So I’ve been meaning to write this for many days now. I struggle with wanting anything I do to be perfect. I obsess over it endlessly, get overwhelmed, find a distraction, then repeat. I lose a lot of time like this.
I have the book The Body Keeps the Score. I open to any page in the morning and read 1 paragraph. Feels more manageable and gives me something to think about for the day (if I can manage to do it).
Today’s paragraph (page 289) was talking about different parts. Among other things, it said that the perfectionistic part is there to keep the person safe, which made me think of what I do. My brain has been making this task into a monumental one. I suppose I feel a tiny bit better reading that that part is there to help me in its own misguided way?
I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself to give my “complete story” so I can get the most accurate feedback possible. But maybe that is actually a sign for me to do the opposite, go slow.
Now my mind is going blank as I’m thinking of what to write. I seem to lose a lot of my mental abilities when I attempt to organize my thoughts around the abuse, my life before, after. It all becomes one big blur that is hard to put into words.
I’ll try to keep to things that I cannot refute, see if that helps. I feel nervous.
First of all, I’m not diagnosed.
I’m not in therapy. I was, briefly, before I knew about trauma. Didn’t work.
I’ve only read 6 books (as in, this is the extent of the tangible effort I’ve made, not 6 books is too few books. Although if it was financially and logistically feasible, I’d have read many more books. It feels easier to read a new book, than it is to sit with the contents of one?).
Pete Walker’s first two books
Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child
Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery
John Bradshaw’s Healing The Shame That Binds You
and recently, The Body Keeps The Score.
All of them were difficult to read. I could relate to too much and my brain just wanted me away from the page as soon as I’d hit something that reminded me of something. In general, my brain takes me elsewhere often.
Going by Pete Walker’s 4F’s explanation, I’ve relied on the freeze response heavily since I was little. I learned flight and fawn later on. Fight wasn’t tolerated, my main abuser had the monopoly on that.
I’m a product of a dysfunctional family. It’s difficult for me to talk about them without it throwing me off completely.
I left a year ago, and they started stalking me. It’s been painful and overwhelming. Fearing for my life, daily nightmares, needing to guard the door, holding my breath and freezing in place at any sound.
And the guilt. Oh, the guilt. I’d be hit with it out of nowhere and I’d feel like I was drowning in it. That has largely diminished, thankfully. My dreams were full of it, then I’d be hit with how horrible I am as soon as I realized I’m awake, and I’d be hit with the same feelings throughout the day frequently, without any warning. Same with memories.
I constantly had a feeling like there was a child inside me crying deeply, I know it sounds odd. It felt like if I let it cry it out, my tears would never end.
Still now, when I think about them, I just want to cry deeply. I can see how sad they are, how pitiful, and what a waste all of this is. I haven’t yet learned to have the same empathy for myself.
The whole ordeal basically froze me in my place, quite literally. I didn’t seek any help, because I felt afraid to give any personal info about myself to anyone.
This intensity continued about 9 months total. The absolute worst of it about 6 months. From 10 months point the intensity started to ease up. It gave way to more depressed states. The staying in bed too long, not eating, not doing anything, with periods of feeling like my sadness couldn’t be contained anywhere to not feeling much of anything at all.
It’s confusing, because all the things I experienced were my “normal” amplified to the degree I hadn’t experienced before.
Now I’m in the middle somewhere.
The daily nightmares have tapered down to daily to every other day bad dreams. They don’t scare me as much anymore. Whereas before I’d wake up crying, or wake up and cry, or feel awful the whole day, now I wake up and immediately know it was just another dream and can mostly go about my day affected mildly. The dreams get repetitive too, so it’s the same thing I’ve already rehashed in a similar format the night before.
My hyper vigilance is lower too. I can tolerate being physically away from the door as long as I can check periodically that the lock is still working. I still barricade the door on some days, but not daily. I’ve learned the kind of noises neighbors make and every sound doesn’t stop me in my tracks for too long. When I’m outside, I no longer consistently expect to get shot and die. I’m not convinced there isn’t still a chance it might happen, but it doesn’t consume me as much.
