Uncertain and Lost

[Blues in NYC]

fin,

reading your exchange and posts here in Littlemouse's thread has also been of some help to me. Not to derail this thread--which is first and foremost Littlemouse's introduction to the community--but your comments about relationships shifting and things that were once okay for a person no longer being okay as they healed or grew struck me deeply.

Though my primary trauma was a life threatening experience as an adult, I am coming to understand that prior traumas of growing up in a strict household where the entire emotional landscape was dictated by one parent's still undiagnosed PTSD, climaxing in this parents suicide attempt which I was the sole witness and intervener. In the difficult years preceeding and following that particular climax, as an adolescent struggling to make sense of the world, I secretly began cutting myself. It has been decades since I stopped. But in the midst of all this work, I've actually had flashbacks to a couple cutting incidents, including one which went to far and required my to use multiple butterflies to stop the bleeding. This flashback was very confusing for me as the thing I once did to take control of my life and my body so many years ago was suddenly cropping up alongside traumatic flashbacks of the events of the past two years where I was horribly controlled, manipulated and abused by another totally against my will. I think your succinct phrasing about how things shift has given me some relief regarding this confusion. And maybe even a window to accept the past and some things I did to myself.

Thank you.

Again, sorry if this was an inappropriate derailing of Littlemouse's thread.

And Littlemouse, I like your mouse emoticon as well. :smile: My wife just brought home three sweet baby gerbil girls this week. (Too many Cat allergies in our house to have anything bigger!) And though they don't know it, these little rodents have made a difference in our lives already!

 

[littlemouse]

@ Blue:
I don't mind you interjecting with what you gained from fin's responses to my thread. I see threads as conversations, and sometimes in conversations we steer away from the main topic for just a moment go off on a relevant tangent. ^^

That's very interesting that you are having flashbacks of your cutting days. Perhaps you're so shook up by being controlled in a way you probably were very afraid of back when you used to cut, that the memories of how you took control so destructively is like an instinct to you now? I hope that made sense.

Let me rephrase the question: Do you feel tempted to cut at all again at this point in time, since a sense of control seems to be so valuable to you?

Again, no worries on going off on a tangent. :)

 

[Blues in NYC]

Cutting? No I'm done with that. The skin where I used to do so is quite hidden. My wife and I have a private shared thing that regards management of the damaged, thickened skin in this area. It causes minor pain that also causes relief. That's as close as we come to that. We've talked about this little intimate "grooming" type behaviour in the context of it being on the two sites where I used to cut, especially since my flashback.

The flashback though laid bare to me how truly horrible and severe the years were when I did cut. And my doc has helped me make the connection (which I think I was ready to) comparing my parent and this crazy woman--that they are in a sense dopplegangers of each other. One struggled like hell with trauma and hardship to be good while the other struggled like hell to continue indulging the worst in herself and be evil. There's also some patterns of me needing to save others tied up in the details of both stories. I think I've tasted other people's poison many times in my life. And I'm not sure how I feel about that just at this moment.

I'm currently very upset too because we realized that we missed an old friend from college's wedding tonight. With everything going on, things just got mixed up. I never used to be the sort of person that screwed something like that up. I guess I need start letting myself be the sort of person that makes mistakes now and then. *sigh* I also need to stop dwelling over all this and work at calming down in the immediate. Bedtime nears. And sleep when I can find it is important. Tomorrow I can work more at it, including the missed wedding, if I like.

And thanks for being open to discussion just flowing here in your thread. Very generous of you. :smile:

 

[littlemouse]

Aww, well, I'm sorry you missed the wedding. Life happens. It doesn't necessarily excuse it, but it happens to everyone.

I'm pretty neutral about cutting. I personally feel it's a waste of my time, as I never really got any sort of release or sense of control from it... I guess I maintained one slice inside my left wrist because I liked to look at it... I don't see it as a very practical form of release for others, but I don't have the cutter's mindset. It's very hard for me to understand. But I can't help but like it (with guilt) when former cutters show me their scars. I like scars. My husband has a few of them from his injury and a couple from being careless with areas of his body that he cannot feel, and I feel very affectionate towards those areas of his body. (Especially the very long burn scar on his stomach from a soldering iron.)

**shrug**