Strange Star

[Hope4Now]

Yikes things are getting wild and intense. I think it is good. Am working on intentionally slowing my thoughts and actions so I don't tip over the edge into overwhelm. Lots of hijacking lately, but the nightmares have abated for which I am grateful. I missed half of Christmas dinner because I went outside and couldn't get myself to go back in for a while. But then I did. Then we had a great time playing "We wish you a merry Christmas" on the little whistles that came in our Christmas crackers. It was wildly fun to see all 10 people wearing paper crowns and tooting on whistles while my son conducted. I videotaped it. Then, just at the end of it, something switched and I went back outside and sat on the bottom step going into the garden. In the dark. I knew I should go back in, but I couldn't. I don't know how long I sat there, but my husband found me and brought my scooter, and I got up and zoomed home without saying goodbye to anybody. I felt badly about that. I do not like it when things like this happen.

I am taking my husband on a surprise vacation. Today. We have not been away together with just us for 21 years. He does not know where we are going or what secret plans I have arranged at this very nice LGBTQ-friendly inn where we will stay. He bought a new outfit, and I bought some things to give him. I am so excited. Romantic dinners. A 2-person jacuzzi and a steam shower in the room. An outdoor saltwater hot tub. 2 nice dinners. Massages. Roses and champagne will await him in the room. Basically, it's a second honeymoon to mark the transition that is occurring in both of our lives as we have finally begun to discover our true selves. I am terrified. He is too, I think. We keep reminding each other that it is okay to do this. To provide ourselves with some pleasures instead of always burning out by helping other people. I hope it will be good. And I hope our kids don't have some sort of crisis that would require our rapid return. Sigh.

Yesterday, on a bizarre whim of inspiration, I set up my own website (not live yet) to display (and hopefully sell at some point) my art. Contracted for three years of hosting. It came to me while I was resting that this was exactly the right thing to do. So now I have the project of building my site. I like to do that (using a template and WYSWYG of course as I don't know HTML).

I have no idea if I am in some manic creative wild combination of protector parts and doing all this to avoid the overwhelm of exiled parts (very possible), or if this is some larger self energy asserting itself through the inner chaos. Or some combination of both. I wish I could figure it out. Maybe Yoda will help me. I see him on Thursday. It will have been 10 days. This is a very long time for my parts.

I have just started reading The Mosaic Mind. I wish I had read it a long time ago. I suppose I was not yet ready. It does make things seem a bit more real. I am getting glimmers about the unfathomable depths of denial in which I have lived my whole life. Now just working on focusing intentionally on the fact that there is nothing horrible about me. I am the way I am because I have a creative mind that blasted apart and left my body so that I could survive. That now it is time to take a good long look at the bits and pieces and start putting them together again into some sort of form that will allow me to get some relief from my inner armageddon.

 

[shimmerz]

Now just working on focusing intentionally on the fact that there is nothing horrible about me.

This is HUGE! I am so excited for you! And a vacation? With the hubby? OMG that is amazing! Have a really great time my friend.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I think your plans for a romantic getaway is so awesome and I know that it will do you both wonders.

Congratulations on the web site, very happy for you.

I understand about leaving without saying goodby, so do not be hard on yourself for that . So very happy and excited for you. Hugs.

 

[Hope4Now]

Am still "away." There is much snow on the ground, and it is still coming down. I am snuggled into a lovely recliner looking out the window at it. This vacation has been fabulous for both my husband and me. It was meant mostly as a gift to him, but I am getting as much if not more out of it. The saltwater hot tub is the most amazingly wonderful healing experience I can imagine. My body really responds to warm water. And I lucked onto an amazing and intuitive massage therapist who did a treatment with me yesterday. I had a lovely hour or so afterward (20 minutes in hot tub, then massage, then sink into comfy chair) when I actually was able to be inside my own body without my brain going in 50 directions on high speed. It was lovely. I suppose this is why people take drugs. It would probably be cheaper and easier if I did that instead of reckless pursuit of natural means of getting to that "safe" place. But I don't think that drugs would rewire my brain in a sustainable way. I think this stuff--if I can sort out the right combination and frequency--will.

