Strange Star

[Hope4Now]

Here is a representative sample of an interaction with my mother that makes me completely crazy. This is just one of about six moments today that made me crazy and led me to finally melting down in the car on the way home after I dropped her off. The "meltdown" was a healthy-ish one, in that I parked the car, blasted the music as loud as it would go, and actually cried for the first time in a long time. I wish I could do this more. I think it would help. But, for me crying is so blocked. It's a bit like when you have the stomach virus and feel like you're going to vomit and everything in your mind and body tries to make it stop, even though you know it's probably inevitable.

My mother is obsessed about my pain issues. Cannot stop talking about it and offering solutions (e.g., you should see my psychiatrist. I'll call and make an appointment for you.) She knows I have PTSD and is trying to wrap her head around it (I grant that it is a hard thing to do, but I've explained it very simply about 50 times that I am doing all the right things and it just takes time...but she is--on top of everything else, pathologically impatient.). Today's choice piece of conversation began with her being very concerned about me..."I wish I could help you...I'm praying for you every day...etc." Very nice. She actually DOES love me in her own bizarre way.

Here are some choice mom quotes from the conversation that followed.
"So, all your problems were from being adopted?"
"It was NOT an orphanage. It's not like you weren't well-cared for there. It was a LOVELY place. Your uncle checked it all out for us."
"What do you mean by saying our family was 'messed up'? You could not have asked for a nicer childhood."
"You always seemed happy and well-adjusted to me."
"All the fighting your dad and I did was between us. It was always about the drinking. It had nothing to do with you."
"You always took things too much to heart. You were always too sensitive."
"Most people would be able to just put their past problems behind them. Why can't you?"
"So, you're saying this is all our fault?"
"I guess you wish you had stayed with your birth mother."
"I suppose you think I was a bad mother."
"You'll be glad when I die, and L (my mother-in-law) can be your mother."

And, the final comment,
"Well, this is really all your own fault, you know. You need to get over this."

Well, duh.

 

[Hope4Now]

I am clearly my own worst enemy. I can't seem to get out of my own way.

Yesterday, in a session with my therapist, I tuned into a fundamental energy that is at the root of everything. Probably why I have so much pressure and pain in my sacrum and pelvis. I was vaguely aware of it prior to yesterday as a very subtle miasma of something negative that infuses my whole system. Yesterday--perhaps because most other energies in my system were relatively quiet--I was able to tune into this one without getting flooded by it. I am paying the price today and am in a very dark place.

The "part" I discovered is the part that believes I have no business existing. That I am completely wrong in every way, and should be erased. It is an utterly hopeless part that many of my other parts put a lot of energy into denying and fighting against. It is the part that blocks much of the healing I am trying so hard to do. It's up and active today and wow do I need some loving from somebody because whatever I'm offering myself just 'aint enough.

 

[Echo]

@Hope4Now - <3 and :hug:

 

[Echo]

@Hope4Now - how are you doing? How are you coping with this energy? I hope you have found a way to communicate with this energy or soothe it or whatever is needed. And I hope you found some loving support from your friends or family.

 

[Hope4Now]

I am better today. You are so sweet to post your caring thoughts of me.

Yesterday was hideous, and I managed only by sheer and practiced will to get through the day (and with minimal damage to my arms). My husband was very sweet and offering to help in any way he could (we had a long drive to an appointment), but I was unable to articulate what I needed because I really didn't know. You, and two other people were so kind in their interactions with me too. The loving care was there, truth to be told; I just couldn't receive it except intellectually. I need to learn how to open myself to it in my emotions too.

Today, I woke up feeling a bit more even, and I stayed home from work. Was going to do some practical things, then spent most of the day doing self-reflection until my son got home at 1 from a social justice trip (he spent 4 days living with urban homeless people and doing projects with different organizations...it was a great experience for him, and reminded me of how important that part of my life was to me before I got so self-reflexive).

