Still need to work through early trauma

[Gaining Strength]

Having made my declaration about facing pain this morning I have opened myself to an onslaught. It is
Pouring on. I learned years ago that resisting anything keeps it present in entanglement.
It is difficult to be present in the pain and not resist, repress or avoid. I am thrown back in time to memories long lost, memories of profound hopelessness and despair, desperation. Seeking but
Finding no help, no understanding. It fills me with sorrow, beyond description. This
Journey is so painful, back through that repressed pain across my life. The rejection and failure is indescribable, but there is another side and,I will get there. I am holding on and trying to stay loose letting go of
The tense reaction that never brought me through
Before.

[moonlight60]

Hi GS ,

 I understand being stuck....within the last year I found a therapy that worked for my early trauma. Have you heard of EMDR ?



Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a fairly new, nontraditional type of psychotherapy. It's growing in popularity, particularly for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

 EMDR appears to approach psychological issues in an unusual way. It does not rely on talk therapy or medications. Instead, EMDR uses a patient's own rapid, rhythmic eye movements. These eye movements dampen the power of emotionally charged memories of past traumatic events.

If you suffer from PTSD, what can you expect during an EMDR treatment session -- which can last up to 90 minutes? Your therapist will move his or her fingers back and forth in front of your face and ask you to follow these hand motions with your eyes. At the same time, the EMDR therapist will have you recall a disturbing event. This will include the emotions and body sensations that go along with it.

Gradually, the therapist will guide you to shift your thoughts to more pleasant ones. Some therapists use alternatives to finger movements, such as hand or toe tapping or musical tones.

People who use the technique argue that EMDR can weaken the effect of negative emotions. Before and after each EMDR treatment, your therapist will ask you to rate your level of distress. The hope is that your disturbing memories will become less disabling.

Although most research into EMDR has examined its use in people with PTSD, EMDR is also used to treat many other psychological problems.
  

More than 20,000 practitioners have been trained to use EMDR since psychologist Francine Shapiro developed the technique in 1989. While walking through the woods one day, Shapiro happened to notice that her own negative emotions lessened as her eyes darted from side to side. Then, she found the same positive effect in patients.

EMDR appears to be a safe therapy, with no negative side effects.

 
This therapy has help me lift myself out of old patterns and a sort of shaking off of what does not serve me...I will always be grateful to my Talk Therapy Doctor who kept me "safe' until I could find my way to new healing patterns. I hope this is helpful....
 Sending love and light always.

Moonlight

[Hopalong]

((((((((((MOON!)))))))))

It's a joy to hear you.

I went to my T Monday and was so discouraged. Teared up. Tried to explain
the overwhelment, the habit of failure (with my own personal mountains of things
I need to do to move my life forward better). He asked, are you feeling defeated by
the ADD? I said YES. It was a watershed.

We backtracked to the very simple steps. The beginner steps. Like: Setting a timer,
going to sit in the room where the hard (mentally hard) tasks are...seeing what I can
shift for a SET amount of time. Following that with a timed REWARD period.

Seems so silly, at my age, as it's kind of like learning structure like a kindegartener.
But I don't care. It does work, so I'm grateful to be kind of "resetting" myself.

love
Hops

[moonlight60]

Hi ya Hops .....

Yes always small steps....is  key...I live in the now fully .Still love was and is always the answer until I could love me I could not rest. All I know is Love never fails. You know I never shared with the board my older sister left the family 20 years ago...a struggle between her and another family member. So I understand that kind of loss as well...Not easy...and yet the beauty of love surrounds my heart. So grateful for each new day. I think of you and GS so often ....and when I first came here...so hurt and afraid....I am grateful for understanding.

Love to you and so much more

Moon

[Gaining Strength]

Moonlight,
How wonderful to hear from you.  I have thought of you often across the years. You have always exuded love and kindness.  It is so wonderful to see you here again.  And thank you for sharing about EMDR. I have indeed heard of it but have not tried it but I will look to see if I can find a practitioner. 

I am so determined to replace these negative brain patterns with higher energy ones.  I wake in the morning with dark phrases coursing through my thoughts.  This morning I had to replace phrase like, "I hate you." And others which I found myself repeating over and over when I first came to consciousness.  That is the norm for me. And I know it has a good bit to do with why I developed the pattern of avoidance.

Yesterday, I got quite a bit accomplished.  I am beginning to see a difference.  Yet I have so far to go. It is important to stay encouraged and to keep the work up.  One room is truly looking like it should and another very close. It is a great comfort.  I can definitely keep these two.  The work to dig,out is hard - not so much physically though that is a component, but psychologically.  But I am finding ways to get the help I need and that is new for me as well.

I realized this morning that getting the mind in the right place is essential. Getting the mind in the right place will make getting the physical done much easier.  But I also need to get the body healed as well.

In the next couple of weeks I hope to begin getting up and going earlier.  I am losing precious time in the morning because when I wake the thoughts and depression and heavy.  The sense of looming doom is greatest.  The feelings of failure and rejection are heavy.  As I begin to move they seem to lessen.

[Hopalong]

GS,
I relate and deeply understand the importance of that just-waking state, and getting it
to be a welcoming space of hope, love, and possibility. That is wonderful, core growth--
you are so tuned in to the voices from your psyche and engaging them with a different
energy than was your habit. I so get this--that first moment of consciousness, hearing
one's self-talk, can be a shock. And also a solution.

Befriending your morning. I want to do that too.