A pretty clear sense of my own challenges has emerged for me, finally, in a way that I can understand from both my head and my heart. I am finally accepting what is. This is my life. Also, a pretty clear sense of the kinds of therapeutic support and interventions I need has emerged. The question is, in what combination and with what frequency? And, the larger question of my major issue of not being able to get grounded without the safe touch of another human being continues to be a big conundrum. I hope that, perhaps, with ongoing touch through 1x week cranial sacral therapy combined with massage, the mind and body will start to understand that they are one, and that it is safe to be here now. This is one of the biggest problems I've yet to solve, this almost complete gap between my mind and body. But slowly, slowly, it is changing...

Probably need about a month of daily hot tubs and massages at a place like this, but interspersed with Yoda meetings, to make speedier progress. Maybe my 10 days at this therapeutic retreat thing in February will help. They have a hot tub! I will have to investigate whether they have massage or some other kind of touch therapy. Hmmm.

Now time to go meditate again.

This trip is the best thing that has happened to me in this past 3+ years of figuring out myself. I am so grateful for it. But now, of course, I am profoundly spoiled. I need to win the lottery (or sell a heck of a lot of art or writing) so I can do this several times per year!!!

 

[Hope4Now]

Wow are things ever scrambling up in me. The vacation was GREAT in lots of ways, but also really got some of my parts pretty activated in ways I don't yet understand.

In therapy, I am now doing "group therapy" with my parts. Started at my sort of joking suggestion that this is what I need. Yoda got all excited about it and that's what we have been doing. I have all these cards I made. Each one has the name of a part I have gotten to know a little over the past couple years, and a picture I drew of the part. I am supposed to put the cards out around me in places that feel "right" (this is really weird and hard). The idea is to help me disentangle from them a bit. To learn to see that the parts are not ME, just parts of me. That I have a SELF that is distinct from them. Mostly nobody in the system is quite willing to believe this yet. Or to believe in this process. But I am going with it. I suppose I'd say I'm trusting Yoda.

And there are little glimmers of helpfulness shining through. Just seeing the cards, even in my mind's eye, as separate from myself is vaguely comforting and lets me feel a little more in control of all the chaos.

Yesterday, when the cards were all on the floor and I kept pointing to this one array of really extreme protector parts, Yoda got a cord of some sort and made a circle with it around them. On the surface, it seemed totally silly. Two adults sitting on the floor with a messy pile of cards and an electrical cord encircling some of the cards. My cynical part was incensed at the ridiculousness of it and almost derailed the whole process. But some other parts zoomed in with feelings of relief. Really strong feelings of hope and relief. That this Yoda person really seems to understand and maybe can help protect them while I work on learning how to do it myself. Protect them in nice ways, not in the very mean-spirited and violently cruel ways the protector parts do.

And when I looked at the cards in the circle, I pulled one out and slid it to the outside of the circle and said, "I don't want Raven to be in there with the others, okay?" and it felt good that I actually moved the card outside of the circle. And Yoda got all hopeful and kind and said that this action showed my SELF was really there. I think he knows I still don't quite believe I have a SELF that has the capacity to help all these warring parts. His confidence in me really really helps.

I am supposed to work with the cards on my own too. Even if it is just putting them out and looking at them. He says it will help with this unblending process that is keeping me so stuck. I hope so. I will do just about anything. Because I have decided that I want to live. I just don't want to live like this.

So, I need to keep making choices that will help shift things toward peace and harmony inside. I'm a bit like the proverbial bull in a china shop though, because I keep doing things that send me into wild spirals of overwhelm. Yesterday, after the appointment, I went to bed and stayed there all day because I had such a horrible headache and felt so exhausted. I did get up around 9 and watched the very first episode of Saturday Night Live (October, 1975) with my daughter. I laughed a bunch and that felt good. Then I went back to bed and talked with my husband about the IFS book I had asked him to read. That conversation sent me spinning off again into overwhelm.