So, I spent 2 hours doing a sort of mixed-media-reflection time...visualizing, stretching in some gentle yoga positions, and reflecting on this dark energy that is active but more muted today. Then I used the Self-Therapy book I bought to guide me through a written reflection on the energy (the book is aligned with the therapy I'm doing). I could not have done this yesterday because I was so utterly overwhelmed by it, but today I found it really helpful. I understand it better, and have a sense of where it came from. I still don't know how to deal with it other than waiting it out. I will be working with it when I see my therapist again on Friday.

How are you doing with managing your overwhelm?

 

[Echo]

Oh, I am so glad you have had a bit of respite. Too much is just too much. It sounds like you have some good tools to work with and you sound more peaceful or at one remove from the horrible stuff; more of an observer, which is good for the time being. I've written elsewhere about me and my overwhelm so won't take your thread off-topic.

I'm so pleased your husband is taking such good care of you, and I hope you will let the love in gradually. I do understand though that it requires opening up when you are trying simultaneously to contain.

 

[Hope4Now]

While it is not "grounding" and completely exhausting, I am delighted that I got through half of the ironing pile, and spent 3 hours helping my daughter with her completely ridiculous homework load. I truly have no clue whether when I do this I am disconnecting/depersonalizing, or just doing what "normal" people do. It feels like the former, except when I can catch myself and notice what I am feeling at the moment. But THEN what?

As for the homework, I have re-visited Shakespeare through defining scores of vocabulary words (what is WRONG with this teacher?...Shakespeare wrote PLAYS. They are meant to be PERFORMED, not read like some arcane text to be dissected!!). And...because she was totally exhausted and had 30 pages left to read in her other literature book, I read aloud to her and have been flashed-back in more ways than one to A Wrinkle in Time, my favorite book when I was her age. It was rather a stunner to read about the physics in it, and about how much the main character enjoyed the painlessness of the first dimension of "nothingness." I had forgotten why I loved this book so much. It introduced me to some of the ideas in physics that still enamor me, and I connected deeply with the character who is trying to save her parents.

The ironing pile is a bit like the book I finally finished writing for work. An albatross, and a reflection of my increasing incapability of keeping up with my former life before the proverbial shit hit the fan. Laundry and ironing for 4 people is total insanity, even when my husband does the actual washing. I fully understand that my compulsive purchasing of 100% cotton, and the resultant hours of work it requires to make people look presentable, is crackpot. A perfect and concrete example of what I do to myself.

I planted the lettuce today. The peas are almost dead in their little starter pots, as are the pole and bush beans. I haven't started any other seeds yet and will probably need to buy plants. I don't know if I'll get the dying plants into my community garden in time. That makes me sad and so disappointed in myself. Again, because it is a concrete reflection of the state of my life. High hopes mediated by sometimes bleak reality.

Hearing my son talk about his experiences over the past four days has also made me feel like I am falling so short of my own expectations of myself. I used to do so much more for other people than I am doing now. I know I need to focus on myself, but it does make me feel like I'm letting down not only other people, but also myself. My son told me he saw our friend C at the shelter where he served dinner last night. Wow, did this ever set off the guilt triggers. C came to live with us for several months when he lost his housing (and we do not have extra bedrooms or baths). We did about everything we could to get him back on his feet, but because of complicated circumstances, he ended up homeless again after going to live with a string of other people. We still take him out regularly and provide a mailing address for him and store some of his stuff, but we have not invited him to return to live with us, and I struggle with that. It is one of those "should" parts of me that draws me to doing things that would devastate me. Sigh.

I do so truly wish I could learn to balance all this stuff. When I am deeply involved in activities, I forget everything except the pain and exhaustion I feel. Then, a bit ago in the bathroom, I caught sight of my battered arms in the mirror. It was from yesterday, and it seems ages ago and very unreal. Yet it is real, I guess. PTSD is a very, very strange thing.

