- Post starter
- #733
I wish! On Lake Michigan...
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Strange Star
- Post starter Hope4Now
- Start date
Upside Down Eagle
Diamond Member
The quoting system in here got really weird... but anyway, a loving thought is more important than people think. A loving thought is exactly what a lot of people in this world are missing, and a whole bunch of loving thoughts from people all over the world do make a difference. So do not underestimate your own ability to care :)
Woot!! I hope they do!!
Good call on the meds. It's pretty important to feel at home in your own body. Hope you have a great trip!
- Post starter
- #736
She has returned from her journeys.
Haven't felt this glad to be home and see my family for a long time! I suppose 8 days with 3 wildly different experiences packed into them as well as something along the lines of 1200 miles of driving made me feel as if I'd been gone for much longer. It was a good trip in a lot of ways, and harrowing in others. I will need some time to recover physically and to process things emotionally. The bonus is...I am newly inspired and courageous about pursuing some of my artistic endeavors. Nothing like a few days with professional artist friends to fire me up! My neurons are firing fast and furiously...and in good ways mostly.
The down side is that I neglected pretty much all self-care for the past 8 days and I am feeling it. Other than using the canes and the wheelchair transport at the various airline terminals (which was good self-care and a service for which I was profoundly grateful, especially in Detroit!), I've not done any of the routine I had been working so hard to establish. So, today, starting again.
I'm back to being on only one med, and I'm ready to start tapering that one too. Am feeling like I'm done with meds, at least for the time being. I don't think they are going to help me process what needs to be processed, or take care of myself. I may go back on the sleeping med (some sort of antihistamine thing that helps with my allergies too). That is the biggest issue for me and probably exacerbates everything else from anxiety to weight gain.
I start at a mind body institute on 10/6 for an evaluation. I am feeling hopeful about that...hoping to gain some new skills. Need to figure out this pain stuff, as well as the flashbacks, nightmares, and body memories. In spite of all the symptom stuff, I continue to feel a little more centered than I used to, I think. Maybe? Not sure. I suppose mostly I feel a bit better able to maintain some level of control over myself when I can remember to use strategies. And, all of this stuff doesn't flip me out as much as it used to, which helps.
I think this is progress, sort of. Or just my caretaker part in high gear...daughter is having a very rough time of it...nightmares are about protecting others and being unable to do so...Yuck. But it helps that I think I understand it all a bit better now. And I think I am learning to be patient with myself.
I am so exceedingly relieved that I do not have to be at work with all that added stress.
And so exceedingly happy to be home. I loved the places I visited, but I don't want to live in any of them. Just go back for visits!
Haven't felt this glad to be home and see my family for a long time! I suppose 8 days with 3 wildly different experiences packed into them as well as something along the lines of 1200 miles of driving made me feel as if I'd been gone for much longer. It was a good trip in a lot of ways, and harrowing in others. I will need some time to recover physically and to process things emotionally. The bonus is...I am newly inspired and courageous about pursuing some of my artistic endeavors. Nothing like a few days with professional artist friends to fire me up! My neurons are firing fast and furiously...and in good ways mostly.
The down side is that I neglected pretty much all self-care for the past 8 days and I am feeling it. Other than using the canes and the wheelchair transport at the various airline terminals (which was good self-care and a service for which I was profoundly grateful, especially in Detroit!), I've not done any of the routine I had been working so hard to establish. So, today, starting again.
I'm back to being on only one med, and I'm ready to start tapering that one too. Am feeling like I'm done with meds, at least for the time being. I don't think they are going to help me process what needs to be processed, or take care of myself. I may go back on the sleeping med (some sort of antihistamine thing that helps with my allergies too). That is the biggest issue for me and probably exacerbates everything else from anxiety to weight gain.
I start at a mind body institute on 10/6 for an evaluation. I am feeling hopeful about that...hoping to gain some new skills. Need to figure out this pain stuff, as well as the flashbacks, nightmares, and body memories. In spite of all the symptom stuff, I continue to feel a little more centered than I used to, I think. Maybe? Not sure. I suppose mostly I feel a bit better able to maintain some level of control over myself when I can remember to use strategies. And, all of this stuff doesn't flip me out as much as it used to, which helps.
I think this is progress, sort of. Or just my caretaker part in high gear...daughter is having a very rough time of it...nightmares are about protecting others and being unable to do so...Yuck. But it helps that I think I understand it all a bit better now. And I think I am learning to be patient with myself.
I am so exceedingly relieved that I do not have to be at work with all that added stress.
And so exceedingly happy to be home. I loved the places I visited, but I don't want to live in any of them. Just go back for visits!
D
Deleted member 12723
I am so happy to hear that you had such a good time and are doing so well. Yay for you. hugs.