The intrusive thoughts aren’t as forceful now. I still dread waking up in the morning, but I don’t immediately get images of my abusers and get told I’m a horrible person as the very first thing I experience. I get hit with the guilt less often now. When it hits, it’s not as forceful as before, it doesn’t kick me to my knees and overwhelm me as much. The memories are still with me, but the feelings they bring are less intense too.
So I’m better, but I’m not ALL better?
I’m better than my most terrified state, but I’m slightly worse than what’s been my normal state for all my life (which was never truly normal I’m learning?).
All of these things were true for me, periodically, with varying intensity, before too.
This feels strange too because internally so much happened to me in the past year, but from the outside, nothing happened.
I’m unemployed. I’m isolated. I feel afraid to leave the house alone. I’ve only left the house once by myself the whole year, even then I didn’t go far, literally a few steps. Taking care of myself comes and goes too, some days I can do a little more, some days a lot less. I do have moments of joy, then periods I have no interest in anything. I avoid a lot. I think this is how I survived the most intense periods, by watching many, many hours of tv, even when focusing on them was hard.
When I am in a bad state, everything goes down very fast, everything is horrible, of course I’m horrible, there’s no hope. My thoughts immediately go to suicide. I have no active plans to kill myself, I know I will not do it, but when I’m in certain states, my brain goes immediately to ‘suicide is the ONLY viable option, there is no hope left for any other possibilities in this scenario.’ It happens very fast.
It seems like I was submerged in so much darkness and rigidity and chaos, of not my own making, for so long, that I can’t shake it off now, even though I’m not actively and immediately surrounded by those things anymore.
How I view myself has gotten very narrow and warped too. There’s a whole world out there with interesting things, but it all feels like it’s not for me. It’s for everyone else.
I can see that I need help, that I can’t do it alone, that I tried all my life, but now have to accept that it’s not a one person’s work. All the secrecy and silent suffering. Sigh.
I can see that it was all part of the abuse. “Everything good is for everybody else.” “Good kids aren’t selfish or greedy.” “You must accomplish everything alone. It is the heroic way. If someone helped you, you didn’t do anything, none of it counts.”
Now I feel guilty that I wrote too much, but I also don’t want to edit anymore?! It took me about 5 hours to put this together. ? Maybe I’ll just hit post (after previewing of course), squeal, run away, and avoid coming back here for a while. ?
Thank you for reading/hearing me/creating this space.
I have the book The Body Keeps the Score. I open to any page in the morning and read 1 paragraph. Feels more manageable and gives me something to think about for the day (if I can manage to do it).
Today’s paragraph (page 289) was talking about different parts. Among other things, it said that the perfectionistic part is there to keep the person safe, which made me think of what I do. My brain has been making this task into a monumental one. I suppose I feel a tiny bit better reading that that part is there to help me in its own misguided way?
I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself to give my “complete story” so I can get the most accurate feedback possible. But maybe that is actually a sign for me to do the opposite, go slow.
Now my mind is going blank as I’m thinking of what to write. I seem to lose a lot of my mental abilities when I attempt to organize my thoughts around the abuse, my life before, after. It all becomes one big blur that is hard to put into words.
I’ll try to keep to things that I cannot refute, see if that helps. I feel nervous.
First of all, I’m not diagnosed.
I’m not in therapy. I was, briefly, before I knew about trauma. Didn’t work.
I’ve only read 6 books (as in, this is the extent of the tangible effort I’ve made, not 6 books is too few books. Although if it was financially and logistically feasible, I’d have read many more books. It feels easier to read a new book, than it is to sit with the contents of one?).
Pete Walker’s first two books
Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child
Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery
John Bradshaw’s Healing The Shame That Binds You
and recently, The Body Keeps The Score.
All of them were difficult to read. I could relate to too much and my brain just wanted me away from the page as soon as I’d hit something that reminded me of something. In general, my brain takes me elsewhere often.
Going by Pete Walker’s 4F’s explanation, I’ve relied on the freeze response heavily since I was little. I learned flight and fawn later on. Fight wasn’t tolerated, my main abuser had the monopoly on that.
I’m a product of a dysfunctional family. It’s difficult for me to talk about them without it throwing me off completely.
I left a year ago, and they started stalking me. It’s been painful and overwhelming. Fearing for my life, daily nightmares, needing to guard the door, holding my breath and freezing in place at any sound.
