Strange Star

[Hope4Now]

Although, tonight, they both had tantrums over stupid things, which made me start to think that, maybe a little spirit-killing wouldn't be so bad. ;) I really need to get a very strict set of rules and processes together for them, but haven't had time. It's the only way to work with Aspie/ADHD kids until they're mature enough to better self-discipline. Again, the summer....

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao: Yes, definitely crosses my mind at tantrum time.

My husband and I are forever second-guessing our parenting strategies. Him more than me. He goes into hyper-strict mode sometimes and takes everyone (including me) by surprise. We are both pretty lousy disciplinarians...we do much more "processing." It's exhausting. I think in the long run, it's a better way to work things out, but in the moment I'm never quite sure.

We seem to take the non-engagement in the moment as the means to move forward. So, if someone is being pissy, we don't engage. If they're crying with frustration, hugs are offered. Somehow we've established the expectation that they go off by themselves for a bit to cool down and then we process what happened later. Usually the issue is that they are angry or upset with themselves about something and just projecting it onto one or both of us.

When we try to engage at the high emotion moment, everything escalates and the kids usually end up saying or doing regretful things. We try to always get things processed the same day.

That's basically my version of good enough parenting when it comes to discipline. I pretty much ignored what all the child-rearing books said and went with my gut.

Structure is a different story. We struggle with that, especially with my son who has ADHD. We banged heads over homework for years, and even this morning, on his last day of high school classes, there was an unpleasant moment in the kitchen when he allowed that his final exam essay for one of his classes that's due today was not yet done. He swears it will be. We'll see. But at some point it comes down to just making expectations really, really clear and love really, really clear and then just circling the wagons when crises hit...as they always will with any kids...just more often with aspie and adhd kids.

You are doing a fine job as a parent, @Pietro. Take that in. You don't need to come up with some draconian disciplinary schedule or beat on yourself for not doing things that the world says you should. Keep it simple. Know you're doing just fine, and love your kids with your whole heart. Screw everything else.

 

[Pietro]

That's basically my version of good enough parenting when it comes to discipline. I pretty much ignored what all the child-rearing books said and went with my gut.

This is pretty much exactly the same way I parent. And it is good parenting -- I can tell you that definitively. Blame and a punitive approach make things worse and harm more than hurt children. The old methods involved discipline through fear -- which simply results in adults who are afraid of everything, and who propagate that fear to their own children. I can only hope I've not done that to my own kids. :(

You don't need to come up with some draconian disciplinary schedule or beat on yourself for not doing things that the world says you should.

It's not about this, not a "schedule". Aspie kids do very poorly without a fairly controlled environment, with very consistent rules. Anything else greatly exacerbates their anxiety, which makes all other aspects of life difficult -- for them and everyone around them. :) This is a lot of what I've had to fight for from the schools. When it happens, my kids thrive.

The big problem at home, right now, is that my kids are both addicted to their computers and other devices. My daughter is having a real problem, in that she refuses to do her homework and simply gravitates towards her devices. I told her, this week, she couldn't use them until I got home and I saw some homework done. She told me she wasn't using them, but, in fact, she was. She has no idea why she's being so avoidant of homework, but it's likely just stress -- the homework seems overwhelming to her, and it's a trigger for all the stress she had during the day.

So, over the summer, I have to try to figure-out a way to set and enforce rules around device usage, homework completion, etc. For my son too, who went from being a very active guy to a MineCraft couch potato. ;) I also need to put-together some kind of plan for her school, because they don't quite get what she needs, yet, and won't unless they're shown. Life with Aspie/highly sensitive kids is never easy, but not nearly as difficult as for parents who have children with much more serious issues. And, at the same time, when school pressures are not there, my kids are amazingly fun and interesting. Summers are special for this reason. :D If I could figure-out/afford a way to alternative-school the two of them, I would.

I have a feeling your son and my daughter would probably get along very well. ;) Damned rebel kids.

 

[Hope4Now]

Damned rebel kids.

Yes. They just need to survive through school. It's so sad that this is the case, but it is. Rebels/alternatives have not much place in our post-capitalist culture. Ugh.