- Post starter
- #739
@shimmerz and @gizmo, thanks! I am pretty wired. Sort of dangerously wired. The bonus is...I recognize this now and the need to slow things way down. I slept for hours today. When I got up, I spent an hour brainstorming ideas for artistic and poetic projects in a new journal for just such things so that they do not disappear! Filled 14 pages with words and sketches! I get so freaked when the ideas are coming fast and furiously (this is why I often fear people will call me bipolar...I'm not (at least I think I'm not)...just that I start firing on too many frequencies all at the same time. So new strategy is to jot things and sketch brief things with notes here and there so I can remember what the hell it was I was thinking at the time.
I have enough stuff from the one hour today to keep me busy for months. We'll see if I can swing it.
I know I need to slow down and rest and be quiet and sleep. It was good that I slept today. I may need a week of this to come "down" from the wilds.
I have just discovered that one of the symptoms of fibromyalgia is the feeling of being "tired but wired." Yikes :wideeyed::wideeyed::wideeyed:. Welcome to my life. That's me. And I stay that way until I go basically comatose. BUT...:):):) now I recognize the feeling!!! :woot::woot::woot:. And have some strategies to cope so I don't crash :wacky::wtf::yuck::banghead::banghead::mad::confused::mad::mad:. BUT...I LIKE the stuff that comes up when I'm wired and inspired!...but now I know it is bad bad bad for me. Good ideas for the intellect and creativity/bad ideas for the body. Ouch.
Hence, the blurt book. I felt much better and more centered after an hour of blurting visual and verbal ideas. I hope when I go back to it, I will remember the inspirations. They're a bit like dreams. If I don't write them or engage with them verbally, they get lost in the right-brained haze of uncertainty. I'm left with the sense that I experienced something profound, but I can't remember what it was.
God I hate dissociation. But I suppose if it all happened at once, I would fry out my neural circuits. And I don't want that. Please, no. I have a lot of creative catching up to do in my life.
When I was talking with one of the artist friends about her work (she's having a crisis/block etc.), she asked why I had destroyed all my work all those years ago. I couldn't exactly answer but I did somehow (or part of me...which is even weirder) articulate that I have gone through a bunch of artistic/creative crises in my life. The first was around age 3. Each time it happened (and it was with different people and under different circumstances each time), I was punished in one way or another for opening up my own vision/truth onto paper. I don't think any single incident destroyed me...it was more like an erosion of confidence in my inner voice.
I am just now taking baby steps toward getting all my parts to trust that that inner voice is trustworthy and true. That it can speak for all of my experience.
Hmmm.
I do truly hope I can get my energy into balance so perhaps I can actually create something tangible rather than just thinking/dreaming about it. I suspect I would feel ever so much better for letting it out into the wild world, no matter what comes of it. My artist friend looked at a picture of two of my self-portraits I painted last summer. I have no idea and am freaked out that i showed them to her. but she LIKED them. Really I think. Not just saying it to make me feel good. She is a genuine person and honest. I know that. And she liked them. OOOH all warm and fuzzy inside.
So I need CALM. I need COURAGE. I need self-CARE. I need more CLARITY. I'm working on the self-COMPASSION. I need to CREATE. And I can't remember the other Cs now. But Dick Schwartz is definitely onto something with this IFS therapy. It is helping me A LOT. Yes, I've drunk the kool-aid. But this kool-aid is going to help me stay alive and become myself rather than fall passive victim to another. No. Never again.
Okay...I have this vague sense that I am all mixed up / scrambled writing this. I wish I knew. I wish I could tell more surely when I am in SELF and when in a part. I think they cycle through pretty wildly. And I think I'm trying to hang onto all of them.
If the parts could trust that the SELF would honor and care for them, I suspect I could stay in SELF more often. I just can't. But at least I am beginning to learn the signals of when I am in different parts. This. Just this is huge.
So, yay me. :wtf::woot::wideeyed::cool:? It's an emoticonally expressionistic evening.
I have enough stuff from the one hour today to keep me busy for months. We'll see if I can swing it.
I know I need to slow down and rest and be quiet and sleep. It was good that I slept today. I may need a week of this to come "down" from the wilds.
I have just discovered that one of the symptoms of fibromyalgia is the feeling of being "tired but wired." Yikes :wideeyed::wideeyed::wideeyed:. Welcome to my life. That's me. And I stay that way until I go basically comatose. BUT...:):):) now I recognize the feeling!!! :woot::woot::woot:. And have some strategies to cope so I don't crash :wacky::wtf::yuck::banghead::banghead::mad::confused::mad::mad:. BUT...I LIKE the stuff that comes up when I'm wired and inspired!...but now I know it is bad bad bad for me. Good ideas for the intellect and creativity/bad ideas for the body. Ouch.