And the guilt. Oh, the guilt. I’d be hit with it out of nowhere and I’d feel like I was drowning in it. That has largely diminished, thankfully. My dreams were full of it, then I’d be hit with how horrible I am as soon as I realized I’m awake, and I’d be hit with the same feelings throughout the day frequently, without any warning. Same with memories.
I constantly had a feeling like there was a child inside me crying deeply, I know it sounds odd. It felt like if I let it cry it out, my tears would never end.
Still now, when I think about them, I just want to cry deeply. I can see how sad they are, how pitiful, and what a waste all of this is. I haven’t yet learned to have the same empathy for myself.
The whole ordeal basically froze me in my place, quite literally. I didn’t seek any help, because I felt afraid to give any personal info about myself to anyone.
This intensity continued about 9 months total. The absolute worst of it about 6 months. From 10 months point the intensity started to ease up. It gave way to more depressed states. The staying in bed too long, not eating, not doing anything, with periods of feeling like my sadness couldn’t be contained anywhere to not feeling much of anything at all.
It’s confusing, because all the things I experienced were my “normal” amplified to the degree I hadn’t experienced before.
Now I’m in the middle somewhere.
The daily nightmares have tapered down to daily to every other day bad dreams. They don’t scare me as much anymore. Whereas before I’d wake up crying, or wake up and cry, or feel awful the whole day, now I wake up and immediately know it was just another dream and can mostly go about my day affected mildly. The dreams get repetitive too, so it’s the same thing I’ve already rehashed in a similar format the night before.
My hyper vigilance is lower too. I can tolerate being physically away from the door as long as I can check periodically that the lock is still working. I still barricade the door on some days, but not daily. I’ve learned the kind of noises neighbors make and every sound doesn’t stop me in my tracks for too long. When I’m outside, I no longer consistently expect to get shot and die. I’m not convinced there isn’t still a chance it might happen, but it doesn’t consume me as much.
The intrusive thoughts aren’t as forceful now. I still dread waking up in the morning, but I don’t immediately get images of my abusers and get told I’m a horrible person as the very first thing I experience. I get hit with the guilt less often now. When it hits, it’s not as forceful as before, it doesn’t kick me to my knees and overwhelm me as much. The memories are still with me, but the feelings they bring are less intense too.
So I’m better, but I’m not ALL better?
I’m better than my most terrified state, but I’m slightly worse than what’s been my normal state for all my life (which was never truly normal I’m learning?).
All of these things were true for me, periodically, with varying intensity, before too.
This feels strange too because internally so much happened to me in the past year, but from the outside, nothing happened.
I’m unemployed. I’m isolated. I feel afraid to leave the house alone. I’ve only left the house once by myself the whole year, even then I didn’t go far, literally a few steps. Taking care of myself comes and goes too, some days I can do a little more, some days a lot less. I do have moments of joy, then periods I have no interest in anything. I avoid a lot. I think this is how I survived the most intense periods, by watching many, many hours of tv, even when focusing on them was hard.
When I am in a bad state, everything goes down very fast, everything is horrible, of course I’m horrible, there’s no hope. My thoughts immediately go to suicide. I have no active plans to kill myself, I know I will not do it, but when I’m in certain states, my brain goes immediately to ‘suicide is the ONLY viable option, there is no hope left for any other possibilities in this scenario.’ It happens very fast.
It seems like I was submerged in so much darkness and rigidity and chaos, of not my own making, for so long, that I can’t shake it off now, even though I’m not actively and immediately surrounded by those things anymore.
How I view myself has gotten very narrow and warped too. There’s a whole world out there with interesting things, but it all feels like it’s not for me. It’s for everyone else.
I can see that I need help, that I can’t do it alone, that I tried all my life, but now have to accept that it’s not a one person’s work. All the secrecy and silent suffering. Sigh.
I can see that it was all part of the abuse. “Everything good is for everybody else.” “Good kids aren’t selfish or greedy.” “You must accomplish everything alone. It is the heroic way. If someone helped you, you didn’t do anything, none of it counts.”
Now I feel guilty that I wrote too much, but I also don’t want to edit anymore?! It took me about 5 hours to put this together. ? Maybe I’ll just hit post (after previewing of course), squeal, run away, and avoid coming back here for a while. ?
Thank you for reading/hearing me/creating this space.