 

[Hope4Now]

I have been feeling so totally weird today. All day. I cannot figure it out. I think maybe I am in a little kid part. My friend at breakfast was laughing and saying how cute and funny I was. And he showed me what I was doing. I guess it was sort of out of character. I think I have been looped on this medication I re-started last night. Or maybe it is spring fever. Or maybe it is a reaction to yesterday when I was doing paperwork for disability insurance. I have no idea. I feel quite lost right now. I am aware of sitting in my living room. My husband is doing dishes and listening to BB King with my daughter as she (hopefully) finalizes this endless disaster of a science project.

I want to run away. I want to destroy myself. I want to be normal. I want to be fine. I want too many things all at once. It has been such a strange day. I hope tomorrow is better. I hope I get into this residential treatment program. I need something NOW.

 

[Hope4Now]

I can't edit what I wrote before. That is the dark problem with writing things. I am going to go to bed and hope things are better or different in the morning. I realize I have been stuck in some part all day. Or maybe different parts. I cannot seem to get out of it, no matter what I do. So I am going to stop fighting against it. I am noticing it. Listening to what it wants me to do. Telling it I hear it, but that I am going to write this here, then go to bed, and we can talk more in the morning. I think this is a good thing. I think this is healthy. I think this will keep me from doing something stupid that will make everything worse.

 

[Hope4Now]

It is 2:44 AM. I am still sitting here on the computer. I can't seem to bring myself to go to bed. Nor can I rally do get up and go DO something. Trapped and immobile, as usual. I don't get what's going on with me. Ready to jump out of my skin but frozen at the same time. Wish I could jump out of my skin. Actually, I think that IS what is going on with me. It's complicated. Very blended up with too many things right now. Trying to listen to the functional/reasonable part that says "Go to BED!!!" But I just cannot seem to make myself do it. It's like work was. Parts want to do things, others don't. I get stuck. Immobilized. Too often. And I have a part that torments me for not being able to break out of it.

It makes sense. Same thing in kid-hood. Do this. No, do that. What to do? How to make things work? There is no way to make things work. That's when destructor comes in. But I can't let destructor in because...I will end up back in the lockup at the hospital again and that was not a good experience. Even Mr. Famous Psychiatrist acknowledged that general psych units without trauma-informed workers can be like a re-experiencing. Re-traumatizing. Yep. Can't do that again.

He says I am "living in my trauma." I don't quite get that, but maybe he's right. Maybe that is why the proverbial shit has all hit the fan in the past 18 months. I was able to keep a lid on all of it for years and years. Then I just couldn't anymore. It came streaming out and I can't shove it back in. But I also don't know what to do about it.

It is all so mundane, really. Adoption. Narcissistic parents. Alcoholism. Anxiety disorders. Depression. Sexual repression. Sexual abuse. Old school catholicism. Denial. Looking good on the outside. Etc. etc. Intellectually, I think I "get" what happened. I just can't seem to think my way out of it. And I am getting more and more desperate by the day.

I am VERY good at looking good on the outside. I learned well. I need to UNLEARN this so that I can figure out how to get my inside and outside to match up so I don't have to try so hard to be "normal." I am so very, very, very tired of trying. I just don't know what to DO with all this SHIT that is stuck inside me. There's around 1000 other things going through my head all at the same time now, so I am going to stop writing. Just too much effort and focus involved in trying to make sense of it all.

I wish there were some trustworthy person who could get inside my head, untangle everything, and share with me the parts' stories and the big story of all of it. I am trying to do that. Metacognition. But I am at the limits of my skills. There are just too many parts interacting/affecting each other and I am overwhelmed.

The "story" that came together several months ago makes all kinds of sense. All the pieces that never fit, fit now. All the things I never understood make sense now in some big picture. But it's like a bad film, or a sensational novel. Every time it starts to connect with ME, I get flooded and unstable. Too much noise inside. System crashes. I don't know how to get beyond this. I HAVE the story now. I just need to make it my own. In me. In my body. Separate now and then.

 

[Pietro]

He says I am "living in my trauma."

Not sure what he meant, but the idea of this resonates with me in the following way: there are times when I feel like I'm living in the world of my past. It's often like a day-long, broadly scoped emotional flashback, where I feel like it's still 1972 and that my emotional world has not changed at all since then. The same fears, dread, worries, etc. are all there. Hard to explain, because it's more than this. It's not just the world, but, specifically, the emotions related to whatever trauma I've suffered. (I'm not as far along as you in discovery, so God knows what's awaiting me at the end of the tunnel. I know it ain't pretty.)