Hence, the blurt book. I felt much better and more centered after an hour of blurting visual and verbal ideas. I hope when I go back to it, I will remember the inspirations. They're a bit like dreams. If I don't write them or engage with them verbally, they get lost in the right-brained haze of uncertainty. I'm left with the sense that I experienced something profound, but I can't remember what it was.
God I hate dissociation. But I suppose if it all happened at once, I would fry out my neural circuits. And I don't want that. Please, no. I have a lot of creative catching up to do in my life.
When I was talking with one of the artist friends about her work (she's having a crisis/block etc.), she asked why I had destroyed all my work all those years ago. I couldn't exactly answer but I did somehow (or part of me...which is even weirder) articulate that I have gone through a bunch of artistic/creative crises in my life. The first was around age 3. Each time it happened (and it was with different people and under different circumstances each time), I was punished in one way or another for opening up my own vision/truth onto paper. I don't think any single incident destroyed me...it was more like an erosion of confidence in my inner voice.
I am just now taking baby steps toward getting all my parts to trust that that inner voice is trustworthy and true. That it can speak for all of my experience.
Hmmm.
I do truly hope I can get my energy into balance so perhaps I can actually create something tangible rather than just thinking/dreaming about it. I suspect I would feel ever so much better for letting it out into the wild world, no matter what comes of it. My artist friend looked at a picture of two of my self-portraits I painted last summer. I have no idea and am freaked out that i showed them to her. but she LIKED them. Really I think. Not just saying it to make me feel good. She is a genuine person and honest. I know that. And she liked them. OOOH all warm and fuzzy inside.
So I need CALM. I need COURAGE. I need self-CARE. I need more CLARITY. I'm working on the self-COMPASSION. I need to CREATE. And I can't remember the other Cs now. But Dick Schwartz is definitely onto something with this IFS therapy. It is helping me A LOT. Yes, I've drunk the kool-aid. But this kool-aid is going to help me stay alive and become myself rather than fall passive victim to another. No. Never again.
Okay...I have this vague sense that I am all mixed up / scrambled writing this. I wish I knew. I wish I could tell more surely when I am in SELF and when in a part. I think they cycle through pretty wildly. And I think I'm trying to hang onto all of them.
If the parts could trust that the SELF would honor and care for them, I suspect I could stay in SELF more often. I just can't. But at least I am beginning to learn the signals of when I am in different parts. This. Just this is huge.
So, yay me. :wtf::woot::wideeyed::cool:? It's an emoticonally expressionistic evening.
KwanYingirl
Diamond Member
@Hope4Now I tend to the male to female trans community and rarely female to male. It is true that in many indigenous societies they have elevated status due to being of two spirits. During their transition they are almost entirely occupied with the gender reassignment. As time goes on, they tell me (because I ask) that sexual preferences are accepted no matter the inclination. A close intimate relationship superseded the gender of the loved one.
On another point about your fibromyalgia, I just wat to tell you that I sympathize and relate to having an illness that is controversial simply because there is no known cure. It seems the only real illnesses are those that have a drug to treat it. The medical community is finally accepting mind/body afflictions and are trying to bring healing for those who suffer from it. I have Multiple Chemical Sensitivity that I developed from overexposure to darkroom chicks. I, like you, feel awkward or negatively affected by needing assistive technologies. You with your cane, me with my face mask. It's tough to be in public places knowing I'm being stared at.
Part of y MCS is joint pain. Excruciating. This was originally diagnosed as FM but eventually was determined to be an effect of chemical exposure. Of course there is little validation for my disability and treatments of any kind are non existent. So those of us that can afford it, we have had good luck with Acupuncture, Reflexology and supplements of OPC-oligo proanthocyanidines. My joint pain disappeared completely with the use of OPC. My condition caused many difficulties but I am much better. I hope you find relief.
On another point about your fibromyalgia, I just wat to tell you that I sympathize and relate to having an illness that is controversial simply because there is no known cure. It seems the only real illnesses are those that have a drug to treat it. The medical community is finally accepting mind/body afflictions and are trying to bring healing for those who suffer from it. I have Multiple Chemical Sensitivity that I developed from overexposure to darkroom chicks. I, like you, feel awkward or negatively affected by needing assistive technologies. You with your cane, me with my face mask. It's tough to be in public places knowing I'm being stared at.
Part of y MCS is joint pain. Excruciating. This was originally diagnosed as FM but eventually was determined to be an effect of chemical exposure. Of course there is little validation for my disability and treatments of any kind are non existent. So those of us that can afford it, we have had good luck with Acupuncture, Reflexology and supplements of OPC-oligo proanthocyanidines. My joint pain disappeared completely with the use of OPC. My condition caused many difficulties but I am much better. I hope you find relief.
- Post starter
- #741
Yes, I can only imagine with the mask...people feeling afraid that you are contagious or something. Ugh. I hate being stared at, I have realized, because I have a lot of parts invested in remaining invisible. As if being invisible were even possible. As if being invisible were going to protect me from hurt. Sigh.