Somehow, I need to figure out a balance between my need for total quiet/alone time where I can rest inside myself and be with my parts with zero distractions, and my need to be with other people. When I am up and about and with others, my nervous system gets so stimulated that I instantly dissociate and stay that way until I crash. But it is also not healthy for me to be alone/lying down in dark under blankets for too long either. So one of my new year intentions is to consciously sort out what this balance looks like. I am pretty sure I will not like the answer (because I think I know what it is already) in the short term. I need much more time by myself. I need to do still less than what I am doing now. All this physical pain and exhaustion is my body telling me what it needs. I have made some accommodations, but apparently not enough yet.

I am hoping that as I learn to listen to my parts better, I will be able to assure them it will not always have to be this way...that I can eventually return to some of the things I want to do. And maybe then the parts that drive me to keep going, keep doing more because it is never enough, will give me the time and space and permission to heal in whatever way I need to.

So...off to the cards. Have to clean up the studio first from all the mother's crap and all the Christmas stuff so that I have floor space. And then I will rest again. And then, maybe, I will do some art that has been percolating.

This book I'm reading, The Mosaic Mind, is amazing. Wow. And it is old! I guess I just wasn't really ready to read it when I first learned of it. Still was not willing to accept that I was an abused child. I do acknowledge that now. It has taken a long time to accept that.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Kudos to you for being who you are and all that you are doing for your healing and recovery. You are very inspiring to me because you have such a lively spirit within to heal and recover. I am so proud of you. Hugs.

 

[Hope4Now]

It has been a rough time since new year's day. But not all bad. I am working on seeing that big picture. This AM though was really tough. Woke up with terrible pain. Had terrible pain last night too I think. I can't even remember. I remember crying a little at one point because everything hurt so much especially my neck. But I can't even remember if it was last night or this morning. Pathetic. Swiss cheese for brains these days. I hope the holes get filled in sometime. I got up though. Got showered and dressed and drove daughter to school. Came home and spent 45 minutes sorting through more of mom's papers. Then kind of collapsed. Had to get into bed. Was freezing cold and shaking. Worked on breathing breathing breathing and reminding myself that I am here now, etc.

Wanted to call Yoda but couldn't make myself. Or stopped myself. Not sure which. This is kind of a problem that I don't know what to do about. Because the self-destructive urges come washing over me. I know, though, that if I can get in bed under the blankets, I can fend them off. And they do pass.

Ended up in an episode that lasted a little over an hour (which I know because I put on my timer so I would get awakened in time to get into the city for my appointment). I guess I got "flooded." What a mess. All my bits and pieces of flashbacky flooding/blending/dissociation/whatever people call them are getting more and more intense. It used to be that the episodes would be quite distinct... I would have a visual flash, or an auditory one. Or a body flash. Or an emotional flash. Now it seems that whatever young exiled parts are stuck in there are putting bits and pieces together to be more intense. This morning had be in a body+emotional+auditory flash. No visual. I kept telling myself to open my eyes. Couldn't. The weighted blanket helped, and the dog (who LOVES the weighted blanket and was draped, all 50 pounds of her, on top of the weighted blanket which was on top of me). Some conscious-in-the-present part of me was urging me to call and cancel my appointment. But I didn't. I think I did fall asleep for a little while. Felt a tiny bit better when I woke. Made it to the city and home again without incident.

The pain doc I saw was pretty helpful as I reflect back. She wasn't in the moment. I was so discouraged and frustrated at the same time, and trying to stay present and not get scrambled. She wants me to schedule rest time 2-3 times a day and rest whether I am tired or not. Plus meditation time. She said to do this for 6-8 weeks and see if things get better. And if they don't, she doesn't know what to do for me. Sigh.

I will do as she says. Because on the train ride home, I realized that I usually only end up resting when I am in near total collapse. Maybe if I can learn to be proactive, things will change. So now, I am going to rest for 30 minutes until I have to go pick up child from school.

My body is working really, really hard to tell me something. And it is wearing me down. Must listen.

