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Piecing things together

My gut says keep the appointment and stop stalling out of guilt, fear and low self esteem.
I guess that you’re answering your own question here.

Guilt and fear (low self-esteem being a form of fear I think) aren’t very good advisers in life decisions. And yes, defo you can care and can care a lot and know your time is passed. It doesn’t take anything away from how good it was.

For your kid it is probably better to undergo a separation rather than being in an environment where things slowly rot, imho.

Honestly, the moment my parents signed the divorce paper came with relief. I had resentment too but the relief was really a lot more present.
 
Today was therapy day. My T is so great at creating safety. Something came up about feeling unsafe in my relationship and she helped me drop into a grieving part. This feeling of being a failure because I tried to find a safe person for a relationship and it feels like I failed to do that. Or maybe it's a grown up part feeling that I failed the vulnerable part that needed the safety.

And now I'm embodied with this intense grief. It's been hours now. It's progress and helpful but I hate how grief feels.

My T was asking how old this part is, what gender, what do they need from me, etc, and I started answering then I said I sound crazy and stopped. She recognized this was a different part coming forward and adjusted the session out of respect for that part feeling that the activity was not safe.

It is safe to have parts but it is not safe to talk about it. Talking about an insider who is 8 years old sounds ridiculous. Plus, my husband has made me feel like he thinks I'm crazy many times so it's hard to actually work with my crazy ish. I'm afraid of being found out. I'm afraid for other people to know how sick I really am.

I am also noticing that my general functioning has gone to shit the last few weeks. I am not on top of my game. I would love to take a leave of absence from work and do some intensive treatment in a relaxing environment. I don't see that happening.

It's like making space for all of myself including the more disorganized places has meant that my usual normal functioning self is not as firmly in control.

My T also led me through a guided meditation and she's right I know those tools but it was so nice to just be supported, to experience caring attention in service to my wellbeing. Just yesterday I was confronted with this strong urge to be taken care of, and then I had a chance to experience today.

Life is too hard. And my life isn't even that hard comparatively speaking. I feel selfish for finding my life difficult when things could be so much worse. I wish there was someone in my regular life (not my therapist) that would catch me if I fall. I'm so tired.

My T speaks about integration as a goal, but I feel like a fraud. I feel like I'm making up my parts. Or because I don't black out then they aren't real. I'm aware of the IFS model and the idea that everyone has parts. My T affirmed that my parts involve more fragmentation than the average person has in their parts. Ultimately treating the symptoms so I feel better matters more than what diagnosis I qualify for.

And maybe this is just another way to invalidate myself and make my needs small so I am not an inconvenience. Or don't have to face the disappointment and betrayal that one feels when they make their needs known and nobody gives a ish about it.
 
I am now wondering if I somehow have a new host self and that is why my functioning seems off. It's like I'm impersonating myself, without access to the same knowledge and procedural memory I usually have as my normal life self. I don't know how all of that works. I imagine you can't become a different ANP without knowing it.
 
So, I gave myself the MID. (You're not supposed to do that. If my dissociation involved blackouts, I would definitely not have done that.) I wanted a sense of whether I'm faking, trying to convince myself of something that isn't true, etc. A lot of my scores were between the PTSD and OSDD levels. The end result suggested unspecified dissociative disorder.

I love how safe my Therapist makes me feel. Nobody else in my entire life has worked that hard to be sure what we are doing is ok.

In other news, I posted on another website in a professional peer group and posted separately with the same account requesting advice about ADHD relationship stuff and because of that someone thought I must be posing as a professional vs actually being one and I was banned from the professional peer group pending proof that I do what I said I do. I provided said proof, and they told me that's all I needed to do to have the ban lifted..... It's been almost 24 hours now and they haven't lifted said ban.

I am embarrassed at how hard I take any sort of moderator action to restrict my participation anywhere, any sort of reporting or scolding is very triggering. Crying spells, shame spirals.

I guess I understand why they question my professional credentials. I have a lot of personal problems. I require lots of encouragement to feel like my participation is welcome especially in "real life" and online to an extent. It's part of why I currently have no friends. People have to prove that they want me around. So when I am being rejected explicitly for whatever reason it's very triggering. It's happened much of my life... Middle school, high school, college to an extent, more so graduate school as at the time I was freshly living with my mother again and my body was soooo upset about that, my angst was so high, I was so agitated with what I realize now as parts trying to get me out of there.