I wonder if a short-term journal exercise at NIGHT, just before sleeping, might help?
Such as, simply writing no more than a paragraph that is simple, comforting, loving,
and with no negative references--setting your intention to wake into gentleness.

(Like hypnosis, journaling can address and help heal the subsconscious, because there
is such a strong connection between handwriting and the brain.)

Preaching to myself, too--with love,
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

So eloquent and kind Teartracks.

[Gaining Strength]

The mornings continue to be the time of greatest struggle.  Mid day, the hustle and bustle of life intercedes.  Night time is a time of tiredness. 

I am working on building up my strength so that I might accomplish more in evenings and move into a place of comfort in e morning.

When I am in pain, deep in my being, I feel a nudge to turn to help and it always has a call of mother.  It is an ancient cal, an ancient longing. But for me that call has always come up wanting a responce.  Was it more hollow as a child when I did not yet understand that my mother should be there for me? Was it worse when she was living and it was abundantly clear that she simply would not answer? It doesn't matter which was worse but it is time for that longing to let go, to leave me alone, to find a healing.

I am tired today.  I know there will never be a human who provides comfort and understanding.  That longing will never be fulfilld.  But there is still healing to come. There is still hope of life without the daily gnawing of pain from deep within the soul.  And I will relentlessly peruse that healing.

[Gaining Strength]

Today the pain is as bad as ever. That might be part of the process because I am figuring out more and more. 

Things I have been writing aboutt for some time, years even seem to be rising to the surface to be exposed and expunged.  It is "mothering", the longing for , the needing of and the lack of in spite of the presence of a living mother who  never ceased in declaring her love in spite of the gross negligence of basic mothering acts.the complete lack of acknowledgement by any other human being as to the absence of love or nurturing by my mother.  The pain is enormous. 

But I want it to surface.  I cannot heal it until it does.
With the pain comes anger and and overwhelming sense of futility.

So many pieces,of the pie. 

If I did not have this place to come to I would not survive.

[Hopalong]

((((GS))))
I'm sorry you're surfing a wave of pain today. Breaaaaaaaaaaathe.
I know it will pass and your new knowledge and emotional discovery (that hope is real) will smooth the waters.
It is a process as you so know. But the "steps back" (2 forward, 1 back) still feel so shocking.
DON'T BELIEVE THE "BACK"! It's okay to go through it but it is not more real or meaningful than the FORWARDS.
Which you've lately had more and more of, because you're building a new sense of self. You really are.

Occurred to me that one reason I mentioned my latest T session is that he surprised me.
I was bent over, teary with frustration when he asked me if I felt defeated.

If I can convey this correctly it'll be clear that he is NOT being hurtful (this is a very compassionate, kind,
good man...Quaker background even). But what he said a moment later startled me (because I suddenly
realized he was NOT being dismissive of my pain--he simply has a different/alternate perspective that he also calls on).

After I'd expressed it in some detail for a while, he said, "Yes. But you're just dealing with the feelings."
I was not hurt! Instead, it hit me that he meant--Yes, these feelings are real and valid and it's fine to
recognize them as we have been. And your solution is THEN in...action. While/during/even in spite of...the eelings.

So we starting talking about the simple action steps, to help me get into motion. Unstuck.

I've seen him for several years and have developed deep trust. Hit me, too, that he's...a guy.
More practical, solution-focused, action-steps kind of thinking. While he's also very insightful and
compassionate about my losses and their causes and my grief...no complaints there at all, comes a point
when NOT out of impatience but just because he ALSO has this energy in his quiver...he'll say, Yes, that's the
feelings, and now are you able to focus on actions to take?

Never punishes or pushes me. But just, that day, I was suddenly able to hear it without any resistance or
shame. He was just saying, accurately, "Now you're just dealing with the feelings." As in...like the weather,
they'll always be part of your experience. And...here's this other part I can also help with--action steps. In
small measurable, ADD-manageable chunks.

I think all the emotional processing, as it is doing for you, eventually opens room for simple doing.

To me, that was an epiphany. The doing IS getting easier. And it's all because the shame has slowly
leaked away.

Hope that's apt in some part in some way, GS...

love,
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

If I get through the morning then the days seem to be good.

I have an early day tomorrow. Before I go to bed tonight I am going to follow the advice of today's Facebook post by Wayne Dyer and speak encouragingly to myself.  Can't wait to see what that does for me in the morning.

[Hopalong]

Sending pure, simple, truthful and hopeful white light your way, GS.
Filling the rooms.


love
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Last night I was alone.  I worked hard to not let the depression settle in.  I was tired and went to sleep very early.  I had dreams of being so very alone.  When I awoke the loneliness and paralysis were back.  But I am very aware that it is a state of mind.  I will cut through it.  I saw a post today about how to set your mind  so the loneliness does not overtake you.

My goal is to get moving this morning.  I have several things to do.

[Gaining Strength]

Thanks Hops.  Yesterday was much better.  I got going early and it was good.

[Gaining Strength]

Today, I'm feeling a sprout of my fathers condemnation rising up.  It is a thread of feeling that carried with me through out me life, it is tied to every single memory.  I welcome its emergence as I can replace it when it surfaces to the light.  It's real damage is done in the darkness.

.  I know the pain and tend to repress it  without thought .  But when I see what is happening I welcome it I spite of the pain because in the open it can be dealt with.  It's damage is not done when I am fully conscious of it. S I must alow it to emerge I spite of its accompanying pain, knowing that this pain will be released when the condemnation is released.