Perhaps your doctor is suggesting that, right now, your mind is reliving the emotional context of the trauma periods. That the reality of the present is being "hijacked" by the unresolved emotional mess of the past. To me, it almost feels like being dragged backward in time and space. Not sure this is clear or helpful. ;)

I just can't seem to think my way out of it. And I am getting more and more desperate by the day.

I don't think you can "think" your way out of it. I don't think that this is a conscious process, other than to manage your "inner children", if that's possible. I think that all of this mess has to sort itself out - that the mind has to process the things left behind, and piece-together the myriad fragments of these unprocessed pieces with other bits of memory, in an attempt to reform the total original memory to the extent possible. I'd love to know how the hell this works. :D

Has your therapist worked with you on techniques to try to manage all of this noise and overwhelm (if there are such techniques)?

I wish there were some trustworthy person who could get inside my head, untangle everything, and share with me the parts' stories and the big story of all of it. I am trying to do that. Metacognition. But I am at the limits of my skills. There are just too many parts interacting/affecting each other and I am overwhelmed.

I don't envy you. Almost sounds like you're living in multiple periods of time all at once, that everything that was stored-up and held-back is now coming out at you, from a variety of times and places.

I hope you get into the in-patient program you've applied to, and that this chaos starts to abate, soon. But knowing your story is a HUGE thing, by itself. The hardest thing is to handle the associated emotion with these events. They remain 2-dimensional until the emotion comes -- and that emotion can be awful, as you are experiencing.

Keeping you in my thoughts. :hug:

 

[Hope4Now]

After my AHA moment on Wednesday...when I realized I don't have to kill myself to be FREE :wideeyed::laugh:...I got busy. Road trip. Adventure One.
Now I am in Canada getting ready for camping. Adventure Two. With someone I've only met here on the forum before. Adventure Three. In a place I've never been before. Adventure four.

My adventurous parts should be satisfied I hope.

I ate fruit loops for breakfast and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread for lunch (compliments of the complimentary continental breakfast at the Days Inn this AM). Then a snickers bar. So my kid part that likes junk food (around 6 years old maybe?) is feeling happy. Then I bought fruit and popcorn at the grocery store in an attempt to provide a healthy balance to the s'mores makings planned for this evening. Yay. Ha Ha.

I am terrified right now.

I had a major (I think) breakthrough on my bloody long drive too. Yay. I think. I need to sit with it for a while. Also another lost memory returned...this one not an awful one, but it is stunning that I forgot it. At first I thought it was deja vu when I was driving through upstate NY. Then, I saw the sign for the lake...then it all came back. Even the name of the family I traveled with there. Yikes, my brain is a tangled mess.

Adventures here I am. Way better than killing myself or going to the hospital to prevent that. :).

 

[Hope4Now]

Perhaps your doctor is suggesting that, right now, your mind is reliving the emotional context of the trauma periods.

Yes, I think this is right. When I pressed him for a definition of "dissociation" within IFS, he said it is being blended up/flooded with parts. And the parts hold emotional stuff.

Has your therapist worked with you on techniques to try to manage all of this noise and overwhelm (if there are such techniques)?

Yes. Breathing. Just keep breathing. I said that's my new mantra..."Just keep f*cking breathing..." Slow in, hold, slow out, hold. Combine with mindful movement. It helps when I remember to do it before I go sliding down the slippery slope of flooding.

Almost sounds like you're living in multiple periods of time all at once, that everything that was stored-up and held-back is now coming out at you, from a variety of times and places.

Yep. It actually FEELS like I'm headed the WRONG way on a highway with oncoming traffic. Really. I have this visceral sense of speeding forward and dodging chaos and annihilation. Not all the time, thankfully. But when I get scrambled. Grounding practices help some.

The hardest thing is to handle the associated emotion with these events.

Yep. The emotion from one of the young big T's is STUCK in that part. The physical memory (which I don't have yet), is stuck in another who split off from that one during an attempted unburdening/escape from the moment. I am NOT looking forward to the onslaught of emotion. Mostly what I have now is FEAR and ANXIETY and a little bit of RIGHTEOUS ANGER for what these young parts have shown me.