I have a work self and a personal self. My work self is fully capable of using professional knowledge and skills the way anyone uses them.

I normally have this confident, competent work self, since this recent crisis it has been harder to embody her, but my professional work load has also been much lighter and different so that it's not as necessary. Which is a blessing. She's still in there, I can feel it. There's just other parts more present at the moment. They generally fall back when I need to be that particular professional me. I am learning when they don't fall back on their own I can ask them to.

I sound so f'n crazy 😦
 
Shamanic healing today. We collected a "baby part" from my dad and a "3 year old part" from my mother.

The imagery for the collection of the baby part was very intense. My shaman said in 25 years of doing shamanic journeys he has never seen anything like it. I'm basically left on my own to interpret things.

A dead baby? A baby that doesn't know if it's a doll or it's real? A baby whose blood has been drained. A physical altercation between "my father" and "my uncle" over returning the baby's blood back to its little body. A gathering of ancestors to provide enough blood for the baby to come back to life, because what "the father" was holding was not enough. I could tell from the look on the shaman's face between the two journeys that it was some really heavy stuff. He was so excited and bubbly that he'd retrieved 4 parts for the previous client. Then me. Me and my horribly dark psyche. I don't want to be special because my shamanic healing is grotesque and disturbing. He looked so heavy and sad after that journey. The sadness and heaviness permeated the room for hours after the session. His guides told him "this client has more trauma than they are aware of." Part of me wants to be a skeptic, I mean that is great for return business to have things like that being said. Idk. I was not expecting my baby part to be dead, and to be so mechanical it does not even know if it is real. A baby! If I truly experienced soul loss under 4 months old, no wonder I feel the way I feel.

Possibilities
1) I was abused by my actual biological father and have no conscious memory of it.
2) My father was stepping in to counterbalance the root trauma of not being able to have a loving bond with my mother, because she was using me for her own purposes.
3) My shaman just has a subconscious belief that I have hidden CSA so his journey reflected what he would assume that to be about.
4) I came into this life to help metabolize generational trauma, and it was too hard on my soul, so my ancestors had to help.

My life has been so full of shadow. So much darkness. My experiences haven't been particularly terrible but there is a theme of shadow. For years I was an uncontrolled empath, drawing heavy energies to me, I have worked with more than one healer who said I had a bunch of discarnates hanging out in my field. It's like I'm the living dead. But why.

I want to be full of vitality. I want to have strong, healthy boundaries around my body, mind and soul. I want to know where I stop and others begin. I want to be whole. I want to feel that I deserve to exist in these higher planes of joy, peace, contentment. I want to not be afraid of happiness.
 
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Happy Mother's day to the moms out there!

I sent my T the description of the shamanic journey and said we don't have to discuss just sharing. I've been trying to get help interpreting it. I get conflicting information and lots of craziness, people thinking they are psychically adding more info but it's about a romantic relationship, someone saying my dad wants to come forward and set some things straight. Asking for help just made it all more confusing.

I awoke to a text from my mother asking for support. It's Mother's day, and I'm low contact in part so I can tolerate stuff like that, so I call her. We didn't finish the convo. She's sad that my sister is taking trips and not inviting her, when she did a lot to be able to afford to take us on trips. She delayed her retirement to help afford family vacations, cruises etc.

I get it. Wanting reciprocity is fair and valid. But you are incredibly critical, you complain almost constantly, you compete with the husbands and often try to insult them snidely whenever we are all together because you aren't getting all the attention.

You're also very needy now. You're medically complicated. It doesn't make a lot of sense for you to get in a car for hours when you are on oxygen and have swelling issues, cardiac issues, balance issues and you don't watch your diet so pushing you in a wheelchair is challenging.

You and your daughters end up in conflict that causes drama and who wants to risk that on a vacation? You pout, sulk, give the silent treatment and are so defensive you can't effectively negotiate conflict resolution in any sort of win/win manner.

I understand that most narcissistic people aren't like that on purpose. They can't help it to some extent. But you reap what you sow.

You were a cold mother, invalidating, manipulative, childish, needy, you tried to give us material things to make up for what you lacked emotionally and I respect that you were doing your best, but I am not surprised nobody wants to bring you on a trip. You make it about you, and if you aren't getting enough attention you have a health crisis. How many holidays did you end up in the ER. Not too too many but enough.

