Shadows In The Midst Of Flames

[Ironlady]

I'm so tired.. Went the chiropractor and it took all I had not to Go running out of the office but fought through the panic. He tries to be helpful and has recommendations of certain flower essences for emotions and for my anxiety but I always get defensive when he's talking. I feel like I'm talked at. Not with. So even when I go ahead and "try" his remedies I'm just irritated. He keeps on and on how PTSD is just a certain wiring in the brain and not a disease. ""No fu%$king shit Sherlock!"" I'm so happy you are so smart and have an ego the size of North America. How great it must be! He just pisses me of cause he has an answer for everything and solutions for few even though he thinks he has a solution to everything. So I leave there wishing I didn't go. Considering finding another chiropractor and leave the parking lot hyperventilating.

Had to go to the local store and get stuff for supper and I think it's the whole town was there getting last minute stuff for the holidays. Fighting off the anxiety. Come home and start fixing said supper while all the kids were just being kids and my head feels like it's going to explode. Trying to keep myself together as lately I've been just throwing in frozen crap for everyone to eat and wanted a nice family dinner. In the middle of fixing it my youngest accidentally wets her pants in the kitchen and now I am trying to clean her up as the water from the spaghetti is boiling over. Turn the burners off, take care of her gently so she doesn't feel shamed. Resume cooking. Ask my sons to clean of the kitchen table as most of everything is their stuff but then they argue who's is who's and I can feel myself about to crack. But don't. Diffuse the argument and finish up cooking. Set the table.. Get everyone their food and now the oldest wants to throw a fit because he wants to sit by daddy (which he does more than anyone else) and I allow my youngest son to sit in that chair. He starts throwing a fit, everyone sits down to eat except the oldest who is pouring and I can't taste a thing now. I eat quickly and leave the table and now I'm in the bedroom crying because I can't function anymore and everything feels too much. :(

 

[Ironlady]

I am so not ok today... I'm angry, I'm hurting and no matter how hard I try I just always hurt. I don't want this to be my normal. I don't deserve this to be my normal. I can't accept this to always be my normal. I didn't want it didn't ask for it and yet here I am with it!!!

"ITS NORMAL"

It's normal to feel like you don't measure up, to find dead cockroaches floating in your sippy cup.

It's normal to see your father drunk in the middle of the night to hear him yelling and screaming at all his demons inside.

It's normal to have a mother who you have to parent before the age of 8, to never have a childhood that makes you feel great.

It's normal have parents expose themselves in the nude and to feel repulsion and shame from images they left inside of you.

It's normal to be a girl but want to be a boy. To want to escape the torments of being a pretty red headed toy.

It's normal to hate your body and to detest all your curves, to look in the mirror and feel shame because you want to be nothing like her.

It's normal to believe that God hates your guts and that no matter what you will never measure up.

It's normal to show parents you love them by sacrificing your self, to fulfill all their needs and put yours on a shelf.

Its normal to feel responsible and become your fathers covert wife and to be enmeshed in the container of your mothers emotional life.

It's normal to not ever know how or feel like you can say NO! and please DON'T! To those boys you once liked who shoved their hands down your pants and tongues down your throat.

It's normal to fantasize of taking your own life, and to hate yourself later when you can't even try.

It's normal to hide who you really are, when underneath all you can see are just festering wounds and scars.

It's normal to be raped and believe it's deserved, you are taught you had it coming because you didn't obey all of Gods word.

It's normal to have kids that you really adore and to not be able to enjoy playing hot wheels and Barbies on the floor.

Its normal to lose a baby and to never hear her cry, to bury her and be shamed for writing a letter to say goodbye.

It's normal to be told how you should grieve, to be told how you should feel about your bereaved.

It's normal to be a wife who pretends she's ok, only to know she's just a fraud every goddamned day.

It's normal to be disgusted by your mothers kiss and to feel violated by her every wish.

It's normal to be daddy's girl until your 34 only to wake up and find out his needs mattered more.

It's normal to feel torment after making love all these years, to tremble in the shower from the pain and your tears.

It's normal to wish that you could just be your own best friend, but feel it was all used up by her and him.

It's normal to minimize the horrific life that you have had, to lie to yourself and say it wasn't so bad.