 

[Hope4Now]

I've been away from the forum. I don't know how much I will come back, or write here. My writing has shifted toward working on a book about my experiences in these past few years. I have no idea how that will progress, but I have begun it.

I am still flailing about looking for the combination of healing approaches that will support me. I'm getting closer to sorting out what works.

I am very happy that I have discovered a whole new world and vocabulary through both yoga and shamanism and reiki. That I'm learning from teachers to distinguish my trauma flashbacks from my bizarre spiritual experiences (kind of unplanned and frequent journeys to alternate realities). I used to think I was insane. Now I find that I'm not. In spite of the various diagnoses. In spite of alarming my therapist and my new psychiatrist.

I am stuck, still, in the vortex. But I think maybe after what I learned this weekend, that I will not be driven to kill myself after all. I think what has been happening is that I've misinterpreted the very healing energy of what are called "dismemberment journeys" as needing to harm myself. My teacher in reiki-shamanism helped me reframe this on Saturday.

I just need to keep remembering this when the parts of me that want to destroy me flood me up. But I don't think even then that I will hurt myself. Saturday night showed me that. I started, then stopped and put the knife away. Then it flooded me again, but as I reached for the knife again, something happened in my body, and I fell backward, into the stove, and then ended up curled on the floor in some totally shutdown state for around 2 hours. But I came out of it. And I did not reach for the knife again.

So I think, perhaps, I have a really intense survivor part that will keep me alive. A part that is stronger than Destructo part, even when that part floods me. So that's good.

And finally, I am beginning to be able to talk about these parts a little with my therapist. Not just write about them in my journal. I know they are there now. I know they are part of me even though I still have great difficulty believing it (but, sigh, that is yet another part that refuses to acknowledge reality).

What a mess. I am still a mess, generally. But even so, I think I am on the right path to healing for me. To figuring out what I need. To scraping the muck off the fragments of myself and keeping the intention of putting them together again into my SELF rather than the parts that have been driving my life all these years.

Yuck. I hate this work. I hate being a human being. I hate my body. And I hate being so broken. But at least I do still have hope. And I am grateful to my survivor part, even though it is pretty messed up and in need of some deep healing and reframing of beliefs.

I can do this stuff. I know I can. Baby steps. Patience. Humility.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I will miss you but understand and good luck on the book and your healing process:hug:

 

[Hope4Now]

Thank you @gizmo.
I will probably stick around. A bit. A friend or two who private message me sometimes. And it is the only way I can keep somewhat connected with you and with @shimmerz and @scout86 and @Cashew and @Recovery4Me and @Cashew and @sun seeker and a bunch of others. I'm just feeling pretty overwhelmed by the site overall and am finding it really hard to navigate with all the changes to the interface. And I feel rotten that I cannot keep up with reading people's diaries. I wish there were a thread that just a few of us could keep talking on about general random stuff where I don't feel like I am hijacking people's threads with random comments. Anyway, I'm not disappearing I think. Just leaving behind the trauma diary. Mostly. Maybe. Not sure really. How's that for discombobulated?

 

[shimmerz]

I'm just feeling pretty overwhelmed by the site overall and am finding it really hard to navigate with all the changes to the interface.

Yes, me too. I keep mostly to myself these days. I appreciate so much the responses in my diary, but the board itself is painful somehow for me.

my trauma flashbacks from my bizarre spiritual experiences (kind of unplanned and frequent journeys to alternate realities). I

I would be really, really interested in this if you have the opportunity.
Much love my friend

Shimmerz

 

[KwanYingirl]

@Hope4Now thankyou for checking in. I'm pretty much hanging out in my diary. I also have a Reiki master and a Shaman. My Shaman found my soul which is fragmented and is being stitched together. When we journey she finds parts of me at different ages. It has proven to be the best experience, because I meet them, but for now, they are in the lower world, safe from harm and content. That took a huge weight off of me. What the future will bring I have no idea. I'm not terrified though, like I used to be. Best wishes for your book. Namaste, KYG