 

[Hope4Now]

I have finally emerged from a whopper of a flashback that hit me while I was parking my car at work today. I figure it lasted for about an hour. I have never experienced anything quite like it, and while I didn't faint, I did kind of completely "check out" twice during the episode because I re-oriented with a violent startle. It was a flashback in which I experienced being an infant. An infant to whom something terrible happened because she was screaming, frantic, flailing her arms, and then she went unconscious. And I was in searing pain in my sacrum, pelvis, left abdomen, thighs, and knees. I couldn't "see" anything beyond her. Just saw her and felt the overwhelmingness of it. I suppose this is some sort of "real" memory because I can't imagine my mind making up something like this for any reason.

I am pretty sure the flashback is directly related to the hopeless energy that overtook me on Tuesday and that I spent a lot of time trying to understand yesterday. In the therapy I'm doing, the theory is that some protector parts (that don't often feel or behave in a reasonable way) are actually protecting wounded child parts. I think I found the wounded child part (or at least one of them) that the hopeless energy is protecting. So, although it was a deeply disturbing and frightening experience, it's over.

I'm sitting at work, and I think maybe I have made some perverse sort of progress, even though this was the most intense experience I've ever had. And that's saying something.

 

[Echo]

(((((@Hope4Now))))) - I am so sorry you're having to deal with this. Though maybe some part of you is relieved to finally have reached the truth of the matter. I know when I got these sort of flashbacks to start with, I was completely floored by them, because I just wasn't expecting them, but you seem to be doing it in reverse. I hope you are ok. Look after yourself and cosset yourself this evening.

 

[Hope4Now]

I have been going in and out of this flashback thing all day. Really fighting to stay "here" and now. Really fighting the self-destructive energy. Felt like I was losing the battle around 6:30 tonight and actually called my therapist. Hearing him talk was somewhat helpful in the moment, but didn't pull me out. I know I have to do that myself, but it is a mighty struggle. Reading A Midsummer Night's Dream with my daughter helped the most...got me out of it a bit...that hyper-responsible part of me can be really helpful at times like this. I suck it up and soldier on as best I can. Nobody has really seemed to notice my distress today. I'm not actually sure whether I am grateful for that, or whether I wish someone would see my crisis. That's another one of those conflicted places I have been stuck in all my life.

I spoke with my mother tonight. I was trying to get off the phone with her and she said, "Are you feeling stressed out?" I said I was and I needed to go. Her response: "You've done this all to yourself you know. You need to fix it. This has just gone on too long. It's ridiculous." Ouch.

I've had the insight that I have two self-destructive energies. One is when I'm in utter despair. That doesn't happen too often, thankfully. I'm still fighting the good fight. The other one started up last week (at least in its current form) is the arms thing. I've realized by doing it, I'm not trying to get away from emotional pain by inflicting physical pain. I think it's my desperate attempt to remind myself that I am here, now, in my hard-worn 50-year old body. It's like dissociation squared. I'm trying to escape from dissociating by making myself feel some physical pain. I'm trying to do other physical stuff to avoid doing that. Have been holding ice cubes, doing push-ups, etc. Vaguely helpful, in the moment. I don't think I can do that all night. So, now I'm writing here instead. Maybe I will finish the other half of the ironing. I wish I could go running or biking...but my body won't let me.

That's the great irony. I need the painful physical activity to keep me present...but I guess it can't be too painful or else I would just go out and run. My legs simply will not let me do it...they just give out if the pain gets to be too much and I stumble or fall. Some of the yoga stuff I can do (I think I've done downward dog and table and child pose at least 100 times each today).

I read John Muth's A Ghost Tale tonight. I love his books (Zen for children). I've been reading them to my kids for a long time, and for years (until the puppy chewed him up), we actually had a gigantic stuffed panda (about 4 feet tall) that my son named for Muth's character, Stillwater. I had never read A Ghost Tale, though, even though it has been sitting on the table since Christmas. It was stunningly synchronous with my life...a koan that resonated bitter-beautifully with the struggles I'm having with all these "selves" making so much noise in me.

