. Luckily, because I was severely unwell with the PTSD (undiagnosed at the time) as a teen and didn't even finish high school.

I am going back shortly, hence the reading of triggery novel, getting a head start for a writing unit in summer session. Yes it's spring here, on the opposite side of the globe to most of you. I will be starting music units next year as I've finally gotten the courage to go study music. So it is an Arts degree with a double major of creative writing and music.

My brain wasn't working too well earlier in the year, what with pregnancy brain, two of my children being suicidal (they had been living with their father who twists brains and gaslights) and my son with the disabilities was being manipulated and losing functionality because his dad decided he needed full control of him again, after I had done a lot of work to get him supported accommodation and a brilliant day program.

Luckily all the services and I worked together to limit Dad's influence and ensure sons safety and he is out of danger now. My other sons left home too, so things have eased up.

I wanted to write on the profile thread, in reply that I feel quite shy and unworthy to start a trauma diary yet. A lot of my early life is blanked out, I truly don't remember what started my terror and slide into traumatized brain/body so I feel kind of unworthy to start the diary.

I think I need some regression therapy. My parents aren't much help, I get snippets of story, like "my mum was a bit catatonic and psychotic when my dad left me in her care" and " some guy mum was living with fed me magic mushrooms on toast when I was 3 and a half" but nothing to account for my hyper genital awareness or my reoccurring nightmares, or the spellbinding shaking and all night terror if I woke up alone, as a small child.

So I feel silly starting a diary with such big chunks of my life missing that are evidently crucial pieces of my very early development of traumatized brain/body.

I feel like a shy, unsure-of-myself new kid. But having said that, I'm kinda happy with the start I've made here. I am able to really galvanize myself into some recovery action with the support and knowledge I've gained here, so it's a big huge THANK YOU ALL! To everyone that makes up this site. Lots of love and gratitude from me.:-)

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

I do know about being shy with posting. It took me a while to even post...

I also feel that SO many people have suffered much more than me! But when it comes to trauma and our upbringing... The resulting aftereffects are what matters the most

Many, many people have HUGE gaps in their memories just like you... And me....
Everyone's diaries are different, and I think you are already doing it...

Congrats on the future music pursuits, AND having your children on a more even keel...

YOU ARE A SURVIVOR!!!!!:hug:

 

[mumstheword]

Welcome!

Thank you Eva :-)
I am just so grateful for finding you all.
I'm in a funny place, I've come so far but it's like I had to run for my life for so much of this journey, and now I've kind of collapsed half way. Looking around for ways to rebuild my energy while I stay hidden in hostile terrain. I do have a friend here but he's got a lot of baggage and not-so-healthy coping strategies. Lucky to have him though, I think this friendship saved my life.
Writing and connecting is a saviour too.
I'm only half zombiefied, at this point.
Thank you for being here though, it's life changing for me :-)

I do know about being shy with posting. It took me a while to even post...

I also feel that SO...

Thank you once again sweet Angelkeeper! :-)

Yes surviving was and is an imperative.
With children who I am responsible for bringing in, and a yearning to experience empowered, unencumbered, gracious Life.

i just couldn't really, seriously entertain the alternative.
It's such a great struggle though!

I'm finally starting to really open to people and I so want to share Who I Truly Am, and my life, with all its scrappy, messy, bloody, straggley, triumphant and impaired glory.

Such a lot of fear-freeze and hide habit- reaction to break free from though.

I've been in a long -winded collapse mode for some time too and I now feel like a recovering invalid.

But although my home is very far from an ideal recovery space, I'm now creating one in my mind and focusing on the points of safety in my life. So precious, so life-giving.

Thank for for sharing some of your very touching and heart-rendering story about your child's life and death. I felt very moved and humbled by it. You are obviously an amazing, courageous and awesome survivor yourself :-)
Yes, the music and children are really what's been my biggest motivator and impetus and focus(es) for not being a complete shattered, trampled and declining mess-of-a-f*cked-up-human being. I feel halfway human and more so day-by-day :-)

 

[mumstheword]

Yup. Unfortunately, many here very much know what you speak of. Fortunately, we have this s...

It is remarkably unfortunate, isn't it?
It feel so twisted to be comforted that people have gone through equally as gruesome, horrifying life-threatening and debilitating things as I have, but that is my reality.
My partner has had childhood abuse and group targeting and persecution, a near fatal stabbing in the neck at 18, his first long-term live-in girlfriend stabbed to death in a nightclub, a home invasion that left him so close to death the hospital left him to die (bashed severely now has brain damage) and two narcissistic exs tried to kill him and took his children away from him (he got two in his care later on though, I've helped raise one) but he is my bestest friend in the whole world and without his support and understanding I don't think I would be still standing, coz when he met me I was nearly spent. So it's such a cruel irony that the people who've been treated the absolute worst, actually make me feel the best (that I've felt with anyone). Such a strange, strange reality to live in, but there you have it.

 

[anonymous]

Well done, @mumstheword !!! You are really good with words, and the way you are telling "your story!"

A more about your "Profile" page... There is a "word count", since a lot of people might choose to write more about their journey than that area is made for. I am hoping that I am "showing you around" as if I were showing you around my "home." After a while, some people may stop to read your diary and offer thoughts and encouragement, as it can be a place to get to know you.

I never know exactly what makes me reach out to certain people... I just try to relate in a compassionate and loving way. You have "captured" my attention because of your eloquently expressed grief, growing, and your desire to heal in the best way possible.

It is wonderful to read that you are realizing that you found your value and worth in what you did, versus who you are. It is SO necessary to realize that who we are is SO much more important than what we do.

It took me a LONG time to get to that point...
(BTW... I think I might be the site's most long winded poster!) But no one has ever complained) I find it difficult to express what is on my heart in just a few

Oh, Geez!!!! I accidentally checked the "anonymous" box! I wrote the above post...
AKJ

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

Hello again... I found out how to fix it so you know I wrote the above post... I have made sure to UN-CHECK the "Anonymous" box.

Lol... You would think I would would know more after being a member for 6 years... But I am still learning.

Staff is really good at solving issues when you create a "Help Ticket".

Hugs and Blessings to YOU!!!:hug:

 

[mumstheword]

Thank you once again lovely Angelkeeper :-) You keep boosting me up and it is doing wonders for my recovery :-)
I am feeling SO much better than i have in quite a while :-)
My special friend returning has had a very positive effect, as has drawing on, sharing with, and learning from this website.

It too me a very long time to get clear about my diagnosis and what was actually going on with my health and sanity.

I thought I had bipolar, I was also suffering from eating disorder/anorexia for many years. Then I copped a borderline personality disorder label but although I have certainly had traits and behaviours associated with that, it really doesn't fit, overall, as I am SO invested in being accountable, being kind, being honest and working on my recovery.

So it is very comforting to find a site, such as this, where my issues are so parallel to others, and there is so much hope, honesty, courage and kindness.:-)