But the truth is, normal it was not at all. You have been living in hell and terror since you were small.

You had to take on their shame and fight their goddamned war. It's time to hand it all back and to shatter that door.

You didn't deserve this.. This life of misery that you've had.. Let's make sure when you're 80 you can look back on the last half and say in truth, it wasn't all bad.

Create in you a life that no longer is driven by guilt and endless shame. Forgive the broken pieces because they are the pieces that will make you whole again.

 

[Ironlady]

I'm so alone and depressed. Sometimes I don't even know why I bother trying anymore.

 

[The Albatross]

Come back @Ironlady to: "Let's make sure when you're 80 you can look back on the last half and say in truth, it wasn't all bad.

Create in you a life that no longer is driven by guilt and endless shame. Forgive the broken pieces because they are the pieces that will make you whole again."

 

[The Albatross]

Personally I could not effectively or efficiently manage... til I got a lot of the list off my own shoulders (your post #14).

 

[Ironlady]

Come back @Ironlady to: "Let's make sure when you're 80 you can look back on the...

Thank you. I'm trying to.. All this is causing a huge rift in my marriage and I don't know how to fix it or how to let it fall apart so we can put the pieces back together. It's just one big mess. Being emotionally abandoned by Him hurts like hell. And is triggering me in the worst ways. :-/

 

[The Albatross]

The strain of unresolved or unprocessed traumas is a strain on any marriage. At my worst/our most strained time, I had to ask myself and at times affirm often: Is this a good willed person? Do I love this person? What are my issues doing to complicate our relationship? What partnership systems have broken down due to the strain? Self examine and once you've made a decision... state it clearly somewhere and affirm it as needed to carry yourself through the "season" of feeling emotionally abandoned?

My own partner was plainly overwhelmed, I found and he had shut down.

 

[Ironlady]

Personally I could not effectively or efficiently manage... til I got a lot of the list off my own...

In the process of getting that shit off I feel like im being rejected. I survived by going into fawn mode for most of my life and most of my marriage I was still there in Fawn mode and now that I'm opening up to my husband and asking him to respect my space for right now and asking for patience so that I can find a healthy balance I feel I'm getting rejected because I'm not the perfect little do everything wife he married. He's distancing himself from me and I feel very scared and alone right now. I know I'm experiencing an emotional trigger right now and have been for the last week. There are times I can observe from the outside in but not right now. Right now I can't do anything other than hold on and wait for it to pass.

 

[Ironlady]

The strain of unresolved or unprocessed traumas is a strain on any marriage. At my worst/our most...

Thank you. That's a very solid and wise piece of advice. I will do that. I appreciate you taking the time to help and offer insight. Truly. <3

 

[The Albatross]

The purpose of self examination is to stay grounded in knowledge and to resist rolling with what things "feel like"

All you can do is the best you can do. All anybody can do is the best they can do right? The changes in you are disrupting the "status quo"... on the whole people do not like change. Perhaps it is a period of disruption only as you improve and change the dynamic of the relationship/do your recovery.

If you are not fawn now? How would you describe your state at this time? Name it/describe it?

 

[The Albatross]

How to recover and keep the partnership is something that requires drive, finesse, and no small amount of patience... it is hard to change the dynamic of any relationship but usually the wedge issues is whether there is "love, respect, or compassion". I had a rather hard line mentor who really held my nose to the grindstone on that one. I was pressed to "be" the change I wanted instead of coming from a place of needing/wanting/desiring. Very tough but worth it if you can get there?

 

[Ironlady]

The purpose of self examination is to stay grounded in knowledge and to resist rolling with what th...

I feel like Once I started trying to set boundaries and assert myself more even when it was done in a gentle way that he turned away from me. This has caused me to panic but instead of fawning I'm going in flight mode and freeze mode. The flight is me running away by having ruminating thoughts and worry and the part that thinks that maybe it's better to just leave. the freezing is going numb at times and finding myself dissociate and when I feel I've irritated him the shame comes in like a ton of bricks and I isolate myself in our bedroom until It feels safe to come out. I cant seem to tap into the fight mode in the the sense I can't seem to assert, or convey to him he badly he is hurting me, even though I've had conversations with him about it.. I'm now in fear of him unleashing his anger on me verbally and the fear of him emotionally Abandoning me even further.