Continued healing

[Gaining Strength]

Thank you Hops and Lighter.

Lighter I appreciate the validation.  I am so encouraged that I did not slip into darkness.  It was a very dark experience with no escape for 5 days.  This is certainly new for me.  I did have dark dreams but in a half wake state I immediately went to focus on healing. It is clear to me that I am on a real healing path.

[Gaining Strength]

Each level of healing brings with it more levels of wounded ness.  And so the next level has presented itself to me.  And it is a douse, one I would not be so easily able to face if I could not write about it openly here.

This is another level of stacked ness, of resentment, of childish tirade.  Today, I am facing my own level of anger and resentment for having to take care of responsibilities that are mine.  The resentment comes from an age when I was held responsible for things beyond my ability to deal with and for being saddle with responsibilities that I did not have the resources to deal with or that were never mine to begin with.  Today I see how this resent,net is met with a stubborn, defiant child whose only power is to refuse to act.  Funny that I did not do that as a child.  This is all repressed stuff emerging.  Perhaps I longed to refuse and turned the refusal to things that were self sabotaging.

This will be an interesting journey into this stuff.  I do hate these periods of revelation but what awaits on the other side is more than worth it.  Thanks to those of you who take this journey over the next few days with me.

[Gaining Strength]

Entering this new phase is every bit as miserable as the one before.  It feels so overwhelming, all consuming, extremely painful and debilitating, as though I won't survive it.

I am trusting in this process.  I am allowing these feelings that feel as though they will,lol me to rise up and to no repress them.  Some of the thoughts and memories of rejectors and failure are the same as the last round but I am allowing them anyway.  Praying there is light on the other side.  Praying there is functioning on the other side.

[Gaining Strength]

My parents had a way of demanding that I serve them and my brothers. This was especially true around meals but not limited to that.  I am now aware that I have repressed a resentment about having to do what others expect me to do.  My resentment is directly connected to their demands. Later in life,  My mother would directly demand and then refuse the help I offered. But she would also passively say something needed doing and not ask but clearly expect me to do it.  But whatever I did would not quite be right.

[Gaining Strength]

I remember becoming aware of my self-critical voice when I was 30.  Someone asked me what I was telling myself about something I was trying to do.  And I realized I was saying to myself, "You can't do it." 

I am still learning ways in which my subconscious voice is putting the breaks on.  As I continue in the Mindfulness meditations more and more of this is coming to the surface.  And in doing so I am slowly able to change that voice.  Still slow but clear progress.

Today, as I was listening to Jon Kabat-Zinn on YouTube I had an image, a memory of sorts of my mother asking me to do something and I was experiencing her passive aggressive criticism that at times was voiced, "You ruin everything." "Never mind, I'll do it myself."  And I was able to step in, talk to myself and keep doing the task with a knowing smile and without the crushing shame and anxiety that has marked so much of my adult life.

Being able,to visualize this is a promising start. So thankful. So hopeful.

[lighter]

Thankful and hopeful.....
these are very good things, GS: )

Lighter

[sKePTiKal]

GS, good work you're doing - even if it is yucky and painful at times - and YES, it's worth it on the other side.

There is almost a formula, an equation that can be written to describe what the persistant experience of PD parents engender in a child's emotional "self". You're uncovering that self, acknowledging the feelings - and the reality of wrongdoing to you... instead of letting that feed the usual defenses we build up to protect that self. That's brave and heroic; you are saving your self.... and in the processing, letting go and breaking the chains of the old patterns.

The next step is figuring out how to let that self come out into the light of day, and shine.

[Gaining Strength]

All of my dreams are dark.  Each reflects my struggles with rejection.

Last night I had several that I remembered.  One was a bit crazy - I was at the airport, getting ready to board.  My son was with me but he was staying.  We got to the gate and there was a new automated system but no human around to explain or help.  I wanted to check in to get a decent seat assignment but not board so I could spend the last minutes with my child.  The machine had a little conveyor belt which swallowed up baggage but you had to stand on it to put your board pass through.  People behind were impatient, the machine wouldn't take my pass unless I stood on the conveyor belt but if I did that I would not be able to get out. When I looked back my son had disappeared.  It was all so maddening and no one would help me.

