@Echo...more comforting and grounding hugs are flying your way.
You did not write too much at all. I much prefer people's longer posts as I can understand better what they're thinking and experiencing! I'm no therapist, nor do I have any real right (other than very similar experiences in many ways) to offer you any insights. If you don't want any, just stop reading here.
It sounds to me as if you are experiencing a lot of different things all at once...lots of child energies coming up in different ways--pain, lung stuff, memories, visions, self-harming (not eating right), dissociation...and on and on. No wonder you're struggling...that's a lot for your system to handle.
Sorry if this is simplistic. Given you're state of overwhelm, I thought something concrete might help you think about what to do. Feel free to substitute any details that don't work! Maybe think about all this as like carrying groceries in from a big shopping trip. It's pouring rain and freezing cold outside and you want to get indoors where it's comfortable as soon as possible.
In the first scenario, you leap from the car, gather up all the bags, hanging the handles on your wrists and clutching the rest to your chest as you make a run for the door. You're soaking wet and as you get to the door, you realize you have no hand free to insert the key. You know if you don't hurry, the bags will give way and all your groceries will come crashing out. You'll have to spend time picking them all up, getting wetter and wetter, and likely having to toss many things that were ruined in the process. You'll be angry and sad at yourself, the weather, and the world. You might even decide to just give up and leave the mess outside because it is just too much to deal with it.
In an alternative scenario, you get out of the car and feel the rain and the cold. It's miserable, but you know it's just weather. You pull your coat closely around you, take out your house key, and take the two bags of perishables from the car. You carry them inside your house and put them away. The other bags will be just fine until you're ready to go back out to get them. You put the kettle on for tea and lay out a healthy bit of snack for yourself. Perhaps an apple and some cheese that you can enjoy with your tea and the newspaper or the book you're reading. You decide that you will wait until the rain lets up a bit before you go to retrieve the other bags from the car. There will be plenty of time before you need those things to make dinner. You take off your dripping coat and sit down by the window to wait for the kettle. The wind is howling and the rain torrential, but from this perspective, it's more impressive than frightening.
Okay, okay, I know it's too simplistic. I guess I'm just hearing that you're flooded with so much feeling and memory that you need to get really, really concrete. How many bags can you possibly juggle at one time, especially in stormy weather?!
Would it help to write (not narrative) out (or draw pictures) of the most powerful energies and memories going on? Maybe one on each index card. Then on the back you could write a bit about (or to) each one? I have been trying to do something similar to this, and it has been helping me feel a bit more able to manage all these energies. Just the tactile experience of using a pencil and then having the "energy" as something concrete seems to help make some space between you and it. And you certainly don't need to deal with them all at once! One bag at a time! Of course they all connect...but that can be illuminated later. There is plenty of time.
I have written many times that trauma is simultaneous, not sequential. I think this is why when some therapies get people to develop a trauma "narrative" it usually comes much later in the process. We seem both to be dealing with a great deal of simultaneity which is very overwhelming.
So...here's some empathy and compassion if this helps?
I had felt very powerful energy massing in my core. It was (and still is) so forceful that it actually really hurts and seems to be contributing towards pushing my ribs out of alignment.
I have this same energy--but it has not misaligned my ribs to the extent yours has. I have terrible pain in my left side from it. It is stunning how powerful these energies are. Does yours go in one direction only? Does heat help? Does wrapping very tightly in a blanket help? (I had a wonderful experience with a weighted blanket a few months ago--I wish I owned one, but I'm finding rolling myself tightly in a heavy blanket is good). Also, the weirdest thing: the bodyworker I love but cannot afford to see used to have me lie on my back with my calves resting on a pillow on top of a laundry basket. Then, he had me place a big flat heavy rock somewhere around my belly button (he said you choose where it feels right). If you don't have a rock, a heavy book, a brick, a bag of rice will do. I don't know what it is about this, but it does have some grounding effect. Then, he also had me hold a smaller but heavy-ish rock in my hand while I was lying there (a can of soup will do). You very slowly move your arm around, tuning into your body to see if you can notice differences in how your torso feels. Two things happened when I did this...first, it got me focused on my body and much of the thinking quieted. Second, I did find a balance point, when things seemed to open up a little. It is very hard to explain because it is so experiential. Maybe you could try it.
As a by-product (maybe) of being in this state, I am forgetting to eat and am mushrooming into someone I consider even more ugly than I thought before. (I know now I wasn't ugly at all when I look back to any given age, but I am always ugly to myself in the present moment.) Now though, I feel out of control and I realise this is an expression of my self-hatred and need for punishment.
Just a little a couple times a day suffices. Put out a pile of granola bars or something you like that has some nutrients in it. Your body needs fuel to process all this stuff. And lots of water too! Not eating is abusing yourself...I'm learning that one. The part of you that says you're ugly is just another nasty protector part trying to derail you from your healing. Find one small part of you that you don't think is ugly (fingernail? earlobe? a patch of skin somewhere?) and focus on that. I have some other tricks I've been using too. It helps. I have terrible body image problems...intense and toxic.
I was really struggling to believe I wouldn't get found out by them all as a fraud (on the basis of what I don't know),
I hear you! This is one of my fears. Completely irrational, but obviously rooted in some belief from childhood.
She glanced down at it and then looked at me (whilst my father was fetching coffee) and said, "You used to have such lovely hair." As ever, her comments are so left-field that I don't know how to respond. And that was all that was said on the matter, ever.
UGH UGH UGH!!! Talk about invalidating you! If this is typical of her, it's no wonder at all that you have self-rejection issues.
I have to say I laughed (in a misery loves company kind of way) when I read this. I have When I called to tell my parents I had gotten high marks from my oral examination board for my graduate degree, my mother said, "Well, I hope this means you can finally get your head out of your books and start taking care of yourself so you can find a husband. Nobody loves a bookworm. You always look so pasty and you need to exercise and stop dressing like a slob."
I suddenly could see baby me sitting on my mother's lap as if through the floor. My mother looked like the devil. I was filled with such terror that I could not get down those stairs and could not rescue baby me. I feel such a dreadful failure.
YOU are NOT a failure. You have some really strong "protector" energies that are preventing you from getting to that baby to heal her AND other ones that are beating you up for not doing it. None of these are the real, deep, core you.
It is eerie that I had a very similar experience recently. Almost identical.
I just needed to try to make sense of how it all fits together or to see whether I am dealing with several things at the same time.
Both
I am trying to starve myself/kill myself by gaining weight, and my normal healing tools are not working too well.
Sweet Echo, this is what happens when we are overwhelmed. Think about putting on an alarm to remind you to eat a small healthy thing even if you're not hungry. Something you really like but that's also nutritious. Those chocolate nutrient shakes are good. I don't know what you like. You need that strength and energy to keep you grounded. The Aryuvedic consultant I went to recommended a diet of warm, heavy, comfort foods to re-ground and get the system some vitality...oatmeal, cream of wheat, hot soups, roasted or steamed vegetables, warm fruit/fruit pies, and lots of tea made with only ground ginger, lime, and honey. I'm about to go back on this regimen as it was quite helpful back in the fall.
(((Echo)))