Somehow I am going to need to triangulate parts...SELF, part called SJJ, and the two parts stuck in the trauma who split into the emotional and physical. See what a tangled mess it is? I can SEE all this...it's clear what I need to do. I just haven't yet figured out how to do it. My therapist has indicated that he has some protocol for doing this...but every time we start down that metaphorical path, I get flooded out. So, hopefully the residential program will help me get better at the cognitive skills needed to manage the overwhelm. They use something called DBT...dialectical behavior therapy...as their main approach. We shall see.

Well, I'm off to continue my adventure!

 

[Pietro]

Wow, great job! I envy your courage. ;) I hope you have a great time.

At first I thought it was deja vu when I was driving through upstate NY.

That's a scary thought -- that deja vu could be lost memories. Never considered that. I've always had A LOT of it, all my life. Always feeling like I've been someplace, before, or even another time.

When I pressed him for a definition of "dissociation" within IFS, he said it is being blended up/flooded with parts. And the parts hold emotional stuff.

This is usually far more subtle for me. My brain doesn't get too scrambled, but it's like a mid-weight blanket of negativity and wrongness is dropped on my perception -- the world of my childhood and adolescence.

Mostly what I have now is FEAR and ANXIETY and a little bit of RIGHTEOUS ANGER for what these young parts have shown me.

Anger's not such a bad thing. As long is it doesn't go out of control. :)

I am terrified right now.

And you are brave. Go get 'em!

 

[Hope4Now]

The camping adventure was excellent in every way. Except the yucky long drive. I made a new BFF I hope...if she can see her way clear to seeing what a stellar person she is and how important it is for her to be in this world.

I want to go again. I think maybe I was meant to live in a cabin in the woods. Crazy witch lady or something. Artist. But instead I got married, had children, built a career...became a normal person on the outside. Now much of it is falling apart. Now I'm attached to my husband and my children too much to go off the deep end and let my outside life match my inside life. And I don't think my inside life can ever ever match my outside life. The voices and feelings inside are just too powerful...don't tell, don't let anybody see, you're not supposed to be like this, you're not supposed to be here, you don't belong anywhere. You have to keep trying or you'll be annihilated.

How does one heal wounds that can't be seen? Pain that springs from multiple sources simultaneously?

I'm good at first aid. I can splint and bandage and salve and stitch if necessary. I don't like it, but I can do it. I can even do it to myself...I've splinted my own broken bones and bandaged many a wound. But it's easy when you can see what's wrong. Scary, but clear what to do and when a doctor is needed to step in.

But what about psychic wounds? Wounds that are not apparent on the physical body but are gaping and infected and life-threatening. What about those?

My visions and body stuff and flashbacks are back in full force after a semi-hiatus, but they're also different from those before. There is some new awareness there that make them a little less frightening, but far more intense. I don't even know what I mean by that. There are no words to describe what is happening to me other than that I am back to living simultaneously in parts and "I" am zooming and careening around out of control.

I don't know if this is because of all I've been remembering and processing over these past 5 months or so, or if it is because of the medications which, supposedly, help keep me from dissociating so much. It's such ugly, violent stuff. Talk about intrusive. I don't understand it, I don't know how to stop it (without further injuring myself), I don't know what to do with the energy. It needs release before it poisons me. Some of it is hers...a lot of it. Some is his. Some is from other relatives. Some from the world. Some from parts of my own self. Sort of a pschological autoimmune disease where parts of myself are destroying other parts of myself.

How do you even explain this to anyone? I don't think I can even describe it to my therapist. And if I did try, I am terrified he would run for the hills. I feel like I am poisonous to anyone around me. I also feel like that is a ridiculous thing to say because I'm a relatively caring and nurturing person on the outside. It's just all this stuff inside me that rots. And from moment to moment, I'm never sure which one is real. I'm convinced they can't both be real. How can that be possible? I must be making up one or the other.

I wonder if there is some ritual where one can empty out one's innards, scour them clean, and reinsert them. And do the same with the non-physical layers of the self. Am trying to do this with chakra clearing, but I fear I am not powerful enough on my own. I need a good healer I can trust. Beyond my therapist even, I think. Although I'm certain he understands some of this stuff, it doesn't fall within his work with me and I feel like I would be (maybe already am) too much for him. This is a huge spiritual crisis and I don't know where to turn. I emailed the yoga-healer-lady yesterday...hoping she remembers me. Hoping she will see me again.