I'm just blabbing on now, so I will stop. Otherwise I'll write thousands of words of all the same random, self-reflexive musings. I am going to pour myself a nice single-malt scotch, I think (one of my many "vices" but one I don't feel guilty about). Maybe it will get this overwhelming inner baby drunk and quiet her down for the night. I would never do that to a real child, but it seems like not a bad idea for an "energetic" one. Probably won't work anyway.

 

[Echo]

@Hope4Now - I hope you are feeling much better today after some sleep.

Sounds like your mother has come up with another classic. Please try to ignore her comments. They are evidently so extreme, but they do give you insight into what it must have been like to be her little daughter, at least that is how I try now to view comments my mother has made. I can't tell you how much of a relief it is not to have to listen to her response to me being unwell now. The scoliosis in my spine was apparently due to me being a vegetarian. My CFS didn't exist. My dislocated shoulder was repetitive strain injury due to the job I do, of which she does not approve. And on and on. Even when I was a little girl it was the same. I cut my foot very badly and when my sisters called for help, she chose to ignore it, because it was me. She was eventually shamed into action when a neighbour arrived and I had to be taken to A&E. She was very angry with me for showing her up. How are we supposed to have learned that our needs were important or that our crises should be taken seriously, if we are told they are all our own fault and attention-seeking?

Actually, I do think this is what is really getting in the way just now. All these learned behaviours to shove it all down into our bodies so none of it attracted undue, critical or twisted attention. And now we have to fetch it all out again, whilst still believing we are making a fuss; it is harder for other people; or we can tough our way through it and don't need to give it attention or time.

Anyway, I hope you've found some peace today. :hug: Echo

 

[Hope4Now]

Actually, I do think this is what is really getting in the way just now. All these learned behaviours to shove it all down into our bodies so none of it attracted undue, critical or twisted attention. And now we have to fetch it all out again, whilst still believing we are making a fuss; it is harder for other people; or we can tough our way through it and don't need to give it attention or time.

Yes, I agree with your interpretation here. At the end of my session today, my therapist said something about how all this pain and flashback and flooding, etc. is part of "re-association." That I have been disassociated for a long time and I'm just now starting to re-associate. I think I knew this anyway, but it is always helpful for me to hear someone else put it into words.

I'm slogging through today. Slept only about 3 hours last night, but am not particularly tired. My tiredness now, since all this started emerging into consciousness, is very different than it used to be. I think because I am less dissociated in some ways. I'm not sure. I am still struggling with dissociation stuff...trying to notice when it has happened, trying to get myself out of it without getting overrun by flashbacks...it is all a big mucky mess, really.

It feels rather like digging up root vegetables in the rain and wind and cold, when my hair is whipping across my eyes and the rain is blinding me. I can't see where I'm digging; only by feel can I know I've got what I need. I can't wipe my hair or the rain out of my eyes because my hands are covered with mud and that will just make it all worse...so I just go with it...one potato at a time!?

Dealing with different energy today than yesterday...very frightened and shaky parts (and, of course, always the pain). But I was able to get it to calm down some in the therapy session this morning, and I'm just letting it percolate away in there and trying to notice when I "check-out" so that I can try to reconnect to my body in the present. I've managed a half-day at work, and finished a draft of the "mastermind plan" that my boss has been waiting for. Not too much to do this evening, thankfully.

Because I couldn't articulate anything about these energies this morning in the therapy session, he invited me to draw and offered me a pad of paper and a cup of pens and pencils. I did actually start to "draw" really scribble more, trying to capture the shape of the feeling I was having. Then it turned into something (the fear was tightly clasped hands that were protecting the shaky energy underneath). It was quite and interesting and very useful process. I have never before tried to draw when I was flooded/overwhelmed by energies. It calmed it down a lot and I was actually able to talk a bit about it before the end of the session. I think I may try this again soon.

I feel so grateful to be working with my therapist.