The feeling evoked by this dream is the feeling I walk through daily life with.  With concentration and attention I can shift into a more positive mindset.  I do this over and over every day.  It is helping me do small things, follow through where I have been retreating.  I have one of those needs to follow through as I sit here.and I finally know how to get it done.  But I need, long for, that to be my default.  This dark place, fear, sense of for doing, failure, rejection on the horizon feeling is taking a toll.

I will take what I have for now and try to grow the hope and more,positive mind state.

[lighter]

Sorry the dreams are so dark, (((GS)))

Here's to growing growing hope, and choosing positive thoughts as a matter of habit: )

Lighter

[Hopalong]

I know that committing to getting a grip on my ADD and functioning enough
to take care of my life effectively feels like a conveyor belt taking me onto
a rocket that will shoot me out into a layer of atmosphere I've never lived
in before.

I too will be leaving my familiar earth behind. It is scary.

Let's wave as we find our new orbits...

Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Here is an article that describes OCPD.  My father had both OCPD and NPD along with OCD, bipolar and a few other mental health disorders.  The combination of the two personality disorders continue to cause me great dysfunction and daily depression and anxiety. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xlQTUtFiSzq9Cc5anvDWKUWFHRCWAq4uZRzVFP4n1gM/mobilebasic?pli=1

I also ran across an article on the difficulties of children of parents with PD.  while I continue to do my Mindfulness meditation and see progress I am still not functioning.  I also read an article about Vipassanna meditation and how it can lead to depression. Y bringing up too much too quickly.  While I don't believe that is what is happening to me, I do believe that the meditation co to use to bring up much buried stuff and stuff that needs to be processed and that there is so much to process that it keeps me down.  But I will continue to do my work u till I break through.

I was also reading in my text oN qEEG-neurofeedback and came across a story of a young man who gained insights and memories when doing the neurofeedback.  This has been true for me in the Mindfulness.  There are other fascinating similarities.

Last week I was able to get myself to show up at obligations.  This weekend however and today, I could not move.  But I am still optimistic about progress and reaching a level of functioning in the near future.

One other article I read discussed how difficult it is for children PD parents to talk with others about it.  Their stories are often rejected.  That is certainly my experience and it is so profoundly isolating.  But it helps me so much to know that many, many other children of PD parents have had that experience. 

[Gaining Strength]

My insight today came like a bomb. I sensed it like an extra body beside me, to my left. It was a golden, glowing, lozenge shaped body of resentment towards my mother and it was self-sabotage.

I did a little research and found this:

Resentment Resentment can lead to sabotage, of self and others. Research has shown that people will suffer an enormous amount of pain and loss themselves in order to retaliate against others they feel have treated them unjustly. People can also remain in unhealthy lifestyles as a way of showing someone just how much they have hurt them.  Unfortunately, they have to remain "hurt" to prove this, which ultimately causes them more pain and grief than the one against whom they are retaliating. - See more at: http://www.kellevision.com/kellevision/2008/05/self-sabotage-t.html#sthash.1Kq2r4Qq.dpuf

I certainly needed to see this. Now I am aware. It will be interesting to observe this journey or transition through this self-sabotaging goo.

[Gaining Strength]

I had a very powerful dream night before last.  It evoked  some of the strongest feelings that keep me stuck.  I could not process it to release it but I hope that will come.

I the dream, I was in a house win my mother. There were dogs that had peed on the floor in the finished basement.  She and I were cleaning up.  It was disgusting.  I went upstairs to the main level to get some supplies.  I heard someone come in the front door and went to see about it.  There was a young wo,an who had just walked right in, selling something.  My hair was in my face and I couldn't see her but I could see dog poop on the floor and I was trying to walk around it and get her out of the house.  The entire situation was disgusting and frustrating. Imposition on imposition.

The past few days have brought great depression.  I haven't left the house, nor hardly the bed. Not eaten. I'm hoping this will break today, like a fever.  As I continue the meditations I find more and more darkness emerging.  A lifetime of depression, resentment, anger.  More than I knew.  Self-sabotage, self-hatred. Expression of irritation and resentment leading to rejection. Could only I go back in time and do it all again. But it would be enough to get past it now, to live fully going forward.  I don't have full control.  It is dependent on whether these things are released from the unconscious.

[Gaining Strength]

Memory and insight or vise versa:

When I showed up - shaming ensued.

Doing something, making effort shuts me down, sends surges of shame and anxiety.

Lord I pray this insight brings release.

[lighter]

Drink plenty of water (((GS)....

and breath.

Lighter