I am going to try to paint something I saw yesterday. I'm not sure I'm up to the task.

I wish there were some place people like me could go to heal. Not a hospital. I'm waiting for a residential program that does DBT, but I'm not convinced even that will help. I want a safe place where I can spill out the inside and the outside all over the ground and get some loving and supportive help picking up the pieces I want and sticking them back together into something new.

I cannot do this by myself. And yet on some level I have to do it by myself. I do have support around. Lots. I am lucky. But nobody (except maybe one or two people on this board) actually understands. And truth be told, I think it is that understanding I crave so much.

 

[Hope4Now]

I am feeling oddly good today. Again. Felt it for a while yesterday too. It's a cool feeling. Not over the top wild happy...just nice content/happy-ish. The parts of me that are ALWAYS ready for disaster seem to have stepped back just a tiny bit. I feel like I can peek out from my bunker. That maybe, just maybe, I could find this feeling more often without being punished or disaster occurring. Maybe, just maybe, it is okay for me to feel okay...to not have to be on the alert, to not have to sacrifice me so others can have their way. And to not feel guilty about it.

I know it won't last. It didn't yesterday...but something stuck because I was able to extract myself from a very self-destructive moment last night...that moment seemed to come out of nowhere, which is disturbing to me, but I suddenly found myself there in the kitchen in an unfortunate place...and I was able to get out of it without beating myself up emotionally. I just kind of noticed what I was doing and thought, "Hmmm. Something in me really really wants to do this right now and I have no idea why. But I don't want to be in this situation right now. I know this is off the path. I can choose something else. I don't have to panic about this. I am not compelled to do this." It worked. I put down the implement. I walked out of the room. I was aware that I had just made a CHOICE :wideeyed:. A healthy choice :wideeyed:. I didn't fall into the terror of finding myself in that situation. I didn't tell myself I was a crazy nutcase. I didn't agree with the part that wanted to destroy me. I just sort of vaguely gently guided myself out of it. Wow. Cool. Kind of pathetic that I feel inordinately proud of this accomplishment, but I do. I think I was in SELF. It was okay. I wasn't very embodied...but I was okay.

I hope sometime I will have some level of consistency of states of being. I don't know what "normal" is any more. Or "functional." I really, truly have no clue. I mean I know bits and pieces, but not the big picture. Not what my days might look like. It is so odd. I feel like I am building myself from scratch. None too thrilled with the materials at hand, but perhaps I can make something of them.

Sad that my healing energy didn't work for my therapist who got some bad news this week. He's going to be okay though. They caught it early enough. I brought him lilacs from the garden today. It is a very beautiful day here...my favorite kind of day. I'm cooking up ideas for camping trips and kayaking and biking. I think I need to find a way to get beyond this pain...I'm not going to do physical damage, clearly, so if I can somehow work with this part (whatever it is) and get it to give me enough space to move a little more freely, I think I would start feeling way better.

I'm negotiating with it. Trying to show it that I can rest a lot without feeling guilty (well, sometimes). That I am curious about what it needs from me. What it needs me to do. Somehow all this parts stuff feels sort of normal today. I would like to feel like this more regularly. I still feel like I'm living simultaneous lives that are not my own and that are not real...but something is shifting again. In a big way. Sort of like it did back in the winter. A LOT of memory stuff is coming together. I can't explain any of it because it is all "sensory" not verbal.

I think it might be that stuff from when I was a child is starting to feel like it actually is mine, not belonging to somebody else. It makes me feel quite dizzy and tired. And when the dark stuff starts to come in, I feel like I'm going to vomit.

Our hot water heater seems to have magically repaired itself. Seriously. It is the strangest thing. A year with lukewarm at best...now, suddenly, I get hot showers again. I don't dare question this not insignificant miracle. I am just filled with gratitude. I can now take a shower in relative comfort and use my energy to put toward the intention of sluicing off all the darkness that is stuck within me. I like to think about it swirling down the drain, out through the pipes, to the water plant where it is transformed chemically and becomes clean and clear again.