My mother has been better behaved the last few years. She has less power and has to rely on us more, and me having a son means I have leverage as I can withhold access if she pisses me off. I think it's pretty awful to think of it like that but I'm pretty confident that's a big reason she treats me better.

I see these women who say their mom is their best friend and I get so jealous sometimes. My relationship with women, and with my own inner femininity, is screwed up. Must be nice to have emotional safety with your own damn mother.
 
I’m sorry it’s like this with your mother. Parents are f*cking complicated. With my mom it’s okay but with the father it’s a nightmare. But basically both left me completely floating without any explanation, they were way too busy getting on their f*cked up problems. I was alone all the time. Very different situation. But still there is a part of that relates to your experience. It’s upsetting to see that it’s when your getting power over her it’s when she tames down. Shows that the entire thing was a power play since the beginning, even if they aren’t aware of it. And power plays have no room in good relationships.

My mum is my friend but I don’t think she’s emotionally safe. She certainly is much more than before. In my teens she was persuaded I was a psychopath, see. And saying it. Father also had weird ideas of what women were and what I based my judgements on have been women in TV shows or books. Because of that absence of definition. It’s painful. I didn’t even feel like a woman. Around 19-20, I really wished I was a man.

Thoughts for you in the Mother’s Day. It’s also yours!
 
Reading about your mother @HealingMama made me see how you may have ended up with your husband.

Have you ever read the book "Women who love too much"? I read that recently and apparently we subconsciously go for what is familiar and recreate our pain until we work through it.
 
I’m sorry it’s like this with your mother. Parents are f*cking complicated. With my mom it’s okay but with the father it’s a nightmare. But basically both left me completely floating without any explanation, they were way too busy getting on their f*cked up problems. I was alone all the time. Very different situation. But still there is a part of that relates to your experience. It’s upsetting to see that it’s when your getting power over her it’s when she tames down. Shows that the entire thing was a power play since the beginning, even if they aren’t aware of it. And power plays have no room in good relationships.

My mum is my friend but I don’t think she’s emotionally safe. She certainly is much more than before. In my teens she was persuaded I was a psychopath, see. And saying it. Father also had weird ideas of what women were and what I based my judgements on have been women in TV shows or books. Because of that absence of definition. It’s painful. I didn’t even feel like a woman. Around 19-20, I really wished I was a man.

Thoughts for you in the Mother’s Day. It’s also yours!
I'm sorry you understand elements of what that experience was like. Why on earth did your mother believe you were a psychopath? I have always been a tomboy. I don't know if I ever wanted to be a man per se but I don't act feminine very much. Except wanting to watch stuff that makes me cry, can't get out of how cleansing that sort of thing can be.

I'm not sure you're a mom but happy mother's day if you are 💗
 
Reading about your mother @HealingMama made me see how you may have ended up with your husband.

Have you ever read the book "Women who love too much"? I read that recently and apparently we subconsciously go for what is familiar and recreate our pain until we work through it.
I've heard of that the book but have not read It. My first instinct hearing you say that is to say that I can actually be pretty selfish. I got fleas from my mother. But at the same time I can definitely put up with more than I should.

My husband made brunch to my specifications. I learned that my expectations around special occasions are rigid and I usually end up disappointed if I don't spell out what I'd like to experience. So I designed my own brunch menu and got the groceries delivered. He got up with our son yesterday and this morning so I could sleep in.

And unbeknownst to me, he coached our son to be nice to me today while he's at work, because our son was a bit of a jerk yesterday, and last year on Mother's day our son spent the whole day saying "I don't like mother's day I don't want to celebrate you mom I want it to be brothers day." He wouldn't make me a card or do anything nice that day.

I also was telling my husband the other day that I wish I could date a woman and he said it's fine with him if I do. He admitted he'd like to be part of the situation at some point but gave permission for me to do it even if the other person won't get involved with him. He said I could also date another man if I wanted, he would just not want me sleeping over at their house. Considering I rarely share a bed with my husband, that's fair.

So idk, my experience with him is complicated. I'm sure I have projected my experience with my mom onto my marriage many many times, though. In the beginning much of my acting out was about that. My fear of closeness and simultaneous longing for it along with times where I just want to distance myself is about her. My struggle to act loving is from her as well.
 
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