I've tried acupuncture and reflexology and about a dozen or more other things. Not OPC. I will look into that. Thanks for the tip.
- Post starter
- #742
For past two nights I have gotten into bed by 10:30 and up at 6. Haven't slept all that time, but am going to trust for a bit the idea that practicing good sleep hygiene will help. I sleep still during the day. I can't help it. I am exhausted and it helps me feel better. And I think I actually sleep better at night when I am not so exhausted that I am hyper. Mornings are rough for me. It is easy to wake and go falling into the rabbit hole. I am aiming to get up as soon as I wake up. Stretch and rise. Done. It helped this morning a lot!
Today was a goodish day. The uncle left yesterday and that's a bit of a relief as much as I love him. Today I made a painting. It isn't really good but it is okay. I did it. I had an idea, I made it, I finished it. That was the goal. Not to make something really good, just to make something from beginning to end. It felt good. I'm working on getting back to the routines I was attempting to establish before I went away. I have to do that. It wrecked me to stop. As hard as it is to do all the stuff I need to do, it helps. I can't go back to living the way I used to live.
I now seem to be in my weird cooking lady part. I am waiting for my chocolate zuchinni bread to come out of the oven. I wasn't going to make it tonight, but my husband and daughter started watching Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and I had to flee. I read the book in 7th grade and it devastated me. I can't watch it. I am such a wimp these days. I can't even look at the New York Times or listen to the news. It all sends me spiralling into the vortex of ickiness. I suppose I have not yet been too successful with this boundaries thing. I am working on it.
I learned something AMAZING when I was with my friends in Wisconsin...My whole bat cape thing...the cape that is soft until it needs to protect and then gets steel-hard...there actually is a real life material like that. My friend is a motorcycle guy. One of those people who does thousand plus mile trips on back roads and used to race. He was showing me all his stuff. And one of the things he showed me was the padding in his leathers...it is soft and molds to your bone forms...until it makes hard contact with something. Then it morphs into hard shell-like stuff to keep you from ripping off your skin and shattering your bones. Very cool. I need something like that for my soul.
Today was a goodish day. The uncle left yesterday and that's a bit of a relief as much as I love him. Today I made a painting. It isn't really good but it is okay. I did it. I had an idea, I made it, I finished it. That was the goal. Not to make something really good, just to make something from beginning to end. It felt good. I'm working on getting back to the routines I was attempting to establish before I went away. I have to do that. It wrecked me to stop. As hard as it is to do all the stuff I need to do, it helps. I can't go back to living the way I used to live.
I now seem to be in my weird cooking lady part. I am waiting for my chocolate zuchinni bread to come out of the oven. I wasn't going to make it tonight, but my husband and daughter started watching Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and I had to flee. I read the book in 7th grade and it devastated me. I can't watch it. I am such a wimp these days. I can't even look at the New York Times or listen to the news. It all sends me spiralling into the vortex of ickiness. I suppose I have not yet been too successful with this boundaries thing. I am working on it.
I learned something AMAZING when I was with my friends in Wisconsin...My whole bat cape thing...the cape that is soft until it needs to protect and then gets steel-hard...there actually is a real life material like that. My friend is a motorcycle guy. One of those people who does thousand plus mile trips on back roads and used to race. He was showing me all his stuff. And one of the things he showed me was the padding in his leathers...it is soft and molds to your bone forms...until it makes hard contact with something. Then it morphs into hard shell-like stuff to keep you from ripping off your skin and shattering your bones. Very cool. I need something like that for my soul.
This is the bane of the super-creative person. A person who is not just creative in one realm, but many. Which means that, when you have an idea in one realm, you start correlating them to existing or new ideas in the other realms. It's like a super-fast cascade of creativity. The one thing I was taught was not to let it get me so anxious, because that's what causes loss of the ideas, and the more anxious you get, the more you lose. Breathe through it, and just ride the wave, taking it as it comes, to the best of your ability.
This resonates with me for some reason. Something to think about.
- Post starter
- #744
Yes. This is it. A different sort of flooding than emotional flooding. I like your positive spin on this! A lot! It helps me feel not so alien. I also like the image of riding it out without getting anxious about it. It is sort of what I have been learning to do with my emotional parts, I suppose. Just as one cannot drown in emotion (even though that fear is always there), one cannot drown in a creative deluge either, I suppose. A bit like sailing a keel boat. It will not tip over even if it's heeling so steeply that the side rails are in the water. You just need to slow down a little. Or turn into the wind just a little. Not with so much fear that you lose all your momentum in trying to save yourself, but just enough that you can keep the wind in your sails comfortably so the boat sails at its best.
Hmmm. I feel another boating analogy essay coming on.
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